"I think your definition of 'fried' is a little bit different from the rest of the world's definition of 'fried', bud."

Heero shot me a look over his shoulder. "In any case, your problem is that your system in general is getting older, and its performance is decreasing as it gets more out of date. Your processor, for example, is two versions behind what they've got out now."

"Well, should I just defrag and hope that takes care of the lag, or what?"

"I guess, but it's not that serious, in any case. You didn't really need me to 'fix' it at all."

"Oh well, maybe I was just lonely and looking for some company, huh?"

Not really interested to watch Heero boot up the defragment command, I walked into the kitchen and opened my refridgerator to peruse my selection.

"Up for some dinner, dude?"

Heero shrugged. "What've you got?"

"I can make us some spaghetti and vodka sauce. That's about all I seem to have in my fridge. Oh, wait -- here are some hot dogs. How about it, Heero? Pasta? Hot dogs? Pasta with hot dogs?"

Heero smirked, rising from the computer chair with a bit of a stretch.

"Pasta. It's the one thing I can trust you not to fuck up."

"Hey, asshole," I shot back, waving the package of hot dogs at him. "I'll have you know I can make a mean hot dog, too."

"No thanks."

"Your loss." I shrugged and pulled out the jar of sauce. I turned the lid and gave it an experimental sniff. Seemed all right. "You wanna get some water boiling for me?"

Heero, finishing up the business on the computer, joined me in the kitchen.

It was nine-thirty on a Wednesday night. I had asked Heero to come over to fix my computer, since it had been slow as hell and some of my programs weren't loading when I ran them. Chilling, right? I know, the stuff of nightmares.

Of course, Heero Yuy, the computer ace, had jumped at the chance to come over and tell me what an idiot I was for not knowing how to take apart and rebuild my computer from scratch or some shit. Whatever, I didn't do this crap for a living and he did.

I felt kind of bad that I'd made him drive all the way over to my place for what amounted to thirty seconds of "work", so dinner was kind of a consolation. I mean, he'd come right over here after his job; he hadn't had anything to eat since noon or so. It would be downright cruel to send him home like that.

"Duo, you really need to upgrade your system. Or just get a new computer."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, "My computer's not that old, man."

"I'm surprised it isn't fossilized by now."

Jeez, just let the damn thing go already, I thought. Heero knew me well enough to know the kind of attachments I get to stuff. I mean, I can't even bring myself to cut my hair. This was a battle he just wasn't going to win.

I decided to change the subject. "Hey, check this out."

I held up a bottle of red wine that had been sitting on my kitchen counter.

"This is my company's gift to me for working there a whole year."

"Are you supposed to drink red wine with pasta?" Heero asked, lifting the lid off the pot to frown at the water inside, like that would make it boil faster or something.

"Who the hell knows? In any case, you're helping me drink it."

"Fine, but only one glass," Heero replied. "I have to make it home tonight, you know."

"Got it. One glass it is."

An hour and a half later, Heero and I sat over our emptied plates, finishing off the last drops of our fourth glasses of wine.

"So, Heero," I drawled, quite a bit buzzed. "You seeing anybody lately?"

Heero looked at me a little funny, like he was surprised I'd asked that. Actually, so was I. As soon as the words had come out of my mouth, I'd wondered why I'd said them.

I mean, I pretty much knew the answer he was going to give me. If he had a girlfriend worth mentioning, I doubt his schedule would be so open that he could just come over to his buddy's house on a week night and fix his computer.

Besides, the two of us had never really talked about our relationships with each other. Funny, because we were best friends and that's the kind of shit that best friends are supposed to chat about, but I didn't know a whole lot about Heero's relationship history. He'd seen a couple of girls off and on in the past, I think, because I remember him introducing me to one or two. But they hadn't lasted long, apparently, because Heero was still living alone and always free to hang out with me.

In any case, I wasn't quite sure what it was that made the subject uncomfortable for us to discuss. Maybe it was just that there usually weren't any relationships to talk about.

Heero paused and considered the question. "No, not lately." And then, I guess because he felt like he had to, he added, "what about you?"

"Nah, I haven't met anybody worth the effort." I shrugged.

Not asking me to elaborate, Heero rose and took the plates to the sink.

"You want me to wash these or just leave them here?"

"Uhh, just leave them there, I guess."

The sudden departure of Heero from the table had given me this bizarre little twinge of disappointment. I grabbed it mentally and studied it a bit, until I realized what it was. I didn't want Heero to leave, even though it was almost eleven. It must've been the wine, that stuff goes right to my head. I was long past tipsy and bordering precariously on sloshed.

Stalling, I forged on ahead with our stupid conversation even though Heero was obviously trying to get out of it.

"Ever wonder why we're always single?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, we've never, either of us, ever really had a serious relationship with anyone, right? I mean, you'd tell me if you were serious about anyone, wouldn't you?"

Jeez, that sounded weird. Where was I going with this? I wasn't so sure myself.

Heero nodded, frowning. Yeah, this was getting awkward between us, all right.

I picked up our wine glasses and carried them over to the kitchen, until I was standing next to Heero at the sink.

Placing the glasses down, I blurted, "don't you ever get lonely?"

Woah, chalk that one up to the wine. Heero and I had been friends a long time, but we'd never had this conversation or anything even approaching it before. We just didn't stray into the details of our personal life with each other.

And of course, since I was kind of asking the question to both of us, I was thinking about my answer even before Heero spoke. Did I ever get lonely?

I'd never been in a serious relationship, that was the definite truth. Hell, it had been a long time since I'd even let anyone just spend the night at my place. But did it mean I was lonely just because I wasn't getting laid?

Nah, no way. Whenever I started to get bored being on my own all the time, I'd just call Heero up and make him do something with me. It never took a lot of convincing.

All of a sudden, I just felt really grateful to have a really swell guy like Heero as my best friend. I mean, how could a guy get lonely when he had a buddy who'd always be there for him like that? With that all mentally sorted out in my inebriated mind, the question of whether or not Heero was lonely suddenly became really important to me. I mean, if Heero was the reason I wasn't lonely, then I wasn't going to stand around and do nothing in return!

If Heero was lonely, I'd make it my personal mission to occupy his time.

"I..." Heero began, "I... no, not really. Not lonely, I guess."

Well, that was that.

"I mean, I get kind of lonely when I don't see you for a while, but --"

Heero suddenly shut up, as if he realized he'd said something he shouldn't have, and turned bright red.

Woah-ho. So it wasn't just me saying stupid drunk things tonight. I was surprised and, well, unexpectedly happy.

"You get lonely when you don't see me?" I repeated.

Well, wasn't that something.

"Forget it," Heero said softly, turning toward me but looking off somewhere in the vicinity of my shoulder instead.

"No, man, it's all right," I said, grinning, but something strange was making me a little nervous and excited. This conversation was taking a weird direction. "I, uh, miss you too when we don't see each other for a while."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah... I guess that's why I get you to come over and fix my computer and stuff, cuz I like having you around."

The atmosphere in the room was kind of heavy from all the stuff we were saying. There was no question this little chat was steering into some uncharted territory.

But hell, I was drunk. And, until a minute ago, Heero and I had been absolutely, positively just platonic friends. Right? Heero wasn't exactly Mr. Layers of Subtext either. Usually, whatever you heard out of his mouth was exactly what he meant. So maybe it was all in my head. Maybe he wasn't suggesting anything.

Heero looked up at me then, and damn if that look wasn't a 'friends' look at all.

"Me too," was all he said.

Somewhere along the way, we'd ended up standing really goddamn close, our hands almost touching on the kitchen counter. Heero's eyes met mine. Christ, they were so damn blue. He really had amazing eyes. Our breaths hung shallowly between us.

It was really nothing, just a slight turn of his head, a step forward, and our lips were touching. I watched his eyes flutter closed at the contact, felt the delicate press of his skin against mine, before I even realized that it was a kiss. We stayed that way, just the lightest touch, maybe afraid to do more. Then we had to breathe, a split second of lost contact before our mouths met again.

From there, my mind was a haze. Or, rather, so many thoughts were flying through in my head that I couldn't stop to actually process any of them. I'm sure bouncing around up there was, "oh God, what are we doing?" as well as, "man, it's been a long time since I did this with anyone," and more than once, "shit, Heero's a damn fine kisser."

Seriously. Shit, Heero was a damn fine kisser. Somewhere through the flurry of activity going on in my brain, I registered that I had Heero pressed up against the wall and I was sliding my tongue into his mouth to tangle with his. Heero tasted fucking amazing, sweet and intoxicating from more than just wine. I couldn't get enough. Heero knew exactly what to do with a kiss, wet and opened-mouthed, his tongue a devilishly teasing thing, there and then gone, flicking inside and away and making me dive after it. He knew exactly when to lick and when to suck and when to bite, and I had no problem letting him direct traffic because he was just sweeping me away. And hell, it was an interesting change to see Heero Yuy, stoic, deadpan extraordinaire, acting so passionate.

Okay, interesting was an understatement. It was the fucking hottest thing I had just about ever seen. I think Heero was sucking my bottom lip between his teeth and fisting his hands tightly in my shirt when I realized I was hard as steel and it was going to be, like, ten seconds max before Heero noticed it too. Man, it had been a while since I'd done this last; a little makeout session was rarely something to stand up and salute over. Granted, this was no ordinary makeout, but hell, I usually had to see some skin before the little man was ready to play.

All of a sudden, Heero dropped my shirt and grabbed my hips, grinding me against him in a way that left nothing to the imagination. Okay, so he knew I was hard now. And god damn, so was he! Well, well, what ever were the two of us to do?

I was fully on autopilot, I think, when I started to grab at his belt. I mean, if I had actually stopped to think about it, I might have realized that hey, I was kind of drunk and I was trying to get in my best friend's pants as fast as humanly possible. In my defense, at least, it was really hard to think when you were kissing Heero Yuy the way I was. All that came to mind was "Mmm," and "Oh fuck, yeah," and "How the hell do these pants unbutton?"

Heero made this low growl in the back of his throat and pushed my hands out of the way to pull his pants down himself. All right, now we were in business. I slipped my hand up inside one leg of his boxers and gave him a nice thorough once-over. Shit, he was bigger than I'd ever given him credit for. His cock was burning hot and thick in my hand as I squeezed it, trying to coax another one of those sexy growls out of Heero. I just couldn't wait to get the guy naked.

Heero's hands fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, then it was off in a puddle on the floor with his pants. Oh, and there went mine, too, along with my pants and boxers in one fell swoop. Of course, I had to reluctantly pull my hand out of Heero's undies to get them off. What a pity.

It was only when the only thing between us was miles of hot skin that I finally broke our kiss to make sure we both knew what was about to go down.

"Bedroom?"

In response, Heero pulled me by the hand out of the kitchen, leaving our clothes forgotten on the floor behind us. I, for one, just let him lead me, off in my own little world where I was trying to decide if I should run my eyes up the length of his strong, muscled back, or just continue to stare at his firm, round little ass.

The ass won, by the way. I mean, I just couldn't stop staring. I hazily wondered if Heero had ever considered modeling, because he was sitting on a real moneymaker of an asset. Literally.

Heero stopped in the doorway of the bedroom to flick on the light switch -- good choice -- and then he was dragging me onto the bed and practically throwing me onto the sheets.

I barely had time to turn to face him before he was on me, hands all over the place, and that hot, sweet mouth came down on mine. He sucked my lower lip between his teeth and bit gently down, swallowing the moan it elicited from me. He ran a warm hand down my chest, across my stomach, then lower, curling around my cock, pumping it loosely, before trailing down to tease soft fingers against my balls. I sank my hands deep into his hair and pulled him down hard against me, my tongue frantically searching out his. My heart pumped double time in my chest, my breath coming as hard and fast as if I was drowning.

Hell, maybe I was.

Heero dragged his mouth from my lips to my chin, pressing them warm and wet against my jaw, my adam's apple. At the dip between my neck and my collarbone, he bit down hard and sucked my skin into his mouth with a wet pop that went straight to my cock. I was going to have a big ass mark there in the morning, and the thought of it only managed to make me harder.

"Fuck," I ground out between my teeth, as Heero moved up an inch on my neck and did it again.

My mind was a haze of alcohol and lust, a swirling miasma of sensation. I felt like some kind of animal, a beast of pure instinct, reeling with the way Heero's hand on my groin and his mouth on my body shuddered in my nerves, spread out across my skin like an electric current. I needed to do something to him, for him, I thought, or I would go crazy.

I growled something unintelligable and pushed him off of me, hard and fast, sending him sprawling on his back onto my bed. I took a moment just to watch his chest rise and fall, his nipples pert and erect. I ran my hands roughly across them and his eyes slid shut and he shook beneath me. I don't think I had ever been so turned on in my life.

I had never sucked another man's cock before, but I practically salivated as I lowered myself to the glistening, dewy head of Heero's penis and slid my lips over it. I let my mind work out the new sensations, the taste, the unbelievable softness of the taut skin under my tongue, the searing heat of his erection inside my mouth. Heero sucked in a hard breath between his teeth as I swallowed him between my lips, and I glanced upward through my bangs with a strange clench in my chest as his eyes caught mine. Gazes locked, I ran my tongue around the base of his cock, pressing the tip against the vein on its underside as I slowly drew it up to tease the rim of the head. Heero moaned, one hand coming up to tangle in my hair, blue eyes smoldering.

God damn. I didn't know how else to articulate what this was doing to me. God damn.

I started to bring my mouth down again and Heero threw his head back and pushed me down with his hand. I sank my fingers into the velvet skin of his thighs and tried to steady their shallow thrusts as I sucked him roughly, scraping my lips up the burning shaft, trailing an unsteady line up and down with my tongue as I pumped. No, I had never done this before, but judging from the sounds Heero was making, I had to be doing something right. The muscles of his stomach trembled, his balls drawing up high and tight, and all at once he was arching up and calling out and I could only hang on as he emptied himself into my mouth.

Spent, he fell again to the bedsheets.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

I swallowed and ran my tongue greedily over my lips. Then, I crawled back up to where he lay panting, his eyes shut tight. I pressed my mouth to his and those gorgeous eyes of his opened again, his gaze burning into mine behind long, dark lashes.

"Make it up to me," I whispered, my voice hoarse and wholly unfamiliar.

I trailed a finger down his thigh to grab one muscular cheek, just in case he wasn't sure what I was asking for.

In response, he pulled me down by the back of my head and plundered my mouth with his tongue. When he pulled away, I went to the drawers beside my bed and pawed through the assorted junk I had thrown in there. Jesus Christ, if I was out of condoms, so help me...

I found them at the bottom, with a bottle of lubricant that I had probably bought more as wishful thinking than anything else. It really had been a while. I turned back to Heero and quickly wet one finger.

"Heero, spread your legs for me."

And he did. Quickly and obligingly. My blood roared in my ears, drowning out even the voice in the back of my head that was wondering just what the fuck I was about to do with my best friend.

My finger slipped easily inside him. I worked him open for a minute before I added another. He was tight and burning hot and I thought suddenly that he probably had never done this before.

My fingers slowed as the realization sunk in. Could I really do this?

"Duo," he growled, and shifted impatiently under me.

And that was it. He wanted me to. And holy shit, I had never wanted to do anything more in my entire life. I slipped my fingers gently out and fished a condom out of its wrapper. I could feel Heero watching me as I slipped it over my aching cock. Heart thundering behind my ribs, I placed myself between his spread legs. Then, one hand guiding my way, I pushed slowly into that tight, wet heat.

Heero inhaled sharply, and dug his fingers into the sheets that now hung halfway off my bed from all the rolling around we had done earlier. His head tossed against the mattress, his neck arched and tensed. I watched the muscles work in his jaw as I sunk into him, groaning with the effort of going slowly, my head spinning. I had one hand on his thigh and I realized absently that I was gripping it fiercely, maybe hard enough to bruise. But most of my conscious thought was occupied by how it felt to slip inside him, how it felt to have him wrapped around me.

Unbelievable, that was how it felt. Nothing had ever been this tight, this hot, and it was Heero. Holy shit, we were really doing this. We were fucking on my bed. We were...

Heero brought his legs up and closed them around my waist, and I swear I didn't have another coherent thought in my head from that point on. I leaned down over him, breath ragged, and ravaged his mouth. My hand left his thigh to grip his waist. I began to thrust, shallow at first, coaxing him open slowly. I could feel him growing hard again, his cock thick and trembling against my stomach.

It drove me wild. I pumped myself in and out of him, thrusting deeply, the sensation of him pulsing around my cock heady and exhilarating. Everywhere that his skin touched mine burned and thrummed. He smelled like sex and sweat and I broke away from his sweet mouth to bury my head against his shoulder and pounded him mercilessly into the mattress.

We worked up a frenetic rhythm, and he slid against me, searching for friction, panting breathlessly in my ear. Shit, I was close already. Placing a messy kiss to his shoulder, I pulled back, one hand still firm on his waist, my other fisting around his cock and jerking him roughly. I gave myself over fully to the tight friction of his body and thrust wildly inside of him, again and again, fucking him hard and fast.

I moaned some wordless exclamation and felt blood rushing toward my cock, felt everything draw up tight, my nerves screaming in my skin, everything converging in a blinding shock of electric white, and then I was exploding inside of him, thrusting deeply inside as I lost myself in that overwhelming heat. My hand worked roughly over his cock and as I shuddered with the force of my orgasm I felt him tense and spill himself over my hand with a low moan.

I let the waves of sensation wash over me, clutching his waist as I reeled. I may have called his name, unaware of doing so. I wasn't aware of much of anything, really. Only that what had happened just now was bar none the best sex I had ever had in my life. The sheets were a lost cause on the floor, the two of us sweaty and spent, and my mouth tasted like wine and Heero's come. And I was a little too drunk still to contemplate the implications of all of that.

Instead, I pulled out of my best friend's body, tying off the condom and chucking it haphazardly into the trash at my bedside. I sprawled backwards onto my pillow, already feeling exhaustion creeping up on me. It was a Wednesday, I remembered. Work tomorrow. Shit.

There were footsteps, then the overhead light suddenly switched off. I heard the bedsprings creak and I was joined again on the bed.

"Duo," I heard someone say, and I vaguely registered the sensation of another body wrapping itself around mine, of warm hands on my waist and a soft cheek against my shoulder. I smiled, and pressed a sleepy kiss to the top of his head.

Implications. Best friends. Things may have just gotten kind of complicated.

We would deal with it tomorrow, I decided, throwing an arm up around Heero's warm body, and drifted off for good.