Title: Hard Days

Author: Fluff

Fandom: Gundam Wing

Pairing: eventual 2 x 3

Warnings: Some vague spoilers, some gore (I only put this here for squeamish readers who shudder at the thought of barely-described disembowelment)

Summary: Duo decides he can no longer be left alone with his memories. He calls on an old acquaintance to relive a life he both misses and regrets.

Author's Note: This is not the last chapter, but it does finally answer the question as to why Trowa is actually in Duo's company. Things get a little rockier, folks, but there is always a reprieve for the heroes, isn't there?

Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is copyrighted to its lawful owners.

Hard Days

Chapter 5

By Fluff

Duo woke to Trowa flying out of bed and bolting for the bathroom. Confused, Duo sat up straight, on high alert. Then he heard the retching.

Trowa was hungover. Served him right, Duo thought darkly. What the hell happened last night? Duo raised two fingers to his lips thoughtfully, and his stomach jumped as he thought of the chaste kiss.

Too weird.

Trowa returned after a few moments, looking downright miserable. He was pale, his eyes were drawn, and his hands clutched his stomach painfully.

"You don't drink often, do you?"

"Shhh..." was all Trowa had to say as he crawled back into bed, looking altogether pathetic and useless.

"Okay," Duo whispered, smiling humourlessly. "Be right back." Duo slipped out of bed and padded into the kitchen. He rummaged around for anything that would help Trowa's misery, and grinned victoriously as he found the painkillers and antacids. He stopped, however, halfway to the den. Pills.

And now Duo felt sick. Sure, these pills were different. They would actually help. And, surely, Trowa would have no problem taking them.

Keeping them down, however, might be a different story. Duo was nearly bowled over as Trowa, again, raced to the bathroom to be sick. Duo followed him, bottles in hand, and leaned against the doorway as Trowa wrapped himself around the toilet. After a moment of watching Trowa's back shake from the force of the dry heaves, Duo filled a cup of water and wet a washcloth, then sat himself behind his companion.

"Sip slowly," Duo whispered, bringing the cup around to Trowa's lips. Trowa obeyed begrudgingly, and groaned when he had to swallow. Duo brought around the damp cloth and wiped down Trowa's forehead and mouth.

"I have something for you," he said quietly, holding out three tablets for the other man. Trowa grabbed the medications greedily and downed them all in one big gulp. Duo feared for the worst as Trowa nearly doubled over.

"Slowly," Duo said, then had to quickly reposition himself so Trowa's head was in his lap rather than on the bathroom floor.

"Sorry," Trowa groaned out, his eyes screwed shut tightly. "Don't drink."

"I can see that," Duo replied softly, wiping Trowa's face affectionately with the cloth. "We'll fix you up, though, don't you worry."

"Not worried," Trowa said, his voice scratchy. "It's you. Not worried."

It took a while, but Duo managed to get Trowa back to bed. Trowa lay on his side, curled up on himself, pressing against Duo for comfort.

"Anything else I can do for you?" Duo asked quietly, gently rubbing Trowa's temple with his thumb.

"No," Trowa said, his hands clasped beneath his chin. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Get some rest." Trowa obliged soon enough, and Duo was left with his thoughts.

Trowa had been drunk, that was why he had kissed Duo. That was the only reasonable explanation for last night's bizarre event. Sober, Duo doubted he could have tempted Trowa with all the earthly goods in the world to even consider such an intimate gesture.

Intimate... Kisses weren't always intimate, Duo considered, but last night's, though chaste, had certainly seemed so. Everything between them, at this point, seemed so. The way they touched each other so casually, hands on shoulders, fingers brushing against one another - that was how things had been going, and it had been okay. Then, last night...

But the more Duo thought about it, the more last night seemed okay, too. Strangely enough, it hadn't seemed out of place. Duo smiled at the thought. He had invited Trowa as a convenient ear to shout into, fully planning on sending him off after only an hour or so of emotional ranting. However, he found himself now holding back so Trowa would stay longer, to hear what he had to say. Sure, it wasn't a fair game to play, but Trowa knew the rules, and he didn't seem to mind.

"Unbelievable," Duo said aloud, and was startled when Trowa responded with a sleepy, "What is?"

"Nothing, nothing, go back to sleep," Duo said quickly. He glanced down at his companion, who looked much improved from the first time awake today.

"If I sleep anymore, the headache will come back," Trowa replied groggily, rolling onto his back. "Don't let me near beer again. It does me no favours." Trowa ran a limp hand through his hair and sighed. "None at all."

"Gotcha. No beer." Duo smiled at the sight of Trowa's lethargy and apparent ease at being wilted. Suddenly, Trowa became pale.

"Let's make that no alcohol."

"Ah, the fog of last night is lifting," Duo said impishly. "Don't worry about it. I'm not." Trowa turned shocked, ashamed eyes to him.

"Don't worry about it?" he said indignantly. "What I did was - "

" - Fine, actually. It didn't bother me." It probably should have, though, Duo thought.

"Didn't bother you..." Trowa sounded flabbergasted. He shook his head defiantly and sat up, his eyes now angry. "I want it to bother you, Duo."

"Why?" Duo's voice was, if nothing else, completely genuine.

"It was out of place," Trowa hissed, "and inappropriate. A mistake."

"A mistake because you were drunk, or a mistake because you really didn't want to?" Duo raised his eyebrows at Trowa. "Are you angry that you sank so low?" Duo's question hung heavily in the air between them. Neither moved, nor even seemed to breathe. Duo suddenly wished to be outside, wrapped in that cold wind that always managed to steal his breath away - he yearned for a solitude only dark winter days could provide, enveloped in a chill that never actually went away.

"I need to go," Trowa said after a length, his eyes not quite meeting Duo's.

"Back to Catherine," Duo sneered, his lungs achingly cold. "Back to nothing. What's your purpose there, huh, Trowa? You said you don't have one." Duo snatched his companion's wrist angrily, forcing the other to glare at him in surprise. "You have one here. You can explain to me who the fuck you think you can take me for. You can tell me why the hell you don't think I'm good enough for your twisted rationalizations."

"I owe you nothing," Trowa bit back, his green eyes dangerous. Though his body appeared weak from dehydration, the rage in his face was enough to make any man believe Trowa Barton was capable of causing great physical harm.

"Like hell you don't!" Duo roared, pushing Trowa's wrist back toward him, tumbling the other man onto his back once more. Duo held Trowa's arm firmly across his own chest and loomed over him. "I'm your escape. I'm your excuse. You owe me. You owe me a lot."

"I've never held a debt to you! Look at you, Duo: You're falling apart at the seams and you want someone to make it better. I can't - I won't. If you want peace of mind, go to Quatre; if you want a firm kick in the ass, track Heero down and piss him off. You will get nothing from me." And reality finally set in. Duo wasn't quite sure how to describe the feeling in his stomach, other than a bland nausea that stung every time he breathed. His limbs suddenly felt hollow, and that cold intensified.

"You think it's about you," Duo said, his voice empty.

"It isn't?" Trowa's anger had, if nothing else, intensified.

"You think," Duo laughed hollowly, "that that kiss was about you. Right? You think that now that we've crossed some weird boundary, I'll never let you leave. You think I've found all the fucking solace in the world right in you.

"I haven't. In fact, I'm not liking you very much right now; if you wanna leave, leave. I'm not going to stop you." Duo let go of Trowa's arm slowly, as if releasing a butterfly. Trowa didn't move an inch.

"I don't get you," Trowa said dangerously, his eyes following Duo's every move as the other stood, defeated, and started throwing Trowa's things haphazardly into his bag.

"I don't think I want you to."

"Understood." Trowa got up slowly, his body still aching. He silently moved to help Duo pack up his things. Both flinched when their hands brushed together.

"You know," Trowa began miserably, his attention seemingly focused on neatly folding a sweater, "my twisted rationalization for last night wouldn't satisfy you. You'd accuse me of something anew, and we'd still be here."

"We're here, anyway, so try me," Duo sneered, huffily balling a pair of socks.

"You said kisses make people feel better. I suppose that's what I was trying to do." Duo balked.

"And we're arguing about that."

"Of course we are!" Trowa threw his hands up in exasperation. "Nothing I do makes anything any better, Duo. We talk, we sleep in the same bed, we relive nightmares with each other. And after all that, you still won't tell me what you want!" The sweater fell to the ground, forgotten. "You said what happened last night didn't bother you. The only reason I can think of for that is that you've found something in me that isn't actually there. I'm not anyone's hero." Trowa's words seemed to bleed the anger from his body, and now he merely looked like a marionette with only one string intact. "What do you want from me, Duo, really? What is it that you think I can give you?"

"Memories," Duo said hoarsely, staring at Trowa's hands. "You can let me remember, and not feel guilty for it." Their eyes met, finally.

"But you don't want to remember, Duo."

"Oh, I do," Duo replied, lightly tossing the socks in the bag. "I want to relive something that scares me. But that's just it, you know? It scares me. It's not really something you can even steel yourself for, 'cause it's inside of you. And," he said quietly, his eyes shutting, "I don't want to scare you."

"Not even death scares me," Trowa said lightly. "You think you could?" Duo opened his eyes to Trowa smiling. Their friendship, again, had taken another jittery step in a strange direction.

"I honestly don't know," Duo said. "I don't want to. Quatre, I know I would... but maybe not you."

"Then let's start this again. I'll make some tea. This time, Duo, you're going to talk."

Duo noticed that his thumbs didn't really tremble the way the rest of his hands did. They seemed grounded to some strange reality that he couldn't quite grab hold of again. He couldn't push past his words hard enough to be safe again.

Duo told Trowa about the other nightmares, the ones where Hilde had been disemboweled by four little Gundams, screeching the whole time her intestines were strewn about. He told him about the one where Quatre's eyes were white and he couldn't see Duo, so he kept walking past him - and he knew, right down to his fucking core, that Quatre's blindness was somehow his fault.

Then he told Trowa about the worst - the nightmare that had ended when he had woken himself up, screaming. That damned nightmare that had kept him in his house for a week, had stolen his appetite for six days, had made him cry after nearly fifteen years of being dry. He told Trowa how he had called Quatre, nearly begging him to come visit. And then Duo told Trowa that Quatre had needed to refuse, and that was why Trowa was here.

"What was it about?" Trowa asked quietly, not daring touch the trembling Duo. Duo had his braid clasped tightly in his hands, whose thumbs stayed still, and breathed shallowly for the fear and disgust of the memories.

"Us," Duo said, his voice eerily steady. "The five of us. In a graveyard. Our names were on the tombstones." Duo swallowed with difficultly and dropped his braid, then put his hands flat on the floor, as if pushing the memory down. "But we were all there. None of us were in the ground.

"We didn't look hurt, either. And we just kinda stared at each other, not really knowing why we were there. After a while, Wufei collapsed. Like, he just dropped, like his strings were cut or something. We all kinda looked at him, not knowing what was happening. Then it happened to Heero, too, so Quatre started to look worried." Duo's words came faster, now. "He was the first to speak. He said, 'Shouldn't we do something? They're dying.' Then you came back with 'They're already dead' or something and then you dropped.

"So it was just Quatre and I, right, and we were staring at each other, just kinda looking, not knowing what to do. I asked him why this was happening, why we were dying. Then Quatre got weird, you know, like he wasn't Quatre anymore. His eyes got real mean and he grinned at me - but not like how he usually does. It was a horrible smile, like the Devil was inside him, had killed him and was using his body like a shell or something.

"'Duo,' he said, 'you did this. You killed us all.' And then he dropped, too. I was alone. So, I started running. Didn't have any place to go, really, but I needed to get away from the dead bodies." Duo's voice began to tremble, and Trowa knew he was once again in the nightmare. "So I'm running and I trip on something." Trowa didn't miss the switch to present tense. "It's Heero. He's all bloody and he's missing an arm and he has a bullet hole in his head. I get down on my knees and start yelling at him - I don't know what I say. Then I shake him, and I can smell the blood, and it starts to burn my skin. I can feel it, you know? Like it's real...

"He doesn't wake up, 'cause he's not sleeping!" Duo laughed tightly. "He's dead, so he doesn't wake up. I run again, and I come across his arm. It's holding Wufei's head. The expression on Wufei's face is surprised, like he didn't see it coming. I throw up - weird, 'cause I don't remember ever throwing up in a dream - and keep going. Deathscythe is up ahead, so I know it's safe there." Trowa concentrated hard on Duo's words to follow the disjointed account.

"There's blood all over Deathscythe. I think it's yours and Quatre's, 'cause both of you are lying by his feet, crumpled like little bits of paper. Your eyes are open, but they're not empty. I don't get near either one of you because I don't want to know why you're all bloody and dead." Duo took a shuddering breath, and Trowa had no choice but to reach for him, his steady hand on Duo's arm a small comfort.

"You're dead, Trowa," Duo whined, grasping Trowa's hand in his. "And I did it. I didn't actually attack you, but I let it happen."

"I'm not dead, Duo," Trowa whispered, taking Duo into his arms. "None of the others are, either."

"I could have stopped it. I could have ended it long ago. The self-destruct... I could have stopped it."

"Stopped what, Duo?" Trowa had one hand on the back of Duo's head, holding the heavy weight of his braid off his back. One burden, Trowa figured, was enough to bear.

"The God of Death." Trowa vaguely recalled Duo referring to himself with the macabre title.

"You're no such thing," Trowa said softly into Duo's ear. "You're just you. You're just Duo." Trowa held his companion out at arms' length and sighed quietly when he saw Duo's panic-stricken eyes.

"You don't know what I've done, Trowa," Duo whispered. "You don't know."

"And I don't want to know." Duo flinched. "But, you don't want to know about my sins, either. It doesn't make us better people, Duo, by confessing. It won't make you feel better to relive something that honestly makes you believe you're a terrible person. Memories are over, they're done with. Dwell on the pleasant ones, but don't waste your life thinking on things that you can't change. What you may have done in the past was lives and lives ago, Duo. We're different people now. We're okay now.

"You're a good person, Duo. I like you. You've shown me kindness and compassion. You're not a murderer: You're an ex-soldier who did what he had to do in the heat of battle. You haven't harmed me nor any of the others. We're fine. You're fine." In the back of his mind Duo thought fondly of how Trowa Barton continued to surprise him again and again. It was nice.

"You're gonna leave," Duo said helplessly, his eyes still wide with the lingering cold of fear.

"I can stay, if you'd like. I don't think you would enjoy your own company much right now, anyhow."

"Stay," Duo said, after a length. He gave Trowa a thoughtful look. "You always say the right thing."

"I do not," Trowa laughed, his voice light. "It seems I've been saying all the wrong things since I got here. I'm not the comforting type." Trowa gave a half shrug. "I'm bad with people."

"You're not bad," Duo said, regaining some of his bearings. "You're just ... you. There isn't a word to describe your awkward niceness."

"I don't know if I should thank you for that," Trowa said with a smile. He leaned in and gave Duo a quick hug. "But I'll take it." He grabbed a cloth that was lying on the floor by the bed and wiped gently at Duo's face. "You're a mess, my friend."

"And you have the unsightly duty of cleaning me up," Duo replied, the barest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

"I'll take it. Beats dodging knives."

"So I'm better than the circus now?" Duo now grinned at his companion, who continued to wipe his face.

"I suppose," Trowa said slowly, tilting his head at Duo. "You only cause me emotional anguish instead of physical agony."

"You won't lose an eye with me!"

"Don't speak too soon," Trowa warned with a smile. "Stranger things have been known to happen."

"Oh, I know." And Duo leaned in, and suddenly they were kissing. It wasn't the same kiss as last night: It wasn't an escape from horror or an apology for a hard life lived. It was a sweet gesture that said thank you in a million different ways.

Neither pulled away for a long, long time.