Okay, hi!! I'm back!!! Thank you SO MUCH for all of these great reviews. Thank you thank you thank you!!! I just have something really quick to say: if you don't like this story, I completely understand, and I'm glad that you might want to tell me your opinion. But my opinion is important as well, and, though I know that I'm certainly no genius or intellectual being, one's opinion's are to be respected, along with one's privacy. I'm sorry if you don't like that. I really am. But if you want to fight with me over it, then I suggest you find a gun quick, or else your head will be rolling and my katana would have participated in its first kill. Thank you. However, please still free to tell me your opinion, because *I* will respect them. If you don't want me to make an ass out of you, then just remember that EVERYONE'S opinions are important. Thanks again!!!

All that said (and don't take offense, the-certain-person-of-whom-I'm-speaking-to, I just don't really like the way you said that stuff about my privacy and my struggles. It's just, at that point, I'd flipped you off and told you to `eat shit and die' before I read the other things in your reviews) let's continue with the stories!

P.S. Aren't my copious amounts of cliffhangers a bitch? Heheheheheheh. . .

P.P.S. - I would be honored, Bi Panda. ^__^ Thanks for reading!!!

*Warning* - There's sap, cursing, and a little angst. We're finally seeming to get somewhere, but it's so sloooooow. . . ^_^ But I'm nice - I gave you a bit more here. Yay!!!

Disclaimer - The gundam boys aren't mine, or else much more than politics and explosions would have occurred. . . and Relena would be dead. And there would be more sequels. And. . . well, it's sort of obvious they aren't mine.

Footsteps

Chapter 8

Duo was looking at him expectantly, and he had no clue as to how to start. He looked down at the eggs, then looked to my hands. He had lost my appetite somehow, and had decided to place the fork back down without even realizing it.

"Try at the beginning," Duo said quietly, and he looked at him. Heero tried a small smile, but it didn't seem to come out right. It slipped from his expression like water falling from a high cliff.

"The beginning, " Heero echoed, and refused to look from Duo's violet eyes. "The beginning. Right. Hell." He rubbed his face. "I don't know how to say this, Duo."

His honesty seemed to somehow make Duo relax a bit. A tiny bit. An infinitesimal bit.

"Duo," he floundered, a need, a pain, sharpening through his gut. "I. . . did you really hurt yourself?"

Duo's eyes guarded triple-time, but he nodded, then held out his arms. It was then he saw the pale scars that snaked up his forearms, jagged marks that were cleanly sliced, testimony to the despair he had placed into Duo's heart. His heart jackhammered roughly in his chest. How had he survived? The marks looked really, really, REALLY deep. His mouth opened, trying to say something. His hand lifted, wanting, needing to touch. To feel. His mind blanked, then raced, unable to process; he felt his face blanch and couldn't muster up the energy to care. Duo. Oh, God. Duo.

Duo dropped his hands and watched him with a strange apprehension. "Duo," he breathed, and his voice shook. His hand whispered toward Duo, but he suddenly stood and picked up his plate. Heero watched him, unable to say anything. How had he missed those scars before? How had he not seen them? Oh, God. Duo. "How did you. . ."

Duo shrugged nonchalantly. "Quatre showed up. You know," he said thoughtfully, "I never found out exactly WHY he had shown up right then. . . I guess Shinigami still didn't want me." He shrugged again.

Heero couldn't take it. "Do you really think your life is a game?"

"Isn't it?" he countered. "Whatever gods are out there sure are having fun with lil' old Duo Maxwell, aren't they?"

Heero couldn't understand. "Your life isn't something for anyone to toy with," he stated plainly. "Not a God, not Shinigami, not. . . not me." He looked directly at the frozen ex-Deathscythe-pilot, staring into his eyes and letting him see the conviction in his own cobalt gaze. "I should have been honest with my feelings since. . . gods, since I got a good look at you. I think it was lust, at first. Hell, at first, I didn't know what the hell it was. But then. . . it grew. It was. . . emotion. Emotion was. . . unacceptable. And so. . . I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't accept it. And. . . and I thought that you would. . . hate me. Despise me." Heero shook his head. "No, that was a lame excuse I used to not come before you about. . . this." He looked at Duo's face, seeing only confusion and a naked fear. Not fear of him, but. . . some other fear.

"Why would you think that I would. . . that I could ever hate you?"

"You. . . that outfit you wore," he said, his hands trying to explain further. "And. . . your cross. I don't know that much about God, or doves, or whatever, but I do know that homosexuality is. . . unorthodox. Unreligious. I thought that. . . well, you know." Knowing how stupid that made him sound, Heero quickly said, "I thought that you would be disgusted with my. . ."

Duo seemed to take pity on him. "I wore that to. . . remember."

"Remember?" Heero parroted. "Remember what?"

Something flashed through Duo's eyes for a moment before he could hide it. "My. . . responsibilities." Duo got to washing his food down the drain. Obviously, he, too, had lost his appetite. He absently threw his bacon on the ground. Hero, who had been lying nearby, almost tripped over himself running to snatch the food. Heero threw his down, as well. Hero looked as if in heaven.

"Your. . . responsibilities?" Heero again echoed. Duo turned to him and looked at his plate pointedly. He wordlessly handed it over, and Duo took it and scraped the eggs off. The garbage disposal was the only sound louder than the water; neither Heero or Duo willing to compete for supremacy.

Finally, Duo turned off the water and the disposal. The only sound now was Hero munching happily on the bacon. Both Heero and Duo watched for a moment. Then, ". . . So what made you come back?"

Heero took it for the diversion it was, and accepted it. Now, perhaps, was not the time to delve into the other's past. He wanted to get this out right, but wanted to make sure he didn't let anything from the journal slip. That probably wouldn't go well. So he settled for, "I realized, after the war, that I couldn't stand to be away from you. I always complained about your voice disrupting me. . . and it was the God's honest truth. I couldn't concentrate on a damn thing when I heard your voice." He looked from Hero back to Duo, and found Duo's piercing gaze on him. "I couldn't. . . think about much of anything when you were around."

"You. . . what?" Duo said, confused.

"I couldn't concentrate on the damn mission. I couldn't understand it. Why couldn't I keep my mind on the mission parameters? I. . . I wanted to hate you for doing that to me," Heero confessed. "For confusing my thoughts, for giving me. . . all these different emotions and. . . and confusing the Perfect Soldier."

"I *confused* you?" Duo asked, amazed. "But. . . you were never confused. You were always so damn focused I wanted to fucking *puke*."

Heero shook his head. "Not around you."

Duo lifted his head. "Prove it."

"That time I told you to punch me," he said immediately. "I. . . I *wanted* you to knock me out. I wanted you to be the one to escape. It was stupid and reckless. I still thank whoever was watching for letting my training come in enough to have me punch you back. It would've meant. . . *everyone's* death. But I wanted you safe. Stupidly, I wanted you to be free and not endure the. . . Gods, what *did* they do to you?" Heero shook his head again. "And then there was the time I lived through falling down that cliff after you came to save me."

"Say what?"

"When I decided to fight to stay alive."

"Uhh, Heero, not to disappoint you, but you pulled that parachute loose because Relena screamed your name." He gave me a funny look that obviously said, `are you okay?'

I shook my head. "Stupidly, I thought you had called me. My mind was flitting images of you. . . when I had seen you after you shot me" - Heero saw Duo visibly flinch at that memory - "and when you had come back. . . when you had rescued me. And my mind remembered your voice. . . and then I heard someone shout my name. . . and I had thought it was you."

A soft "oh" sounded out of Duo's gaping lips. He looked funny, like he was trying to imitate a fish for that Guesstures game. Heero smiled softly with that thought, and Duo seemed to snap out of his daze. "But then. . . why now? Why me?"

"Why not you?" Heero parried softly. "Who the hell else?"

"Relena," Duo said without hesitation, and he noticed Heero's immediate look of soft disgust.

"No, thank you," Heero said simply. "She's. . . a bit too naive for me. Too innocent. I feel. . . strange around her, as if I might break her if I said the wrong thing. She just doesn't understand a warrior's world. I can't speak to her without having to edit it."

Duo looked incredulous. "But. . . you spent so much time around her. You sent her a *teddy bear*."

Heero winced. "I don't know *what* I was thinking. She wanted it, and I thought it would be only right to give it to her, since I had just left and joined Preventers. But she just stalked me more. I didn't want that. That was why I had stopped being her bodyguard in the first damn place." Heero took a calming breath. "But I couldn't stand being around her. And it made it hurt more. . . hearing her voice during the day and remembering yours at night."

He felt himself *blush* and ducked his head, but not without seeing Duo smile softly. "Sounds that seemed like they were out of reach, and eluded you at day's light?"

Heero's head snapped up, eyes wide. "Y-Yeah," he admitted. "Exactly like that."

Duo looked at him oddly. "What. . . Dammit, I can't see you doing this because. . . for me. Because you wanted to. . . to see me. It's not like you!" He peered at him closely. "You ARE Heero Yuy, aren't you?"

Heero gave Duo his old death glare. "What the hell do you *think*, Maxwell?" Then he smiled. "Yes, Duo, it's really me." I took a slow step forward, saw him looking at me with a vaguely dazed expression. "Maybe. . . maybe I've just changed."

He snorted, and the swirling depths cleared. "Or maybe you were cloned. With a better personality."

"I can't argue the fact that I was a heartless machine during the war." Heero grabbed Duo's hand before he could notice how close he had gotten. Instead of fighting like Heero had expected, Duo just looked down at their linked digits and slowly looked up at Heero. Heero saw the pain naked in his eyes, and tried to speak. Duo's anguished words cut him off.

"It. . . hurts. . . it hurts too much to believe."

Heero's heart wrenched in the wrong direction, tripping over itself. God, how hadn't he seen this? How had he been able to ignore it? Had he really been that heartless, that. . . stoic? Was he really just some sick, twisted, sadistic little bastard, that he would make Duo go through all this?

They jerked as if they'd been shot when the doorbell rang.

*

A/N: There you go! Not as good a cliffhanger, but it'll hopefully keep you guessing anyway. Review? Please? You guys are like my little pieces of heaven. I'm SO happy to be getting all of your reviews. Keep them coming??

Kanashii: Yeah! I might make my scene here soon. . . heheheheheh. . .

Ai: This is MY story! Go away!

Kanashii: What happened to that polite attitude? *smirks*

Ai: Go! *turns to audience* Please review and let me know that you like the story. I really don't want Kanashii to get her hands on this. . .

Kayura: You know she does that so that everyone -

Kanashii: LALALALALALALALA!!! NO ONE IS LISTENING!!!

Ai: *holding her ears* Please???