Title: Green With It

Pairings: 1x2, mentioned 3x4

Warnings: a bit dark, language, possibly OOC Heero towards the end

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Could have, should have, would have, if only I hadn't been born me.

Note: This was my entry to the Moments of Rapture 07 contest, but I did it in a bit of a hurry and there were a million typos and some of the grammar was appalling, so I cleaned it up a bit and chopped it into three bits. The main point of this is some feedback, because it was my first ever attempt at a GW fic and I want to know if I did anything right.


Heero reappears into my life later in the week. He arrives early in the morning as I make my morning coffee, looking terrible. I decide that he should know this.

"You look like shit," I remark casually. "Bad day at the office, dear?"

I receive a withering glare in return that glances off me in the face of my newly caffeinated visage. I bounce after him into the bedroom where he is unpacking a duffle bag. Funny, I didn't notice some of his clothes were gone...

"So, what'cha been up to? You manage to convince Wufei to ask out that babe from accounting? That man seriously needs to get some."

Another stony silence. He is pointedly ignoring me, something I do not take kindly to.

"Come on, Heero," I say, giving him a hug. "What's the matter? Aren't you happy to see me?"

He doesn't shrug me off, but he doesn't lean into me either, making the experience something like hugging a tree. When he speaks, his voice is hardened with anger.

"I came by your office when I got in this morning, but there was some girl at your desk."

Oh.

"She said you'd been transferred."

"Yeah!" I attempt to be cheerful, to put a good spin on things. "I'm teaching the trainees how to save their skins. It's great fun, seriously."

"Teaching?"

"Uh huh." I decide that the tightening of muscles I can feel is not a good thing and disengage the hug, wandering back into the kitchen. "My punishment for making Travers lose his rag."

"You mean...?" He snorts and waves his hand, shaking his head.

"What?" I ask, fighting the temptation to flare my nostrils. "What do I mean? Come on, Heero, if you've got something to say, then say it. I thought we didn't keep things locked up any more. Did bad stuff to our insides, right?"

It's not working. I can't play this off as happy any more. The look on Heero's face says it's not.

"You mean to say," he growls through gritted teeth, "that you have been in and out of easy jobs, lazing at home and now you're transferred to teach at the Academy, for God's sakes, and you don't even tell me?"

"You weren't around!" I retort, peeling an orange like it's done me a great personal wrong. "You were off having a whale of a time with Wufei, I wasn't gonna spoil your fun!"

"Fun?" He barks out this horrible laugh. "Fun? You think that's what I've been having? What do you think I do all day, Duo? Why do you think I haven't been home all week? Surely it can't be that I've been tracking an assassin who's trying to kill the Minister for Healthcare?"

"Well, it's not like I noticed you were gone." That throws him, and I take the opportunity to grab my bag and move for the door. "I have to go to work. I'm sick of hearing you bitch, Heero, so you'd better have stopped by the time I get home."

I slam the door as I leave and immediately feel childish for it. I realise I have left my Metro card at home, but my pride won't allow me to go back in there. It's a long walk to work and I am very nearly late, but I make it just in time for my first class. The kids seem a bit glum and I wonder if I'm rubbing off on them, or if my lecture on arrest procedure is suicide-inducing. I think it's a combination of both.

When I get home Heero is asleep, recharging from his mission. I don't bother making dinner (again) and think dimly that I must take a trip to the supermarket soon. I watch old films late into the night and fall asleep in front of the TV. Heero is gone when I wake up.


Weeks later, when my superiors have decided that I am not an immediate threat and can be trusted not to curse anyone I touch, I am allowed to teach Advanced classes. This means that the things we do are slightly more fun and I might get a whiff of a practical exercise, if I'm very lucky.

The first of my Advanced lessons takes place on a Mufti day. Everyone comes in their own clothes in aid of some obscure charity. I don't bother to find out which, I just throw my donation into the bucket held by a smiling girl at the door and make my way to classroom seven.

As I close the door behind me, I hear a couple of people say something about a new kid, but I pay no attention. It doesn't matter if there's someone new in this group – they're all new to me.

I dump my bag on the front desk and rifle through it. I hear someone say, "Hey, newbie! What are you doing?" but I ignore it. Today I'm doing the Get In part of Get In, Blow Stuff Up, Get Out, and I need to find my memory stick with the floor plans on it.

"I said, what're you doing, newbie?"

A hand slams on the desk next to my bag and a body follows, standing offensively close. I look up slowly into a smirking face and curse my height. He's at least a head taller than me and it's hard to look intimidating when you're 5ft 7in and have long hair.

"I beg your pardon?" I say, feeling that an instructor of Advanced classes shouldn't say, 'You got a problem, asshole?'

"Ho, ho!" he grins, glancing back at his sniggering friends. "We got a joker, then? What are you gonna do, with that desk?"

"It's my desk," I state, knowing that if you have no idea what's going on, you should stick with what you know.

"It's your desk?" he asks incredulously. "You've got some nerve saying that. What's your name, kid?"

Always quick on the uptake, I finally cotton on. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, they have mistaken me for another recruit. I sigh and root around in my bag for my badge, feeling that this is not a good start to our working relationship.

"I'm Captain Duo Maxwell," I reply, holding up the badge. "I'm your new instructor. Sit down, please."

The rest of the lesson is conducted in awed silence; something I'm not sure is a good thing. Either they're all embarrassed because they mistook their teacher for a new student, or they all know who I am and are supremely intimidated. The latter option would be quite a change, as my previous classes had no idea or gave no indication of knowing.

After my last class, I am picked up in a Preventer car that ferries me to headquarters for a meeting with Une. She wants to discuss my progress and we do, with much approval and nodding. The meeting goes well and I think I may be in the running for practical missions again, when Une decides to bring up before.

"So, if things are going so well, what went wrong before?"

My first reaction would be to say, 'Shit, Une, don't bring that up again', but I was brought up not to curse in front of ladies. Instead, I fumble for more polite words and she jumps the gun again.

"It's clear that it's not work that's causing this deterioration, so what is it?" She looks at me with a concern that I am not used to seeing on her face, but I seem to be seeing quite a bit lately. "Is something going on at home?"

Who's she been talking to? No one else knows about home. I can't tell anyone – I can't tell Wufei because he works with Heero, I can't tell Quatre because he'll go all sanctimonious on me and I can't tell Trowa because Quatre'll worm it out of him. Maybe she has mind-reading skills as well as x-ray eyes.

"What makes you say that?" I hedge, thinking of the night before last, when an argument Heero and I had escalated to throwing things. I've been sleeping on the sofa for the past week and there is now officially nothing in the cupboards, no shopping trip having been made.

"Duo," she says in this weird, consoling tone. "You've never let your personal life interfere with work before, so why now?"

"Because my personal life never got in the way before!"

There. It's out. I have come to realise, during extended talks to Winston, that I know why Heero and I couldn't work as well together. We don't communicate any more, we can't agree or even agree to disagree, and we can't even function in proper society any more. I haven't been to the supermarket for months and I stopped washing Heero's clothes long ago. In a horrible downward spiral, our bad relationship caused bad job performance that caused our relationship to get worse and the people we worked with started dying.

I don't think he loves me anymore and I'm pretty sure I don't love him.


I regret letting it out to Une, not two weeks later. She has Quatre on my case now, and he's very serious to have cancelled an entire day of meetings to come and see me. Heero isn't home and I am grateful for it, as I can't face having a 'serious' talk with Quatre when there's the possibility of him being there too. That would just make things too hard.

"Duo, I can't help if you won't tell me what's wrong."

I bite back the retort burning on my tongue, that I don't want or need his help. Instead, I wave my hand in resignation.

"Duo!" He's got that hurt look on, the one that reminds me uncannily of a kicked puppy. "You can't pretend nothing's wrong! Une told me everything she could, but I want to hear it from you."

I sit resolutely silent, sipping my too-hot coffee.

"I could always just ask Heero."

"He won't tell you anything."

"Why not? Just because you're not talking to him doesn't mean he won't talk to me."

I look away and bite my lip. I notice that the room looks gloomy and realise it's because it's only lit by one lamp; Heero threw the other across the room in a fit of rage last week. I wonder if Quatre has seen it and feel quietly ashamed.

"I think you're jealous," says Quatre and I see his eyes flick to the empty end table and I know he's noticed.

"Jealous?" I snarl, dangerously close to spilling coffee on a sofa that's already stained with wine from the glass I smashed yesterday.

"Yes," he says smugly. "Jealous. You're all prickly because you got the rough end of the deal and Heero's working really well with Wufei. I'm not sure which one you're jealous of, though. Wufei for working with Heero or Heero for working with Wufei."

"It's not that!" I jump up in righteous anger. "He just thinks he's having a hard time, working so hard. He thinks I'm lazing around doing nothing, he can't spare a thought for how I must feel, cooped up inside lecturing a bunch of kids who, quite frankly, are better off working in a fast-food joint and not getting even a hint of some actual work!"

"I'm sure he-"

"He thinks he's so great, so good and so right. He thinks he's so big, putting up with so much work. Fucking King of the Impossible, that's what he thinks he is, looking down on me when it's not my fault I can't go out and work because Une thinks I'm too dangerous!"

"Duo, I think he-"

"He doesn't even know how awful it is, that I'm the one that shoulders all the blame, that they think I'm the one responsible for all those deaths! He can't even begin to understand how shameful it is to not be able to work properly because my superiors have decided that I'm the reason everything went wrong whilst he was completely innocent! Don't they understand that it's just as much his fault as mine?"

"But maybe they-"

"I mean, why should he be given a partner he can work with and I can't? If I had been paired with Wufei instead of him, things wouldn't have turned out this way."

"There," interrupts Quatre, pointing at me. "Jealousy. You're green with it."

I sit down abruptly. "Shit, Quat, I don't know what to do. I don't even know what started this in the first place. It can't have been something trivial, I should have seen it coming..."

"People change," he murmurs, coming to sit next to me. "They grow to like and do different things, become different people entirely. You and Heero connected in the wars and you did it really strongly, but now you're both grown up and you've both changed. Maybe that's why things are different."

"But why hasn't it happened to you and Trowa?" I reply, feeling the green rising up again. "You hit it off during the wars, just like us."

"I don't know," he sighs, putting an arm around me that is distinctly uncomforting. "I hope it doesn't happen and our love is strong enough to overcome it."

"You mean Heero and I didn't love each other enough?" I am close to tears now, something I don't want to do. I have only cried in front of the guys once before and that was with Trowa, who has the decency to keep quiet about that sort of thing.

"I don't know, Duo. Only you know that." He looks at his watch and moves for the door. "I have to go, I've got an urgent meeting. Don't do anything stupid whilst I'm gone, okay?"

I nod dumbly, though I have no idea what his definition of 'stupid' is, and he leaves. Not five minutes after he's gone, Heero storms into the room like a vengeful hurricane.

"What was Quatre doing here?"

"I don't know," I reply, tiredly. I can't be bothered with this.

"You don't know?" Heero always repeats what I say when he's angry. "You must know: he was here talking to you!"

"Well, you obviously know why he was here, then. Why did you bother asking me?" Contrary to my weariness, I rise to his challenge and to his volume.

"To see whether you'd tell the truth or lie to me!"

"I don't lie," I grind out, my hands balling into fists and his follow soon after. "Have you never learned that?"

"How do I know you weren't lying about that, too? Going behind my back with Quatre, of all people! Don't you know what that'll do to Trowa?"

"Quatre!" I snort, disbelieving. "Quatre? You think I'd- With Quatre? You've got to be more desperate than I thought to think I'd have an affair with Quatre!"

"Well, it's not so unbelievable, is it? You've been searching for a way to get back at me for ages, ever since you got made an instructor. It's just the kind of thing you'd do!"

"So this is what it's about!" I laugh derisively. "You're jealous! Are you jealous of Quatre or of me, sitting at home, safe and sound?"

Winston flies across the room and smashes on the wall. I'm not sure whose hand it comes from.


For some people, life is simple. I am one of those people. During the wars, life was about simple things – saving the world, saving your own skin, feeling an aircraft soar like a homesick angel. Simplicity requires that you focus on the good things in life, and the best thing back then was the phenomenon of being alive. Now, life's still simple. I go to work, I come home and I fight with Heero. Things get broken. Food is mysteriously absent from the daily routine. Life is still simple.

Heero stormed out soon after things started getting thrown. I still don't know who threw Winston and I am strangely uncaring. I don't have to go into work today, but I wish I did. I find it ironic that my work has gotten marginally better whilst my personal life has dive-bombed.

I wonder if Une knows, whether Quatre told her. I bet he did. Quatre will tell Trowa, who will tell Wufei, who will tell Heero and then there'll be another argument, one about everybody knowing. More things will get broken. I have a vague memory of someone warning me not to start an argument in a kitchen and I worry about the knives in there.

Life is still simple. It's still clear what I have to do. I just can't believe it's come to this.

I fetch a shoebox and pick up the pieces of Winston, then I return to the bedroom and pack.

Heero comes back hours later and I am waiting for him. He smells faintly of cigarette smoke and I guess he's been in a bar. I push down the feelings of shame.

"Heero?" He looks at me, sitting quietly on the sofa, and for once he does not glare. I think he knows too.

"I'm sorry, but this isn't working out. I can't stay here anymore, Heero."

And I pick up my box and my packed bag, leave my keys on the coffee table and let myself out. Heero says nothing as I close the door behind me.


THE END

Is the end too quick and a bit of an anticlimax? And there will probably be no more story, but if I ever get bored in the future...

Answers to questions:

Duo taped over the mirror because he's sick of seeing his world-weary face in it every morning. But, it was a cool idea that Heero broke it. I may use that in the future, thank you.

Why is Duo a screw up and why is Heero unsupportive? The point I'm trying to make it that, realistically, both Heero and Duo are not equipped socially to cope with a deep and meaningful relationship. Duo clearly has attachment issues and Heero doesn't have attachment at all. Sure, it's a bit of a broad view of the subject, but think of the story as a kind of worst-case scenario.

Though this fic will not be changed, if you had any ideas about how you wished it went, please email me. It would greatly help me in the future with any other projects I may embark upon.