Save the Last Dance for Me
Author: Dragongirl85
Pairings: 1x2, hinted 3x4
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Sorry to say it, but I don't... If I did, Relena would be killed a long time ago and the Gundam Boys would be extremely happy (not because Relena was dead. Well, Heero would...) I'm making no money for writing this. Don't sue, you won't get much anyway, unless you want a cranky, old cat, a fucked up cell-phone and a really, really, REALLY old and crappy computer.
Rating: T
Notes: Got this tip on LJ, 1x2 safehouse as a help to get over my writers block and this is the result. Not quite as tip I got, but hopefully close enough for it to be accepted and liked.
Warnings: Fluff, get-together fic, slight sap
Archive: Sure, but please ask first.
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Giving a quick bow, followed by a quick shake of my head, I declined any further dances with Relena and returned to my table. I'd had enough of dancing for one night. I didn't go through years of training and fighting, just to end my days on the dance-floor with people from the higher classes of society that I could barely stand talking to without pulling out my gun and shooting myself.
Or them.
Whichever came first.
Two years of bloodshed was finally over.
Two years of being treated like a bomb that might go of at any moment, being treated like the bad guy when I fought for the colonies.
Two years of watching innocent people die in front of my eyes.
The faith of the world and the colonies had been laid in my and my comrades' hands and what had the thanks been? We'd been hounded, treated like scum. And now, just because we had won yet another war, we were treated like heroes.
Correction.
I was treated like a hero.
According to Relena and the news, I was the one who had done the job; I was the one who had saved the world. I was the one who had carried the world on my shoulders. And no matter how much I protested, tried to give the glory away, or at least split it, with my brothers in arms, I was the one who got the mark. I was from now on, the hero of the universe.
And with the status came the duty. The second my foot touched the ground after the first war, I was swarmed by reporters asking questions about my next step in life. And among them was Relena, answering the questions for me. Thanks a lot, Miss Pretty-in-pink. You saved me the trouble of shooting them all, but instead you chained me down.
I had given up one duty for another. The world was saved, now my job suddenly became to protect the key to peace.
The promised freedom didn't come.
Instead, my never-ending dance continued, protecting the Vice Foreign Minister wherever she went. I never saw my comrades, my friends, before the girl, of all the days I chose to be absent because of a minor checkup of my health with Doctor Sally Po, decided to get herself kidnapped and I had to hook my arm around the first and best pilot I could find. Which also happened to be my first choice in partner.
Shaking my head and lifting my hand in a silent refusal of a dance from a lady in a vine-red dress, I sighed and watched the people dance in silence while thinking of the own dance-steps I've done in my life.
Duo Maxwell never said no to anything I'd ever asked of him; not that I've asked him for much, and gladly followed me into another war.
We had been the perfect partners in everything we'd done, everything from breaking into high secured OZ-facilities, to breaking out of jail and tricky situations. He snuck us in, I did the hacking and then we blasted ourselves out together. The perfect dancing partner in the dance of life.
He had been my first friend, the first person I had dared to call a friend. But I didn't dare to call him that, not before the first war had been over. If Dr. J had found out that I had the guts, the feeling, the desire to call anybody a friend, I would have been called in for retraining quicker than Duo managed to sneak into Treize's office and raid it for all his pens.
Scanning over the dance floor in search of my braided friend, I wondered where I would had been if it hadn't been for him.
He had, as much as I hated admitting it, played a big part in my survival. Granted, Relena had played her part as well, but if it hadn't been for Duo, I would have been dead before I'd even spent a week on earth. If he hadn't shot me on the beach, I would have self-destructed with my Gundam. If he hadn't blasted me out of the hospital I would have found one way or the other to silence myself. If he hadn't let me take the part to his beloved Deathscythe, I probably would have killed one of the best things that had ever happened to me.
Emotions have always been a thing that's been difficult for me to both talk about and express. I am not a cold hearted bastard; I feel as much regret and sorrow as any person. I have just been trained to ignore those feelings and emotions, keep them under tight control and basically shut them out of my head and heart. They never managed to destroy my humanity. But J and the other did a fine job burying it under layers of layers with the soldier I still am today. I have gotten a little further since the days of the war. I can smile, laugh and enjoy the peace I have helped create, but that's basically all. I still have a hard time expressing sorrow, anger and stronger emotions like that, it's much easier for me to shut them away and place my stoic mask up instead. But I am learning; slowly, but steadily. Taking one step at the time, almost like in a waltz.
Letting my eyes light up slightly as they found my braided companion, I watched as he talked with Quatre and Trowa by the food-table. Letting my lips curve in the smallest of smiles, I watched as he kept on tugging on the collar of his shirt. Obviously the tie was too tight for him.
He'd never felt comfortable in the higher class of society. He once told me that if he had to choose Quatre's lifestyle or the lifestyle he currently had, he'd stay with what he already had. He didn't need fancy clothes, multiple houses around the colonies and on earth that you could get lost in. He didn't need a social crowd that was so boring that he would rather hang himself in his own braid instead of listening to yappering that sounded more like a foreign language than anything else. He also said he didn't need food that you didn't dare to eat because it was either so prettily made that it was almost a sin to eat it, because you didn't know what it was or because you starved to death because you didn't know what fork to eat with first.
My views were basically the same. I had never felt comfortable in parties like this and the neck-tie around my neck was starting to feel more and more like a rope. I had never understood why men insisted on wearing these neck-stranglers in the first place, it was too easy to just grab a hold and yank it so the one wearing the tie had to obey the one grabbing the tie. Maybe that's why women loved it so much. I had seen them yank men out of the room before.
Keeping my eyes on my braided friend, I wondered what his plans for the future were now. I knew he had an offer to keep on working with Hilde, an offer he was most likely to accept since he felt comfortable on the scrap-heap and they could continue their strong friendship. They were a good match; they filled each other out nicely in many ways. But I couldn't help but think if Duo wouldn't be happier with someone a little more different than himself, somebody that understood him a little better. He'd once told me that if he was by himself for too long, he would drive himself crazy because he insisted on talking to himself.
Letting my eyes wander on through the room, I watched as Quatre and Trowa had left their position next to Duo and was now dancing cheek-to-cheek accompanied by a very slow and beautiful tune. They looked beautiful together, content and happy. They had the life and happiness that I now sought out. I wanted to belong, I wanted to have someone to understand me and my needs as well as Quatre and Trowa understood each others' needs.
Watching as they danced with each other, I wondered if I could have that kind of dance with somebody I could care for and that cared for me. I had people I cared for, I had people I would rather scratch my own eyes out than lay a finger on and I know that they care for me as well. That they would do anything in their power to help me, no matter what my request was. Someone who was willing to dance after my tunes if I asked them too.
Someone like Duo.
Duo was one of the people I cared the most for and he knew it. He knew that no matter how often I pulled out my gun and pointed it towards his face, I could never pull the trigger. I would rather have snapped my own fingers off. We had always danced around each other in a dance that couldonly go in one direction. We danced ourselves into friendship, trust and loyalty. We knew everything about each other every little habit and every secret. He knew that I always slept with a hunting knife strapped around my ankle and my laptop within reach. In return, I knew that he always had a stick of dynamite and a chocolate bar hidden in his braid as well as a hairpin in case he had to pick a lock. He said it was handy because he'd found out that he had a knack of losing his keys.
Letting my eyes wander back t (to) the food-table, I found that the braided man was missing. Scanning the room in search of him, I found him bowing deeply for Relena and reaching out his hand.
Duo had never been in very good terms with Relena. Oh, he tried to be. He tried to create a friendship between them, tried to be friendly, but she brushed him right off. She wasn't directly unfriendly with him, but she meant that his crude language and behavior was below her status and was not something she should be seen with to often. So Duo was mostly cut away like a zit on her neck, but he kept on trying. Dorothy said she didn't get Relena. If Duo had asked her up for either a dance or a friendly night out town, she would have jumped on it in a heartbeat. She found him charming. Relena found him annoying.
I supported Dorothy's opinion. Duo Maxwell was charming, there was no doubt about it. How else could he have found his way into a heart that was so dysfunctional, tinker on it and make it work again? Maybe it wasn't he who was dancing to my tunes. Maybe I was dancing to his.
Frowning a little as Relena used the same way of declining Duo's offer as I declined the offers I'd gotten, I wondered just what you had to do to get into Relena's good book. She had respect for Quatre for is social status and career, but after he started dating Trowa, she thought a little less of him. After all Trowa was a regular citizen. The fact that he was one of the people that helped save her sorry ass obviously didn't matter much. The same story was heard about Wufei, but she had even less respect for him because of his view on battle and war.
But Duo took it as well as he could. He shrugged, then smiled before bowing gracefully to her before disappearing into the crowd. Not once showed he any signs of disappointment and I knew that if he was disappointed at all, it was only because he had been shot down again. The fact that he'd been left off the hook after trying to be a gentleman and ask the leading lady up to a dance would count as a bonus in his book. Not many people know this about Duo, but he actually hates to dance. He once told me that if he was to dance in public, he had to have somebody he trusted completely to be there and make an ass out of himself along side with him.
Someone, he said, like me.
Suddenly, for the first time that night, I wanted to dance. I wanted to take someone in my arms, pull them close to my body and follow them into the dance of life.
Looking around the room, I tried to find the one person I wanted to dance with, the one person I could trust enough to lead me around on the dancing-floor because I knew no matter how big of an ass I made out of myself, I would not go down alone.
Getting onto my feet, I straightened out my jacket and fixed up the tie around my neck.
But the second I was ready, I suddenly felt robbed of all control. I watched as the people danced and had fun. How could I, a man, a mere boy, who has never had anything I can call fun happen in my life, participate in it? I couldn't just walk up to some random person and ask for a dance, not when I had declined so many offers already. And I didn't want to dance with just anybody; I wanted to dance with the person I had always danced with. The one that had showed me all the steps in every situation we'd been in that I didn't understand.
He had led me through every situation with a steady hand and skilled movements despite the fact that many of the situations were as new to him as it was for me.
I wanted my last dance with Duo.
Looking around as the light suddenly was turned down, I watched as couples started to find together as yet another ballad was played. This indicated that it would be the last dance for tonight. Quatre and Trowa hugged each other close as the swayed to the rhythm, Wufei bowed for a lovely dressed Sally and offered his arm, Zechs reached out his own hand for Noin who gracefully accepted it and Dorothy hooked herself to the first available man she could find. Relena was looking for me, turning down offers from other men, but thanks to the mass of people, and her slight density, she didn't spot me.
But then again, I couldn't find my own ideal dancing-partner.
"Can I have this dance, sir?"
Turning around as a slim finger was tapped against my shoulder and the voice was huskily whispered into my ear, I spotted Duo standing behind me, the standard grin firmly in its place.
Smiling softly, Duo reached out his hand. "Well? May I have the honor of having the last dance with someone who hates dancing as much as I do and doesn't mind it when I step on his toes? Unless you hate the idea of dancing with another man, of course."
Shaking my head, I let a small smile play over my lips while taking his hand and placing it on my shoulder. "I am not adverse to the idea of dancing with you so I think I'll accept."
Watching in awe as the grin turned into something more true, something more beautiful and natural on Duo's graceful features, I could feel the hand on my shoulder tighten its grip slightly. My own hand found its way to Duo's waist and as I pulled his body close to mine, I also pulled his heart into my own, savoring the warmth, comfort and friendship that the man in my arms so freely gave away. And I could also feel something new, something I had felt a long time ago, but had never acknowledged its existence.
Studying the true smile of my dancing partner, I quickly leaned over and placed a quick kiss on his lips before murmuring. "Dance with me always..."
Duo nodded and rested his chin on my shoulder, leaning his cheek against mine as we started to dance.
Life itself is very much like a dance. It always starts with the first step. The dance itself can be very different; it can be wild and it can be calm. Some people can't stand it and endthe dance before it is over. Others love it so much that they never want it to end. Me, like so many others, learned to like it as time went and I became certain of my steps. I have a dancing partner that will make sure that I'll always come back to my rhythm, no matter how often I step on his toes, no matter how out of balance I might become. He will always steer me back into the dance and help me with all the problems we most likely will face as we dance our way through life.
It's peaceful now. We fought for it and we now deserve to enjoy it. This will be our last dance, but unlike the other dances, our dance will never stop.
We saved the last dance for each other.
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Author's Notes: Well, what do you think about it? Was it acceptable? I live for feedback. Remember to review. -points at the review button- Thankies!