Hurt Together, Hurt Alone

Taka Momos

My head rolled in the dirt, side to side, as I groped in the darkness of my mind for a sense of comfort – anything but the nausea, the coldness, the loneliness, that consumed my entire existence at the time. Stale metal filled my mouth, chilled by the wind as I gasped for air; drying on my lips, crusting the corners of my mouth with flakes of iron rust.

My fingers curled into the frozen dirt, grasping for an anchor as anther wave of that familiar cold, sickening fear crashed against me – the fear that reminded me that I was alone, left to writhe in my frozen agony by myself.

It wasn't my impending death that bothered me.

It was the realization that I would die in a way I'd only recently learned to fear – cold and alone.

The familiar burn of compromised flesh, this time deep in my thigh, had been reduced to a faint tingle, numbed by blood loss and cold. Every breeze that blew across my open wound seemed to cool the metal of the bullet – the hardness still lodged in the meat of my thigh.

I tried to sit up again – only to be met with a wave of unconsciousness crashing against my mind. I knew it was futile to try, but I'd never been to sit back and takes things – and I'd be damned if death would be any different.

My limit, however, was reached. My body could only do so much, and my will to keep going had run out. I took in a deep breath, grasping at the warmth it might give – but met only cold wind blowing against my face.

"Well, damn."

I gave in as the next wave of darkness swept over me.

---

I woke to the feel of a thin cool against my skin – cheap sheets. They were stale, but not rough. The mattress below me crunched as I shifted – hospital caliber, not even a decent hospital. I'd come to know them well.

My vision swam as I tried to open my eyes to the darkened room. I didn't need my eyes open, it was easy to tell – hospital rooms were either blindingly white or the lights were turned off. There was no in-between.

The mattress crunched again in movement – movement not my own. I looked down to meet the familiar, stony eyes I'd come to love, silhouetted by the tousled strands of chocolate hair.

"Damn you."

As detail returned to my vision, I immediately noticed the red, bloodshot lines that webbed through white, framed by darkened, tired lids. A strong hand gripped mine through the thin fabric, squeezing hard.

"Damn you to hell."

It hurt – to hear such fear in what had become a voice of solidity in my life. To hear the sounds of my rock breaking into pieces, shattering into hot tears beside me, head pressed against my side as he choked with long-held sobs.

I knew he was trying. But I couldn't say anything. The cold, dark fear of loneliness began to close in around me as I watched my anchor slip away. I wanted so much to grab him, hold him tight – I wanted so much to tell him I was alive and that it would be ok.

But I couldn't. I was too tired – the sudden loss of strength in my life was too crippling. When I had Heero there to hold me class whenever something happened, I could survive anything. But to have him sobbing like a baby beside me – no.

I couldn't.

No matter how much I wanted to reach out for what was right beside me, I was too tired. I didn't have the strength to be his support – I needed him to be mine. And suddenly he wasn't.

And suddenly I was right back in the forests of Russia, dieing.

Cold and alone.

---

It took days to shake that awful feeling – of sudden weakness. Of suddenly having no solid grand beneath me, of suddenly feeling that if I feel it would be a cold ocean I would land in – an ocean in which I would drowned.

I shut things out. Suddenly his gentle petting was empty, hollow – the warmth that once teased the lines he traced along my skin was now just a cold shadow. But he was persistent. Even though I didn't respond to his touches, he continued to hold my hand – rub my arm. Anything to be touching me.

I began to cling to the kind of strength I'd come to love, only in a different form – persistence. I'd long taken for granted the fact that he would be there to pick me up and dust me off. I'd come to take for granted that Heero would catch me when I fell.

And when he missed, I was crushed.

But maybe it wasn't that he would always catch me – no, not so much as that he was always there to try. I'd long know that, if he thought I would learn, he'd let me fall on my ass while doing something stupid. But he was always there to help me up and tell me not to do it again.

Maybe the strength I love in Heero wasn't an inability to fail, but an unwillingness to give up trying.

And that was the kind of strength he was showing. Even as he touched me like a broken toy – gently, as if another drop would break me – he stayed there, holding me. Even as I lay there silent, he remained.

Or maybe nothing had changed – maybe the reality of the day before was exactly the same. Maybe my love of his strength was in its perfection and not its persistence – whatever the reason, I had a new strength to cling to while my trust in him healed, and it was all I wanted to ask for at the time.

And I knew he had healing to do as well. I'd gone and almost gotten myself killed – alone. Without him. I'm sure it hurt him to think of losing me; I'm sure it hurt to think that I might die by my own stupidity, far away in a forest where he could save me like he always wanted to.

We'd both fucked up. Granted, some might say one of us more than the other, but the ownership of blame was a moot point.

It was an point in our relationship, as with any, that would to make or break us. It was through the blast furnace of our mutual failures that we'd either achieve an unbreakable bond, or be broken by the heat.

Heero seemed to handle the situation much better than I – as always. He'd reeled back hard against my almost-demise, clinging to me like an overprotective hen. Doctors couldn't work fast enough, medicine couldn't be given accurately enough, treatments weren't working fast enough, I wasn't recovering well enough – it was the same strength I'd come to love.

And it was probably through his over-protectiveness that I finally regained my trust in his strength. Sure, he still looked at me with those same eyes, wondering if I would fade and disappear right before his eyes, slipping through his fingers like grains of sand. But it was the determination in his eyes – the determination never to let me leave his grasp – that gave me the healing I needed. And it was my recovery that helped him heal.

Though it certainly took him much longer to forgive me for my stupidity. But forgiveness was something I was willing to earn back when I had the strength – to have him by my side, watching for me to slip so he could catch me, was my immediate need.

It was after days of silence, days of touching and testing what remained between is, that I finally took my first shaky steps onto the weakened ground of our relationship.

"I'm sorry, 'ro."

He looked at me, eyes fresh again with tears of worry. Those same, broken eyes of days before. But this time he smiled, and it was my turn to sob.

He pulled my head against his chest, not minding the way my burning tears and snot soaked his shirt – he held me close, safe in his arms.

"I love you, Duo."

It was like landing in a safety net I couldn't see. Those words were all I needed, and I finally let go. He held me for the rest of the night, rubbing circles in my muscles as I cried like a baby in his arms – as I cried in fear of almost dieing alone.

But he was there.

And I was alive.

And it was all I needed in the world.