Title: Castle Made of Sand
Author: WickedGame
Archive: "No Rest for the Wicked" http/wickedgame. ffnet, mediaminerorg, my LJ
Category: drama, angst, one-shot
Rating: PG-13 or T
Pairing: 2+1
Warnings: Foul language
Notes: I was trying to go a different route with this, but it ended up being like this. Written for the 12 Community Challenge "New Beginnings". Beta-ed by Adaina.
I know a man who knows a man who…. well, you know the rest. It's a huge chain of connections that all add up to nothing except a lead. A lead on the something I lost some time ago.
It was my fault. I didn't know it then, but I know it now. God, do I know it now. I had him, and then I lost him.
We had been so happy. Everything had seemed right and perfect. In hindsight it shows up as an ivory tower that was always close to toppling, even if we never knew there was a flaw. Like a castle made of sand, it washed away with only the tide to aid it, and he was washed away with it.
I guess you would really want to know what I'm actually talking about instead of all these metaphors, right? Well, I can give you all the sordid details. Don't say I didn't warn ya though.
Heero and I had been fighting off an on. I left towels on the floor while he washed his hands constantly. I burned the water while trying to boil it, and he had an aversion to cooking meat. We were just bickering, doing what couples do. But, for some reason, we were starting to get nastier and nastier about it. It got to the point where we weren't even screwing anymore. He complained of being tired or of just being too mad at me to want to. Sometimes I didn't want to either, so it was something I could understand.
Heero started going out by himself and not wanting me to go along. I started hanging out with friends outside too. I still was too stubborn to see that things were really wrong with us. I didn't know he was talking to people about trying to decide whether to leave me or not. I never even thought about leaving him. Hell, he was the one sane thing in my life. I loved the bastard, no matter what he said or did. I'm a big believer that love can overcome most things, especially when you love someone as much as I love Heero.
I guess the straw that broke the camel's back was Hilde. Heero was out with various people, but I spent a lot of time with Hilde. She knew I was gay. She knew I loved Heero. I thought Heero knew that I had no shred of interest in Hilde. But, it turns out that he had grown a little insecure.
One night I was out with Hilde and we came back to the place where Heero and I lived. We were both drunk. Heero wasn't home yet. She and I drank a couple of glasses of wine and watched television. I guess, at some point in my drunken stupor, I lay down on the couch and Hilde curled up next to me. And that was how Heero found us later that night.
I sleep like the dead when I'm drunk, which is probably why I didn't hear him pack up everything he owned and load it into his car. When I woke up in the morning Hilde was gone, and I had to puke. I did so and then walked into the kitchen. There was a note, scribbled on a scrap of paper.
I saw you two on the couch. It seems like this is really over. Sometimes love is not enough.
I crinkled it up into a ball and tossed it into the trash. I sat on the floor of my kitchen for all of five minutes before I started to look for him. I booted my laptop and started to call on all those hacking skills Heero had taught me. He had the wrong idea; the totally wrong idea. We had to fix this. I had to fix this. I didn't know what it was going to take to fix it, but I was going to do my best to figure it out.
Heero Yuy knows how to hide. He had withdrawn a large amount of cash from his savings, which meant that he was only using cash to get around. That meant he hadn't left Earth, more than likely because it would cost more than he had in savings to leave the planet legally. I scanned for every one of his known aliases. After a couple of hours of hacking I started passing around information that I hoped people would pick up on. If someone caught the littlest whiff of him I would know. I called all his friends and our mutual friends. No one had heard from him. I hoped to hell he had not stowed away on some freighter somewhere and headed out into those stars again. I would never find him then. As long as he was on Earth I had a chance. Preventers warned all shuttle ports to not let him leave the Earth (it's great having friends in high places).
Two weeks passed, and all the leads had turned up nothing, until last night. Yesterday someone had seen him. They had, in fact, talked to him. He was in New York. Why he had chosen New York I've no clue. I think he thought he could sink into anonymity in such a large city. That must've been the reasoning. The person said they had seen and talked to him in the public library on Fifth Avenue. I thanked them for the info and then booked the next flight to New York.
So hear I am, standing in front of this huge ass library. I've been here all day waiting for Heero. I'm actually in a small alleyway across the street from the library, keeping myself out of too much sight. If he spied my long-ass braid he would bolt immediately. So I'm waiting.
Waiting…..
Almost on cue he shows up. Walks right into the library. I walk quickly across the street and enter the library myself. He's at the desk, asking the clerk a quiet question, and then he's off. I follow at a safe distance and I see him enter an elevator. I wait to see what floor it stops on: the fourth floor. I check the map and see that the fourth floor contains a computer lab and newspapers and such. I get in the elevator and push the button for the fourth floor. Up I go, and I get out when it dings.
Almost as soon as I step out of the elevator I'm grabbed from behind. A hand goes over my mouth to muffle it, and I'm dragged quickly back to the Social Services History section. When my captor finally lets me go back in the stacks I turn to see Heero, who's glaring at me for all he is worth.
"How the hell did you find me?" he asks.
"I know a guy who knows a guy…" I shrug. He pushes me into a bookcase, and it wobbles slightly. I wince, but otherwise show no sign of distress that I know of.
"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with your girlfriend?" he asks me snidely.
"You never even asked me what was up! She isn't my girlfriend. She never has been and never will be, you know that!" I hiss. Fuck if he is not one jealous bastard.
"It sure looked like you two were cozy enough!" he snaps.
"We fell asleep drunk as hell. We'd been out drinking together, since the man I love likes to go out with other people and not me!" I snap back.
"I still want to know what you are doing here," Heero frowns.
"I came to get you. Come home," I tell him. He frowns more.
"Come home to you and your wet towels and burnt water?" he asks me rudely.
"Come home to me and make me eat vegetarian. Come home to me and yell at me to pick up my towels. Come home to me and let me screw you silly. Come home to me and get me drunk and have your wicked way with me. I don't give a shit as long as you come home with me!" I nearly yell.
"Be quiet! This is a library," he tells me as he crosses his arms, "Duo, sometimes love is not enough to keep two people together."
"It's not about that. This isn't about love. I know I love you, I know you love me, and we both know the same about each other. I haven't doubted that you loved me one bit. This is about not letting things get washed away. This is about not giving up," I tell him, my voice quieter.
"You think I just gave up?" he asks.
"I do. I think you came to the conclusion that what we have isn't fixable. And do you know what?" I inquire, my face close to his.
"What?" he growls.
"You were dead wrong," I tell him. His face becomes mottled. Heero Yuy doesn't like to be wrong.
"I'm not wrong," he insists.
"You're afraid. The first sign that there is something wrong with what we have and you take flight to America. No talking about it, no thinking on it. You are a coward," I tell him.
"Fuck off," he says.
"Heero, couples have fights all the time. If we didn't fight I'd be worried. Please, I just want us to talk this out. I just want us to find the root of this and try to patch it up. Don't give up on us," I beg him, my voice soft.
"Try putting yourself in my shoes, Duo. I walk in after spending the night with friends, without you, and I find you lying tangled up with a woman. It was not a feeling I care to repeat."
"Put yourself in my shoes. I watched you walk out without me night after night, never wanting to spend time with me. I watched you refuse to touch me or let me touch you. I realized after you left that we'd been heading down this road for quite some time. We didn't know any better to look for this sooner. But now we know, and now we can fix it, if you will just agree to come home with me," I plead with him.
Heero looks at me contemplatively with those impossibly blue eyes, and then he nods. It's a small nod, but a nod all the same. I'm happy as hell that he agreed to at least come home with me; the rest would work itself out, I just knew it. I had to believe that. We'll build our castle out of stone instead of sand, and we will learn how to defend it this time. I have to believe we will.
-The End-