Disclaimer: Still don't own Gundam Wing... damn it

Pairings: 3x2 – implied past 1x2 and 1x3

Warnings: Deathfic, angst, yaoi, m/m sexual relations, language

A/N: I promised after I wrote So Say Goodbye I'd never write anything as angsty. Well, I did. And here it is. Inspired by the song Zombie by the Cranberries and beta-d by the wonderful ELLE as always (who also helped rename it from its misleading WIP title)

Six Times Since

They only fucked in the dark. It was never preluded by romantic kisses, only the shedding of clothes in darkness and then bodies meeting under cheap motel sheets. It was as though in the dark they could forget who they were fucking. That they both could imagine it was someone else despite Trowa knowing it wasn't who he wanted it to be and he knew that Duo knew he wasn't who he wanted him to be. He knew from feel, every year on the anniversary, that Duo wasn't him, that his ribs jutted out too harshly from his chest, that his body was all sharp angles and bone.

They didn't speak, it made it easier that way, they'd spoken before when they met at the pre-designated spot as the pre-determined time. Trowa had arrived on L1-ZX321 and been greeted with the usual response. The grey interrogation room of the spaceport authority, picking him up purely because his name and identity had been blacklisted many years ago. He wasn't part of Reichs revolution – unlike Duo – but the Earth Sphere United Taskforce or ESUT didn't seem to care that he wasn't. They assumed he would be and he'd been given their usual level of hospitality – four hours in the cold interrogation room until they realised they could not hold him any longer as a legal citizen of Earth and they gave him back his small carry-on bag and let him go.

Years ago, before the fall of the Preventers, before the dissolution of the Earth Sphere United Nations, before the colonies began fighting back, Trowa would've called Quatre to assist with the legality of the prejudices he'd received as a former Gundam pilot. There had been too many unnecessary searches, too many times detained in airports and spaceports as though they expected him to have hidden Heavyarms somewhere in his luggage and start shooting the fuck out of the building. But Quatre had long since become ineffectual. He'd seen him in prison recently, before his annual visit to the L1 cluster as though it was a routine. That around the date – July 15th – he'd try and check where the Chang family were and visit if he could do so inconspicuously. Then he'd make his yearly trip to the prison that Quatre had been locked up in for eight years. That had been the moment they'd all known it was the beginning of the end. The claims of fraud, the claims of bankrolling Reichs and the trial that became nothing more than a media circus as evidence was fabricated but nothing could be proven. Winner Enterprises Inc. was now run by one of the sisters who had aligned the company politically with the power of the new regimes and was willing to support Marshall law and extreme suppression on the protesting colonies.

L1-ZX321 was one of those protesting colonies and as Trowa stepped out of the spaceport he saw the first of the old Leos standing large and imposing in the colony due to the scale of the sky and the scale of the machine. They were meant to have been all junked post-war in those years of euphoria, those years of peace that were good while they lasted. That's what Trowa tried to remember, those years when they'd been heroes, when the Gundams had been destroyed and there was hope. Before the collapse of the Preventers, Relena's fall and removal from power, Quatre's arrest…

Before Heero died.

He remembered those years of peace with Heero, the taste of them in his mouth, before everything went to shit. The years they'd worked as Preventers. The years that they'd fought and fucked and worked together. Before the internal corruption of the sort of men that had made Romefeller and OZ possible brought the ESUN into disrepute, when the Earth started the unfair taxations and suppression of the colonies that brought about a man like Reichs and the Black Flag revolution. Trowa tried not to resent Duo in the situation – knowing that he'd loved Heero just as he did, fucked as it was, and Duo didn't drag Heero to Reichs. It helped that Duo was working for Reichs, that he'd resigned as a Preventer the moment that the organisation started opening fire on innocent colonists during protests, and he'd gone back to space to join with Reichs. That maybe if Duo hadn't….

It had been one communication. It wasn't as though Duo had turned up to their apartment. Not like he'd done anything. Trowa knew their history just as Duo knew theirs. It was not Duo's fault that they were in love with the same man but maybe Duo wasn't quite aware of the power that he still had. Always had. Maybe they should've, in hindsight, lived in some fucking ménage a toi relationship. The circle of all having slept with the other only complete after Heero died and Trowa could only find solace with the other man who was utterly devastated by the single bullet hole to the head.

Heero was always going to join Reichs. Trowa knew that. That he would not sit back after the systematic violence escalated on colony after colony – when mobile suits were used to scare civilians, when food imports were stalled from earth and anarchy broke out across entire clusters. Clusters falling like dominos. L1 went first. L3, then L2, until finally L4 fell holding out for longer due to the influence of the now only vaguely legal Winner Enterprises.

"You're leaving," Trowa had stated the day that he returned to the apartment to see Heero leaning against the kitchen counter, his head down, arms folded across his chest, ankles crossed.

"Come with me."

"To Duo?"

"No. To Reichs."

They were no longer Preventers, they were trying to hold onto semblance of normality as the world around them crumbled but Trowa had known it was coming. Heero had spent hours communicating with the colonies and with Reichs before he decided to join the revolution. They'd spoken about it. But Trowa had no intention of going back to war and he only shook his head.

"Go."

Neither of them were emotional men and the relationship was never one of words rather a sort of mutual understanding. It was sometimes why Trowa thought he went back to Duo – that with Duo it was about fire and passion whereas he figured their relationship had been about the plateau. Heero kissed him one more time before he left, pinning him against the door and bringing their lips together and for a moment, Trowa thought he could make him stay if he kissed back hard, if his lips moved in the right way, if his tongue delved deeply, if he fisted the fabric of Heero's jacket hard and brought their bodies close together. But it hadn't worked. Heero left and he didn't see him again until that day on L1-ZX321 when Duo had called him, found him working with displaced colonial refugees in Eastern Europe – people who had wanted to escape the persecution and anarchy on the colonies only to be housed on earth in something that resembled a concentration camp.

He saw Heero then. Kept at Reichs compound along with all the other bodies that would be cremated as there were too many for burial. It had been an odd experience. Heero had been gone for two years and yet seemed entirely unchanged on the cold metal slab and he looked fifteen, bandaged up in the circus trailer as Trowa tended to him after his self-destruction. And Duo was there, leaning against the doorway, as though watching his reactions as he always did – wary of how Trowa would react around him even though he did not resent him for Heero's decisions. Heero had made them – always following that belief that he had to do the right thing. The bullshit line about following his emotions. If Heero wanted to do something, Trowa was sure that Duo didn't have any more chance than he did at changing Heero's mind.

They fucked the first time on that night. It hadn't even been good sex. Mechanical. In darkness. As though going through the motions and trying to find comfort in the other but they couldn't offer comfort as they were both too damaged by the corpse on the slab. Trowa didn't linger, dressed again and walked back to the spaceport to wait for a flight back to Earth, preferring to spend the hours waiting in the cold spaceport than in Duo's bed.

Now it was six years since Heero had died. And Duo had another black line on his right wrist, each solid piece of ink a reminder of each year that had passed since then. He'd seen it before they turned off the lights in the motel room and Trowa stripped out of his clothes, seeing in the dim light that filtered through flimsy curtains that Duo was doing the same, the darkness never quite complete on a colony. Always some light source.

He slid under the covers, the rough material against his skin and Duo followed suit. They didn't touch at first, Trowa doubting himself and wondering why they continued the ritual. It didn't help either of them. It didn't make it any easier – it didn't make the grief less palpable, it didn't make anything better, it just made them forget for a few moments… Trowa could lose himself maybe for those few seconds of white orgasm and then it would feel worse. More hollow. More meaningless.

There was movement and Trowa only glanced downwards as Duo shifted underneath the sheets, his head and body disappearing until he felt a hand and a mouth near his cock, still soft. It wasn't like they'd done anything erotic to arouse any response and it was only when he felt fingers working at the flesh and then warm breath that he felt himself hardening, looking down at the lump underneath sheets meaning that he couldn't see it was Duo licking and sucking at his dick and for a moment could imagine it was someone else. He could feel the lips around the head, the tongue in the slit and his cock harden fully under the attention of a skilled mouth. Once Duo was satisfied he was hard enough, he moved, bringing himself up against Trowa's body and they kissed for the first time, Trowa's hand drifting to find Duo at least half hard, taking him roughly in his hand to bring him to full arousal as he closed his eyes and tried to find some pleasure in the sensation of Duo's mouth and lips.

The first time, they didn't kiss – too intimate. That kissing suggested something – that you loved the other person or at least it was more than just the physical act of fucking but then not kissing made it feel like a transaction. As though they might as well pay some random hooker on the street corner. And they'd kissed every time since the first. Trowa closed his eyes tight, not opening them even though Duo never tasted like Heero did – never felt like Heero did as he stroked Duo's dick with more sureness until he was moaning into the kiss and indicating that at least they were both aroused enough to fuck.

They'd taken it in turns to top, ridiculous as it seemed that in the spell of a year apart they remembered who had fucked who and so there was no question when Trowa prepared Duo. It had been Duo that first time, Trowa almost entirely passive in the situation, not really feeling anything beyond the heat of the body pressed against his back and the hand wrapped around his cock and this year it meant that Duo opened his legs lying on his back without any question, let Trowa move slippery fingers into him with a little impatient roughness. Duo hissed in the darkness but this was not about love, it was about sex and Trowa moved his mouth to Duo's erection, laving it with attention around the head, letting saliva trail down it as he worked his fingers inside until three could be moved with only the minimal indication of pain from Duo's half-hearted moans and gasps.

The first few years they'd not done this face to face. Trowa couldn't bare that. Maybe Duo couldn't. Instead, they took one another from behind, on all fours, against walls or bent over chairs. It wasn't until four years after Heero had died that Trowa had Duo on his back and he slid into him as he did now, impatiently moving forward yet doing so with as much gentleness as he could manage. Duo kept his hands at his sides as Trowa entered him, balled them up in the sheets as Trowa tried to move against tense muscles. They both knew they didn't have regular sex anymore. It became evident in these anniversaries, these encounters as they were both so unused to the sensations that assaulted them. Trowa found himself breathless, sweat dripping down his forehead as he pushed inside, his hands resting on either side of Duo's torso, Duo's knees underneath his elbows and he could just make out Duo's expression in the darkness.

He didn't look at him just as Trowa avoided looking at Duo. That by really looking at one another they'd see that this was wrong. Fucked up. Weird. That it shouldn't happen and yet it still did – that no matter how many years passed, how many anniversaries went by, they still met and did this and it never made anything right. It never brought Heero back.

Trowa closed his eyes as he moved, each hot thrust making him feel something, the only sound in the room low grunts and pants, the sound of slick flesh meeting slick flesh. They didn't engage in unnecessary touching, Duo's hands remained balled at his sides until Trowa said the only word they usually said to one another during fucking.

"Close," he murmured.

It was oddly like giving an order, not like passionate sex where there would be curse words flying out of mouths like rain and Trowa wondered at these times – what had Duo been like for Heero? Did he tell him how good he felt? Did he ask him to fuck him harder, faster, demand more with words and his body? And had Heero had better sex with Duo? Had it been better than they'd ever been together – despite the fact that Heero had chosen him post-war? The thoughts melted away as his pace increased, the pressure around his cock too much and Duo was moving up into his downward thrusts each time making it oh so intense and good.

Duo's hand went to his dick, stroking himself and Trowa's eyes flicked to watch the movement of that hand over the hard flesh as he continued his own hip movements, pounding into a compliant and willing body. The sight of Duo jacking off, the small moans that he couldn't help as well as the pressure around his body made him reach his pinnacle, his orgasm crashing through him and he pushed as deep as he could in his release.

His eyes closed fully so that he didn't see Duo coming but felt his body shudder underneath him, the spasms around his still sensitive flesh as he tried to retain the position he was in, not wanting to fall onto Duo's body as that felt too intimate. They both gasped in the darkness, taking deep breaths and Trowa then moved to lie down on the bed on his back, the distance between them re-established as he stared up to the ceiling that he could barely see.

"Six years," he heard Duo say in the darkness and he inclined his head in the direction of the voice enough to see his profile silhouetted.

Six years. Six meaningless fucks. Six times trying to bring back the memory of Heero.

Six times it hadn't worked.

Trowa didn't feel like talking but Duo always wanted to after. He let him, unable to respond to anything but understanding that as much as he kept his feelings inside his head, Duo couldn't contain them and it was only with Trowa he could reveal them.

"Ya know, I never meant to come between you and him… he picked you post-war. I dealt."

He'd heard this speech before. Duo's guilt at being the proverbial "other woman," the man slut, or whatever Duo felt that Trowa perceived him as. He tried to apologise every year and Trowa never offered him forgiveness. He imagined Duo wanted that guilt. Thus the reason he got those black tattoos that imitated slashed wrists across his skin.

"I just knew that he wouldn't wanna sit back. That he'd wanna do somethin'. I just put him in touch with Reichs."

Trowa felt like leaving, his body sated from the post-coital high and descending into the pit of self-loathing that always occurred after these fucks.

"Tro' – you ain't asleep?"

"No," he answered.

He felt the shifting movement in the bed and there was a hand on his chest. They usually never initiated contact after sex but Duo had seemed to have forgotten that rule.

"Why didn't you come with him? Why did you just let him go? You coulda joined Reichs…"

"It wasn't my fight."

"Shit if it wasn't. It became all of our fight the moment they fucked over Quat. The moment they fired on innocent civilians… Fuck, that was our goddamn peace that they fucked."

"I'm not a colonist."

He could sense Duo's anger and it wasn't entirely undeserved. Trowa should have gone with Heero. Should've joined Reichs' rebellion but he didn't want to fight again. Didn't have the strength or inclination to kill again. Had seen too much. Too many nightmares. He could deal with the Preventers – deal with being nothing more than a glorified bodyguard and police officer post-war but when things had changed, when it became violent again, he couldn't do it again. Heero understood that. Heero had seen him in the middle of the night clutching his head, the ripples of pain reverberating in his skull and he was not strong enough to become a soldier again. And that was why there was no plea, nothing more than the words "come with me" spoken before he left. Trowa knew the things Duo had done since he'd become one of Reichs' generals and the thought sickened him. He never knew what Heero had done but whatever he had… well, it all had ended with a bullet in the head.

"Like fuck if that matters! They destroyed the peace we fought for! People are starving and dying and fuck, you don't want to fight because you're not a damn colonist. Jesus, Tro'…We need you now damn it… you see how bad it is. I know you fucking do…"

Trowa let Duo have his tirade. Let him find his clothes, finding it difficult to retrieve them in the dark, and finally turned on the light. They avoided looking at each other but now Trowa watched Duo's naked back covered in new scars, watched the shorter braid, shoulder length now, and then followed his lead, finding his own clothing, his faded jeans, his faded t-shirt, his faded sweater… everything was faded. It was a metaphor or something.

Duo was still speaking as they dressed, going over every point that he'd made before about all the things the new Earth Sphere United Taskforce had done to the colonies. The systematic killing of children, the statistics on rape, the people dying from hunger everyday but Trowa had heard them all before and only stopped Duo from his speech when they were both fully dressed and he attempted to leave. He gripped Duo's left arm tightly and Duo looked up at him with blazing blue eyes.

"I don't have anything to fight for. I don't have any reason since Heero."

Blue eyes softened, the anger gone and replaced with something else. They didn't talk about Heero. Didn't reminisce about him. Didn't make reference to his life. To his death. To anything. In all the six years.

"Fuck Tro'," Duo said softly, "he's the fucking reason I am fighting."

He removed his grasp from Duo's arm and for a moment they looked at each other – really looked at one another. No averted eyes. No closing their eyes as they fucked and Trowa could see that Duo was starting to look every one of his twenty nine years – he supposed that would be what Duo saw of Trowa. It was a long time since the war and being fresh faced and fifteen and hopeful after it.

Duo suddenly laughed and Trowa felt his own brow furrow at the unexpected sound. "You know what's totally fucked? I'm glad he's dead, ya know? That he never got to see the whole world go to shit… that he saw the beginning but he never got to see this… I think it would've killed him anyway."

"Yeah," Trowa answered. "Maybe…"

He thought of fifteen-year-old Heero, all deep blue eyes and determination and belief, self-sacrifice, and thought of everything he did to secure peace. More than anyone. Self-destruction. Willingly allowing relatives of the men he killed a chance at killing him. Fighting ZERO system influenced Quatre. Destroying Libra. Then firing that buster rifle at the bunker as Wing ZERO fell to pieces around him. Maybe it was better that he only saw the start of the world going to shit. Maybe it was the only comfort he could take from Heero Yuy's death.

There was a moment of shock as he felt a hand on his face, a more intimate gesture than they'd ever done and Duo leaned up to brush his lips.

"Til next year Tro'."

And he was gone.

Trowa left the colony that night, taking the first shuttle fight back to Earth that he could. On his way, he saw the trucks of food aid alongside three Leos and the ESUT soldiers standing, guns raised as the people became a mob trying to get food for their starving families. It was a pitiful scene – people reduced to a mindless mass trying to vie for the small amount of food that was not on the Earth embargo.

And as he looked up the Leos, saw those soldiers – he agreed with Duo. The only good thing about Heero dying six years ago was that he never got to see the world as it was now.