Liquid Onyx

He never liked crying. Sure, he had some moments when he'd lock himself in his room and figure, hey, it was all right to let it out once or twice, and show that kind of weakness to no one but himself and the silent world of his squared-up bedroom with model sets of planes and robots lying around, half-finished. He hated it when people called him immature and a weakling and it was because of those thoughtless comments that made Duo lock himself away when he had to. He cared what people thought about him, deep down, and he didn't like appearing the wrong thing. That said, though, he also wanted to be himself and sometimes that was hard here in college. It wasn't like high school, thank the Lord, but sometimes it felt just as bad.

For Duo, having grown up mostly in orphanages and in-and-out of foster homes, it was sometimes no wonder that he wanted to lock himself up sometimes and have a good cry.

He would come up with some bullshit story to tell his friends or the other people on his apartment building floor why he had to go: he had homework, or he was working on a new model, or he just felt like blasting his music and reading a comic book.

It wasn't entirely untrue, but he could hardly use the model-building story because he hadn't progressed on any of his six or seven projects lying around. And he wasn't one to do homework too often, so it was slightly suspicious if he mentioned that. And the music thing... well, Duo had a thing for rock music, but also some minor classical. But mostly rock music. Yeah, definitely rock. But if he blasted it, he wasn't reading a comic or working on a model, or anything normal for him.

He would be crying.

He was glad that his small single-room apartment on campus wasn't shared with anyone. It made it much easier to allow hysterical breakdowns when he needed it, or a few tears to slip past when he couldn't hold back. Or just relax and let the rivers run while he stood and watched bacon cook on the small stove.

A few of his friends had their worries, especially Q-bean. The half-Arab boy suspected something was up, and would question Duo about it in private, but the braided teen just brushed it off, gave the blonde a noogie and told him he was being silly. That smile would be so stretched. Painful, even. Quatre's boyfriend, Trowa, would level him with a look, a look that told Duo that the ex-circus performer could see right through him. In fact, Heero gave him that look, too.

Duo just ignored it. He wouldn't drag them into his life drama. He wouldn't drag anyone into that. Especially not—

There was one person who Duo felt a surge of joy when he was around, even if said person would smack him for interrupting his work, or kick him under the table during classes for distracting him. That person?

Wufei Chang.

Duo couldn't remember a time without the Chinese boy in his life, even though they'd met in freshman year of college, in a business class that Duo needed for his undergraduate degree. Duo was majoring in Science and Engineering, and his minor was classified as Accounting (Non-Business). Of course, the braided boy couldn't keep his logs straight, and accounting sort of annoyed the hell out of him. He was good at math, but accounting? A whole other story. He didn't see why it would help, and he had been ready to give up by his third class and just switch his minor to something hella easy, like theatre, when the Chinese boy walked into the class. He'd transferred from a college out of state, and had gotten lost in finding which building was the correct one. Of course, two buildings with a similar name being on opposite ends of the campus was very confusing. He was excused and the teacher sat him next to Duo.

And it'd hit off from there. It took seven study groups, eleven lunch breaks, and fifteen random conversations after class, all over the span of first semester, for the American to get close to the Chinese student and become a true friend.

Wufei proved to be very smart and intuitive, and not to mention he was drop-dead handsome. He had fair, but tanned skin, and was built well for his age, especially around the abdominal area. He didn't have bulging muscles or a pack, so to speak, but he definitely was fit and very, very fine. His face was molded well, as if a craftsman of God had taken the clay and worked his entire life to make the structure as perfect as Duo saw it. Wufei's features were sharp. He might have a stern look more often than not, but he turned to be quite kind and open to ideas. And his eyes were—

'Liquid onyx,' Duo remembered commenting to Quatre one time. 'And it's sorta like ya drown in it. But ya dun care, cause it's so God damn gorgeous.'

And Duo didn't deny that he had an indefinite crush on the Chinese male. Sure, they occasionally fought and had playful banters, but in the end, it all bottled down to them being close and understanding that. There was a lot in Duo's life that was fucked up, and a lot in Wufei's life that was fucked up, and everything around them was sometimes fucked up.

But Duo loved it regardless.

Which is why, as the young adult stumbled into his apartment and dropped his twenty-pound book bag by the couch, he reasoned that he'd never show Wufei tears. Wufei was strong, capable, and looked down on weaknesses of people. And Duo considered crying a weakness, even if he was the most emotional person out of their ring of weirdo friends, and seemed to get carried away.

So Duo went into his room and slipped his fourth generation iPod into his music deck and switched the settings to 'shuffle'. He skimmed over some music Wufei had given him—some of it included Yanni, Yuki Kaida, Michael Wong, and, shockingly enough, some songs by Noah and the Whale. That was another thing. Wufei had a damn good taste in music, like Duo, and both had a variety that stretched across the board. Both had agreed that most country was overrated and some rap was underrated, but that was okay, because neither of them listened to those two genres often. Wufei was more of a passive musical person while Duo's music could be described as more aggressive. So it clicked well, he supposed, since a good portion of their music mingled together.

Duo switched to a song by Rise Against and leaned back to sit on his bed. He stared at the ground for a long moment, then exhaled. It came out as a broken sigh, and then when he tried to breathe back in, it was tight and his throat constricted. Sometimes he didn't know why he cried like he did, all alone in his apartment. Sometimes stress, sometimes people, sometimes just—life. Not everything was flowers, or puppies, or rainbows. It wasn't possible.

And Duo wasn't crying over that, oh no. He'd known from a very young age that the world wasn't an always happy place, but he'd never let it get to him now. He was a college student, trying to study and get his degree. There wasn't a lot he could do besides keep himself safe and working and stick close to those who cared about him and those he cared about.

A hiccup escaped. He squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth. Even when he knew he was going to cry, he tried to see if he could stop it first. It was an instinct to do so, even when alone. But the emotions always beat him in the end; the tears always fell, the sobs always bubbled up in his throat, and the hiccups always poked out in-between it all.

It was soon that his sobs were loud in his own ears, much louder than his music, which was echoing in his small apartment and probably disrupting his neighboring students.

It was also louder than the key turning the lock to his door. Louder than the creaking of said door being opened, then gently shut behind the intruder.

Duo covered his eyes, furiously rubbing at the tears, wanting them gone, because then he could probably focus on that math test tomorrow, which he hadn't studied for.

His shaky breaths and sniffs were all he heard, his music drowned out in the background. It was just noise, and if he was paying attention, he would've thought that it was a calming sort of noise. But it was just that now: noise. Just noise to block out the world, but it wasn't enough to block out the sounds of Duo's crying.

He hated that. He hated it when he was louder than all the things he hoped were louder than him. He thought he could even hear some knocking, but it was probably just part of the melodic noise in the background he was desperately trying to concentrate on so he wouldn't hear his choked sobs as much.

…

A hand touched his.

He jerked, quickly looked up, and he drowned himself in—

'Liquid onyx.'

His own voice was ringing in his head.

'And it's sorta like ya drown in it.'

He didn't dare breathe.

'But ya dun care, cause it's so God damn gorgeous.'

As much as Duo willed himself to speak, to move, to do something, he found himself frozen. Uncertainly covered his face, his flushed, red face, that was filthily streaked with tears. His eyes, shaking sets of amethyst, were wide and brimmed red. His bangs were almost sticking to parts of his face, and some of his braid had messily come undone.

And he was just sitting there, his fisted hands held still in two caramel-coloured ones that didn't feel as if they going to let go. Then one did, but it reached up to touch the braided boy's bangs, carding them back so Wufei could get a better look at Duo's face.

"How long have you been crying?" Wufei asked quietly.

See, the thing about Wufei is that while he had a stern demeanor, he was a kind and caring individual underneath, and he did have a softer side. While not always shown, it was definitely there. Wufei wasn't a pushover like Duo, after all. But the way Wufei went about things, too, was a little different. Instead of the 'who's ass am I going to kick' and 'oh my God, what happened' and sometimes the occasional 'are you okay', Wufei asked entirely different things that, while others would find them to be inconsiderate or harmful without reason, Duo found comfort in somehow. Somehow.

Because Wufei made some logical sense.

In this case, Wufei knew Duo was not all right, he knew that pushing the topic might cause Duo to clamp up, and he knew that he would let Duo decide what to do about the problem and if it did involve kicking someone's ass, well... Wufei wouldn't mind practicing his new kata on a person who deserved it.

There was more to that question than Wufei let on, too. He wasn't just asking about today. He was asking about the breakdowns since they started. It could've very well started today for all anyone knew, but Duo couldn't fool Wufei. The young Chinese adult could tell it hadn't just been recent. That was why the hidden question was there.

Wufei was good at that.

"A-A while," Duo admitted after he'd recovered his voice. He'd had to swallow three or four times before he could find the words to respond.

Wufei was surprisingly patient, and his face didn't betray any annoyance or pressure. For which Duo was grateful. He didn't necessarily want to hide from his friend, but he didn't want to put his problems on Wufei's head and say 'now what' or something stupid like that.

But he just...

"I-I'm okay," he said then, pulling his hands out of Wufei's grip. Wiping at his face, messing up his bangs. "I'm okay, i-it's just stress, it got to me, I—"

The hand that had stopped his hands earlier now pressed fingertips to Duo's mouth, hushing him. A few more tears slipped down, untouched, and fell off the cliffs of Maxwell's cheeks. He looked up with those watery violet eyes, then looked down. The hand over his mouth went to the side of his head instead. The next thought in the braided male's mind was that Wufei smelled of burnt wood, and his chest was firm against Duo's cheek, and there was a steady heartbeat underneath the braided male's ear that drowned out everything.

His mouth opened to say something, anything, but his voice didn't work. His eyes, now relaxingly narrowed with relief, were shedding rivers again, and he knew he was staining Wufei's blue shirt with them. His hands refused to move back up to catch the offending sadness on his face, and his lips, drawn into a thin line before, were now parted.

The hand moved from the side of his head and into his hair.

He hiccuped, feeling another sob rising in his throat, and as much as he felt he should control it so Wufei didn't have to fucking deal with it, he just—let it go anyway.

Before he knew it, he was sobbing into Wufei's chest, with the Chinese boy's hand running across the top of his head, loosening up the tight braid by accident. Wufei wasn't good with words sometimes, he was more of an action person. He wasn't as physical as Duo, but there was some similarity between them in that respect regardless, and he conveyed a certain care with how he was rubbing the top of Duo's head, and actually holding him against his chest so he could cry.

And whatever words Duo thought Wufei might tell him... weren't spoken.

So he just crumpled in his best friend's arms and sobbed his heart out. Duo was one for wearing his heart on his sleeve, but that didn't mean everyone had a right to see or touch it.

Only—only—

Sometime during his crying, he was moved and Wufei's hands were on his cheeks, thumbs brushing at the tears. The dark eyes watched the braided boy carefully as he kept sobbing his heart out. Their foreheads almost knocked together. The thumbs still stroked his cheeks. Words failed both of them.

It was a long time before Duo finally calmed down. Once he was able to stop the sobs from clogging his throat, Wufei reached over and pressed the power button on his friend's iPod deck to shut it off. He couldn't think with 1AMX blasting in his ear. He turned back to his friend and thumbed away a stray tear.

"Want to tell me what's going on?" the Asian asked quietly, moving to get Duo's hair out of his eyes so it would quit sticking to his face. Duo nodded at the question, but he didn't feel his vocal chords working up a response to the inquiry.

Wufei sighed after a long minute. "Stay here, I'll be right back." He got up and headed out of the small bedroom, only to return a minute or two later with a glass of water. He put it in Maxwell's hands, wrapping the fingers around it. "Drink," he told his friend, who complied after a moment of stretched silence.

The Chinese boy then set aside the glass to the nightstand and returned his attention to Duo. "Do you feel you shouldn't tell me?" he asked, leveling the other student with an even look. Not angry or annoyed. Neutral, actually.

Duo nodded.

Maybe Wufei could try prodding in his own way. "I know something is wrong, Maxwell, I'm not blind. You've been locking yourself up many a time, without good reason. You didn't even remind me that you were going to teach me more English today."

When Wufei Chang had first attended the college, his English had been broken and non-existent. Duo teaching him better English and proper grammar had proven to be a clincher in their friendship, and one of the many reasons they were as close as they were. Duo's methods somehow stuck to Wufei, since the former tended to link certain ideas or phrases in English with something ridiculous that Wufei would either find amusing or weird. Which was how they stuck. How Wufei was able to improve drastically within a year. And why, though their lessons were sparse now, Wufei still went and saw Duo. Sometimes not even for lessons. Sometimes if only to get a good laugh every now and then.

Because it was only times like those that Wufei found himself cracking a smile.

Duo was good at making others laugh. It was his best trait and quality. Probably so much so that he didn't have laughs for himself.

"So you can tell me," Wufei went on, watching Duo's face. That conflicted, tear-stricken face.

Duo's hands went back to his eyes, wiping at them harshly, before he sniffed. "You're going to think I'm an idiot—"

"Don't insult me, Maxwell," Wufei cut him off, now giving him a weird look. Which was his way of saying 'don't think you know what I'll say, so go ahead and talk to me'.

It was weird how Wufei's logic translated so easily in Duo's head and no one else's.

So Duo confessed. It wasn't any specific problem or issue that stuck out the most, just a good lump of things affecting the boy's life that ended up stressing him out and jumbling up his emotions. People, people's actions, school (he was failing his higher level business class), and general life.

And in the midst of it all, Duo let it slip about his major crush on the Chinese lad. Which proceeded to him turning into a semi-hysterical mess, begging Wufei not to hate him for the crush and he could never mention it again and Wufei wouldn't have to force himself to reciprocate and Duo could totally find interest in someone else if that was the case and Wufei could stay away if needed and—

And...

...Wufei's lips were really soft...

Duo's voice took a vacation and his facial features softened. The lips on his forehead were more comforting than they probably should be. But they were soft, smooth, and seemed to want to be there to relax him more than anything.

"Wu..."

"Don't try to fire the gun while you're jumping it."

Duo found himself relaxing further and then smiling bitterly. "You mean jumping the gun before it's fired."

Wufei gave him a look. "You know what I mean."

Duo laughed nervously, wiping the few remaining tears in his eyes. "Yeah, I getcha!" His voice was noticeably lighter.

"Good."

They ended up talking more.

Wufei got a chance to give Duo the input and feedback he needed to hear (and some he didn't want to hear, but hey, that's how people learned nowadays). He also got more than the few desired minutes to explain how he felt about the braided boy's feelings, and did so in a calm, collected manner.

There was reciprocation.

The afternoon stretched into early evening, and early evening shifted to night before they finally found a stopping point in their conversations. Wufei needed to get back home to take care of his little sister Meiran, who was still in high school.

Before Wufei left, he put a hand on top of Duo's head, ruffling the already-messy bangs and loosening parts of the braid. "Same time tomorrow for lessons?" he asked, not really interested in the lessons so much as—

Duo ended up grinning. "Yeah, of course!"

He didn't regret showing his weak side to the onyx eyes.