Sometimes
Words Get In the Way
Chapter
4
by: Obsolete Love
The whole night was a complete disaster…
"Damn that Duo Maxwell!!! Where'd he get off thinking he could punch anyone he felt like punching?!" Hilde asked herself as she gripped the hairbrush with her hands, pushed it down against her scalp and then threw it away into the sink.
"The idiot was drunk! Embarrassingly drunk!" Hilde cried out to her image on the mirror, reliving the scenes from last night.
God! She wanted to be swallowed into the earth at what Duo did to Jean! Thank Almighty that Jean just shook his head and said everything was fine…
'Just warn me when he's around again…'
No embarrassing questions asked… no expletives said… Just gracefully and humorously took the whole situation like the perfect gentleman that he was.
"Why can't you be like him, Duo?" Hilde asked for the hundredth time as she walked to her closet and took out the sundress she was going to wear for her outing with Jean… "Maxwell, just be happy he didn't sue you for breaking his nose." Hilde pulled the zipper behind her…
She checked her appearance once again, brushed on some blush on her cheeks when she heard a knock on her door…
"Who is it?"
"Jean." His nasal twang was more pronounced and Hilde felt guilt course through her once again, knowing that it was Duo's fault for making Jean's voice so…
"I'm coming!" Hilde cried out as she walked to the door, opened it then gasped at the sight of overflowing red roses that hid Jean's face.
"Oh Jean… You shouldn't have…" Hilde whispered as she took the roses from his hands, and finally saw the bandage over his nose… "I'm the one who's supposed to be apologizing for what that jerk did to you last night!"
Jean shook his head. "It is alright, mon cheri… All's fair in love and war, is it not?"
Hilde grimaced the moment she turned from him to put the flowers on the table. 'War maybe… but not love…'
"Ready?"
Hilde nodded as she walked back to Jean and placed her hand in the crook of his arm. 'Duo… why can't you be more like Jean…'
Hilde closed her door…
~*~
Duo slowly placed shaking fingers on his temple as the throbbing increased- almost as if his head was inside a drum being beaten to a pulp.
'God! Where's that drum and I'm going to put a hole through it with Wing's blaster cannon…'
Duo sluggishly opened one eye and grimaced at the brightness around him, closing it once again…
'Feels as if the whole damn sun is in front of me…'
Knowing what could happen if he stands up too quickly, Duo carefully forced his limbs to work to get his butt off the bed so he could shut his shutters and get forty more winks…
"Heh… If I'm lucky, I'd just die in my sleep…"
His whole mouth felt like a handful of cotton had been pushed inside… the way his voice sounded so unfamiliar wasn't a big help either…
'Oh thank God!' Duo thought as he finally righted himself. Suddenly, his eyes popped open and both his hands went over his numb, dry lips as he felt his stomach suddenly churn.
He didn't care that his whole world blacked for a few seconds or that his feet nearly stumbled… His eyes were only focused on one thing… Just one thing…
The sickening sound of someone gagging and vomiting was suddenly heard through out the room… disgusting… vile… corrupted system by alcohol…
But what he could feel physically could not be compared to what he's feeling about himself…
Lower… much lower…
~*~
Iris walked to Duo's door and was about to knock when she stopped herself and shook her head…
She's already in this too deep… She had already meddled too much between her two good friends…
All she could hope right now was for the best… unless…
Hope glistened in Iris' eyes as… It's a risk she needs to take… but if it could open Hilde's eyes to what Duo couldn't seem to say… then she would do it…
~*~
Hilde sighed as she went inside her room… She almost stopped to knock on Duo's door, but she remembered the situation and was able to stop herself from doing so…
Tonight, though, that feeling of something amiss seemed more pronounced in their outing and dinner… Hilde opened her doors to the balcony and stepped out, a sad smile on her face as the cold wind whipped against her…
She could remember… almost a night like this… cold and starless… just standing outside in her backyard and then… his hands went around her shoulders… embraced her… made her feel so warm…
'Oh God, Hilde! Just forget about him…' she reprimanded, though rather weakly…
"What game are you playing?"
The cutting monotonous tone made Hilde gasp and turn around. "Who are you?!"
Her eyes traveled along the expanse of her room, searched within the shadows until she saw his form…
Familiar…
Hilde's eyes squinted and her eyes darted for any possible weapon as the man started to move…
Heero walked forward to the moonlight to let his face show… to reveal to Hilde that he was not an enemy… But with what he's feeling at the moment… Right after he saw Duo's dejected sleeping form sprawled on top of the bed… Hilde could very well be an enemy to him…
"Heero!" Hilde gasped out in shock as her assailant reached the soft moonlight. "What are you-"
"I asked you once… what's your game, Hilde."
Reason entered Hilde's mind… Reason and slight shock… She knew Duo holds the highest respect for Heero… knew that in a way, Duo considered Heero as one of his best friends, though for the life of her she doesn't know why since Heero rarely passes by, or calls him up or anything! And it seemed… Heero considered Duo his friend too…
"Did Duo call you to ask me these questions?" Hilde asked, her voice just as cold as Heero's as she walked into the living room and sat in one of the couches.
Heero didn't wait for the invitation as he grabbed a seat for himself also. "No… he didn't call… I passed by when he learned that you left."
Hilde felt the same guilty feeling nag at her once again.
"The question, Hilde… Answer it."
"Or what? You're going to shoot me?" Hilde retorted, not knowing where she got her courage… This was Heero Yuy she's sitting in front of… Killing was instinctive.
"The offer, though tempting, will not happen. I don't want to cause Duo any more suffering than what he's feeling at the moment. Now what's your answer."
Hilde shook her head… How many times had she listened to Duo's worries about his other Gundam comrades? Too many times…
"Game, Heero? I could ask you the same question… What's the game you're playing with Relena?"
Hilde saw an almost indecipherable flinch in those eyes and knew that she'd hit a nerve.
"This isn't about me-"
"Oh yes it is!" Hilde cut in. She doesn't care if he has a semi-automatic rifle in his pocket… With what she had been feeling these couple of days, she might as well be dead! "Do you know how it feels like to long for someone, to love someone for so long… so long… trusting only what one feels-" Hilde pounded her chest, where her heart is, while her eyes clouded. "-not knowing how the other feels…" Hilde turned around. She does not want Heero to see her tears.
Heero felt as if someone had just pricked a hundred needles into his chest…
"It gets old… you start to feel depressed… deprived…" Hilde continued in a soft whisper. 'Love… was it supposed to be patient…? Does it not have its limits also?'
For the life of him… Heero didn't know why he asked the next question… "What does that have to do with me?"
Heero's question washed over Hilde and made her mood darker… 'Men… so dense…' She shook her head. "Don't you think that Relena's feeling the same way?"
Heero's eyes widened, hidden against shadows… He could remember… Has it been so long…
"She loves you, you know…" Hilde whispered against the night sky and told Heero what Duo had told her… What Duo had heard…
Heero closed his eyes as his heart started beating erratically against his chest… as his breathing became haggard… He needs to remain calm… to concentrate. How was she able to dodge his questions and force it back to him? Ah God… Relena… No! Duo needs his help right now… "I can tell you the same thing about Duo."
Hilde's sarcastic laughter filled the air around them. She turned to face Heero once again while she shook her head from side to side. "Good one, Heero… Tell me… when did you hear him say that?"
"Sometimes… actions speaks louder than words…" Heero countered, trying not to feel daunted by Hilde's laughter… and that sarcastic grin.
"Not a good enough argument, Heero… Words still mean something… even if the person had said 'I love you' just once… it will stay as a memory, just as strong…"
"There are people who cannot say those words-"
"Then they have to learn!" Hilde cried out. Her eyes blazed with passion on the subject. "It is not fair to expect just one person saying it continuously!"
'Why is it that it feels as if she's trying to tell me something…?' Heero asked, starting to feel confused.
"Heero, just leave… There's nothing you can do right now… You can't even help yourself."
'A knife stabbed to my back… Gods that hurt…' Heero hid his grimace as well as he could. Maybe he couldn't help himself… right now… but he won't back down from trying to help a… friend.
"I won't until you hear me out, Hilde…" Heero started as he stared into Hilde's midnight blue eyes, and tried to make her see that he's not going to back down and that he's truthful…
"Duo loves you-" Heero put up a hand to stop Hilde as he saw her open her lips. She glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest instead. "How do I know? Because I heard him say it…" He saw the look of disbelief pass over her face…
"I didn't hear him say it recently… but I did hear him say it a long time ago… when we came in after we won the war and you were still lying in your bed, unconscious from the wounds you got from trying to get us that disk…"
Hilde remembered those long forgotten memories… She could have fought better… She could have-
"Duo went straight to your room after he helped Trowa with Quatre… I don't know why I did it… but I wanted to be sure that everyone was alright… I passed by your room and saw Duo kneeling by your side, your hand clasped near to his lips while he asked God why you hadn't woken up, yet… While he asked God why it was you in a coma when it should be him… While he asked God why everyone he loves… he takes away…"
Hilde could feel tears form in her eyes and tilted her head away from Heero's probing eyes… 'It didn't happen… It couldn't have happen… Heero why are you doing this to me?!' Hilde cried out as nameless emotions poured out of her soul once again… emotions she had tried to hide since she had left for Earth Sphere…
Heero sighed inwardly as Hilde looked away from him… He could not do anything more than this… 'Duo… my friend… If you didn't want her to know what had happened… I am sorry… I had to try…'
Hilde heard the faint whisper of the couch as Heero stood up… She shouldn't let him go thinking that he was able to break her…
"Yuy, I think that that was the longest speech I had ever heard you say."
Her voice sounded indifferent, but Heero could tell the slightly lowered tone that people use when they were trying to fight the urge to cry…
He reached the door and opened it. "You're wrong, Hilde… The longest one was about war." Then he closed it behind him… He only stood outside her door for a few seconds then his feet took him to the other side of the floor… He stopped just outside the door he came out of before he let himself inside Hilde's room…
Hilde's words rang in his mind again and again… It made him want to think…
'Good Luck… Duo…' it was the only thing he could think of to say at the moment… Duo doesn't know that he's here… doesn't know that he'd talked to Hilde…
'What the hell is happening to me?' Heero asked himself as he started walking to the elevators… Years ago, he wouldn't even want to meddle with these things… years ago, he wouldn't even care… Why now…?
'Why…?'