Disclaimer - Oh, they still don't belong to me. Sad... Not making any money out of it.

Morning-After Aftermath:

The room where I have my therapy sessions is painted in this godawful shade that looks a bit like out-of-date smoked salmon, and there are a couple of places where chairs were scraped too hard against the wall and the paintwork is all scratched. Honestly, with the obscene amount of money Dr. R.L. charges, you might think he'd shell out some of it for a decent paint job but it's been the same ever since I started coming to him. The only good thing is that I can usually waste a fair bit of time squinting at the scratch marks and trying to figure out what they look like.

The danger is that by glancing around I sometimes make eye contact with the Doc. He'd pretty much given up on me saying anything in this particular session and was leafing through some of his old case notes. One of his eyebrows was doing this freaky-weird thing all by itself, wobbling around on his forehead. Strange how some people possess that particular talent; Zechs can raise one brow in an incredibly suave, sophisticated way; I once tried practising in front of the mirror and managed to give myself an eye-twitch.

I so did not want to be here.

'Duo, how is your list going?'

'Nearly finished.'

My list was - this crazy idea of Dr. R.L.'s. He'd asked me to identify seven particular problems in my life, assuring me I didn't have to share them with him.

I didn't really see the point of this, but it was something to do and my list was as follows:

1. Quatre Winner is trying to ruin my life because he thinks I stole his boyfriend.

2. I didn't, but I do think Trowa sort of likes me.

3. I think I might possibly like Trowa back and that would really complicate things.

4. I should be declared an ESUN global disaster area.

5. I have to sit in this room for another 45 minutes.

6. If it's not enough that I am incredibly stupid, most of the stupid things I do end up on television.

7. Isn't that enough for one person to be going on with?

'Duo, were you planning on saying anything about what happened last week?'

Well, the answer to that was a very resounding NO, but he has this sneaky therapisty way of bending me to his evil will. Lucky he didn't work for OZ as an interrogator, really.

'I'm sure you know what happened. Everyone else in the freaking world probably does.'

'I spoke to your friend Mr. Chang yesterday, Duo. He sounded very worried about you.'

Ouch. Bloody Wufei. Looking down at the list in my lap, there still seemed to be a vast amount of empty space on the paper, and I mentally added overprotective friends to my tally of problems. Overprotective, idiot friends who went around blabbing my problems to my therapist.

'He doesn't need to be. Look, I did something stupid, I had one of my...episodes and he brought me out of it. That's it.'

'He said you blacked out for over ten minutes and that you didn't remember anything when you came around.'

'Yeah, well. I remember some of it now, alright? You know how my memory sometimes shuts down afterwards.'

That's the truth, more or less. Given my rather unique history, it's not all that surprising that I suffer the occasional panic attack. I can usually talk myself out of it. Blacking out completely tends to be a lot more rare, fortunately; I can count on the fingers of both hands how many times it's happened, and I hadn't had one of those episodes in over a year. Not until last Thursday. I know it had scared the hell out of the guys, especially Trowa. He'd never me seen me like that before.

Another of those things I really, really do not like to have to think about. It scares the crap out of me; that I just…lose time. That I have no idea what's happened in the lost time. I've been through years of therapy, I take the appropriate medication, I've done all sorts of weird-ass alternative stuff that Wufei thought might work, but none of it actually does. All I need is what the psych books call the stress trigger. And, in case you haven't guessed, it usually has to do with sex, and things that happened to me in the past.

I'd woken up on Friday morning knowing that...something was not quite as usual.

Believe it or not (and if you know anything whatsoever about my history you probably won't) there haven't really been all that many occasions when I've woken up in bed with a companion. It actually took a few heartbeats for my brain and body to register the fact that I wasn't in my own bed, that I wasn't alone, and that he wasn't Heero. Of course not. We had always slept swirled around each other, twin spirals on a seashell.

And Heero wasn't quite this tall and he certainly didn't have long, fair hair...

Fuck.

'Zechs? Um, why am I in bed with you?'

He muttered something incoherent and snuggled a bit closer; it always takes him a while to wake up properly and he probably thought I was Wufei. Or possibly not.

'Zechs!' I twisted the fingers of one hand in his hair and gave a good tug; this time he actually raised his head slightly and I winced. He has that very fair sort of skin that bruises easily, and the whole left side of his face was a cacophony of mottled green, yellow and purple. 'What happened last night?'

In answer, he lifted my right hand, gently forming the fingers into a fist.

'You really don't remember?'

I squeezed my eyes shut, because it hurt to look at him. Oh, God.

'I just remember us all being in Steel. Zechs, whatever I did, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...'

'If you really want to get all your apologising over and done with, you also got sick on my coat when we were driving home. And on the car seat. The genuine leather upholstered car seat.'

'I'm sorry. I'll get you a new coat. And a car.'

'I want a Lotus. This year's model. And stop apologising.'

'You know I didn't mean to...'

That's the story of my life; should be etched on my tombstone.

I never meant to - let the Maxwell Church be destroyed / kill myself / tell Heero to leave.

Doesn't change anything, though.

'I'm sorry. I screwed up everything, didn't I? You didn't even get to be with Wu last night...'

'Duo...stop beating yourself up.' He said it very gently, shifting my hand so it was over his chest, letting me feel the steady beat of his heart. 'You belong here. For me and Wufei both. Nothing can ever change that. After all you've done for both of us, you're entitled to lean on us sometimes.'

My body, at this point, was starting to wake up to the fact that I was male, and that Zechs was very definitely male, and that we were tangled together in very close proximity. Then certain things from the previous night rushed back into my brain and it was suddenly imperative for me not to be touching him…

I remembered Adam pressing me against his car and kissing me, the sort of kissing that starts off very slow and sweet and soft...I could still feel the smooth metallic paintwork against skin as my fingers scrabbled for some sort of support, because by then the kisses had become very intimate, very invasive, and his hands had been sliding delicate, shivery caresses across the bare skin of my stomach and down and I had come at his touch.

Didn't really remember anything after that, but I knew exactly what had happened. I'd seen the news clips and the photos blazoned all over the newspapers.

Adam (which probably wasn't even his real name, by the way) bending me forward over the hood of his car. Exactly what happened after that was still a bit of a mystery, because the censors had either airbrushed or deleted the next minute or so, out of respect for common decency. I still wasn't sure whether the clips had come from the CCTV in the parking lot, or whether someone had rigged up another camera. Probably the latter, just because the angle was just perfect.

Perfect because the whole bloody thing had been a set up. Hadn't known it at the time, obviously; it was something we'd figured out later. At least Wufei had put all the pieces together; and come up with the nasty little scenario.

But at some point, Adam's attentions had apparently become …rather too pressing, and I'd reacted as you might expect.. There were a couple of action shots of me punching that bastard, before the guys arrived and poor Zechs got in the line of fire. And then there was me stretched out on the ground with Wu beside me, trying to talk me back from wherever the hell I'd gone, and Trowa hovering over us, and from the camera angle it didn't look ….as innocent as that sounds. So basically it looked like a free-for-all brawl followed by an orgy. Especially with a bit of selective editing.

Not very pretty really. Oh, the set up thing. Well, at first it just seemed like pissy, typical Maxwell luck that there just happened to be a camera crew about, and that they somehow just happened to obtain the tape from the security camera (Leon was seriously brassed off about that) and that the various news channels almost seemed to know that there was a nice, juicy, Gundam scandal about to break, and have a convenient slot waiting, and coincidentally happened to have in their studios all the best authorities to talk about it.

I think the penny really dropped when Quatre got in on the act, expressing his deep concern for me on global TV. He'd almost had me worried about myself at one point. Oh, and the fact that I probably wouldn't have been more than a one-day weekend headline except for the fact that WEI owns a lot of the global media. And you can guess which story they were concentrating on.

Never a good idea to piss off your best friend. Especially if he knows you inside out and happens to be one of the most powerful people in the universe.

'Duo!' Oh, back to the present. Dr. R.L. sounded pretty insistent and I wondered precisely how long I'd zoned out for, and what I'd looked like. 'Duo,' he said again, making his voice all gentle and concerned, 'You can talk to me, you know that. You can trust me.'

Trust. Yeah, right. I have trust issues. Me. Just imagine that.

I'd trusted Heero with my heart and my soul with and all of my dreams. I would have sworn on my life, and on his (which hadprobably meant more to me anyway) that he'd meant it when he told me he loved me.

I'd tried so hard to be the perfect boyfriend, so that he'd never have any reason to leave me.

After the War, I hadn't complained when he immediately joined the Preventers, agreeing that all our plans to go travelling and just be ourselves had been nothing more than kids' fantasies, and that we had to learn to live in the real world, like he said. I'd tried not to be too jealous when he'd straightaway been seconded to Relena Peacecraft's security detail and he spent most of his time jet-setting around the universe with her. Because he thought I needed routine and stability while he was away, I'd taken a number of dismally boring nine-to-five jobs. When he started doing a long-distance law degree I'd honestly tried to be happy that he'd found something he really wanted to do, and not to resent that he usually had to study on the rare occasions we actually got to with each other.

He'd still left though.

And Quatre. Oh fuck, but it hurt to think about Quatre. Still way too raw. I'd sort of come to terms with Heero having left me. Could even recognize that maybe I'd done things wrong too. Yeah, in case you're wondering; what Quat had said about me having been a fool for thinking Heero would ever stay with someone like me, that had really struck home. It hadn't been an issue during the War because - it just hadn't. I'd always thought I might lose him, but it would be because he'd self-destructed one time too many. But after - God, it seemed like some sort of miracle that he was still bothering with me. I've never been able to believe in miracles.

But Quat was - my friend. My one-man support group. The one who knew every fucking thing about me, stuff that I'd never even told Heero. OK, scratch that. I'd believed that Quatre Winner was my friend. Like Heero used say, I'm such a baka.

See? These are all reasons why I'm not so big on the whole trusting people thing. It's hard when you've been shafted by the two people you cared most about in the whole universe. Tends to make you doubt your own judgement. Wonder who the fuck you ever can trust, if not them. Makes you wonder if they were laughing at you the whole damn time.

'I don't - I really don't want to talk about it. What's the point? It's over, right?'

'Because Duo, it could happen again. And at some point you are going to have to deal with it.'

Oh, so don't want to hear about that being a possibility.

'I do everything bloody you tell me to.' I said it flatly. 'I take the pills, I meditate, I come to these stupid sessions. And you know what? None of it works, so what's the freaking point?'

'The point is that none of these treatments is going to work until you look at the cause and come to terms with what happened to you. Duo, I do know, believe me, how painful this is, how hard it will be, but I don't see how you can move on unless you first accept that…certain things happened, through no fault of yours, and that….'

'No! I am so sick of all this! Nothing like that, nothing sexual, ever, happened to me that I didn't want, alright? How many times do I have to tell you that before it bloody well sinks in?'

'Duo. Please. Stop shouting.'

'Fine.' It was at this point that I realised I was on my feet and standing over him. And that he looked - not scared, exactly, but like he was on the verge of it.

'I've had enough of this shit for today.'

I slammed the street door shut and had a weird moment of disorientation when I couldn't see my car. I always park in the same slot, just across from the office, and it wasn't there. Oh yeah. Trowa had driven me in, taking Wu's car as mine is just a wee bit distinctive..

Tro was stretched out in the driver's seat, reading and glanced up as I got in.

'I need to get out of here. Now.'

The guy's a prince, seriously. Wufei or Zechs would have wanted to know what exactly I was doing leaving my session early and on the run. Tro just started the engine.

'Where do you want to go?'

'I said. Out of here.'

'OK. You want to catch a movie? That thing with the mutants blowing stuff up?'

Going to the movies has always been on of my favourite things. When I was a little kid, back on L2, there was one particular theatre that I would sometimes sneak into; they had a window in the Gents that was usually left part open and was just big enough for a kid to wriggle through. The trick was to go in about fifteen minutes after the start, when even the ushers were usually watching the screen, and crouch by the darkest corner, and leave a bit before the end, before the lights went on. One of my dreams then was to be able to watch a whole movie, all the way through, and in my really wild flights of fancy I sometimes imagined sitting there in one of the fancy seats with popcorn and drinks as well. I knew what popcorn tasted like because sometime you'd find a few kernels that had rolled onto the aisle.

I couldn't remember if I'd ever told Trowa all this; possibly, because in some ways he was the only one who understood what it was like to have grown up with nothing. No way Quatre or Wufei could ever have imagined living likethat.

Anyway, he'd always been my movie buddy when we met up after the war; we usually took turns to choose the film but he always bought me the giant-size bucket of popcorn with extra butter and a good selection of whatever other snacks were on offer.

There weren't too many other people at the matinee performance; a handful of seniors who were probably just looking for a warm place to doze away a couple of hours, and some school kids who were absorbed in each other.

God, but it's instant comfort, isn't? Squishy, faux-leather seats, non-stop action on the screen to blot out all that nasty reality and a giant vat of warm, fragrant junk food to wrap my arms around.

I leaned back in my seat, expecting to feel the cushioned headrest, and intersected with Trowa's arm instead. Oh. Well, he's a tall guy, needs to have somewhere to put all those long limbs of his. Didn't necessarily mean anything. Oh, again. That arm resting around my shoulders possibly did mean something. It felt good, actually. Good enough that I couldn't help myself snuggling a bit closer, which felt even better.

We watched the opening sequence of mutants with special powers who were hurling meteorites at each other.

'Tro? Is there supposed to be a plot to this, or is it all fancy special effects?'

He turned his head toward me, just a little, to answer and I inclined mine that fraction closer to him. He tasted like popcorn, that irresistible mixture of salt and sweetness and melted butter. A flaming meteor could have burst into the theatre, followed by every mutant in the known universe, and I wouldn't have noticed.

Oh, God.

It was my first time to do the whole making out thing in a cinema, but Trowa was apparently more experienced. Being the practical guy he is, he prudently moved the popcorn bucket safely out of range on to the floor, flipped the armrest between our two seats and proceeded to kiss me breathless.

Me, kissing Trowa Burton in public in the middle of the day.

Possibly not the smartest thing I've ever done…