Disclaimers: Gundam Wing and its characters do not belong to me.

Warnings: shounen ai, language in later parts, Relena bashing? (I'm not trying to, but some people will hate her anyway.)

Author's Notes: Wow, finals week sure got me on a roll. Any delay between this chapter and the last one is mostly due to the fact that I decided to run it by my beta in person when I came home for the holidays. I know it's shocking that you don't have to wait a month for the next chapter, but just consider it a Christmas present or something. It's unfortunately probably not something I'm going to make a habit of.

Courtship Rituals

By Rapunzel

Chapter 6: Revelations and Arguments

The dinner out with Duo turned out to be a rather subdued affair, since Heero was still in a bad mood and didn't want to risk the possibility that he would end up taking it out on his roommate, who had had nothing to do with it. When they returned home, Duo made Heero call Relena to make sure she was okay. He did, and she assured him, rather curtly, that she was fine, thank you for inquiring. Then she hung up on him.

He and Duo surveyed the charred mess on the bottom of the oven, and both came to the conclusion that they weren't going to use the oven until tomorrow night at the earliest and that leaving the mess until tomorrow wasn't going to hurt anything. It was late, and Heero in particular felt tired and didn't want to deal with it.

The next day, however, he decided that the unpleasant task of cleaning the oven had to be tackled, and preferably by him. It didn't seem fair to make Duo do it, after all, since he had had no hand in creating the mess. It was Heero's fault, and he would deal with it. With that thought in mind, Heero left work a little early the next day. When he arrived back at the apartment, he saw no sign of Duo, and so assumed that his roommate was still at work. Shrugging to himself, he got out the cleaning supplies and prepared himself for the task at hand.

Before he could begin scraping the charred residue off the bottom of the oven, however, the doorbell rang. Cursing quietly under his breath, he rose to his feet and prepared to go answer it. It was probably some door-to-door salesperson, he figured, either that or a religious type. Either way, he wasn't looking forward to opening the door.

He was surprised, however, when, before he could leave the kitchen, he heard footsteps padding across the living room and Duo's voice muttering, "Hang on, I'm coming, I'm coming."

Heero blinked. He hadn't known his roommate was home. Duo must have been in his bedroom when he arrived, and so he hadn't seen him. Presumably, Duo hadn't heard him come in either, or he would have come out to greet him.

From the other room came the sound of the front door being opened, and then Duo's voice saying, "Oh, hello. I'm afraid Heero isn't home from work yet."

Heero was about to step forward and contradict that statement when he heard Relena's voice answering, "That's all right. I wanted to talk to you anyway."

Heero immediately drew back. Despite the fact that he was supposed to be dating her, she wasn't high on his list of people he wanted to see at that moment. Of course, given the way she had acted towards him the previous night, he guessed he wasn't exactly at the top of her list either. But then what on earth was she doing here? She said she wanted to talk to Duo, but about what? Curious, Heero sidled closer to the doorway so that he could hear what was going on in the living room.

He heard Relena sigh heavily as she sat down. "It's about Heero."

"I figured it probably was," Duo said wryly.

"It's just... Well, I thought we had a deal, Duo, and it doesn't seem like you're holding up your end."

Heero frowned. A deal? What the hell was she talking about?

Duo's voice took on a quality that told Heero that his roommate was trying not to get angry or exasperated. "There is no 'deal,' Relena. You asked me for a favor, and I've tried to oblige you."

"You haven't been trying very hard," Relena said scathingly. "Every time Heero and I have tried to date so far, it's ended in disaster, and it's always his fault. I thought you said you were going to help him!"

Heero bristled slightly at both her tone and her words, but waited in silence to see what his roommate would have to say.

"I've been trying to, okay?" Duo snapped back, sounding defensive. "Heero's an ingenious guy; he can think of all sorts of ways to do things that I wouldn't predict or expect. And anyway, it's not always his fault."

"No?" Relena sounded sarcastic. "Don't try to tell me that. Every single one of those disasters could have been prevented if he had just acted a little differently. It's like he's not even trying."

"Now that's not fair," Duo protested. "He is trying, you're just expecting too much from him."

"I'm expecting too much from him?!" Relena repeated incredulously. "Is it so unreasonable for me to expect my boyfriend to show a little decency and concern for me? You should have seen how he treated me last night! Acting like I was a nuisance when I said I wasn't feeling well! He could have been at least a little worried about me."

"I'm sure that if he had thought that you were in any way unwell, he would have been worried about you. But he figured you were fine, and he was right, wasn't he?"

"Yes, but that's not the point!" Relena snapped. "He had no way of knowing that. And why couldn't he show at least a little sympathy?"

Despite the fact that Heero couldn't see his roommate from where he was standing, he was sure that Duo was rolling his eyes. "I hate to break it to you, Relena, but Heero's not exactly big in the sympathy department. He certainly doesn't give it to people when he thinks they don't need it. That's just the way he is."

"Well, that's what you're here for," Relena said. "I thought you agreed to help out with these issues. It seems to me like you're falling down on the job."

"No," Duo said, his voice gone quiet and serious. "I never agreed to that."

"You said-" Relena started angrily, but Duo cut her off.

"I said that I would help Heero learn all the little social rituals that are supposed to go with dating. I never agreed to try and fix any personality problems you think he has."

"You said you'd help him," Relena insisted stubbornly. "Don't you think that this falls into that category?"

"Damn it, Relena, think about what you're asking!" Duo said forcefully. "You're asking me to try and make Heero into someone he's not. You can't do that; it's not fair."

"What I'm asking isn't unreasonable!" Relena protested.

"But it is," Duo told her. "You want him to change while you stay the same. It can't work like that. If he's going to change, it'll be because he wants to, not because you want him to."

"If he loves me, he'll want to!" Relena said firmly.

Duo sighed heavily, a resigned sound. "I think," he said softly, "that you may need to reconsider what it is you want from this, Relena. If what you want is Heero, as he is, to be your boyfriend, and if he wants that too, then I'll help you. Otherwise, there really isn't anything I can do for you."

"Damn it, Duo!" Relena cried, and Heero could tell how stressed and agitated she must have been because she almost never swore. "You can't back out on me now!"

"I'm not backing out of something I never agreed to in the first place," Duo said seriously. "I mean it, Relena. Think this over, because until you decide, I have nothing to say to you."

There was a rustling of fabric as Relena stood up from the couch. "Well," she said, sounding like she was controlling her voice very carefully, "in that case, I'll just be going, shall I?" She sounded, Heero realized, like she was either trying hard not to scream at him or not to burst into tears. Possibly both.

"I'll see you to the door," Duo answered quietly, and proceeded to do just that.

Heero tuned out the sounds in the living room as Duo rose to escort Relena out. His brain was working furiously, putting together pieces that had been there for days now, which he simply hadn't realized the significance of. Duo's absences, the business he had been attending to that he refused to tell Heero about. Those must have been times he had gone to see Relena. Duo's willingness to help him, his encouragement, all at her behest. And he had been foolish enough to think that Duo had been doing it for him, because he actually had faith in him. He felt a surge of hurt, followed quickly by anger. What the hell did Duo think he was doing, playing around like that? Shouldn't he have at least consulted with Heero first to try and see what he wanted? All this mess with Relena could have been avoided!

His temper rising at an alarming rate, Heero strode out into the living room, ready to confront his roommate. He managed to time it so that he came in just as Duo returned from shutting the door. When Duo caught sight of him, his face went pale, and Heero felt a momentary surge of vindication. Duo knew he was caught now.

The pallor soon faded, however, into a look of resignation. "How much did you hear?" Duo asked, not sounding frightened or defensive, only tired. The note of defeat in his voice coupled with his sad countenance almost made Heero back off before he reminded himself that he had good reason to be angry.

"I heard the whole conversation," he answered, his eyes boring accusingly into Duo.

Duo's lips twitched at the corners into a mirthless smile. "I see," he said. "And I take it you're not very pleased with what you heard."

"And I take it that I'm allowed to be displeased, since you went behind my back with Relena like that," Heero growled.

A flash of irritation crossed Duo's face. "Now wait a minute, I may not have told you that she asked me to help, but it wasn't exactly behind your back. You were willing to accept my help."

"Yeah, and look where it got me!" Heero snapped. "Not that it really mattered anyway, because the whole thing was her idea really, wasn't it? I can't believe you let her use you like that! Did you ever feel any loyalty at all towards me?"

"Now that's not fair!" Duo protested, growing defensive. "I feel plenty of loyalty towards you. If you recall, I did ask you at the outset if you were okay with this, and you said yes!"

"Because you pushed me into it!" Heero shot back.

"I didn't push you into anything!" Duo cried. "I'm your friend, Heero, I always have been! If you had said no, I would have backed off and left it at that!"

"Would you have?" Heero accused. "Are you sure you wouldn't have tried to talk me into it because she wanted you to?"

"No!" Duo responded vehemently. "I'd have gone with your wishes over hers any day!"

"And why is that, huh?" Heero asked scathingly. "You seem to follow Relena's wishes pretty closely. Why would what I think make any difference to you?"

"Because I love you, you stupid moron!" Duo yelled in frustration.

Utter silence followed this confession. Heero simply stood and stared at Duo, his mouth hanging slightly open. Duo, for his part, looked equally shocked and just a little horrified. His violet eyes were dark with mingled anger, frustration, longing, and something that looked unpleasantly like despair. The expression on his face told Heero more clearly than words that Duo had not meant to say that.

"You..." he started, but then fell silent. This was just too much to process all at once. "Why did you..."

Duo drew himself up. "Why did I what?" he asked boldly. Pain was evidently starting to take a backseat to defiance, as it so often did with Duo. That was just one of the ways he controlled himself.

Heero was confused, but more than that, he was still angry. "If you claim to love me, why did you try so damned hard to set me up with Relena?" he demanded.

It was the wrong thing to say. Duo's eyes flashed with fury. "First of all, let's get one thing straight. I don't just claim to love you, I do! If you want to make fun of that, well, screw you! Second of all, I tried to 'set you up' as you put it because you indicated to me that that was what you wanted!"

"So you just decided to let go? You didn't try to stop me at all, to put up a fight of some sort?"

"No!" Duo looked ready to tear his hair out. "God dammit, Heero! What would you have had me do? Get in a catfight over you like some infatuated school girl?! Because that would be really mature!" he spat sarcastically.

"You could have done something!" Heero returned. "You could at least have tried!"

"I did try!" Duo cried harshly. "I tried to make sure you were happy, you prick! That's all I've been trying to do since the start of this whole mess!"

"And you thought that following up on some vague notion I had about dating would make me happy?"

"It's never just a vague notion with you, Heero!" Duo spat back. "You don't seem to have vague notions, or if you do, you never mention them! You never say what it is you're thinking, and so when you do actually express an interest in something, I usually take that to mean it's pretty damned important to you!"

"Well, if you thought I was so keen to date Relena, you obviously don't know me as well as you thought!" Heero yelled back.

For a moment Duo stood absolutely still. The look that flitted across his face was one that Heero recognized. He'd seen it before when he'd smashed his fist into Duo's stomach during the Mariemeia incident. That look of shocked surprise mingled with pain now crossed Duo's features, only to vanish again to be replaced by a look of fury oddly tinged with resignation.

"I think," Duo said, his voice shaking slightly with the effort he was putting in to control both its volume and its tone, "That we should not discuss this further until both of us have had a chance to calm down." So saying, he made his way over to the door of the apartment, grabbing his coat on the way. "I'm going out," he said as he slipped on his shoes. "Don't try to follow me."

He let the door bang shut behind him, and then he was gone.

Tbc...

Author's Notes: Wow... I basically just wrote an entire chapter of people arguing...