All you Need is One More Minute
by Nix Winter
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing
If this were a story, he would be coming after me. Heero'd realize that he loves me, that he wants me around, that he's got so much courage he can face any shit for me. Those blue eyes would smile at me and I'd feel like what I had to give was worth something, maybe not a lot, but something. If it was a different kind of story, I'd realize that it wasn't me and it wasn't him, it was just some shit that happens sometimes and well, I'd just go on with my life. Find a nice new little apartment, set up a new video game console, bull shit my neighbors about how I was only in high school during the war, so like … be serious.
That's that whole other story I could play out in my life. I don't need that blue-eyed bastard.
It's snowing. I don't give a shit. The environmental controls are always broken on this planet.
I wish… no one would ever tell me to shut up again, ever, not real nice and polite, not rude. Well, that's maybe a bit much to ask, but I wish there was just someone, even just one person that cared enough about me to listen to all the crap that comes out of my life.
I wish I'd brought a coat when I let myself out of the house, but then, maybe I don't either. The cold is better to focus on than knowing I'm a worthless, annoying, pain in the ass.
Duo paused at the top of the overpass, watching the traffic below. Hands in his pockets, braid lifted and tossed by the wind, with small flurries of white snow dancing around the long chestnut treasure. He wore nighttime like a familiar friend, confident on the edge of the overpass, afraid of nothing outside of himself.
Love is bright and shiny when you give it away, but thick and black, rotten and heavy when it gets given back. There wasn't much to be done for anything. Duo caught his braid, pulled it close. No feeling of pride or warmth came to him from it. In poverty and war he'd kept it close, protected the damn length of hair with more will than he'd shown to protecting his own life sometimes. If it could buy him Heero's love, it would count as a small price, but as it couldn't, it felt like gummed up grease, worse than worthless. He let it go, let the wind whip it back out to the side.
Pain can feel so deep that the heart knows it'll never do it again, never. Duo swore that he'd never share his, obviously crazy and difficult thoughts and feelings with anyone ever again. It was too complicated, too not like anyone else. He had every right not to want to be responsible for him. It was too scary to love some crazy boy.
"You'll just slow me down," He had said once.
It was true. That moment, by that window, he'd been fucked up beyond functioning. It came back sometimes, that moment, the moments before it, the taste of blood, the taste of blood that wasn't even his, explosions, burning, broken bones, screams, and standing there on the overpass, he held to the railing, waiting for the past to be the past, the present to be the present.
"I am not crazy," he screamed at the night sky, the distant stars and colonies not at all moved. "Well, I'm not!"
"Hey!"
The voice was friendly, but unexpected and Duo spun, hand reaching for the blade he used to keep at his wrist.
"Duo!" The voice yelled again, more urgent. "You okay?"
He blinked, seeing a van come into focus. The guy in the van, the side door opened, smiled, a crooked, familiar smile. "Dude, what are you doing?"
"Uh," Duo said, brilliantly, scratching his head, "Thinking. What are you doing, Alyce?"
"Me, M-J, Jaime, and Lex, we're going to a writer's group, gonna hang out and talk about stuff, drink some coffee, stay up late. Wanna come?"
Duo rubbed his arms, now feeling the cold. Licking chapped lips, he wondered, forward, on this new path that he hadn't calculated or ….. "Yeah, I'm coming. Shit. You so late picking me up!"
A hand clasped his and pulled him into the warmth. Blue eyes went with him, but not so painful, not so empty.
The van door closed and off they went, filled with laughter and chatter, warmth and futures not yet known.