A strong brow rises crookedly at him, but his command is followed with no further comment.  He waits until the passage is cleared before releasing the door in favor of wrapping an arm around a trim, solid waist.  "What, chivalry dead in your eyes?"

Heero snorts fondly at his boyfriend, leaning into the contact to remove any sting from the sound.

He continues thoughtfully as they stroll down the hall towards their apartment.  "Know it can't be, otherwise there wouldn't be any of this 'knight in shining armor' stuff for you."

"I have more important things to do than keep my armor shiny."  Literally and figuratively.

He grins, seeing humor in the dawn hour.  After an entire night at a friend's party, he is giddy merely to be home.  "White always shows the dirt, man.  Black doesn't."  He would continue, but they hear the lock turn on the door next in their path, and he and his partner automatically step apart.

The door opens, and their neighbor smiles and waves at them, ready for her own day to start.  "Oh, don't stop on my account, boys," she greets merrily, turning to lock her door.

Quite the contrary.  They stop, casting wary looks at each other, then at her when she is done.  She is startled by their regard, but recovers once she realizes the question.  "Weren't you the boys who taught me to always check the hall before opening my door?"  The question doesn't stop there, and she winks the rest of their concerns away.  "You've nothing to worry about from me, dears.  Though I think you needn't hide.  Love is meant to be shared, don't you think?"

The innocent question hits Duo offguard, and he is caught in a strange moment of suspended silence.  His mouth opens before he is ready with a response, but Heero steps up to the plate, returning the earlier favor and settling an arm comfortably around his waist.   With a faint smile and a nod whose slightest tilt is the only indication of shyness, Heero settles the matter.

Duo tries not to duck his head with an embarrassed discomfort as she beams at them, and he manages to stammer out a cheerful farewell before Heero steers him towards their own door with firm, gentle pressure.  Once inside their sanctuary, he turns, tries to say something to the man that is calmly securing their home.  The indecision locks his throat for tense seconds before he manages to utter the first syllable of his lover's name.  The second syllable is smothered by lips against his, hot and familiar and enticing.  His worries are gone by the time his back encounters the wall.  Fingers interlaced with his defy him to take action, and he does, giving back as good as he gets.

The rhythm shifts smoothly from fast and fierce to slow and thoughtful, and eventually their mouths slide to a reluctant halt.  Their lips do not wander far from each other, only enough for Heero to pull back and look him seriously in the eye.  "I know you don't want me to say it...," he murmurs.  Duo can feel the lingering breathlessness in the body still pressed against him.  It matches his own.  "But I need you to know it."

It is not a plea, nor a request, nor a demand, but a declaration all its own.  The words would do it themselves, but they are backed by all the weight Heero can pack into a smoldering look, all the emotion he can compress into a nirvana of kisses, which even still sings through Duo's blood.

He finds that he knows it.  He feels suddenly that he has always known it.  It shouts forth in exultant harmony to that tune that already thrums within him, stealing his breath away to raise the chorus to ever higher paeans of glory until he no longer knows how he could ever have been afraid to hear it.  Through the tumult, he manages a nod and a squeeze of his hands.

Heero breaks out a smile, a spreading of his lips and a crinkling around the eyes, and Duo needs to taste it, know it, explore it.  He leans forward, and takes it into himself.

There is another one waiting for him on the other side of that storm of kisses.  This one he soaks in with his eyes.  A hand rises to trace down the side of his face, down the line of a jaw known intimately, and then Heero steps back with a nearly apologetic air.  Their plans to crash have been put on hold long enough.

Heero takes another slow step farther into the apartment, but Duo reaches out to snag him by the wrist with first one hand, then two.  He stares at those hands for a few short seconds before he swallows hard and forces his eyes up to his lover's.  Heero waits patiently for him, and he obliges with a near-rasp.  "Me, too."

For his troubles, he receives yet another one of those smiles only he is privileged enough to see.  His hands are brought up to Heero's lips, where they are given reverent homage, and then with a tug, he is pulled forth, and they proceed in line and in step with each other as they continue their journey within.