~~~~?~~~~~? ~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~
Part 10
~~~~?~~~~~? ~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~
Author's Note: I know I said there would be a wait, but for my special reviewers who always come back!! (Here ya go MOA!) Read the ending notes please!!
Warnings? Man, just trust me...take heed (PART 11), because once I get into it...I'm stuck, and you may be too!
Songs: Bring me To Life - Evanescence, Did my Time - Korn, and Symphony of Destruction - Mega Death.
**Pulls out directors baton** Ready? And-a-one-and-a-two-and-a-one-two-three! Iko!
~~~~?~~~~~? ~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~
Lady Une had treasured simple gestures of affirmation and negation. After Treize's untimely finish, and her rush to the front of the line, she found herself having to come up with news to say yes and no, and simply just saying yes or no made you so like a fool. Who wanted to follow a fool? No one Une wanted following her.
Slightly neurotic was a great way to describe her. Late one night after she first met Treize's only child, the embodiment of his persuasive prowess, she had stayed up composing 293 different ways to say: Yes, go ahead with the plans, your fired, get out of my office, No, I'm sorry for your loss, please do, close and mark such-and-such file as classified, do not touch me or my belongings, and hide all evidence. She was sure there where more, but after that mission for eloquence she found most word sequences came to her easy.
Fired: Let go, terminated, permanently dismissed, services no longer needed, your job has been fulfilled, disappear, you place here has been concluded, you've accomplished your potential, I am tired of looking at you.
Regardless of the person she had started the war as, she had finished someone completely different. She was no longer just Une, but Anne, her birth-given-name and not completely unlike the mother she blamed for every problem. Lady Une had found compassion, a niche beyond her initial calling, a position that took her soul home. She had also discovered characters along the way that where necessary for her essential goals, ones that had been carried over by Treize; something just a bit beyond peace.
Amongst those key roles, those pawns, was one special boy she had seen with bright-undaunted blue eyes; glowing orbs that shown through evil and broke through to the people. Quatre Winner was his father's son. A time long ago, she had watched Mr. Winner debate on world-changing decisions, his voice ringing resolution into the ears of his listeners, when she saw Quatre, she felt the similarities.
Someone so pure, but not innocent was so rare in the after math of war...but when they have been corrupted, and they are shattered, they become a reflection skewed into a mad shadow of former self.
Lady Une found herself writing ways to tell Quatre the decision she had come to with the help of his sister, and his comrade (Chang, Wufei); one that would benefit him, but possibly derail her ideals for the time being. She scribbled in final red pen and then folded the piece of paper twelve times and sent it airborne into the recycle bin.
Moments after the paper settled into it's grave of scraps, there was a reluctant knock on her office door. Automatically Une kicked back in, beating Anne back with a kendo CLUB, sensitivity was not needed.
"Excuse me, Lady Une?" First through the door was the platinum blonde mop of hair, followed by his unparalleled complexion and cerulean eyes.
"Go ahead and enter." She said authoritatively.
Shutting the door politely behind him, Quatre stood beside the soft cushioned seat before Une's desk. Something in the air told him not to bother and sit, he wouldn't be there long. Lady Une recognized the scene, he wasn't aware of what was coming, but he knew just the same.
It was hard to believe he had been having a tryst with the deceased mobile suite pilot. What passion it must have made flesh, she thought hearing Treize off in the darkness of her inner-monologue. That poor ignorant boy,
"Mr. Winner, I regret to inform you that you have been found psychologically unfit for your position here at headquarters and are hereby forth relieved of all duties pertaining your occupation as a Preventer. However, due to the critical knowledge you hold of our 'business' you are asked not to seek out any further trades, and to remain under professional care at your home until another evaluation can be given. Is all of this understood?"
Quatre...I'm unhappy; you loose your lover, and now your job. I feel for you, I really do understand.
Quatre didn't appear surprised, nor did he shed the tears she had been expecting, instead he gave her a curt nod and went for the way out long after the sincere glow had died from his face. "Understood...and I don't want your pity, because you don't understand." He answered with a formal stiffness in his voice that was as foreign from his mouth as apology was from Lady Une's.
The chair barely resisted being knocked to the floor as Lady Une stood up in astonishment, "What?" Quietly the door shut, and silence consumed her office.
---------------
It was true. Wufei had collaborated behind the scenes of the decision to remove Quatre from his position. He felt like a nark, he hadn't realized he was attached to the way he saw his friends every morning. How he secretly enjoyed seeing them on weekends for Dinner at Duo's, when he would cook odd American foods and make tactless jokes. Or even the occasional formal party at the Winner's mansion, in which his attendance was always requested by elegant black envelopes and invitations written by hand in refined silver penmanship.
When did he become so emotionally involved with them? Why did it half to hurt so much? Why couldn't it just go back to being the same as it had? Even after the catastrophe that had been the war, they had all salvaged their bodies and minds and carried on, together.
Now Duo was gone...
Now Quatre was removed...
Now all he felt was regret and pain...
Now his heart was broken, and his pathetic excuse for a family ruptures at apart at seems!
A shudder passed through Wufei's chest and rattled his thoughts. Was he saving himself pain by helping send Quatre away so he wouldn't have to see the real repercussions of Duo's death?
Another quake rocked his world, and Wufei leaned back against the wall of his room. Why did he have to suffer!? Didn't he do his time? Did he fight viciously for the justice of his people? For his dead family and clan!? Why was he still undergoing trials of character? There was nothing left to test!
Wufei had fought if off at first, he had tried to hide from the emptiness Duo's absence left, he'd even attempted to ignore the massive canyon tearing up the familiar ground of undeclared friends.
Wufei couldn't do it anymore! He couldn't repress the searing agony of defeat! He had lost! And what was even worse, he was never given a chance to fight!
Sinking down, the wall tugged up at Wufei's unbuttoned shirt until he made contact with the ground. He was useless.
Wufei had long felt as though he had become the fifth wheel. Duo moved in on Heero, Quatre and Trowa made their relationship public, Quatre and Duo snuck around behind their boyfriend's back. All of this Wufei had always known...and he had always felt like his wants, his desires, and needs where skirted. Where did their affairs leave him? Now, all that was petty. He wanted to feel the beam of his friend's smiles and laughter, because he had known all along regardless he had been loved. Duo had loved everyone. Duo had been the glue.
Tears glossed over Wufei's naturally dark eye, tearing down his mysterious veil, and leaving him vulnerable to the emptiness of his bedroom.
Possibly he had wanted Duo too...perhaps...he had loved him as well.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Wufei broke down in sobbing shambles, hidden by the secrecy he had surrounded himself with, the only company his barren walls.
---------------
It was easy to fight of redundant thoughts of betrayal when you are so emotionally damaged that the worst string of words you would have to defend against comes every 15 minutes and is preceded and chased by the stillest of quiet.
Can you love someone who doesn't love you back? Is it true love if it's unrequited?
Mustering the energy, Trowa waded through the empty halls like a public pool, and made his way out onto the main street outside of his apartment building.
Am I capable of love? ...Who would love me...if they could?
Trowa had never been one for drinking, or any form of substance abuse after the Ring Master of Cathy's circus had been drunk and killed after a freak accident of elephants and water barrels. However, he did understand there where certain times when it was called for. Now was as good of time as any.
House of Gold was a well-known club, bar, and hotel. Trowa had never been inside its ostentatious walls and glitzy signs, but he had seen it enough walking briskly to and from work. For some reason, he had thought he would end up at a dark old western style bar, where the waiter just knew your name and what drink would solve your problems. However the moment he put his hand on the door, he knew he would appreciate the anonymity.
"What can I get you, heart breaker?" The short round bartender behind the counter said grinning. She was loud, with thick short blond hair, and wide eyes. It was probably a line she used especially to get tips.
Trowa slid onto the barstool, and shrugged. He'd never drank before, how should he know? "Anything strong would do." He said with a heavyhearted sigh.
The woman's grin faded into a maternal smile of sympathy, "Want something foul to drown out those miseries? I promise I won't nab you while you're too inebriated to tell me from the strippers upstairs."
Trowa huffed a laugh, and ran a hand through his bangs, "Yeah...sure..."
She nodded, "Alright sweetie, a Double Bacardi 151 it is."
Pulling his head back, Trowa raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"
"Burben, Hun, it's a name for a 101 proof Burben drink."-Cautiously she pushed the glass to him-"15.50 a glass. Go ahead and wrack up a bill, a doubt the money will be little consolation for whatever the hell is bothering you, but at least you'll be too intoxicated to know better!"
Trowa brought the glass up to his lips and took in a deep breath; the liquid was so potent that even the air he brought into his lungs burned.
"As your attorney, I say suck it up princess." The bartender said cleaning out a glass and surveying the dancing bodies out on the floor, the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas joke lost on him. The club was picking up. "Life has to get worse before it gets better."
With her golden words Trowa sucked it up, every last drop of Burben, and went on to drinking a total of 10 glasses before his well-trained body was saturated in alcohol.
The night drained on, and well into the morning, the same blonde bartender finally shook her head at his request for more. "Sorry, man, you're done. Want me to call you a cab?"
Trowa shook his head viciously and stumbled from his perch, "Nothaddayabeokay."
"You sure."
"Un."
Trowa tossed his wallet at her, which she caught midair and nodded. "I'll put the change away, take a tip of course, and you can have this back next time I see you. I'm here every night...or I can mail it to this address..." She said looking inside, "Trowa Barton." She finished.
A drunk Trowa flashed a dazzling smile as if he had perfected the gesture with practice and made his exit.
---------------
"Leave a quick vid and number, and I'll make sure he gets it! Bye, Bai Bai, Sayoonara, Aloha, aurevoir, N-"
"Duo!"
"Thank, zya!"
Heero smiled wearily, it was a beautiful face to wake up to, indeed, though it seared his body with want. Feeling his gut rumbled with hunger, Heero noted he hadn't been shopping since two weeks before Duo's disappearance.
Slowly the food had vanished, leaving Heero fasting in grief, until now. Rising from his seat, Heero grabbed Duo's slack black duster and moved for the apartment exit; something he hadn't done in a few days. His body was noticeably neglected; he hadn't even made it into the shower, let alone to the kitchen to eat. The small nap he had woken from was his first in a while; it was all adding up to tattered unshaven Heero.
Pulling the door shut, Heero stopped in bewilderment, his deprived mind's gears slowly computing the image before him. Across the hall, slumped in a mess of smiling, grumbling, drunkenness was Trowa.
Trowa waved, grinning broadly. "Heewrow..."
"Trowa?" Heero suspiciously crouched next to his comrade who became completely still, and checked his pulse. He was living, but it wouldn't put it past a doctor that Trowa would undoubtedly have some form of alcohol poisoning.
Forgetting the food, and Duo, Heero pulled Trowa into his body, one arm around his waist the other under his knees, and hauled him into the air. For someone so thin, he was tremendously heavy.
---------------
"You look a little...piqued." Shinigami said with a looming grin, her eyes narrowing into dark slits under thick lashes.
Duo glared right back.
"I take it you didn't sleep well last night, it must have been just awful." She kissed into the air. "Grovel...lick the very dirty I kick at you and we'll never have an even more passionate repeat."
Indignantly, Duo cocked his head up starring audaciously down at the petite woman across the table. "Lap it up yourself, bitch."
---------------
Trowa blinked awake, the world swirling together in a pretty array of confusion. Where was he? Did he care? Hardly.
Two fire blue eyes materialized before him, they where angry, concerned, and beautiful in Trowa's dizzied mind. "Hello?"
"Trowa, what did you do?" Heero asked efficiently sounding grouchy.
"Hello." Trowa said decidedly again.
"Yes, hello, what the hell did you do?"
Trowa leaned back, falling a small distance into feather down blue pillows; "I was..."-he trailed a moment starring at Heero's bare chest between the openings of his duster- "I was practicing my right to hate myself." He slurred, his vision doubling then refocusing.
Heero shook his head, "Why?"
"Because..." The willing-to-share Trowa began, as if it explained the whole mess. "Because who could love me if I can't love myself? And I can't do that if I hate myself." He rambled.
Moving away from the bed Heero shook his head again, those words sounded like him.
"Heero..." Trowa mumbled his eyes closed. The man who was responsible for all this, he chased Duo right into Quatre's arms, a person who could never turn away love. A pang of fret clung in his ribs; did this extend beyond just Duo? Maybe it reached as far as Wufei and Heero. Everything was beyond his control, and not a single odd stacked in his favor. Gradually, a ghost of a tickle on his abdomen pulled a smile, the world was messed up.
Hesitantly, Heero sunk into the space next to his intoxicated friend. "Yes?" After a few moments of silence, Heero leaned closer; Trowa had probably passed out again. Duo had never let him take care of him after a bout with alcohol; Heero had no idea what to do. From the movies he gathered, however, if Trowa should become ill he would need to move to the bathroom and take some aspirin. There was nothing like an unconscious friend to make you feel inadequate.
"Heero..."
Heero took a firm hold of Trowa's chin and shifted his head towards the glaring light above. Maybe he hit his head, which would explain why he was slouched in the hall like a bum. Trowa's eyes, those liquid pulls of jade, where exceedingly more cloudy than they had been moments before, however they dilated in the light and focused on Heero.
"Don't die on my bed." Heero stated awkwardly unsure of how to react to the unfamiliar body next to his.
Trowa laughed rotating his chin in Heero's hand, "I'll try not to, but..." Devoid of hesitation or remorse, Trowa pulled the hand that clung to his jaw down and began to reel in the body attached to it. Trowa leaned up, propping himself up on one elbow and brought their faces within an inch of each other.
Heero stood still, not moving away, not desiring him to let go, but something in his mind was nagging on him, someone he had almost forgotten. Duo...Taking in a ragged breath, Heero released his burden, and regardless of that smiling face in the shadows, he kissed him.
Grief, anger, loneliness, and rejection pulled together and liquefied into the gesture. Heero's hands found themselves undressing the body below him, breaking the kiss briefly to discard the shirt.
"I just might..." Trowa whispered into another caress.
Heero pulled his head back, and shed his duster his body heated and not really caring, "Just might what?"
Trowa smiled, hiding the weakness that was surfacing under the mask, as he hooked his thumbs into the waist of his jeans and unbuttoned it, and slid the remaining article from his body.
Lacking lament, Heero wriggled out of his slacks, and climbed over the already sweating man below him to indulge in a soft kiss, but the savage lips that met his murdered any and all remnants of a sensitive lover. "I just might die..." Trowa murmured pulling Heero's bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth.
---------------
The golden red flames cracked against the cold walls, the insufferable sound rushing into the halls like thunder, or a rampaging river.
Shackled by his chaffed wrists to a pivot on the floor, kneeled Duo, his clothes hanging in tatters from his frame, at the feet of his attacker. The beautiful blue eyes Duo had found once captivating, searing him with their sheer iced deadness.
Duo's naturally humorous clear eyes where incensed with clouds of vehemence and disobedience. "Fuck off." He growled.
Upon her thrown, like the goddess she claimed to be, was Shinigami, her laughter mingling and playing with the crackling fire. "I just might after seeing this...Do it an enjoy it like a man, or plead for your pride; that is your punishment."
Duo spat on the steps bellow her feet, and smirked.
~~~~?~~~~~? ~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~
TBC...
~~~~?~~~~~? ~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~?~~~~~
Ending Notes: ^-^ Okay...now I am going on my week or so break, I will be back, part 11 is close to ending, but I try to space out each part to give people time to catch up, and me to get some feed back. Also, there is a complementary (AU) song-fic-fic coming out for NMYG. It's called Your Clown. I was listening to a song by Eiffel65 and heard the song Your Clown and was struck by how much it sounded like Trowa in NMYG. It's amazing; please DOWNLOAD the song before reading the ficlet. As everyone knows, my song fics are not like other song fics! Let's check out the net description:
Net Description: (Complementary AU fic to NAME ME YOUR GOD) Trowa catches a peek of two very naked bodies in Heero's bed, both of which are not Heero, but his and Trowa's boyfriends making love. The bittersweet sound of a heart shattering can be heard for miles.
---Don't have to read this---
ReddAlice: Good news everyone! I scored into college English this morning! And I said no sex before part 11!
Heero: *raises an eyebrow* It was censored, besides, I though you where beginning your PWP thing with NC?
ReddAlice: My story is not a PWP! **Glares**
Duo: I thought I was going to get to ravish Dante?
ReddAlice: Shut up, you don't know his name yet! And you're supposed to be all upset that your boyfriend cheating on you while he thinks your dead!
Duo: Oh, yeah. **Waggles a suggestive finger at the unlikely pair (1X3)** Naughty naughty, you're suppose to wait for me to return with a vampiric hottie.
ReddAlice: Yaoi playboys are hopeless. **Rolls eyes and marches off to finish part 11 ALONE**