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: Things coming to a head, what shrinks have to do with it all, and Duo in battle-mode...
xxxThank you for reviewing – much appreciated. This is the second sequel. I thought I could wrap everything up by now. Well, I'm not good at judging that sorta thing, so more follow-up chapters are likely to come, in time.
Let me know what you think, folks. Cheers.
xxxSo 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?"
And when he says nothing but kneads his fingers as though he wants to break them off, one by one, I can only sigh. "Man, Duo, this is way over my head, but I should have thought THAT is rather normal for a bloke."
"Is not when I don't feel like one," he mutters, "it's confusing the hell outta me, too." Only sex, he tells me, and he looks ready to sink into the ground with shame. To his credit, he does tell me, in spite of what it must cost him to find the words and say them out loud. Slowly but surely, I come to believe that nothing can surprise anymore.
Perhaps that's part of it all.
Duo is never boring.
And he'd rather die that share those things with anyone but me. He is very private beneath his loud facade.
We are doing our household chores. Together, small routines, comforting and stable, homely and settled. I like it: to feel that we have a place where we belong, something steady in our always moving world. Duo is different. While I like being at home, he likes coming home.
I am cooking; he stuffs the washing machine, his movements a bit frantic as he flails and gesticulates while talking to me: "Who is saying what's normal anyway? Is it normal to get pissed and violent? Or whack your partner 'cos she can't beat you back? Or go trainspotting, or break the speed limit all the time? I've not done any of that, so why're they trying to make me a freak? Pluck me to bits so they can study how I fuck and why? It's private, for fuck's sake, and I'm not even doing it for a cheap thrill!" Duo pauses, anger stronger than hurt, and then he slams the machine shut, sets it rumbling, and says, matter of factly and with the tiniest hint of satisfaction, "I told the shrink I wouldn't tell him anything, and I didn't. He was nice, actually, and I was an ass, but he got the message, and I got my friggin' letter – here: officially not nuts, with a healthy distrust of persons in authority, unsuited for therapy." He emphasises the word 'healthy', and fairly spits out the rest.
Sounds like Duo alright. Even though he wanted this so badly, he would not be blackmailed into yielding. Or taking the word of a so-called expert for a gospel and crawl into a little hole in fear. No, Duo refuses to play the role of the poor cracked-up sod grovelling for help. I nearly laugh out loud at the picture that unfolds in my mind – my partner bristling and cross, trying hard to remain polite while he's stonewalling and steaming up into full battle mode, determined to get what he went out for without letting go of himself. He refuses to allow others to have power over him that way.
Except for me. He trusts me, absolutely and unconditionally.
Because we are not just lovers. We are friends, too.
I know him. I could have written that letter without charging him a lot of bucks.
All my pans are stewing away nicely. I make us coffee, and he fetches the milk from the fridge. Leaning against he kitchen counter by my side, he blows up his cheeks and pulls a face. "He tried to catch me out – told me of someone who thought he didn't need a shrink and turned out to be grateful he got one, but that guy had been sent for an assessment after having a fit of air rage. Assault and ciminal charges, that sorta thing."
I find it insulting that Duo should be compared to someone like that. "So what did you say?"
He takes his mug, says thank you, runs a hand through his hair and laughs a bit. "The obvious. That it was a non-starter 'cos I'm not violent and no criminal, only want a few bits of me reshaped."
I cannot help but wince and smile into my coffee. So easy – Duo's mind is as sharp as a razor, his logic acute and undimmed, and where his pride is scratched, he will muster his cool and his temper at the same time. Always the fighter, like a cornered wildcat; the worse the situation, the more he'll power up. He even manages to turn the tables on a shrink. Though it still rankles with him that he needed to stoop that low, that he has a shrink-file now that makes him a 'patient', but I comfort him. Sometimes, we just need to be pragmatic, we learned that during our wild years, ne? He gives me a grin, wide and wavering between nervous and happy. We are a bit easier about it all now, he and I, because I know it is still him, and perhaps he is more himself now that he's ever been.
How strange. He has not gone all mushy, he does not stagger around in high-heels; he accepts quite easily that there are things the surgeon's craft cannot alter, though he would like it if it were possible to have them done well. So he is being pragmatic, in good old Duo-fashion, and takes what life will give. Compromise. But he will haggle out the best bargain he can get and only then settle for it without regrets or resentment, after having exhausted every possible avenue. It gives him peace, and that gives me peace.
There is a downside to it all, of course, for when he's fought and haggled enough, he will slump, to drop so fast that sometimes I find it difficult to catch him and drag him back. He has not told the man who was trying to pry into his mind: there is no need for it because if anything, what Duo plans will help him ease up, and other people struggle with the same thing.
One of my pans boils over, and I turn down the heat. Duo puts the milk back in its place in the fridge door, and we settle by the table to finish our drinks.
The first stage of his battle is done and won. I know he is glad this is over, the first set of obstacles conquered, but I also know he is anxious now, afraid something will spoil it at the last moment. He has to wait now for an appointment, and he will only rest once things are actually happening – he is bad at waiting, he has no patience. I also know how he sounded when he rang me on the cellphone after he had seen all those people he had to see. He was bushed, his voice thin and worn out, a bit shaky too. He was worried about money and just wanted to go home, he told me, the train would be delayed, and how tired he was...
The thought of him trying to nod on his travel bag, alone at some cold, gloomy rail station gave me the creeps. I offered to pick him up. "Baka," he said, a smile lightening his tone a little, "that would mean you'd drive all night if the train gets stuck up here. I'll make my way alright, don't fret and don't wait up for me."
He is tough. He can make his way; it is important to him that I have enough faith that he will actually make it, but it is just as important he knows I'm there when he needs me. He arrived back home in the small hours, scolding me when he found me sitting at the kitchen table with my eyes drooping and two mugs of cold tea in front of me. But I could tell how glad he was, and how exhausted, and I began to prepare for the downturn I knew would hit us soon.
xxx
Next chapter: Burn
This is likely to come uptowards the end2005 (a little sooner if I can manage).
