Getting Your Freedom's Easy …
a GundamWing fanfiction
by Zelda
Summary: "I don't know when a thing is dying. Only when it's already dead." A relationship is over and someone is leaving. 1+2, 3+4. 5 in a purely advisory capacity.
Warnings: yaoi, angst, crazy mood-swings. Possible use of the characters as puppets to explain my own life.
Feedback: Please note that a high-fibre diet, full of comments and criticism, has been recommended for the muse. (DUO: Flames will be used to roast marshmallows! Woo-hoo!! ZELDA: You see why sugar has *not* been allowed.) Email the author at achardeman@netscape.net
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. I do own the tapes on which I record the late-night showings on YTV. I do know that I haven't seen all the episodes, so my knowledge is limited (but enhanced by a great deal of fanfic reading.) This is my first yaoi and my first Gundam Wing fanfiction. Only the plot is original. (Hn. If you think I stole from your life, e-mail me. We may have some stories to trade.) The title is taken from "These Living Arms" by the Tea Party, on their TRIPtych album.
I can't start crying now.
I just can't. After all, even taking into account the size of this tiny piece-of-crap apartment, I've only got so much time to get my shit together before the taxi comes.
Stupid, tiny, piece-of-crap apartment.
But at least it had been mine. Had been ours.
It's just stress, I tell myself, as the tightness grows in my chest, as the panic settles into my digestive system for a good long stay. Sure, stress. Might as well call it that, anyhow. Though it doesn't fit with what Wufei said to me last week, when I told him that it was over.
"You look different," he'd said to me. I answered with my usual quick wit: "Huh?"
'Fei tilted his head to one side and considered me carefully.
"Freer. Like a weight has been lifted."
I was freer then; but that was last week, and this is now. Now, when I'm carefully dividing the towels and the sheets. Now, when I'm wrapping those towels around the one or two pictures I really can't leave behind. Now, when I'm extricating my discs from the entertainment unit that must have been built inside the apartment, cause it sure as hell didn't come in by the door.
Now, when I'm getting out. It was so easy, deciding to leave. Deciding that first time. What no one says is how many times you have to keep making that same decision. Over and over, I've gone through everything that happened, everything that was, everything that is, everything that should have been between us.
Anyone who knows me can tell you -- I'm not always much for logic, but hell, even I could finally see that this relationship was crushing me. Killing me. Heh.
I know I'm right to go.
But that doesn't stop the voices from whispering in my ear.
How could Heero have let this happen?
How could my best friend treat me this way?
That's the awful power of the God of Death.
I don't know when things are dying.
Only when they're already dead.
***
The buzzer goes and I grab my bag and head out the door, locking it behind me. For a moment I'm puzzled about what to do with the key. Heero has his own, and the extra locks I installed, just as security, in case he changed his mind about my space, wouldn't keep Relena busy for five minutes. They wouldn't have kept Heero busy for that long, either, but at least the noise would have given me time …
Oh, there's Mrs. Doughboy from next door. Her name's really Knechtel, but her husband is all round and puffy and jolly and I nearly died laughing myself the first time I heard him chortle. Heero didn't get it, as usual, but later that night I showed him the old commercial, somehow saved from before the time man hit space, and he said "Hn."
Well, he meant it in a funny way. At least, his eyes lit up slightly, and that was good enough for me.
I give Mrs. Doughboy the key. "Heero will be by later tonight, so if you could give it to him then?" My voice doesn't even break, though I can feel my cheeks flushing. Could be worse, I suppose. I could be Quatre, and blush hard enough to heat a room.
"Sure," she answers, then continues, in a concerned voice, "I haven't seen him around lately. Is everything ok with you two?"
The burn in my cheeks backwashes into my stomach, rolling around with the half-pound of chocolate I ate for lunch. I think it was lunch.
"Umm, no," I admit. Run and hide. "I'm moving out." Mild shock coasts across her face. "Oh dear," she says, stepping forward as though she might hug me.
I step back. Personal space. It's an issue, I know it.
Mrs. Doughboy now knows it too, so instead she says, "Well, then, keep in touch. You're a good boy, Duo."
I wave a goodbye and escape down the stairwell, into the waiting taxi, that takes me to the shuttleport, the requisite two hours before flight time. I've been such a good boy, since the war ended. Following all the rules: settle down, find a mate, find a home, support yourself, uphold the laws and obey them yourself. Follow all those steps and bingo! at the end you can claim your reward. Well, that's what most people think. I always hoped smart people thought like I did: the journey itself should be the reward.
Hn.
Some reward.
***
It takes me a long time to decide where to sit while I'm waiting for my flight. My natural instinct is to head for the shadows. Too many years a thief, a street rat, a wanted terrorist for the light to be comfortable. On the other hand, if Heero decides to make one last stand, then I don't want him to miss me.
Miss me? He's not coming, Duo. Duo no baka his voice whispers in my memory.
And in any case I don't want him to come; I sure as hell don't need him to come. Even if he were to sweep in, huge bouquet in his arms, and beg me to take him back, I still wouldn't do it.
Would I?
I wrestle with the question briefly, and come to the same decision I've made already. No. It's over, and I can't go back.
In the end, I sit in the light. Not because Heero is coming, and not because he isn't.
Just because I can.
Also, there's table service.
***
I look at my watch again in disbelief. That can't possibly be the time, can it? I'm tempted to say it's a cheap piece of shit, but I know exactly how much I paid for that watch, so it would be a lie. I bought it with one of my first paychecks at that job down on Third. Man, I hated that place. But the money was good, enough for a good watch. Which I needed.
It was sort of an apology.
I don't even remember, now, why it was I supposed to be home at five. Might have had something to do with fumigation. That first apartment Heero and I had together, back when we didn't have much, well, it wasn't exactly uninhabited when we moved in.
Of all the bugs that made it into space, somehow you've just gotta figure it'd be the cockroach that survives and thrives everywhere we go. Shit, I hate those things. Seen enough of them to last me the rest of my life, even should I turn out to be immortal. And since neither of us was about to let the other shoot the damn things ("accidental" gunfire had gotten Heero kicked out of his last place), we had no resort but the professionals.
The Shinigamis of insects were coming that afternoon, I think, and I guess I'd agreed to meet Heero at the apartment and we were going to take refuge somewhere else for the night. But I'd just started at a new job, on Third, and although the job itself sucked, huge amounts of bat guano, the people were pretty cool. So when they invited me out with them, I really wasn't into turning them down. After all, what's life without a little fun, right? And it wasn't as though Heero and I had a mission at five. It was just a rough approximation of when we'd hook up.
Not how the Perfect Soldier saw things, of course.
As soon as I rounded the corner and saw him standing on the street, I realized what a mistake I'd made. Some people's eyes get cold when they get angry; Heero's glare probably would've registered absolute zero. Zero, heh. I'm a barrel of laughs.
I don't remember anymore what he said, or what I said; probably he said something like "Hn." And probably I said something like "I'm sorry," and "I didn't realize what time it was," and "We were having such a good time, I didn't want to break up the party," which was of course exactly the wrong thing to say, because the whole time I'd been goofing off in the bar with the guys from work, Heero had been waiting for me. On the sidewalk. As per our agreement.
And now, sitting in this airport, watching all these strangers go by, waiting for someone to recognize me and cry out "It's him! It's the Gundam pilot! The one who-" Ah, crap, I don't need to think about that shit … but I wonder if Heero, in that hour he spent in the colony's artificially fading sunlight, standing perfectly still in front of our apartment, watching the greater part of the city's population go by, well, I wonder if he worried too.
Why the hell didn't I want to go home when I was supposed to? The pysch course I took would call it passive-aggressive behaviour. Hell, who'd want to be overtly aggressive against Heero "I-can-self-detonate-better-than-you" Yuy?
Still, after I apologized a few more times, and we made it to our refuge for the evening, and Heero finally warmed up a little and accepted my apology (well, not in so many words, but I believe "Oh God, Duo!" ought to qualify), well, I still didn't feel right. Hence the watch. My own unspoken promise, I guess.
Hey, here's a question. Was that the beginning of the end, or just the end of the beginning?
Think I'll just move over into that corner there. People keep trying to step on me here.
***
Waiting is so-o-o-o-o-o boring. I'm trying very hard not to fidget, here in my darker corner. I just don't know why, but apparently my fidgeting gives people the willies. Back in the war days, all I'd have to do to get some fun in the safehouse was just jiggle the tiniest little bit, and 'Fei, or Heero, or somebody would pop up with a diversionary tactic. It was very … satisfying, to know they thought so much of me.
Or it may have been fear brought on by the pistachio and kerosene incident. I don't know.
No doubt about it, though, my all-time favourite boredom target? Heero "What-do-you-mean-not-all-shorts-are-spandex" Yuy. Oi, I've got to cut down on that name-calling. How many times, over the past ten years, has he been typing sedately away when I came out of nowhere, caroling, "Heero! I'm bo-ored!"
Actually, when I seriously consider how many times I did that, I think I'm very lucky to still be alive.
Very, very lucky.
And the part I still don't get? He voluntarily gave up the laptop when we first moved in together.
Well, I mean, obviously he did it because I asked him, though it took me a while to explain why.
"But I don't understand, Duo," he said to me, his gaze level and serious and just a bit befuddled. "We roomed together frequently during missions and my working on the laptop never bothered you then."
Truthfully, that incessant typing of his drove me up the wall and around the bend. I spent many a happy hour plotting the untimely demise of Heero's infernal machine; now I wonder if it would have made any difference if I had succeeded. But somewhere in time, the clacking of the keys had become reassuring; evidence of Heero's physical presence, penetrating even into my sleeping mind. I might not have been able to hold him in my arms, but I could listen to him type, hear his fingers caressing the keys. It was as close as I could allow myself to get in those days.
No, the typing wasn't the issue at all. But how to explain the real issue? Inspiration struck.
"But that was when we were rooming together," I told him, stressing the rooming. "We were both in the same room. Rooming. Now we're living together in an apartment. See, apartmenting. More than one room." He gave me a very strange look, from his seat beside me. I was sprawled on the bed, more than ready to fall asleep. "It is too a word!" I exclaimed.
"Hn," which, when combined with the skeptical left eyebrow, meant, so far as I could tell, "Is not."
"Hnm," I grunted back, combined with a little pout that practically screamed, "Is too, you big lug, so come here and kiss me!" Heero speaks grunt both ways. So it was a few moments before I rather breathlessly returned to the conversation at hand.
"It's just that, when we were rooming together, there was only one room, see? We always knew where the other one was." Heero nodded, accepting the fact and filing it away. "The apartment's bigger, and you like to stay up way later than I can, and after all, we're two guys with hair-trigger reflexes …" I let my voice trail off, hoping Heero would be able to fill in the dots. He's good at that stuff.
"You're afraid that one of us might surprise the other?"
I laughed nervously. "Heh, well, we sure don't need to get us both kicked out of this place." Heero blushed slightly, still a little embarrassed about his last experiment with group living. Man, his roommate only needed twenty stitches and a half-litre of blood; he should've counted his blessings instead of sued. Still, what're you gonna do? "And it's not like it's a permanent thing either; just until we get used to each other again." I remember biting my lip nervously, searching his face to see if there was any hint that he understood. "You wouldn't even have to stay beside me the whole night -- just hold me until I fall asleep. You know a house could fall on me then and I wouldn't even notice. Please Heero?"
"Hai," he said, his face softening. "It's a good idea, especially considering our training." Decision made, he nearly flew into the bed with me, gathering me in, his bare chest warm against my back. He pulled my braid out from between us and laid it over my shoulder, his hand then snaking down under my arm to regrip my hair and snuggle me closer. "Have I told you today that I love you?" he asked softly. I shook my head.
"Ai shiteru, Duo," he breathed gently into my ear.
"I love you too, Heero," I answered sleepily, happy that he'd accepted my not-quite truth. The training that I was afraid of wasn't my Gundam training. No, this was something much older, much darker. And I was glad I didn't have to tell Heero about it.
It took about three weeks for me to get used to Heero's presence in the apartment as I fell asleep; he went back to his laptop shortly after that.
I told myself it was okay, because he was a busy guy, and it wasn't like I was making bundles of money, either. And there were times, like when the colony's power grid was disabled, where we still fell asleep together, where he came to bed hours before his usual time, just to be with me.
It may have taken me three days to write the virus that brought down the grid, but I still maintain that every second of that night made those three days worthwhile.
***
Finally. They're finally boarding my flight. Well, Hallelujah and Praise the Lord. I thought maybe I'd missed Me while I was waiting and I'd finally discovered Father Maxwell's Purgatory -- endless waiting in a shuttleport lounge.
But apparently I'm too easily excited, and all of us lucky enough to be boarding this flight out are going to have to stand in line just a little longer. Shuttleport security, what a joke. I could have been in and out of that shuttle half-a-dozen times in the past hour alone. Would've been wired up neater than a Christmas tree, pretty red and gold wires all intertwined traveling from explosive to explosive …
Something about me must've bugged the girl in front of me; she's edging forward just a little. That's right, honey, just your friendly neighbourhood God of Death standing in line behind you, nothing to panic over. Oh geez, am I getting melodramatic or what? I need something to jolt me out of this impending funk, and fast. There: one of those cheesy Colony Health posters, with the old lady and the two racially mixed, androgynous little kids. "Blood. It's in you to give." There was one just like it at the train station where I used to pick Heero up.
Ah, the station. Cheesy posters left and right, but the best chocolate-chip cookies I'd had in a long time. Well, at least they seemed good in the late afternoon, when I was starving for dinner and waiting for Heero's train to get in so we could go home together. Sure, I could've made him walk, by himself, and he probably wouldn't have complained. Much. But truthfully, it was nearly my favourite time of day. Heero'd come off the train, and just seeing him walk towards me … God, it was like a bomb of pure happiness had gone off in my gut and the waves radiated out from my core, through my arms and legs and head and right out my hair.
Heero once asked me what it felt like, when I smiled like that, and I told him: "Blue. Deep, dark, purest, absolute blue. Floating, incandescent blue." The fact that I was just coming down from an orgasmic high might have had something to do with my poeticism. He didn't seem to realize I was also describing the colour of his eyes.
And every work day at the train station I got to repeat that experience, plus play one of my favourite games. The oldest one we played together, Heero and I. The one where I asked all the questions and Heero, bless his perfect little heart, answered as monosyllabically as possible. And then I tried to interpret the monosyllables.
As I pick up my bag and start to move towards the departure gate, I realize that game took a lot of energy on my part.
Enough that, every so often, I'd get a little frustrated with the whole way the game was played, and try to encourage Heero to join me in changing the rules. Sometimes constructively, like the time we actually went to see that therapist about improving the communication in our relationship. Heh. The look on that guy's face when Heero gave his customary greeting in one of the role-playing sessions! I nearly pissed my pants, between that and Heero's expression. It'd been a long time since anybody was that terrified of Heero, for sure.
And sometimes the rules changed in a not-good way.
It was winter, and the bureaucraps who rule the colony's weather had decided we needed a little icy rain, to play havoc with our schedules and remind us to be thankful for the blandly pleasant weather they inflict on us the rest of the year. Heero got off the train, and if his face was a little more stormy than usual, well, I was probably the only person who could see it. Maybe the only person it mattered enough to, to see it. And naturally, my humanizing instincts seized on it, the minute we were out in the parking lot.
I can be such a nag, when I set my mind to it. Had lots of inspiration, I guess: Solo, Sister Helen, Hilde, Quatre. Actually, I'm a little proud of those abilities; they helped me become the terrorist I am today. Nag the Ozies, nag Heero; it was all in a good day's work.
So I nagged him about the little storm cloud on his brow.
And nagged.
And nagged.
Normally this behaviour would have earned me at worst a "Shut up, baka!" and at best a sparse and carefully worded explanation. That day, it got neither.
Heero exploded. Right there on the sidewalk, about two blocks from our apartment (two places after the Cockroach Haven), he stopped and started to scream at me, face crimson, body shaking.
I froze in my tracks, so suddenly that at first I didn't recognize the smack on my ass as my icy-wet braid. This was the reaction I'd feared at fifteen, when I'd first started this little game, when I'd first started playing with J's little creation, when I'd first started to think that what I wanted out of life wasn't soft and warm, but hard and cold and very deeply blue.
He kept on screaming and I just stood there, jaw dropping open slightly, not really even hearing what he was saying. Until he made that crack about having to support me, since I had no ambitions of my own. That was when my own defense mechanisms kicked in, and the cold outside was no match for that within.
"Fine, Heero," I snapped. "If that's the way you feel … No, fuck this. I'm going home. Alone." And I turned and left him there, in the freezing rain that was slowly turning to snow.
He came home about an hour later, soaking wet, his impossible hair still managing to stick straight up. I think it might have been frozen in place. I'd forgotten my own cold anger by then, and he quickly apologized for his outburst and we snuggled close in the bed, me torn between warming his frosty feet with my own, or preserving my own body heat, as he explained how he'd been passed over for a promotion in his department. Something about not being a team player, he said quietly, and turned over to face me.
"I'm sorry, Duo." His breath whiffled across my face, stirring my bangs, spicy from dinner. "What I said about supporting you; it's not true. And I know you have ambitions."
"Damn straight," I retorted, smiling in the darkness. Heero placed his hand on my cheek, to feel the smile he couldn't see. "I very much want to be happy, for example."
"And I interfered with that today," he murmured.
My smile stretched into a grin. Remorse was not the horse I wanted to be riding for the next few hours, but if it was what I could get … "Guess you'll just have to make it up to me," I stated, and without giving him time to ask how, I inched forward and kissed him thoroughly, leaving him with no doubt as to what sort of compensation I had in mind.
On board the shuttle, I stow my bag in the overhead compartment and settle into my seat. It's about as comfortable as you can expect for a short-haul transport, and my flight is only twenty-three hours. Not enough for me to need a cabin. I look out the window, for one last look at this colony that's been my home for the past four years; of course, I can't see much, since it's now night, but at least some of the lights look pretty.
And then the shuttle is gently accelerating forward; the space-dock doors open and we slip into space, the change into weightlessness marked only by the increased tension in my restraints.
***
I slam headfirst into wakefulness at the loud noise beside me.
"Sorry," says the guy beside me, middle-management from the cut of his suit. He looks down at the floor apologetically. "Dropped my book."
"No problem," I manage to croak back, thankful that the restraints (which are no longer pulling me back, giving me a second clue that the shuttle's artificial gravity has been activated) kept me from pulling out my gun and shooting the guy.
Shuttleport security; it really does suck.
I take a few deep breaths, trying to slow my racing heart. But it's not really helping; my whole adrenal system has been on high alert for the past month and I know it doesn't take much to put me over the edge. And the picture that formed in my mind as I woke isn't going away. My vision, blurry with sleep and the change from the dark bedroom to the lit living room (don't think, don't). Heero (don't think it, don't) facing the wall, at first only a shadow dressed in green and blue. And as I blink, clearing my eyes (don't think, don't go, no further) and realize what he's done, I swear out loud.
"Jesus Christ!" I cross the room and take his arm, pulling gently to get his fist out of the hole in the drywall. "What the hell's going on, Yuy?" And I bring his bloodied fist close to my face to inspect the damage. I look up from his hand to meet his eyes, my pulse thudding into quite another rhythm. The undamaged hand comes up to my hair …
I'm not going there. Not here, not now. That wall could've been my head. Something else, then.
"Awww, come on, Heero," I plead. My voice sounds whiny, even to me, and had I even a shred of self-respect, I'd be very ashamed. 'Injustice!' screams the Wufei voice that pops up in my mind at the oddest moments. "You can stay a little while, can't ya?"
Heero stands in the doorway of our bedroom, arms crossed on his chest, giving me a look that's poised partway between amused and exasperated and that, miracle of miracles, shows both. "Duo. I have work." I try to stretch out even more appealingly in the bed, and add a little wiggle for good measure. "Duo," he repeats, and the monotone in his voice lets me know the flap is sealed for the evening.
I sigh, resigning myself to the inevitable. Lonely bed tonight. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. "What're you working on?" I ask. At least I can have that.
"I finished reconfiguring the servers today. Now I've got to do some remote testing. Check the firewall, e-mail, chat-"
"Ooh, chat!" I say while trying to cover my yawn. Well, it's not like I'm going to be getting any, so I might as well rest up for tomorrow night. "I'm good at chat!" This time, the yawn breaks right into the middle of my sentence. Insolent body function.
Heero chuckes softly. "Go to sleep, baka. See you in the morning."
As I settle into the pillows, I can hear his fingers clacking on the keyboard. So near, and yet so far, I remember thinking as I finally fell asleep.
Thinking of far, where's the can on this thing?
***
I come back from my little trip to the bathroom, plant my ass back in my semi-comfortable seat, and start up a nice conversation with my fumble-fingered neighbour. I haven't lost my touch, over the years; he's comfortably in the middle of ColAdmin, having started in the weather centre ten years ago.
"So that ice storm two years ago was your fault!" I tease him, gently.
No, no, he assures me. At least not directly, though he had been part of the planning commission which laid out the general weather … and so we drift into a pleasant conversation which lasts through the meal the flight attendant brings us. It's about a lot of nothing, but by the end, when he turns back to his book, I have a much better understanding of how to "adjust" colony weather.
Knowledge is power.
Well, truthfully, it's only one of the ways to power. Money's another good one. As I saw firsthand, when I holed up with Quatre and the Maguanacs back during the war. That was some party they threw, even though I wasn't really feeling my best at the time. Heero and his goddammed self-destruct.
I thought it was only installed in his Gundam.
I take another look around the shuttle; the lights are turned low. Those flight attendants aren't stupid -- they know that sleeping people are going to be less trouble than awake ones. Six seats back from mine is the girl who sidled away from me in line. She's out like a light, not even aware of the music that must be, judging from the tinny racket I can hear, blaring from her headphones. It's not at all alike, but something about the rhythm …
Heero and I were supposed to visit Quatre and Trowa this week. Funny coincidence, that.
I close my eyes and lean back in the seat.
Was it just the power of the promotion that Heero was so interested in? After he missed that first opportunity, he seemed more and more likely to choose work over … well, over me. Sure, I was disappointed, but not surprised. It was a mission; I knew that. Just like infiltrating and co-opting his mission parameters to include me was mine. An old and familiar game that we both knew the rules to.
When did I first begin to suspect the rules had changed?
The first time I stumbled into the dim living room and he turned to me in surprise, shutting the cover on the laptop as I blinked the sleep from my eyes?
The twentieth time I begged him to stay with me and he said he had work?
When I asked him to help with the dishes and he accused me of trying to keep him from his destiny?
Oh, wait, that was me. Shinigami's destiny does not involve the removal of baked-on cheese. Creation, yes. Consumption, yes. Clean-up? I think you want the next mobile suit over. Yeah, sure. That guy has no problems with leftovers.
Something had been twigging me for days, but that wasn't the reason that I opened Heero's laptop while he ran down to the store to pick up milk. I just wanted to send off a quick e-mail to Quatre about the trip we were planning. Well, and take a look at the competition, so to speak.
I bypassed the security codes in record time, pleased that I hadn't lost my touch, typed, clicked and got my response in a flash.
Duo: Sounds great! See you soon!! -Q
I estimated I had five minutes left before Heero completed the milk mission. There was an icon on the screen that I hadn't seen before. I didn't even really try to convince myself it was some new computer game before I'd clicked on it and opened the file.
I sure as hell didn't expect to see what I saw. I scanned the contents quickly; the program was enormous, obviously the result of several month's work. It was too much to absorb. At first I could only grasp small bits of it, but the longer I looked … I finally realized what had really been keeping Heero from me.
Maybe I lost my capacity to be shocked during the war. I sat there in our living room, wondering why I hadn't seen it before, wondering how I could have been so stupid, wondering why I didn't care more, wondering what I was going to do next, when the door opened, and Heero walked in.
Or maybe I never lost it at all. I looked at him, my wonderful, perfect, gorgeous blue-eyed lover; the one who'd chosen me over the Queen of the World, and it must have shown in my face. The happy crinkle around his eyes disappeared in a flash.
"Duo," he said. Oh shit. Fuck. Damn. Even the way he said my name. Oh Holy Mother of God, even just in that his voice said it was true.
I looked back down at the computer screen. What, was I thinking it would change? Bits jumped out at me: "Duo" "gone" "don't know" "longer" "guilt" "harder and harder" "deal".
"Heero?" I answered him., finally looking back up at him. "Lazy" "lust" and "round" ghosted across Heero's face. Please, tell me this isn't what it is.
He's the Perfect Soldier, and doesn't show panic. So that certainly wasn't panic I saw as he crossed the room to stand beside me. "Duo," he repeated. "I don't know what to say." Of course, if it was panic, I was probably the only one who could see it, the only one who'd cared enough to learn all the tiny ticks that passed as his facial expressions.
"What the hell is this, Yuy? What the fuck have you been doing?" My voice was shaking. I hated it. "Oh my God, does Quatre know?" How could he know and not me? What kind of complete idiot was I?
"Duo," he pleaded. "I didn't mean … I didn't think … I'm sorry." He reached out to me, but I pulled back.
"How long?" I demanded, one hand scraping through my bang, the other dragging the comforting weight of braid to my chest. He didn't answer. "How long, Heero? How long have you been going behind my back? How long have you been fucking cheating on me?"
His head shot up. "It's not cheating," he snapped back. "It's not real. We both know that, Duo."
"How long?" I repeated, slowly.
"Two years," he answered.
Two years. And more pieces snapped together. "You said you had work," I cried. "All those nights, you said it was work. And I believed you. And you weren't … you weren't … all that time … you were doing this."
Heero dropped to his knees beside me. I couldn't be bothered to try and decide which non-expression he was wearing. No, that's not true; the expression was blatantly clear. He was in pain. But I couldn't let myself see that. "They're just words, Duo," he said softly. "I love you. Those," he gestured to the laptop, "are just words."
I swear by my cross I thought I heard 'Scythe's batwings snick closed around my heart. "Words you chose to share with Trowa instead of me," I replied, calmly, coolly, smoothly. "Time and thoughts and care you chose to give to Trowa when I was right here." Heero's face crumpled, and he reached out to me again. I shied back, more violently than before. "Get the hell away from me."
He pulled back immediately, pulled the shattered remains of the soldier around him. "Of course. I'll go. You … you probably would prefer if I wasn't here right now." And he got up and left.
I stayed where I was, crouched on the floor, the computer open awkwardly on my lap.
Then I trashed his files and uploaded a few "presents" I'd never had a chance to use in the OZ days and went to bed, only to be woken by the thud as Heero's fist went through our living room wall. But I'm not going there now. In fact, I think I'll just not remember the rest of that night.
You know, one thing you think I would have learned in my life, with all the war and fighting and degradation and poverty I've seen, with Solo and Father and Sister; with Relena and Hilde, with Heero and Wufei, Treize and Zechs and that crazy bitch-girl Mariameia, you'd think I would remember this: People don't change. Well, with the possible exception of Lady Une. But she had multiple personalities, so that was kind of a given.
Maybe if I had looked harder at the beginning, I wouldn't be where I am today, about to get off a shuttle and back to a life I thought I had left behind. Or maybe I wouldn't have succeeded so well. I don't know.
I'm Duo Maxwell; I run and hide but I never lie. And now I'm finally free to find out again what that means
People don't change, and I find I'm very grateful for that as I step off the shuttle and into Hilde Schreibker's waiting arms and home.
.
THE END