Fandom: Gundam Wing
Rating: NC-15/M
Pairings: Duo with Heero
Warnings: Male/Male love and references to sex.
Disclaimer: I do not own them. All rights with their original owners.
Summary: Duo has issues, Heero is affected, depression and matters of gender prove a test perhaps harder than anything they have been through before...
xxxThank you for reviewing – much appreciated. So here is the first sequel chapter – I reckon there will be one more to come.
Let me know what you think, folks. Cheers.
xxxDuo is suffering. I can tell for we have known one another for half a lifetime, we have been fighting shoulder-to-shoulder, and we have been living together for years.
But Duo is slowly drifting away from me, and I do not know what I have done wrong. He tells me things I do not understand – that he feels wrong in his skin, that he wants to make love to me in ways we never considered before and that make me uncomfortable, that he is down and does not know how to pick himself up again.
I feel helpless for I cannot give him the answers he needs. I do not know what he needs. He has started growing his hair again, but it is different from having his braid: he wears it open, dyed a soft, burnished gold that goes well with his dusky blue eyes, and he has taken to using a discreet shade of lipgloss and a bit of eyeliner.
It troubles me. A while ago, he threw out most of his clothes and now tends to dress in mellow shades, jumpers and trousers that make him look softer, almost girlish were it not for his rather angular form and his sharp face. I wonder whether he buys the stuff in the ladies department, though it is discreet enough. Yet he does look different, and I realise that people are looking at him more than usual when we walk down the street. His walk has softened too without looking put-on… he seems more himself than he has been in months now.
But he is not the one I have come to love, and I cannot understand what is going on. I am so tired most days when I get home, and he is unhappy for some reason, and restless. Sometimes I worry that he might damage himself. He is drinking too much and for nights on end, he will shun our bed and prefer the computer and the internet for company.
I do not like it. I miss him the way he was. I miss him.
He wants to talk to me and stalls. He never found it difficult to jabber away, and this new awkwardness worries me, too. "What if I changed the way I look?" he asked me once, blurting out in a rush, a furious blush staining his cheeks.
"How?"
He blushes even more, fidgets and shies away from my gaze. "I mean, I spoke to some folks…"
I do not want to get what he is trying to say. He is slipping from me, and I feel like falling into some black hole, with nowhere to land.
He drops his mug of coffee. Shards and coffeeground spatter everywhere, and he kneels to clear up the mess with kitchen paper, dustpan and brush. I load the dishwasher, stealing glances at his bent back, his thin neck that is still flushed pink, the soft tendrils of hair that curl about his temples and ears. He takes too long to clean the floor now, his motions slow and listless, his posture slumped. He has changed into someone I do not recognise anymore.
"Heero," he murmurs, still down on his knees, hands full with stained paper and the dustpan. "I could have surgery to change."
I have to sit down now. Something is roiling in the pit of my stomach, taking away my breath and rendering me speechless. He looks up at me, eyes bitter and dark even through the smile that plays over his glossed lips. I want to hug him, shake him out of all this, but he rises to his feet before I can move and drops the rubbish into the garbage bin. "I have made some enquiries," he continues into the silence, over his shoulder so he does not have to look at me, and I can tell how hard it comes to him to talk about this stuff.
He is afraid of losing me, of us breaking apart, of me dropping him for I cannot understand him, and he knows that. If I had wanted a woman, I could have had one, but I wanted him, and the idea of sleeping with a woman does not do me any good. It's not that I don't like them, or that I feel somehow greater – but they do not attract me in that way. The image of him, whom I have seen fighting and killing, turning into just that… well, it does make me uncomfortable. How can he give up himself like that?
He is afraid, but not enough to stop here. "It's not your fault," he says, summing up what plagued me all those past months when it did not work between us in bed. "But it's not mine, either. At least," he wipes his eyes, a tense, weary gesture, "at least I know now."
At least this stubborn persistence is his own, as he keeps prodding, dropping hints, spoon-feeding me tidbits of information about what he plans to do with his body, although the thought of him cut and bleeding and stitched together like a ragdoll reminds me too much of what we've been through, and of what I do not want him to be.
He does not want the full hog, he tells me quietly, just enough to feel comfortable, wear the clothes he likes, carry off the looks he wants to achieve. It won't take that much, he is pretty, and the way he dresses is unobtrusive. He does not want to stick it out, he explains, it's no one's business but his – and mine. He wants to know what I think of it.
I can't think anything right now. I am reeling, sick and worried mindless; I have work to do and his rollercoaster depression to cope with.
He gives me a bleak look. His despair cuts me deeply, and I feel utterly inadequate in dealing with this. I want him back the way he was, easy, happy, full of boundless energy... what has happened to my tough, cheerful partner?
He is watching me like a hawk, and I'm sure he is cataloguing the slightest shift in my posture, the tiniest twitch in my face. Duo is good at that, nothing escapes his sharp eyes if he wants to see, and I feel naked and uncomfortable under his scrutiny. I wish he'd give me time to mull things over, to come to terms with this. Right now, I don't even know whether I will be able to do that.
"Am I nuts?" he asks, his tone brittle. "Heero, tell me, have I gone bananas?" He even tries a smile. The joke is Duo as I know him, making fun even of the worst situation, even when he's down in the dumps and can't see a way out and his life hangs by a thread.
"No, you're not," I tell him, for that spark of his old self is to me like rain to parched ground. It makes me hope that I can hold on to him, perhaps, and that these things will just go away: he will snap out of it and we will be back to normal. I am grasping at straws.
"They said I gotta see a shrink," he goes on, his voice firming up now, a rebellious twang to it, "So what could he know 'bout me that I don't? I know what I want. Why ain't I allowed to make my own decision? I won't hurt anyone with it, I won't cost anyone a penny – I'll pay for the friggin' lot – and I'm old enough to know. Done my duty, live a settled life, hold down a job, pay my taxes, wanna be discreet 'cos I know some folks have issues with it. And I'm still not allowed to sign something that says, yeah, I know what I'm doing, I'm aware of the risks, I've done my research, the doctor only does what I told him to do, and I'm not gonna sue anyone later." He pauses, and then adds, "They even wanna know how I like to do it in bed…"
He shoves a wad of papers across the table. A questionnaire he's been asked to complete. Reluctantly, I pick it up, begin to read and feel like gagging: why should he have three people keeping a permanent watch over him? What is it to them how we sleep with one another? Why should he announce his decision to all and sundry if all he wants is to be discreet and considerate of other people's views? And that's only the slightest part of it.
"They asked me which box I'd put myself in."
He sounds ill now, and I look up from the papers. He busies himself filling the kettle and spooning ground coffee into two mugs. His face is pale, drained of colour, with a sheen of sweat on his upper lip and his brow. "What did you say to them?"
He bites his lip and shrugs. "That they are the specialists. I don't care 'bout boxes, I feel ok 'bout myself except for a few small things... I don't even want to change everything. Man, I've done my duty, fought, worked, like everyone else and a tad more, so why do they have to box me?"
He is too modest. He could pocket all those people and walk away laughing – I know what he can do, and it's way more than he will admit without feeling embarrassed. He has broken and mended more times than they will ever fathom, he is strong and spirited, and I love him for that, and that he had down-times – well, lots of people have those and are considered normal. I do not want some shrink to wear him down, or some idiots to prod around in his mind until they are satisfied that they have messed him enough to class him as officially nuts, ready for one of their stupid boxes.
They know nothing. I realise that I don't know half of him, but I do know enough. "They want to put you into a box because people are scared by what they cannot label," I say, remembering too well what we went through during the wars.
"They told me some rubbish about a disorder. I don't feel disordered," he spits, another glimpse of his fighting spirit. Good. Much better. This IS Duo after all.
"You are not," I try to reassure him, and I mean it. "I'm the only one who has the right to have a problem with this."
He does not want to ask the obvious, and for that I am thankful because I could not give him a truthful answer: whether I would still like him with his body altered, the body I love the way it is, whether I would still be able to consider him my partner, my mate, my life. Perhaps I won't know this until it is all over and done with.
Yes, we both take a gamble here. And even though he is determined now and afraid, angry and hopeful all at once, he is not yet brave enough to dare me one step further. I am glad: we still understand one another without many words. He smiles a little, but when his glance slips back to the papers, I can see his eyes glitter with panic and disgust.
So I pick up the pack and wave it in front of his nose. "That's sick," I tell him, "don't let them do this to you."
He wipes his face with the back of his hand. "I fuckin' won't." He sounds comforted and grateful, though he is cross too, and I can see a bit more of his old self. I feel better for it, somewhat easier too, although wary. Still, he is right, and what they suggest to him angers me for it makes him look stupid and robs him of his dignity. I don't like that.
The kettle clicks off, and he turns to fill up our mugs. "They shouldn't be able to force you," I say to his back, slapping the papers back onto the table. "You should throw this lot and find someone who takes you seriously."
He swallows hard, a spark of appreciation and a wave of relief in his eyes, hands me my mug and sits down opposite me. We sip our drinks; the silence is companionable. He knows he has me as his backup now, and this reassures him, while it makes me feel that he still needs me, wants me, trusts me.
"We have more than sex, haven't we, Heero?" he murmurs, looking up at me from behind his mug. Consider that.
There hasn't been much in the way of that recently. I know he misses it, and feel like a loser because most evenings I'm just too tired to do more than dreaming of him, and when we do sleep together, I can't hold out long enough to give him the satisfaction he deserves. Thinking about it and watching myself when we do it makes matters worse, and he has been frustrated and occasionally, when his patience snaps, just desperate.
He blames his body. Himself. Me. But now, with these things going on in his mind, he appears more relaxed, more contented again. As though something had been brewing, forgotten in the rush of our fighting years and our attempt to build something resembling a normal existence, and is resurfacing now that we are calm and settled. Old priorities have shifted or gone away, we all have changed. We had enough time to come to ourselves. He's had time to think about it, he's battled it, struggled to come to terms, and now he's made up his mind and wants to be at ease.
They say most people break up when they have settled and should be content. But he still wants me to be happy, too. Longs for me to accept him… anew. Perhaps not all is lost for us; maybe I just need to think about it a bit more, though I don't really want to know.
I realise that he won't put up with denial any longer. He wants me to understand him, and I'm leaving all the effort to him because I have no idea how to handle this whole thing. But I can offer him support: I can listen, even if it makes me squirm what I hear; I can tell him that I'll help him raise the funds if he can't make it alone, and that I'll be around when he needs me. At least, I can give it a try – I owe him that for we've been partners through thick and thin for half a lifetime.
So I tell him this, and with amazement, I see him perk up and give me his first real smile in months. Shiny, bright, broad – Duo's smile.
That night, we make love. He offers me to do it the way I like it, and after months of battling me in bed for his demands, he just yields and seems happy enough.
We are closer than we have been for a long time.
He is happy. I am happy. I want him. I need him, no matter what his shell, because his soul, his heart, they're still his own.
Perhaps it IS that simple.
He is smiling at me, his eyes shining, begging forgiveness for something he cannot help, and I kiss him. "Go to sleep, baka," I tell him, rubbing slow circles over his back. It will send him to dreamland before long, and his smile takes on a hazy quality as his eyes drift shut and he relaxes into me.
I do not know where this journey will take us, him and me. But we have travelled darker roads together, and he is still mine. Because this is about more than sex.
And that's the long and the short of it.
xxx
Next chapter: The Brightness of Dreams
So he does not like his body. I got that alright. But... "Why, Duo? I just can't understand..."
He shrugs, a bit helpless. "Perhaps I don't have to pretend all the time that I'm the great fighter?"
And there is still the matter of our not-matching sex drive. "Heero... if we can't make it work... I mean, I don't want us to break apart, and what if we could find another way?"
I know he swings both ways, but now... "You mean, you want to take a lover? You want a girlfriend?"
