It wasn’t really possible for an object lacking voice or facial features to express emotions, but somehow, looking at it, Heero was reading annoyance and frustration pretty clearly without needing a human face to read them in. He couldn’t help smiling; hand-held can openers were a bit of a bother before you figured them out. The electric kind were so unreliable, though, that he’d sworn them off years ago. Duo was just going to have to get used to it.

He hadn’t heard a sound since he’d entered the apartment, but didn’t think it likely that Duo was out; so he recovered the can opener from where it had evidently been tossed down with some force into the corner at the far side of the counter, and started his search. Before he could even peek into any of the rooms down the hall, though, he caught sight of what he sought on the balcony at the end.

As he drew nearer, he observed that Duo, seated against the outside wall beside the glass door, was eating black olives from a can, so there was one mystery solved. The G.E.D. study guide he’d had for only a couple of weeks but that was already somewhat ragged-edged lay across his lap, and his new sparkly green iPod sat on top of that. His bare feet, down at the end of long, full-stretched legs, twitched rhythmically back and forth, presumably to the beat of whatever he was listening to — he’d been downloading anything and everything in the last few weeks — and as Heero was opening the door Duo added to this time-keeping operation by tapping out the rhythm on his book with the highlighter in his hand.

“Oh, hey!” Duo looked up with a surprised smile as Heero stepped onto the balcony. He pulled the headphones from his ears, and would have risen if Heero hadn’t dropped down beside him as he closed the door. “Is it that late?” Duo added, sounding pleased to find that it was, after which his mouth was busy and he couldn’t say anything more for several long moments. He tasted like olives.

Finally Heero sat back from the hello kiss and remarked, gesturing at the can, “You got them open eventually, I see.”

“With magic,” Duo replied belligerently. “That goddamned torture device was not cooperating.”

“This one?” Heero held up the can opener.

“Yes!” Duo yelped. “Can I throw it?”

Heero laughed. “No. Here, let me show you…” He pulled the olives closer, then slowly demonstrated how the can opener worked — incompletely, of course, since this particular can was already open.

Duo watched with suspicious eyes, and eventually remarked dubiously, “It kinda crawls along there, doesn’t it? Sorta eats its way around the top of the can.” He sounded as if he wanted to give the device another chance, but had been too wounded by its betrayal to trust again so soon.

“Now you try,” Heero urged, reaching for one of Duo’s hands to place it on the rubber-coated handles of the can opener.

Grumbling and still suspicious, Duo nevertheless allowed Heero to guide his fingers through the process a couple of times. He seemed to develop some reluctant admiration for the object’s design, but obviously remained a little wary of it even when the tutoring session was over.

“I may keep opening stuff with magic for a while,” he said, and for a few tense moments he followed the can opener with his eyes as Heero set it aside next to the nearly-depleted olives. “Speaking of which…” Relaxing, Duo leaned to move the two items entirely out of the space between himself and his boyfriend — his touch on the can opener, the amused Heero noted, still gingerly — and gestured. “Now come here.” And he tugged at Heero’s arm.

Heero obeyed, and found himself, at Duo’s direction, leaning close against him. When Duo said, “I’ll show you something,” Heero could feel the vibrations of his speech through the hand that Duo had pulled to his chest.

“All right.” It came out in a murmur, which seemed somehow to fit the snugness of their new position.

Duo went on, but now he was no longer speaking English. “Let me say, everyone who’s got magical abilities has a magical or psychic center ’round about here.”

Heero had no problem at all understanding the magical language, and as Duo spoke he could sense something a little different than before through his palm and fingers. It was similar to the vibrations of Duo’s regular speech, but it was as if Heero was feeling them on another, deeper level.

“Let me say, if you can find that center in yourself and sorta talk through it, it’ll come out in the magical language, and anyone with magical abilities will be able to understand you.”

It made him shiver, and, as Duo continued, Heero couldn’t help feeling as if they two were connected on a new and deeper level as well. He remembered ascribing a certain intimacy to the idea that Duo had been the one to awaken his magical abilities; it looked as if he hadn’t been too far off the mark.

“Let me say, you have to speak through your magical center to cast spells, too, so finding it’s pretty important if you’re going to be doing magic.”

Heero dropped his head to rest against Duo’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He thought he could feel a faint resonance inside his own chest responding to that in Duo’s; it was interesting and exciting and disconcerting.

“Let me say, can you feel that?”

“Why do you keep starting all your sentences like that?” Heero wondered quietly, eyes still closed.

“Let me say, to make sure I don’t cast any actual spells by accident. Let me say, this way I’m structuring my sentences so they’re pretty much just a spell commanding me to say what I’m saying.”

Heero nodded minutely. “Why is the magical center in the chest?” he asked next. “Is it associated with a particular organ?”

In English this time, Duo answered, “You’d have to ask Trowa about that one…”

Heero raised his head again to look Duo in the eye with a slight smile. “I prefer learning from you,” he said, and kissed him.

Some time later, still in English, Duo echoed Heero’s earlier suggestion: “Now you try it.”

“Do what, exactly?” It didn’t sound in his voice, but Heero was a little nervous about this. He had, after all, recently witnessed the tail-end of a conspicuous example of magic gone very, very wrong. That Duo himself wasn’t more wary of amateur magic use at this point might have been a surprise if Heero hadn’t already become perfectly accustomed to his attitude.

“Just try to feel your magical center,” Duo was replying somewhat vaguely, “and see if you can talk through it.”

“All right…” Heero closed his eyes again and concentrated, simultaneously silently predicting that his nervousness would render him completely unable to pull this off. He thought he was still aware of the not-entirely-physical area of his chest that he’d felt vibrating in response to Duo’s earlier words, but he couldn’t quite get mental hold of what it would take to ‘talk through it.’ “Say something else,” he requested of Duo, who complied.

And as Duo started to “Let me say” through the lyrics of some absurd song that was popular at the moment, which sounded even more idiotic when chanted in the magical language, and placed a hand over Heero’s heart to mirror the one of Heero’s that lay atop his own, Heero found that nervousness was not the emotion likely to get in the way here. He tried to concentrate again on the resonance Duo’s speech was causing within him, but Duo’s voice and his warm hand were simply too distracting.

Finally Heero gave a faint, helpless laugh. “I don’t think this is going to work right now.”

Duo broke off his lyric recitation and wondered, “Oh?”

“Because it’s making me want you like mad,” Heero confessed.

“Justin Bieber?” wondered Duo skeptically. “I’ll have to remember that.”

Heero chuckled. “Let’s just say that even he couldn’t make me not want you.”

“Oh, well done!” Duo complimented this statement with a laugh. Then he asked slyly, “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing, at the moment,” Heero sighed. “We’ll have to try this again later when we have more time.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Duo recollected in disappointment: “suits.”

Heero nodded against Duo’s shoulder; then, because he simply couldn’t help it, he turned to mouth Duo’s neck.

Duo let out a pleased breath and said in a tone that was half serious, half silly, and all suggestive, “We’ll put off the magic ’til tonight, then.”

Relena’s wedding was less than a month away, and Heero and Duo had fittings scheduled today for the necessary attire. Tempting though it was to forget all about that and pursue, as Duo had said, magic of various types, Heero knew his mother would go into meltdown if she found out he’d put off reserving his tux.

“Consider yourself booked for tonight, then,” he said, withdrawing reluctantly from his comfortable position against his lover and moving to rise.

Duo groped him on the way up. “Consider it considered.” After which, thankfully, they managed to get Duo shod and the both of them out of the apartment without too much more Justin Bieber, though Heero had a sinking suspicion he hadn’t heard the last of that.

A preference for jewel tones had already been established on Duo’s part, and Heero was beginning to suspect him of a preference for the jewels themselves as well as Duo oohed and ahhed over a line of shirts with sparkly decorated collar points. Finished with his own fitting, which had been quick and easy, Heero watched Duo’s with a smile but without a word. He wasn’t going to try to talk Duo out of the blingy shirt he had his eye on (nor the tie and vest with glittery stripes to match), and in fact was ready to buy him whatever he wanted.

Duo looked so damn good in everything, and watching him try things on was a wonderful experience — and not just because Heero adored every detail of his body. Duo struck poses for the mirrors and quoted movie lines he thought were appropriate (though they usually weren’t) and generally made an adorable goof of himself. And the dawning realization displayed by the employee helping him that this was a gay couple he had in his dressing room was amusing too — in a different, tiresome sort of way.

Near the end of the process, oddly enough, Billy Joel’s My Life began playing from Heero’s pocket. In some confusion he fished out his phone while Duo tried for a straight face as he said, “That’s one of your parents.”

Heero did remember eventually that Duo had been playing with his phone the other night, and was impressed at what a quick learner his boyfriend was. Duo had once said he didn’t think he’d ever get used to cell phones, and now here he was assigning custom ringtones.

Despite its unexpected trappings, the call itself was no surprise. Mrs. Yuy considered all wedding preparations as being her immediate jurisdiction, and the acquisition of suits was no exception even though it technically had nothing to do with her. Naturally she would want to check to make sure this phase of the operation was proceeding according to plan.

“Hello, mama,” Heero greeted her, more or less amiably.

“Heero? Hello. How are you doing?”

“Great,” he replied truthfully. “How are you?”

“We’re well. Your father has decided to take up golfing. Are you getting your tuxedo today?”

Unfazed by her topic roulette, which was nothing atypical, Heero told her he was at the store right now.

“No problems getting the same style as your father’s?”

“No.” They’d only been over this a dozen times.

“And your friend is there too? Getting his suit?” She rarely used Duo’s name, and the term ‘boyfriend’ was absolutely beyond her, but that she was acknowledging his existence at all was something of a miracle.

“That’s right.”

“Good. You wrote down the colors to match?”

“Yes, mama. There won’t be any problems.”

“Good. And you two are coming to dinner on Sunday, aren’t you?”

There was an even bigger miracle. Heero marveled at how happily he was able to give an affirmative when just two months before it had made him cringe.

So far it turned out that the steady-boyfriend theory had been correct, and things had progressed very much as Relena had predicted: stiff and awkward, though not necessarily antagonistic, at first, and then (more quickly than he would have dared hope) increasingly easy.

Whether it was because his parents were charmed by Duo’s persistently ingratiating and entertaining ways, or because they saw how happy Heero was with him, or because they just didn’t have the energy to hold out in the face of Heero’s determination to live the way he thought appropriate (not to mention the support of those around him), or some combination of these, things were gradually, miraculously getting better. And now they’d even reached the point where Mrs. Yuy would declare it “Good” in her sharply friendly tone that he and Duo were coming to dinner.

Of course it would have been impossible for them not to like Duo himself, so that was nothing spectacular; and they still seemed to avoid thinking of him as Heero’s boyfriend as much as they could, treating him rather as if he were just a good friend of both their children, which was less than ideal… but there was no denying that things were getting better.

Duo could tell, too. When Heero hung up from the conversation with his mother, he found him grinning, and clearly not just because of the sneakily altered ringtone. As usual, Duo had been able to pick up the mood of the discussion despite its being in Japanese and only half audible, and approved of what he’d heard.

Heero smiled back. He was extremely grateful to Duo for this circumstance, which just added another item to a growing list of reasons he was ecstatic to have Duo in his life. It wasn’t exactly a favor Duo had done for him — except as far as Duo went out of his way to be even more likeable than usual around the Yuy parents — but that fact did not lessen Heero’s gratitude. He would share all of this with Duo one of these days, but not yet — at least not in these terms — since he feared it would correspond undesirably with an unfortunate attitude he already thought he perceived in Duo.

That perception was only strengthened when he paid the bill at the outfitters. Heero was renting his tux, since he didn’t exactly have a routine need for it; but a nice suit was something useful to own, so he was buying one for Duo… and Duo was making the same face he always did when Heero spent money on him or assisted him in some aspect of human life — be it as significant as helping him get registered as a patient at a doctor’s office or as small as demonstrating proper handling of a can opener.

The expression was one of displeasure, almost disapproval, that overrode Duo’s simultaneous gratitude and fondness and seemed to be immediately calculating how to shift the balance of the situation. And if the setting had been right he would have tried: shown Heero something magical or volunteered for some household chore… actions not at all objectionable in themselves, but the motives behind which Heero was beginning to question.

It was time they did something about this.

*

Heero was onto him.

Even after a month and a half, Duo had not yet readjusted to humanity and having facial expressions and all that, and he hadn’t been able to hide it, and Heero had noticed. That was his impression, anyway, based on the look Heero gave him on the way out of the store. But instead of commenting, at least for the moment, Heero just paused outside and glanced around.

“You’ve never had bubble tea,” he declared. He didn’t have to ask; to a certain extent — particularly when it came to food — he was familiar with Duo’s entire range of human experiences.

“Nope. Never heard of it.”

Heero pointed to the strip mall’s next business over, which was, indeed, labeled ‘Bubble Tea’ in puffy colorful lettering. “Want to try it?”

“Yes,” replied Duo at once. “What is it?”

Heero began walking in the direction of the adjacent shop. “It’s weird,” he said unhelpfully. “I think you’ll like it.”

The little store was decorated in an eclectic style that Duo associated with Chinese restaurants, and featured a complicated list of flavors that occupied him for several minutes. Though he wasn’t entirely sure, yet, what he was ordering, he eventually chose strawberry-banana, and the lady behind the counter set to work making some kind of smoothie for him in addition to the avocado-vanilla one Heero had already requested. He and Heero were discussing weddings, not terribly intensively, while the woman worked, until Duo suddenly broke off what he was saying to hiss, wide-eyed, at his boyfriend, “What is she putting in there? What is that stuff?”

Heero just smiled enigmatically.

The cup he eventually received had a thin sheet of plastic sealed across the top, which made it possible for Duo to turn it all around, peering suspiciously inside, without worrying about spilling. This didn’t prevent him from pouting a bit (for all he tried not to) as he watched Heero pay for the drinks, but soon he returned his attention to the mysterious objects at the bottom of the smoothie. They looked like black marbles.

After offering Duo a hugely wide, green-striped straw, Heero headed out the door into the warm June dusk once again. Duo nearly tripped on the mat and ran into someone as he followed, so riveted was he on the drink in his hand. Once outside (and out of the path of other customers), they paused so Heero could demonstrate how to puncture the plastic covering with the pointed end of the straw. Then he stood still sipping his own drink and watching Duo expectantly.

It tasted like strawberry… strawberry-banana… banana… and then…! Duo choked, trying to drink, chew, and laugh through his surprise at the same time. This only made him laugh (and choke) more, which induced a nearly similar reaction in Heero as the latter handed over a couple of napkins he’d had the prescience to obtain inside.

“They’re… squishy… what the hell…” Without looking, Duo was mopping up what he’d spewed down his front, still laughing and coughing.

“You missed some,” Heero grinned, pointing.

It was a good thing they’d already gotten the fitting-room portion of the day out of the way. As he entered a second round of napkin application to his newly-spotted shirt, Duo finally managed a complete sentence. “What are those?”

“It’s tapioca.”

“Like in pudding?” Duo laughed. “Whose idea was it to put that in a drink?” And he looked askance down his straw; now he realized why it was so big.

Heero shrugged. “Do you not like it?”

Thoughtfully Duo took another drink, at the same moment tossing the napkins into a trash can by the door. And after a very intense and serious assessment, he laughed again, less disastrously this time, and commented, “Yes, I like it! It’s hilarious! But I think ‘weird’ wasn’t quite strong enough, before.”

“Good,” Heero said with a smile. Then he gestured to stop Duo from taking a seat at the little table just outside the shop. “Let’s go sit in the car.”

Duo tried not to wince as he agreed. The only reason Mr. Privacy would want to go sit in the car was for the sake of a personal conversation. Which meant he really had noticed. And Duo wasn’t going to try to keep anything from him; he probably shouldn’t have kept it to himself to begin with — they’d had enough of that back in April.

Despite bracing himself, as they crossed the parking lot, for a discussion in which he would probably have to disclose feelings that might bother or even hurt his boyfriend, Duo simply could not help laughing every time he got another of the tapioca balls in his mouth. Severely amusing beverage additives did not balance quite equally against potentially uncomfortable conversation — though, admittedly, for someone that only a couple of months before had been unable to enjoy any kind of beverage, it came closer than it might for anyone else — but the tapioca was very present, while the conversation was only pending as yet. So it was in an oddly mixed frame of mind that he slid into the passenger seat and closed the door behind him.

And as Heero did the same on the driver’s side, Duo asked, mostly facetiously, “Am I in trouble?”

Heero smiled briefly and took Duo’s free hand. “No,” was his serious answer. “I’ve just noticed something you’ve been doing more and more since the curse was broken, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“I am in trouble,” Duo grimaced.

Squeezing the hand he held, Heero said, “I promise you’re not. It’s just that…” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”

Duo knew by now that Heero was neither accustomed to nor terribly expert at saying this phrase aloud; if you counted as a single instance the repetitions Duo had dragged out of him the night after the first time, this was only the second time he’d managed it in this relationship.

“And I’m happy having you around,” Heero went on, blushing faintly. “Having you living with me. But I can see that you feel bad about me supporting you. I want you to know that you don’t have to. You don’t need to feel like it’s inconvenient for me, or that you have to try to pay me back.”

This might be a little awkward no matter how it went, and therefore Duo didn’t feel at all bad starting out his end of it by waggling an eyebrow and asking in a exaggerated suggestive tone, “Not even with sex?”

Heero grinned slightly. “Sex with you is wonderful,” he said sincerely, “but if I thought you were actually doing it because you thought you had to to pay me back for anything, I would be extremely uncomfortable.”

Duo returned the grin. “Well, don’t be, ’cause I’m not.” Then he sobered entirely as he faced down the explanation he needed to give. “The thing is… I still don’t feel much like a real person yet. I mean, physically I do — and it’s great — but socially, I guess, not so much. It’s not something I ever expected; I thought once the curse was broken and I could feel and smell and taste, I’d be able to consider myself a human being again… but I don’t, really. And a big part of that is the fact that you’re still taking care of me so completely.

“Don’t think I resent that or anything! Because I totally love you too, and I love living with you… but it’s not like I would have much of a choice at this point even if I didn’t. I might as well still be a doll, because you’re still practically carrying me around.”

Swiveling his cup at an oblique angle in his hands, Duo watched the remainder of the tapioca balls at the bottom swish through the melting smoothie as he continued. “And I know I got excited about you buying me things right at first, because I could own things and use things again; and having them meant a lot, because it was so different from before and they were such a strong proof that I’m human again. I don’t want you to think I don’t like you buying me things. It’s just that if you didn’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to buy them for myself.

“And you do a lot of things for me that I can’t do for myself, either because I don’t know how yet or because it’s something that takes money that I don’t have yet. It’s like I’m a little kid; I’m having to totally rely on you for everything.”

At the sight of Heero’s expression of perturbation and concern, Duo hastened on. “Don’t look like that! I really don’t want you to feel bad about this. It’s nobody’s fault; it’s just the way things have to be after the curse. Just… if I do act like I’m trying to pay you back a little for everything you do for me, it’s not so much because I feel like I owe you as because it makes me feel more like a real person who has a choice about what he does and where his life is going.”

Heero was silent for several moments, and looked as if he was turning this over thoroughly in his head. Finally he nodded. “I see what you’re saying,” was his serious assurance. “At least I think I do. And of course I want you to do whatever you need to to feel better, about everything and yourself. Don’t let me make you feel like you can’t… tell me if I ever do, OK?”

Now it was Duo’s turn to squeeze Heero’s hand.

“But also,” Heero added with a solemn smile, “don’t get into the habit of trying to find some way to pay me back for every little thing, or thinking you have a debt piling up. I take care of you because I love you, not because you’re then obligated to do something in return. We’re not business partners.”

That was two I love you‘s in one conversation; Duo wondered how he’d so lucked out. Actually, on a larger scale, he wondered (and definitely not for the first time) how he’d so lucked out as to find someone like Heero — someone that could, after only what Duo considered a very imperfect explanation of his feelings under these circumstances, comprehend what he was going through, or at least act as if he did, and someone he loved so very much.

He felt he did owe Heero, more than he could ever repay, for what Heero had done to break his curse. He knew perfectly well that Heero hadn’t done it in the expectation of a reward of any kind, but he didn’t think his own resulting desire to give Heero everything, do everything he could for Heero — not because he had to but because he wanted to, out of gratitude and love — was at all unhealthy or inappropriate. But he certainly wasn’t about to say that now, since it would undoubtedly be counterproductive in this discussion.

Instead he said, “You’re the best, you know that?” He took another drink of the hilarious smoothie and added, “And so is this stuff.”

Heero smiled.

Duo wasn’t quite finished with the previous topic, though, much as he would like to be. “Of course the real next step toward being a real person is to get that test taken so I can get a job. I think I’m about ready… hopefully the grammar parts won’t kill me…”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Heero reassured. “Even on the grammar parts. You’ve been studying that book until it’s falling apart, and highlighting half of every page.”

“That,” Duo admitted sheepishly, “may be just because I like the highlighter colors.”

“I knew that.” Fondly Heero grinned at him. “Why do you think I bought them for you?” At Duo’s faint wince his smile turned rueful, but his follow-up statement was added more or less smoothly: “And once you have a job, you can buy your own highlighters, in every color you can think of. But for now, do you want to go practice driving?”

Heero really was the best; his suggesting they work on something that furthered the cause of Duo’s autonomy (not to mention something Duo thoroughly enjoyed in itself) indicated both that he really did understand and that he wasn’t hurt by what Duo had told him. “Yes, please!” Duo said heartily.

As Heero navigated toward the large, usually empty parking lot where he’d been teaching Duo to drive in spare moments, Duo concentrated on finishing his drink so as to have both hands free. At the bottom, he had to suck up the weird little squishy balls deliberately one at a time, which was extremely entertaining. Once again, Heero had treated him to a marvelous experience, and Duo was cheerfully grateful.

By the time he’d fished out the last of the tapioca from the floor of the cup, they were parked and idling at their destination. And after a quick but very sincere kiss that constituted a strange blending of flavors after their respective smoothies, they left their seats in order to switch places and give Duo a turn at the wheel.

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This story is included in the His Own Humanity: Through July ebook.