Sorry guys. It was a lot harder to get back into this than I expected. And Duo's voice is hard to write, so it took me forever to figure out what he would say. I still don't think I got it right, but... oh well. I'm sure you'll all wolf this down like starving coyotes anyway. Bon apatite.
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When I got out of bed that morning, Heero wasn't there to hug me.
Uh... Wait a second. Let me back up.
Heero hugs me every god damned morning now. He has been for almost a week. Ever since he found about my little touch-phobia he's made it his mission to touch me whenever possible, but on most occasions he'll pull away if I get mad. The hug first thing in the morning, though, he gives to me whether I like it or not.
Our morning schedule goes something like this; Heero's alarm goes off. One minute later Heero shuts the alarm off and gets up. This varies slightly if Heero is in my bed, since it takes him an extra thirty seconds to climb out of bed and reach the alarm. He wakes me, then goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth. He wakes me again, then changes, then wakes me, and then goes downstairs to jog for twenty minutes. He then comes back upstairs, wakes me again, and goes to take his shower. When he's done with his shower I'm either up or he tips my mattress and tosses me on the floor. One way or another, at the fifth time, I'm up. I always shower at night so I don't have to subject my hair to a blow-drier, so we both dress at the same time. I, however, am usually still pretty groggy from sleep, while Heero is pumped for the day. Which is why it's so easy for him to pin me with a hug.
Pin is probably the right word here, even though it sounds odd with the word hug. You have to understand, I'm still not really able to express myself physically. I trust Heero at this point, but my brain still thinks that it's impossible for someone to touch me without hurting me. I mean, maybe it's right, but there are times it seems like it'd be worth a little pain to get closer to Heero.
Anyway, in order to administer said hug, Heero has to grab me while I'm not looking and pin my arms to my chest. The first time he tried it I nearly tossed both of us to the floor struggling, and I know he was bruised from all the things I threw him into. But Heero is just... Heero, and trying to go against him is like tossing yourself against a brick wall. He had decided that I needed physical affection, and he'd be damned if I wasn't going to get it, I guess.
It got easier after the first time. Once I realized that Heero wasn't going to let go but also wasn't going to do anything else I was grudgingly able to accept it. My arms were pinned, meaning I couldn't reciprocate, which helped to relieve some anxiety I would have otherwise had. Heero would pretty much grab me and hold on for three minutes, riding out the storm if I didn't want to be touched and trying to be gentle if I didn't seem to mind.
Letting him do this, as far as I was able to let him, helped to ease some of the guilt I felt about using him to calm my nightmares in the previous weeks then pushing him aside when I woke up. I'd felt terrible for it, and, though Heero eventually came to accept that I didn't want him to touch me afterwards, I always felt guilty about making him get out of bed before he could even wake me. Allowing him this little thing made me feel better, even though I knew we were far from even.
Speaking of nightmares, I had been surprised to find that I had only had one the entire week. It seemed that the whole touch-time thing had actually been helping to get rid of them instead of making them worse. Go figure. I guess you never can tell with the subconscious. But maybe it wasn't that surprising, seeing that the dreams had been easing ever since I'd come here. Where I used to have them at least once a night it had gradually declined to every other night, then every couple of nights, then only a couple times a week, and now I rarely had a nightmare bad enough to wake Heero. Maybe that was why Heero had begun to hug me, because he missed having an excuse to hold me at night.
I don't know what Heero sees in me. I mean, he's perfect at everything, and I'm perfect at nothing. Why would he want to be around someone who's always screwing up? But he does and I can't say that I'm not happy about it. Heero's a great guy.
Of course the other guys aren't too bad either. Quatre's a ray of sunlight, so sweet that he sometimes makes my teeth ache. I don't know how anybody that pure could have ever come out of a place like Collar, but here he is. I think he might have been afraid of me at first, though I can't blame him. I mean, if I'd a met the raving lunatic I was when I first came here, I'd have been scared of me too. Once I lost the raving part, though, he kind of came around. Quat's just too much of a sweetheart not to like somebody.
Trowa's a little too quiet for my taste, but he says a lot without using his voice. He's so expressive that it sometimes seems like he's speaking one a while different level than we are. He talks with his body and with those killer eyes. He was never afraid of me, though he was damn pissed for a long time about scaring him like I had with Quatre. I don't know what brought him around to me, but eventually he came around. Maybe it's my gorgeous eyes or my sparkling personality. Then again, maybe it was seeing all the fights I had with Zechs and realizing that I really did think he was going to hurt Kitty, at least in the beginning. Whatever the reason, we're pretty close now. I mean, we have to be. We both have to spend forever every day with drill-sergeant Wufei.
FeiFei! Damn, but is he fun to fight with. Out of all the other guys, Wufei's the only one who will get up and verbally kick my ass (though Heero would literally kick my ass, Trowa would give me one of those "melt your skin off" looks, and Quatre would cry, so everybody seems to have some kind of defense mechanism against me.) Wufei, though, gets this icy tone when I'm being an asshole and will just walk down that list of everything I've done wrong.
I'm probably making it sound like Fei's a hardass, which he is, but I kind of appreciate it sometimes. As much as he'll put me down when I'm slacking off, he'll do even more to help me out when I put some effort forward. And it's nice to have someone else in the house who will speak his mind and stand by his convictions. Trowa and Heero are so quiet, and Quatre's always so nervous, that I sometimes think I'm the only one with an opinion in the house. Wufei, though, will argue with me over any topic, and can usually hold his own without any trouble. Hell, he even holds his own against Zechs in a verbal match.
Zechs. The big blonde badass with a bleeding heart and healing hands. I hate to give him credit, but he's really managed to pull this whole thing out of his ass. I never thought I'd see a master give such good care to his slaves. It was a difficult situation for me, because on the one hand I couldn't forgive him for having slaves, and on the other I couldn't hate after all he'd given to his slaves. Not materially, of course, but... I don't know... in stability. Happiness. Just being treated like a person, I suppose. It was something we all, as slaves, treasured.
Anyway, I guess I've gotten a bit off track. When I got up on Saturday, Heero was no where to be found. We hadn't been through a Saturday since he'd found out about my problem, so I wasn't too upset, but it was something of a shock to my core. As a slave, you don't get much stability. Things change from instant to instant as you fall in and out of graces with your master. You never know if you're going to be fucked, beaten, or sold in any given instance. That's the only excuse I can give for feeling so deprived when Heero wasn't there to hug me. It had become one of the few things I allowed myself to rely on, and suddenly it wasn't there.
This is the only excuse I can give for my reaction, which was to hurl myself out of bed and barrel down the stairs, only to find Trowa making pancakes while Wufei and Heero calmly sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee.
"Duo? Is there something wrong?" Heero asked, thought they were all staring at me.
"Uhh... Ch. No!" I defended. "What would make you think that?"
"You're still in your pajamas," Trowa said.
"You're up before noon," Wufei added.
"You did scream," Heero supplied.
"I didn't scream!"
"If you say so," Heero said, turning back to his coffee. I hadn't screamed... had I? I tried to cover the whole thing with a laugh, then turned tail and fled the scene. There was only so much humiliation I could take in a day.
Heero, on the other hand, had other plans for my humiliation quota, and followed me out of the room. He kept pace with me even as I made a dash for the stairs, never giving me an inch until I was cornered in our bedroom. Once there, he shut the door behind him and pulled me into his arms.
I tensed up immediately. I just couldn't help myself. My body and my instincts both told me to get the him the hell off me before he decided to rough me up, but my mind knew that Heero's intent was genuine. I tensed, but managed to keep myself from becoming aggressive. Once I got myself to relax, my body finally realized that the person holding me was not a threat, and I was able to take in the feeling of being held. I hate to admit it, but it brought tears to my eyes. I was grateful that Heero had me pressed so close, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to my face in his shoulder.
"If you want me to touch you, you need to give me a little more encouragement than not throwing me into walls. I thought you'd be happy that I gave you the weekend off."
"I am," I huffed, glaring at the wall over his shoulder. "I'm not a wuss!" Unfortunately, the feeling of Heero's grip loosening proved me a liar. "Wait! D-don't go!" I gasped, and Heero went still.
"Needing to be touched isn't weakness," Heero told me calmly, patiently, "but denying yourself a pleasure so that others won't think badly of you is foolish. Especially around me."
"But you're the one I don't want thinking badly of me," I heard slip from my mouth in a hushed whisper.
"Then I'd say you're being ridiculous," he replied without missing a beat. "After all, I'm the one offering the touches. Who's to say that I don't do them as much for myself as for you?" he asked, and I had to pause at the novel concept. Because it was so hard for me to initiate physical contact, I always thought that it cost Heero a lot to give me these touches I needed so badly. Could he be getting just as much out of them as I was? But it was hard for Heero to do casual touches, and he actually only hugged me if I seemed to really need it or if it was scheduled, so how could this be giving him anything?
"Even I'm not perfect, Duo," Heero continued through my silence. "I know it's hard to trust someone to be gentle when so many people have been cruel. But you can't live in fear when you could just as easily live in peace. Will you let passed pain dictate your life now? Or can you move on from it? There's only so much that I can do," he admitted, resignation in his voice.
"I'm sorry," I whispered softly, laying my head on his shoulder. "I... I really appreciate all that you're trying to do for me. I'm sorry I don't tell you more often. I just.. I'm scared. I don't think.. I don't think I could bear it if all this suddenly disappeared on me."
"I couldn't either," Heero admitted softly, pulling back so that he could look into my eyes. Heero has the most gorgeous blue eyes, and I could almost feel myself being pulled in by the power of them. "But I won't let that fear steal away what I have now. You shouldn't either, but I can't force you to accept this. I can only push you, but eventually you have to make the leap yourself."
So I leapt.
And kissed him on the lips.