The was a challenge that was never fulfilled, reworked, and that I intend to finish. All I wish for is luck and a peaceful summer.
Title: Domestic
Author: Ileana A. (babygray)
Main Pairing: Duo/Heero
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine. This is pure jest.
Notes: This is a 26-part story, made up of noisefics/drabbles/whatever. It's not chronological, but don't worry too much about that. Reworked, but rough and un-beta'ed.
--Hate--
Duo didn't talk about his parents often, which is something I couldn't fault him for doing. He had quite a tumultuous relationship with the two of them, one that seesawed between love and hate at least once. At the moment, I knew for a fact that Duo hated his father, even if he would have sworn years before he cherished the man. I also knew for a fact that Duo loved his mother, even if he had made their lives hell before the woman had passed away.
I could only wonder on which side of that thin line Duo would place me in the end, all things considered.
These familiar thoughts came to me again late one night, as some of my coworkers and I were driving back to base from the Catskills. A heavy exhaustion was nipping at the heels of my alertness, anxiously waiting for the moment I let my defences down to invade. The coffee and energy drinks I had been drinking for hours was keeping it at bay. The colonial music on the radio was only marginally helping.
The highway stretched out before me was scarcely populated with trucks and nighttime buses driving through the state. My headlights lit the dark gray road resolutely, monotonously. In my mirrors, I could see Sally's bus, the yellow paint job pale from the streetlights, tainted gray.
We had stopped a while back for some food, at a diner we always patronized on these midnight runs from Catskills. There, we ate overgenerous dinners and chatted amicably, trying to replenish ourselves for the remaining hours before we return to base parking lot. If nothing went wrong, I'll be back home by two, maybe 3 o'clock.
Duo understood that this job was necessary. Shuttle runs like this one paid more than regular school runs, and we needed the money, despite what the hours did to me, what it may do to our relationship.
In that dark night, the thought of perhaps that the midnight runs weren't worth the strain came to me, and I realized that it could be possible that, one day, Duo would stop loving me and start hating me.
God knew he would have countless reasons at his disposal. It could be jealousy that will drive him away. It could be the thought of kids. It could be a bad winter... or a bad summer that would break us apart.
I'm afraid that Duo would stop loving me.
It could be that, one day, he will realize that he could do better. That this was just a phase, and he needed to move on to someone new. That he never loved me at all...
Sally's voice came over the radio, the strong alto also too bright and clear for the dark night and my own thoughts. She was telling a joke, something borderline foul that made me particularly thankful that we weren't carrying passengers. Something that would ensure that we would stay awake for a while longer.
An unfamiliar voice answered her joke, adding comments of his own. A trucker, no doubt, that just happened to be out on that cold night as well.
A smile crossed my face as Sally's snide respond elicited rough guffaws from the unknown audience, a cacophony of laughter as our coworkers chimed in.
My thoughts, momently forgotten, ebbed away.