Burning

Fandom:Gundam Wing
Rating:NC-15/M
Pairings:Heero and Duo
Warnings:Profanity, references to male/male love, angst
Disclaimer:I do not own them although I would like that. All rights with their original owners.
Spoilers:None.

Summary: Things are heating up for Duo and Heero while they question norms and normalcy and Heero feels unusually queasy…

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Thank you again for reviewing – especially for such nice, sensitive feedback. I managed to get this chapter written much quicker than I thought, so here goes, and I hope you will let me know how you liked it. Cheers.

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Odd how ingrained everyday details are, so much that we only begin to notice them when they are slightly off kilter.

For example the fact that Duo is a good half head taller than me, that he is undoubtedly male – something he dislikes deeply enough to want a change in that compartment – but that beneath his boisterous exterior he is brittle and easy to down. Or that he has hair that is way too long and too soft for a guy, that he is dyeing it a honeyed gold, and that he likes putting on the faintest hint of eyeliner and lip-gloss, which give his pretty face a strangely ambiguous appearance.

That he does not shop for clothes in the same department as me anymore, even though he does not wear anything definitely girly.

The day he first turned up at his workplace as what he feels is his new and true self, dressed in a pale green jumper and black jeans, his hair brushed into a glossy mane down to his narrow shoulders and some clear gloss on his lips, his boss did a double take, his colleagues looked a few times, and that was it. "They're ok," he said with great relief, "and I'm tryin' to make it easy for them."

He is walking a tightrope. I would not like to change places with him now. He is torn between tense and happy, black and white, his usual violent mood swings, yet throughout all this, I can detect a kind of quiet certainty within, something like a source of strength he has only now discovered, and he marvels and revels in it as though he'd found a new lease of life.

Perhaps it is true, but it has its drawbacks. We got a first taste of them when he went to buy a couple of books: the guy at the checkout eyed him a few times while Duo was queuing. When it was his turn, the bloke turned from polite to rude in the blink of an eye, more or less chucking the books at Duo, grunting monosyllables and refusing to look him in the face. Duo laughed it off, but I could see he was a bit shaken.

This kind of stuff does not find us unprepared, though I am wary about which forms it is going to take, and how much of that shit will hit us in the face.

Duo is trying to keep a hard hand on the whole process, he is in control alright, he has known hardship and can handle this and himself. But I can see it comes at a cost. He is always dead beat in the evenings. He says he doesn't function properly at work, though this has other reasons – the company is re-structuring, people in limbo and demotivated. It doesn't help that things seem to tumble in on him all at the same time.

He is selective in whom he trusts with all this: me.

He is also careful how much he tells people, and with whom he speaks. He can't see the need to bother anyone not involved, and I think he is right. As far as his close team are concerned, he will have surgery to his plumbing – he did not lie but left it to them to figure out the reason – and then he'd be off sick for a while. They have known him for some time, they feel for him, thinking of other reasons, which makes him squirm a little, but I think it gives everyone the option to think what they feel most comfortable with, and he has a breathing space. They offered help, and he is grateful. I talked him out of taking unpaid leave because it would be a giveaway he cannot afford without inviting a whole raft of unpleasantries.

Not that we haven't had our brushes with those already.

One evening we were walking down the street, my arm roundhis shoulders andhis hand onmy backside, in an easy, companionable way. A bunch of young blokes with their girlfriends passed us, then looked back as we walked on, and began to call him names I'd rather not repeat. They seemed to feel trodden over their male honour, and the girls were indignant at what they considered a parody of themselves.

He does not look like a parody. In his tee and jeans, with unbound hair and a tad more makeup because we were going out, he looked a lot tamer than most of the youngsters in that group. He dresses well, he grooms and turns himself out neat and tasteful. He has nothing of the overdone, desperate caricatures some people become, and I think those are not folk that really feel like him. Some of them are pushed to it if they submit to the process he insists on resisting, but those happy to display themselves on the telly strike me as mere thrill seekers, able to step out of it at any time they like.

He can't. Yet he does not sweeten up his voice or sway his hips, he won't down hormone bombs, he won't wear high heels or low-cut scraps of nothing. I liked him the way he was, tough and rough, but I have come to like his new look too, because – to my relief – it is not what I expected. But then, I am not exactly a neutral observer. I am heavily, irrevocably, unrepentantly biased. Because I found that I still love him.

He is brave, in a quiet, firm way. Something I recognise as Duo, true to himself, for he cannot sustain a lie. So I rediscover him and find he still is my partner, my friend, the madness in my life and the stillness too. Now he wants a girl who feels like him, only the other way round, and he even told me that, but he wants me too. Right.Not that I find this easy to stomach, but it dawns on me that perhaps, what we have is so unusual that it defies so-called norms.

Well, we were never good at norms, anyway. Our focus has shifted away from sex, as though a layer of mist has been peeled back, to reveal what is beneath: hard, shiny, solid. Trust. Affection. Understanding. Old-fashioned and enduring. As long as we have this, sex is sex, andthisis something different.

On second thought, it might not be surprising that we sleep with one another more often now. I try to learn, he is more patient. It feels good. He is happier.

He showed me the brochure the surgeon gave him. It got me scared. Process that. He wants his nuts removed, his chest reshaped to achieve a bit more softness there, and leave it at that. To let his body, deprived of a stream of hormones, do the rest of the work until it finds its own balance. I am not icky but it made me ill to look at the pictures, let alone read through a description of the procedure. Into hospital, a few hours out cold on the operation table, out after a day and a night, hopefully no bleeding, drains and stitches that have to be removed after a few days. He has booked a hotel for he won't be able to travel back home and it is better for him to stay near the clinic. Neither does he want to bother me and declines my offer to pick him up with the car. It worries me sick, knowing he will be on his own for those days after the operation, in pain, and struggling with the aftermath of the anaesthetic. If things should start to go wrong, he has to drag himself back somehow and pay for another stunt at the clinic. Other than that, he is supposed to cope on over-the-counter painkillers and walk around to avoid blood clots.

So I've seen worse than a few long, smooth expert cuts with a scalpel, tidily sutured afterwards. I've seen Duo in much worse shape than that. But it's him, and his vitals, and it suddenly feels so very unnecessary… I swallow what I want to say, will not try to talk him out of it. Me nagging him is the last thing he needs now.

I am sure I'm not a coward, but I've never been good at seeing him suffer. It makes me feel utterly useless, helpless, and I want to throw things around and shout off my frustration when he can't hear me. As it is, I tell him I won't have any nonsense, and that I WILL pick him up because he is forbidden even from carrying a full kettle, let alone luggage, while the wounds are fresh. "On the train then," he says, a smile brightening his face, and I can see how grateful he is, "I wouldn't want to cram into a car with my bottoms hurting an' all."

So that's what we will do. I borrowed the money he will need. We are all set.

I feel like at the peak of a rollercoaster, staring down into a milling abyss, the moment before the whole load shoots down at breakneck speed, when your stomach lurches and the urge to puke becomes almost overwhelming, and then you can't think any longer through the explosion of noise and colours…

I'd like to hold on to that peak. Just for a little.
Duo tends to rush things. He is in a hurry to take the plunge.

He's always been somewhere in between, he tells me one evening, resting against me, his elbow poking into my ribs, his hair splayed over my shoulder. Playing with the girls more than with the boys, always too open with what he feels, too dependent on someoneloving him. Trying to fit in, prove that he can be Mr Tough Guy... well, I'd say he did that with overwhelming success. He smiles vaguely as I tell him, and I realise all his running and hiding has something to do with it - he was never at home with himself, though I swear when I fell for him, hehad nothing girlish about him. He was trying to fit his role, cut out for him by others. He trusts me enough to drop it now.

He is playing with me, smoothing his hand down my side, my stomach, over my nipples, down my arms, tracing my contours and watching my reactions: sigh, groan, shudder, hardening slowly. I love his touch, except when he starts picking, something that never ceases to embarrass me. Nails nipping my skin, prodding and tugging at any tiny imperfection, until I jump and growl at him, and then he will hurriedly smooth over any welts with kisses and caresses.

Thinking back, I can see what he is saying. His hair. His warmth. His ease in the company of Hilde, his anger at folk like us who cannot love the other sex. Anger that turned out to be denial, transforming to remorse and reluctant, scared acceptance of what he is now. A guy living with another bloke, and perhaps not quite a guy after all. He tried the so-called normal life, too, with Hilde. It would not work, even though they are still on good terms because he was honest enough not to use her as a façade. I can see he is confused, hell, I am too, but he has had to walk all this way by himself, and now he stands out in the glaring light, facing it as he faced down danger and death many a time.

He has come a long way. So have I, from dead-straight to loving my best friend who happened to be a guy, to loving him still, whatever he is now. I feel no regret, no resentment, only wonder, surprise and a great wariness of what lies ahead of us. And I hope that we will be unusual enough to see it through.

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Next chapter: At Peace