Warnings: yaoi, self-harm, teenage pregnancy, and just general strangeness
Pairings: 1X2, 3X4 (the X being mostly implied)
A/N: Yeah, so I definitely haven't updated in a while. That's my bad. I've been working on my school's musical (Seussical) like a mofo. Seriously, I'm so sleep-deprived it's not even funny. However, I'd like to think that I make up for my lateness/ general oddities by making this a long chapter. In yo face.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. I said it. Let me die now.
Chapter Seven- Beyond Crystal City"Why did you make me wear this?"
Duo glanced over at Lela, who was glaring at him from beneath a long-sleeved black fishnet shirt with a lime green spaghetti strap tank top. Her knees were close together, bound at the thighs by a ruffled black skirt, and they bounced up and down from the tilted ball of her foot, clothed with steel-toes and thick rubber soles. "Because you're the perfect punk. Why, what's wrong with it?"
"I feel like a slut."
"But, you're not."
"People are staring at me."
Duo sighed and leaned on Heero's shoulder for support. The other boy slid one arm over the braided man's shoulder, and Duo felt himself involuntarily snuggle closer. He didn't want to be that close to Heero in public, for reasons he didn't understand. That was probably why he ignored the feeling that made him want to abruptly pull away. They had spent too much time waiting for the subway to come, he determined. The four of them, Julian safely beside Lela in his carrier half-asleep, had been sitting in the stagnant vacuum of the train station, surrounded by concrete with too much reverberation for about fifteen minutes. The circular cement archways closed in around them and Duo tried his best to focus on Lela's dour grin instead of the long tunnels before and behind them. "No one's staring at you, Lela. We're alone."
"You're staring at me."
"They way a mother stares at her child," Duo replied easily, before putting a hand on the raven-haired girl's jerky knee. Its jittering began to subside under the warmth of his touch, the smoothness of his hand against her bare skin. "I'm simply proud of my creation."
"You've created a whore."
"Don't insult an artiste," Duo retorted, brushing off the remark the way one would a fly. "Besides," he added, sitting up straight so that he could shake off Heero's arm. He didn't feel like being reminded of the relationship tonight. "I think you look bee-yoo-tiful." He leaned in close to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. It was not, Lela swiftly noted, a peck, but an actual kiss. He smiled at her as he pulled back. "Don't you agree, Hee-chan?"
"Hn." Heero didn't want to be there. He didn't like parties, and he didn't like the subway. It had a claustrophobic, closed-in feel. There were thousands of bodies, pounded close together, all waiting for the same thing, all trying to find the same answers by taking the same routes to the same places. It was an all-too real metaphor for life than suited Heero's needs. He was also not altogether happy with Duo, who had made a common practice of manipulating Heero's lust to get his way, and then trying to snub him for the rest of the evening. Maybe that feeling was just a snippet of lover's paranoia, but that didn't change the stark reality of the emotion itself. The honest truth was that Heero, who was never afraid of anything, was terrified that Duo wanted to leave him. What was even more terrifying was the feeling that he had recently discovered: that he might actually want to leave Duo.
The solid air of the train rushed past, pushing against the stagnation and fighting the tension that lingered there, and began to roll into the station. The three of them rose, with Lela hooking her arm around the solid plastic of the carrier. The train was mostly barren; an idle African decked out in a brilliant shade of hot pink stared out the window with a clutch in her hand, a gothic pasty teenager glanced up from head banging to see Lela. He almost managed an emo-grin before he saw the baby that came in tow. Then, he went back into his stupor. Lela rolled her eyes. She despised the subway, and hadn't ridden it in quite some time. Julian, of course, loved it, and had always been absolutely silent when he rode, his wide green eyes staring as the lights went by overhead. Tonight, she was certain, would be no exception.
As they boarded, Heero couldn't help but eye the teenager with suspicion. He glared very small daggers into the black T-shirt the boy was wearing, and slinked a defensive arm around Duo's waist, pulling the braided man against his hip. The anonymous subway passenger didn't show any outward signs of being gay, and anyone else would not have been concerned; however, Heero knew that every high school student (especially the Goth/punk) would be, or at least claim to be, bisexual, and that there was no way this kid would be any exception. Duo rolled his eyes.
None of them spoke as the subway cars rolled along through the tracks, picking up passengers sporadically. Finally, at Crystal City, the stop before Quatre's, something inside Heero's mind snapped. The train faded away around him and he was crouched behind an overturned car, something in his hand. What was it? He glanced down. A detonator lay in his palm, the red button staring him in the face. He looked forward. There was a tall building, windows mirroring the traffic below. He understood.
"Mission accepted."
"What'd you say, Hee-chan?" For an instant the subway came back into view, the dark tunnel rolling along behind Duo's braided head, but then it disappeared and melted into the smog of the colonies.
"Duo? What are you doing here?"
"Dude, we're going to Quatre's. Don't you remember?"
Suddenly, a ping sounded above him. At the same time, his thumb released the trigger. He smiled, that cold cruel smile that he always had right after he saw one of his explosive masterpieces come to life.
"Mission complete. Let's go, Duo."
"Go where?" Duo's face was mired in confusion as Heero grabbed his sleeve and pulled him up. "Dude, what are you doing?" Duo exclaimed, stumbling back slightly.
"What, you want OZ to find us?"
"What the hell are you talking about? OZ is over. The war is over."
"Shut up!" he cried before raising the back of his hand. It struck Duo's face and he stared at him in complete shock, as a red mark slowly appeared on the soft skin. Heero frowned. The detonator was gone. The field was gone. He was on the subway again, with the passengers, the woman in the pink suit, the Goth boy all staring at him with wide, confused eyes. Lela was slack-jawed, rimmed with shock.
"Heero...?" Heero didn't know what to do. He stared around, feeling cornered, trapped. He wanted to grab a gun, but he knew he didn't have one. He could feel a slight panic rising in his breath, crawling up his throat. Then, he felt a gentle warmth cross one of his hands. Duo had sat down and was pulling Heero beside him. Obediently, the worn-out man slumped against Duo's shoulder. Pale arms shrouded in black cloth encircled his shoulders, and he gripped them with both hands, clinging like a small child as he buried his face in Duo's sympathetic neck.
Quatre was a nice man. He lived in a nice penthouse apartment with his nice boyfriend. He was a friend to other nice people, who lived in nice houses and nice apartments. These people owned nice things, had nice jobs, and generally led nice lives.
The exceptions in Quatre's circle of friends were Duo and Heero, and the blond businessman knew it well. Still, he eternally enraptured himself in the role of the perfect hose. He was searching through a rack of wine bottles, trying to find just the right vintage. He suddenly felt a pair of cool arms slide low down on his stomach, and smiled as he felt the soft lips of his lover against the smooth skin on his neck.
"What are you so worked up about, love?" whispered the deep voice that his ears had grown too ache for in the stillness of the night, the voice that called him 'love.'
"I'm just trying to find a bottle of wine."
"You've been staring at that rack for fifteen minutes," Trowa replied before kissing him again.
"There's a lot of wine here." He flushed a bit, knowing what Trowa was thinking; he also knew that Trowa was right, and that he was taking this thing with Duo and Heero too seriously. But, it had been awhile since they were all together. Quatre had run into duo (as Megan) at Crazy Legs once or twice. Usually, when he tried to invite them over, Heero was off doing Preventer work on some colony or another and Duo would be making artwork on the walls or the floors, unable to be disturbed. Trowa had gone over there for beers or to chat with Duo, but they hadn't seen each other in months. Wufei was making his yearly pilgrimage to China, visiting the grave of his fiancée, Meiran. Even though it wouldn't be the five of them together again, Quatre wanted it to be perfect. Trowa reached above him and pulled down a bottle.
"Merlot. Good year. Napa Valley." He set it on the counter. 'That will be fine."
"But, what about the—" Trowa cut him off, spinning Quatre's lithe body gently in his arms. He leaned in and gave the blond a soft kiss.
"You worry too much. We are dealing with Duo. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll go through more than one bottle."
Quatre sighed, a small smile gracing the angelic features of his face as a slightly pink tint rose to his cheeks. He stared up at Trowa with wide, shimmering turquoise eyes. "You're right, Trowa," he said softly, "You're always right."
Trowa let a half-smile come to his lips before he slid one hand under the slime line of Quatre's jawbone and brought the two of them together in a long, lingering kiss. Quatre couldn't save for manners, and pushed his tongue between Trowa's lips. The other boy reciprocated with great east, as they let their hands go free.
Which made for a very nice explanation when Duo knocked on the door and Trowa answered it with his shirt half tucked-in. "Good to see you, Duo."
"I'll say," the braided man replied, glancing down at the active crotch of Trowa's jeans. Abruptly, the other man pulled the door in front of him, under the guise of allowing his guests to enter. When he came out, he saw the girl who they'd brought with them. Her hair was such a dark black that it looked almost blue, and she looked like the hybrid child of a punk rock prom queen and a biker.
"You must be Lela," Trowa greeted, keeping his voice cool and collected.
The girl nodded and nudged the baby carrier towards the tall, lean man that stood before her. "This is Julian.'
Trowa couldn't resist another soft smile as he squatted down to see the baby. One of his hands reached out, and his fingers stroked the silky traces of hair that streaked across Julian's baby-skin pale pink/white scalp. "How old is he?"
"Five months."
"Beautiful," he whispered, in a voice only loud enough for himself to hear. He wanted a baby, more than he could possibly imagine explaining to anyone else, though he never spoke a word of it aloud. He had basically established his role as the righter of wrongs and the placater of things that could not be righted. Quatre was sort of like Trowa's own little baby (except that he had no intention of doing the things he did to Quatre in the bedroom with a small child, or any degree of child for that matter.) He worked hard to make sure that the blond didn't work too hard, or over think simple things, like he had been a moment ago. Although it wasn't always enough to compensate for his yearning after a baby, it generally worked out just fine.
"Hey, guys!" called Quatre from the kitchen. "Who wants wine?"
"I'm up for it!" Duo happily made his way into the vast kitchen as Quatre uncorked the green bottle. Now, Duo knew that he was not an alcoholic by any means, as he watched Quatre pour a lengthy cascade of blushing purple liquid into the elegant longs-stemmed glass. He just liked to drink casually with friends and at parties and at work. But they didn't keep liquor in the house, because Heero got depressed/suicidal when he drank the hard stuff. The boy remained blissfully unaware of Duo's stash of Wild Turkey and Frangelican (with a hint or two of vodka), which he had tucked away in the bathroom drawer that held the curlers and the hairdryer. Almost as soon as Quatre had pulled the bottle's thick neck from his glass, Duo took it and drank. Quatre eyed his friend, concern riddling his angelic expression.
"You're not drinking again, are you?"
"Looks like it," he answered sarcastically as he grinned in response. He could feel the warmth swimming through his body after the first sip, which put the smile on his lips.
"But... I mean, not like you were before, right?"
"Q-man," he replied, slapping his arm over the blonde's shoulder. "Don't worry your beautiful little head over it, okay, dear?"
And even though Quatre knew he would keep worrying about Duo until one of them died, he nodded, and poured a fourth glass. "Does your lady friend want one, too?"
"Who, Lela?" Duo asked, his voice echoing around the glass at his lips. "I don't know," he added, lowering the wine glass. "I've never seen her drink. Hey, Lela?"
"Yeah?" came Lela's voice from the living room. The eclectically dressed young girl, who bore that name, carrying a gray basket with a baby inside, soon followed it.
"Would you like a glass of wine?" Quatre asked, always remembering his gentlemanly manners, manners he'd been taught and that had been drilled into him since he was small. He hoped that Lela would appreciate them, as he could only that her dress was caused by Duo, as vengeance on Heero for not letting him come as a woman. Quatre never had understood just why Duo loved to go out in public in women's clothing. Duo was a fly-by-night cross dresser; he told Quatre that he'd never take on being a woman full-time. He had a lot of respect for the female end of humanity, which made him being gay even more curious than it already was.
"What kind?"
"The merlot's open, but we've got cabernet, sauvignon and France for reds, or Chardonnay, blanc-a-blanc, and this Honey Moon stuff that Trowa picked up if you're in a white mood." He held back a slight smirk of superiority. This girl couldn't have been a day or two over sixteen. There was no way in hell she would know wines.
"Oh... Honey Moon's always a great choice. To me, the merlot has always been more of a dinner wine, but I'd definitely take a glass now. Hold onto that cabernet, the sauvignon I think, okay?" Duo and Quatre were both effectively shocked.
"Where the hell did you learn wines?" Duo exclaimed. He mused to himself how much she knew about mixed drinks and hard liquors. Lela simply shrugged, accepting the glass that Quatre had robotically poured and extended to her.
"When I was younger, we moved around, mostly in Europe. My mom used to take me wine tasting when we lived in Italy, and then in France you have wine almost every night, no matter what age you are. It's freaking sweet. Mmmm..." she added, taking a sip. "Dry... good year."
"I so had no idea about that."
Lela shrugged and took another sip. "I've only known you for a couple of days, Duo. I don't expect you to know my whole life story. In fact, that might actually freak me out."
"So, who's the little prince?" Julian had closed his brown eyes, deep asleep in the carrier.
"Julian."
"He's adorable," Quatre gushed, tiptoeing towards her. He put one slim finger underneath the squishy fat of the baby's chin. "How old?"
"He's five months," Lela answered, pride cracking through her voice like sunshine through the planks of a roof.
"We're storing a crib for one of my sisters, "Quatre whispered. "Do you want to put him down there?"
"Sure," she replied, setting the carrier on the table as Duo took the wine glass from her other hand. Heero watch the other exuberant man sneak a sip out of Lela's wine glass. He hated a drunk Duo. Quickly, he lifted the glass from Duo's clingy fingers, as Julian was raised gently from his carrier into Lela's strong arms.
"Trowa?" Quatre half-whispered, half-called. The brunette glanced towards him. "Would you help her, please? I'm going to finish up dinner." Trowa nodded and placed a gentle hand on the small of her back, leading her through the penthouse.
As he set up the crib, Lela swayed back and froth in the silence. Trowa felt obligated to start up some form of inane small talk in order to hold the girl's interest. Maybe then she wouldn't notice the way he was looking at her baby.
"So, you're Italian?"
She shook her head, noting the earnest that reflected on Julian from Trowa's eyes. "Technically, I'm English, but I was born in America."
"Wow... you must've moved around a lot."
"Yeah... my stepfather was a politician, and we traveled all over the world with him. For the most part, he ignored my mother and finally left her altogether in Moscow, paying a tabloid magazine to invent a cover-up so that it was easy to abandon us. I lived there for a few years."
"Oh... you don't have any kind of accent, you know?"
"That's because my mother doesn't speak Russian. I had to speak English to her every day."
"Why's that?" This conversation was no longer some mindless method of becoming vaguely acquainted with her; he was truly interested in this girl's life and times.
Lela wanted to tell Trowa that her mother didn't speak foreign languages because she was a snotty, pretentious bitch. Instead, her answer was much more befitting that of a political daughter, which was the sort of person she had been raised to be. "My mother held firm to the belief that she was an American and shouldn't learn how to speak the languages of these inferior countries. I learned them because I was in school. I remember," she began fondly, a light twinkle in her eye as Trowa completed the assembly of the crib. "When I was young, and my mother made me angry, I would only answer her in French or German or whatever I felt like. I refused to speak English. Often, that only made things worse."
"Hm," Trowa answered, obviously mulling this over, turning it round and round in his head.
"Oh, you finished the crib!" Lela exclaimed, her green eyes shining with admiring delight.
"Oh... I did, didn't I?" Trowa muttered distractedly, as he tilted his head towards the floor. Lela's glassy eyes softened slightly at his remark, and she stepped closer to him.
"Do you want to hold him?"
Trowa stared up at him in confusion. "What?"
"You've... well, you've been eying Julian since I got here, so I thought you might, maybe want to..."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Trowa, instinctively, responded with a blush.
"Oh no, it's alright, I understand." Her eyes fell upon her child, a gentle pride radiating form them as she watched the sleeping babe. "He's amazing."
"He really is," Trowa whispered before even realizing he had lowered his voice. There's a perpetual sense of awe that goes along with babies and small children. "Would you... mind if I did?"
"No... just try not to wake him up, okay?"
"Yeah, no problem," Trowa replied swiftly, his fingers anxiously scrambling to find the squishing warmth of this infant in his arms. Gently, he folded Julian into his grasp. The infant squirmed for a moment, but then found comfort, and nuzzled himself against Trowa's chest. Lela smiled softly, watching Trowa enter his own element with a child nested against him.
"I'm going to go and chat out there. You can just put him down when you're done, okay?"
"Sure." Trowa wasn't even looking at her. She just hoped he'd heard what she'd said. She began to walk out, but then stopped as though she'd been reminded of something terribly important. One of her hands held the doorframe as she turned back to face him.
"Trowa?"
He looked up at her, this time noting the tone of her voice. It had seemed almost worried, but when he looked at her, he could see her teeth between twin red lips, parted in a smile. "Yes?"
"Remind me to call you when I need a babysitter." He half-smiled at her, and glanced down at the sleeping Julian, to make sure that everything was going swimmingly (which, of course, it was.) When his eyes came back up, the girl was gone.
Duo sidled up beside Heero while Quatre tended to the food in the kitchen. The blue-eyed boy had been staring out the window with the city lights reflecting up at him through the panes of glass. He snaked one arm around Heero's waist, taking a sip from his glass before leaning his head on Heero's shoulder. The boy barely turned his head to acknowledge him before continuing his watchful gaze over the downtown of the colony.
"Having fun?" He nudged the other boy's neck with his head.
Heero shook his head.
"What are you doing?"
"Thinking. You need something, Duo."
"You told her." Duo hadn't meant to say it. It was the reason he'd come to talk, and it had been plaguing his mind the whole day, but he hadn't meant for it to explode out like that. That wasn't very good decorum, something that he felt was a necessity while invading the Fabulous Life of Quatre Winner.
"Told what?"
"You told Lela. About Victor, I mean."
"I did," he answered, his face still stone cold as he held the vigil over the city. He hadn't made any move to touch Duo, which shocked and comforted him. He couldn't be the only one in the relationship, as he'd told himself so many times before."
"I thought you weren't going to."
"I changed my mind."
"Why?"
Why? Heero sighed and turned his head to face his imaginary lover. Dark chocolate bangs fell just so over his shining eyes. Duo looked up towards him. All he needed ways for this boy to know the truth, to know how soft he'd gone after the war. He was supposed to be bigger than all of this, bigger and better than sympathy, mercy, pity, and all those other things that made war harder than it had to be. When he looked into Lela's eyes that night, he realized just how much he had taken away from her and from others. He learned how unfriendly the phrase 'fire at will' could be, and he wished more than anything to peel back the consequences of his actions, pull them off and wipe the eulogy slate clean. Everyone was anonymous to him, until that moment, when he saw the loss reflected in Lela's eyes and found out just how much he'd hurt her. These were all things that Duo couldn't know, that Duo would never find out, or even be able to understand. So, he gave him the only answer that came to mind.
"Because, I did."
Duo stared at him, his eyes docked at Confusion Bay. He had never totally understood, Heero, but this way something new. The Perfect Soldier did not change his mind unless it was necessary. The Perfect Soldier was intrinsically right about all things, no exceptions, do not pass go, do not collect $200. He had his mouth open to say more, when he heard someone behind him. It was Lela, sans Julian and Trowa, who was wandering into the kitchen with Quatre.
"Okay, guys!" called the over-excited voice of the blond. "Dinner's on!"
Duo sighed, and let go of Heero, who lingered just a moment longer before following him into the kitchen.