DevianYUE: Thank you for being the first to review :) I hope you will like this story, it's not tragic, but definitely a lot of drama :P
rockyBubbles: Of course I will continue! :) Thank you for your kind compliment, I hope you will enjoy this update :)
starless-ocean: Obviously I can't say anything about what happened and what will happen, hopefully you will continue to read to find out :) actually, driving from coast to coast is a pretty popular thing to do, probably not so much with a strict timeframe (though it is possible in 9 days) and given the circumstances, but it is actually something that is on my personal bucketlist :) Given the right conditions it sounds like a lot of fun to me. I hope I'll be able to make something good of it and that you will continue to read and review :) Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the first chapter.
VegaLume-San: Not quite a quick update (not in the least, in fact) but I hope it will have been worth the wait. Thank you for reviewing :)
Through the Trapped Door: Well, that is my intention for this story, let me know how I do :) Thank you for reviewing, I hope you will enjoy this update :)
Hikaru Itsuko: I am also very happy and eager to be writing new stories, I hope I can hold on to my inspiration for all them, I am equally excited about all :) You will find out along the way what has happened, I hope you will continue to read and enjoy. Thank you for reviewing :)
Nikki: I never really did intend it to be a big shocker, because I know I suck at writing those :P I just also feel like it's really insincere and contrived to drop a bomb out of nowhere, there has to be at least some prior inkling, after all, the reader is stuck in Heero's head and events like that would certainly affect his thoughts. I'd be curious to know when you catch on to the following "surprises" :P I hope I will be able to answer all you questions to your satisfaction along the way and I hope you will enjoy this story. Thank you for reviewing :)
TheSpaz: Aw, thank you, my new stories will be very different from Warheads, but I hope you will learn to love them too ;) Thank you for reviewing :)
CaramelAriana: Thank you for reviewing and of course for your very kind offer to beta for me :) I hope that you will still be able to enjoy the story amidst your hard work :) Thanks again for everything :)
Babydex: I hope you will remain hooked ;) If you want, let me know what you think of this update. Thank you so much for reviewing :)
Dragon1727: Sorry you had to wait quite a bit, I hope the result was worth the wait. Thank you for leaving a review :)
Frayedsoul: Thank you for your review, I'm very glad to hear the first chapter has managed to capture your interest :) I'm sorry it took me a while to update, but I hope you will enjoy this chapter :)
CircleKV12: Thank you for giving this story a try and for leaving a review, I really hope you will enjoy this update :)
ffreeloader: Thank you for reviewing :) Unfortunately it is impossible for me to set up writing schedules as I never know how much work the university is going to send home with me and obviously that has priority. I try to divide my time equally between all stories, that way the waits for each story might get a little tedious, but not as extreme as when I would focus on one story and drop the others. It is difficult for me to estimate how many chapters it will be, I did horribly predicting the amount of chapters for Warheads, but I will tentatively say that it will likely be approximately 12 chapters. With summer break not too far off, I hope to speed up my updating, but there really are no guarantees when it comes to writing, I have to have the time and I have to feel the inspiration actively. I really hope you won't be disappointed though and that you will give this story a try :) I hope this answers your questions :)
Author's note:
A while ago reader CaramelAriana kindly offered to beta my chapters and so this is the first she has helped me with. I am so grateful and I hope the other readers are too (I'm pretty sure of it :P). CaramelAriana: thank you so, so much! :)
Sorry it took me a while, but life can be so damn distracting and demanding! :P
As you may, or may not have noticed, I will be dividing my time between my stories equally to the best of my abilities, so hopefully no one will have to wait too long for their favorite story to be updated. This is in my opinion the best strategy to tackle several running stories and I am really doing my best to update them all as swiftly as I can :)
Loneliest Road
Chapter Two
- Emotional baggage is the heaviest kind -
It was finally morning. Even though the day was dreaded, I was relieved that my alarm clock went off. I had been awake most of the night, dozing off only for brief periods of time to have frightening dreams that warned me of the exact thing I tried not to think about.
Beside me, Duo was in the process of waking up, going through his ritual of groaning and stretching all his limbs. Only when he was completely done, with all of his joints popped and revitalized, did he say with a hoarse voice:
"Good morning."
"Good morning," I replied, even though it was anything but.
The chirping of the birds outside, to which I was listening in search of my calm and strength, was interrupted by a sharp and obtrusive sound. It took me a moment to recognize it was not my alarm clock, but the phone. I didn't get up to answer it. I hadn't answered a phone in a long time, I didn't see a valid reason to start anytime soon and subject myself to reliving painful memories.
Duo kicked the sheets away from him. He knew that answering the phone was his duty now. Barefoot, he padded across the carpeted floor to the phone that was in its docking station on the dresser. He looked down at the screen where the number of the caller would be lit up in blue, accompanied by a name if it was someone in our personal phonebook. His shoulders slumped as he seemed to deflate. "It's Quatre," he said, without answering it. He walked back towards the bed and leaned over from his side to hand me the phone.
I took the phone from him and after a moment to control my emotions, I pressed on the green icon and held the phone against my ear. "Hello?"
"Heero..." a kind voice breathed, crystal clear even though he wasn't even on this planet.
"Quatre, hello. How are you doing?" With dull eyes I watched Duo wordlessly excuse himself and head to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
"I didn't call to talk about me. I called to ask you that question." My friend said.
"You really don't need to check up on me." My assurance was in vain, in spite of it, he had been regularly checking up on me for a long time now.
"Well, maybe you don't need it, but I need it."
With the phone pressed to my ear I slowly started getting out of bed, reluctant for this day to be set into motion.
"Trowa told me you guys are leaving today," my blond friend explained, sounding overtly worried.
"Yeah, it's a long drive and... Duo wants to make some sort of road trip out of it."
"What do you want?" Quatre asked seriously. He was quick to add: "You know I will support you in whatever you decide, but do you really want to do this?"
I started down the stairs hunkering for a big mug of strong coffee. Safely out of hearing distance from Duo, I confessed: "I don't want to go, but I have no choice. If I don't go with him, if I don't do this with him, I'm not sure if he will return to me." I saw my hand trembling as it gripped the handle of the coffee pot. "I need to remind him of us, because I know that once... it is going to be tempting for him to forget. I can't really blame him."
"Yes, you can, Heero," Quatre urged, but then he sighed. "I know you love him and I understand, I really do. I would probably do the same if Trowa... slipped up like that. But that is all hypothetical; this is real and I am really worried about you. I don't want you to end up getting hurt even more because you keep putting everyone else ahead of yourself."
I stared at the red light, waiting for it to be green to indicate my morning-courage was ready. I snorted bitterly at his words. "Putting everyone ahead of me? No. I am being selfish. If I was really putting Duo and Hilde and their-" the word hitched in my throat and I couldn't get it out, but I was pretty confident Quatre would figure out what my omission referred to, "ahead of myself, I would let him go on this trip, alone and I would be gone by the time he gets back, if he would."
"Oh, God, Heero, don't say that... No wonder I am always so worried about you..."
Green! I grabbed the biggest mug I could find, practically a ceramic fish tank, and filled it to the brim with the hot, black liquid.
"Heero," Quatre continued, "if you want to leave him, do it because you want to, not to do him a favor."
"I don't want to leave him," I said adamantly. If there was one thing I had figured out for sure, it was that. I had thought about leaving him, initially. There had been a bag on my side of the bed in various stages of being packed on several separate occasions. Every time I ended up putting my clothes back in the closet and tucking the bag under the bed. "I love him." My voice cracked and a tear appeared in the corner of my eye, surprising me and irritating me. "Shit," I muttered, furiously wiping the salty drop away.
Quatre allowed me some thankful moments of silence to regain my composure.
It took a couple of sips from the strong brew, but finally, I managed: "I'm sorry. I'm fine."
"Don't apologize. And no, you are not fine."
"I have to do this, Quatre. We have made it this far. We have been through so much. We can't give up now. I need to at least be there with him these days and I need to see for myself if this is the one thing, the insurmountable thing, that will end us. I can't just let him go and forever be left wondering."
"I know. I know," Quatre concurred.
I fell silent when I heard Duo coming down the stairs. He made a lot of noise, to ensure I would notice his approach.
"Hey. Can I have some of that?" He pointed at the coffee pot.
"Sure."
Quatre was silent on the other end of the line, waiting for Duo to leave.
"Thanks." He poured himself a regular-sized cup and then left the kitchen, probably heading for the garage to distract himself.
"Are you ever going to talk to him again?" I asked Quatre.
"Yes. But not quite yet. At least one of us should make sure he knows how hurtful his actions were." He explained, he still sounded angry. Quatre had yet to forgive him for his unfaithfulness and refused to talk to Duo ever since he heard the news. I knew he did it to show his support to me, but that is what concerned me. Quatre and Duo had been good friends too - before all this - I didn't want that to be ruined, supposedly for my sake.
Trowa had been relatively neutral in the face of all the drama, he supported Quatre in his social boycott at the beginning, but after a few weeks decided to seek contact with Duo. I had no idea what they had discussed in private, over videophone, but their friendship seemed to be amended after that.
WuFei was yet another different matter. Initially, he refused to talk to both of us, but after a while he called me up from an unknown location over a secure line to tell me with a sigh that he would respect the way I decided to handle this, but he did not wish to get involved or choose sides. We don't see WuFei very often, but it was apparent he made himself especially scarce in the aftermath of it.
"I think he is well aware of the hurting. He is hurting too. It's difficult on both of us," I told Quatre.
"I know, but still, this hurting overcame you, there was nothing you could have done to prevent this; for him, it was a decision. He should have never let it happen."
I wasn't entirely sure if there had been nothing I could have done to prevent it, but I didn't voice those thoughts. I had had a similar discussion with Quatre before, for some reason he just couldn't see my side of the argument. I think he was just too set on supporting me to put some of the blame on me. Probably to spare me additional heartache. He was a good friend, but sometimes, as a result, I suspected he was dishonest with me, to protect me.
"I should probably start getting ready," I announced unenthusiastically.
"Okay. Just remember to call me if you need anything. Anything," He stressed.
"Thank you. You are a good friend," I said and a tiny smile appeared on my lips.
"And you are a good husband. Sometimes, I think, a better husband than Duo deserves."
The smile vanished, my heart just hurt too much. "Bye, Quatre."
"Good luck. Goodbye."
I pressed on the red icon and looked at my hand, at the wedding ring in particular. My mind was void of thought, I must have still been too tired. I finished the entire mug of coffee before retreating back upstairs, putting the phone in the docking station and choosing a practical outfit for the start of our epic journey; comfortable jeans, a button-up shirt and a warm vest with a hood to create shadows to hide in.
There was a knock on the doorframe and Duo waited for me to give him an all-clear before stepping inside. Even though I thought leaving the door wide open was a clear enough effort to make things less weird between the two of us. I was wrong, obviously.
He took only one step inside and although his face sported a carefree smile which he trademarked, packaged and reproduced on a massive scale, I could tell he was cautious. He was probably concerned about what kind of emotions Quatre had evoked in me with his short phone call. Duo was well aware that he was treading on eggshells with Quatre as much as he was with me. "Are you ready?"
I grabbed a shoulder bag with things that I intended to keep on me and then nodded. There was no more stalling the process.
"Okay. Here we go." He breathed and led the way downstairs. He made a point to carry all our bags, including mine. They weren't heavy, but were cumbersome to carry all at once. Still, he refused my quiet offer of help.
I inwardly groaned when my eyes landed on the mint green convertible. The trusty SUV had been backed up into the garage for safe-keeping. I observed idly as Duo unhooked the elastic at the rear of the car and the trunk instantly popped up when the restraint was released, nearly catching his chin painfully. He put our bags in the trunk and then leaned on it with one elbow to keep the lid closed while the other worked to secure the elastic. Once done he seemed proud of his accomplishment in a boyish, impish way.
I sighed, remembering better times.
"Come on, let's hit the road!" He gestured for me to sit down in the passenger seat, even taking the trouble to hold the door open for me, something he had never done.
I eyed him warily as I seated myself in the low, exposed vehicle. I held my bag in my lap, close to my body, almost like a protective shield. Sadly it would be useless in protecting me from anything that could actually hurt me, as that came from within.
It took Duo three attempts to successfully close the door on the passenger side before jogging over to the driver's side. He didn't even open the door, instead, he climbed over it.
"Why did you do that?" I asked with a frown.
"Oh, no reason." He flashed me a grin. "Just always wanted to do that." He put on his aviator sunglasses. The sun was bright and already high in the sky. It looked like it was going to be a perfect day - weather wise, that is - but in my glowering mood I was in no state to enjoy it.
I put on my own pair of sunglasses: a large, dark pair. A pair I had bought a long time ago but actually hadn't worn yet. At the moment, the glasses were my salvation, completely hiding my eyes from sight. I had a feeling my eyes would otherwise betray me over the course of this dreaded road trip.
"Let's get this show on the road!" Duo exclaimed and reached for the old-fashioned ignition that actually still called for the driver to turn a key.
A show indeed. A tragedy pretending to be a comedy between the covers of a traveler's digest. What a farce.
Duo turned the key and the engine whinnied - actually whinnied, much like a horse, though I seriously doubted there was much horsepower left under that hood - then it sputtered, then it growled, followed by a moment of silence and then...
The engine started and enveloped us with a rumbling purr that didn't sound all that bad.
Damn it, I thought. The last chance to switch to the SUV vanished when Duo rolled the car out of the driveway and smoothly steered it onto the street.
We had barely left the perimeters of our neighborhood behind us when I inquired: "Does this work?"
Duo followed my finger that pointed at the radio. "Oh, yeah, totally! I replaced the old thing with a modern radio, works like a dream... just like this car, might I add."
I didn't respond to him even though I could tell he was looking at me, his eyes expectant behind the brown tinted glasses. I switched the radio on and started turning the dial, searching for a suitable radio station. It's not that I was in the mood for music, it was just that I was not in the mood for silence, nor conversation. That didn't leave me with many viable alternatives. I settled on a crystal clear station where the DJ talked minimally and the music was relatively recent but not too much so. You know you are getting old when you come to the conclusion that you don't like the kind of music that is currently being produced.
A soft rock song with poignant lyrics played.
Great, I thought bitterly, not exactly what I had in mind. As the singer whined on about heartbreak and betrayal, no doubt making Duo as uncomfortable as it did me, I focused my attention beyond the confines of the old car - excuse me: classic car. We just passed the exit towards Duo's garage. I knew the route to his workplace like one would know the layout of their own home. I should, I had traveled it often enough. On quiet days, business wise, I used to get my bike out of the garage and go see him. Even though he had plenty of capable mechanics working for him, he still liked to get his hands dirty. When I would arrive, he would always kiss me and hug me and tell me that he was happy I came for a visit. After a brief conversation, he would continue working on a car of his choice and depending on what part of the car he worked on, I would either sit in the car, in a chair by it, or lie underneath it, shoulder to shoulder with Duo, just watching his hands work as he fixed all that had been broken and made it good as new.
With the war so many years behind us, I never would have guessed his hands could turn destructive once more.
"Oh! I love this song!" Duo commented when an upbeat track started playing. He reached out and turned up the volume.
I blinked and looked around, the scenery had changed significantly since I last paid attention to my surroundings. We were already nearing the bridge that spanned the San Francisco Bay. The roads leading up to the old bridge had been cut off, but the bridge had been left standing, about one hundred yards removed from the new bridge of futuristic design. The structure was decaying and looked like an enormous prop from the set of a post-apocalyptic feature film. I looked at it as we crossed the bridge to the beat of Duo's song of choice. Obsolete and barren, it had nothing left to give and without its purpose it was just a matter of time before it would fall apart, however strong it had once been.
This was going to be a long journey if I couldn't stop my thoughts from dwelling on such subjects.
I scanned the dashboard, noting all the places where the finish was faded or scratched or discolored hideously. The glossy black, modern radio stood out sorely. I frowned when I noticed something was missing. "I thought you were going to put in the navigation from the SUV?"
"Oh, the navigation is in my bag, do you mind getting it?" He threw his left thumb over his shoulder, indicating that his bag was behind him.
I reached back and got it off the back seat. I placed it in my lap, after putting away my own bag on the floor of the car, between my feet. I zipped open his bag and moved around the camera, his digital tablet and miscellaneous items in search of the navigation device. I knew exactly what it looked like, but I could not detect it's familiar shape in the disorganized mess that was the contents of Duo's traveler bag.
"It's in a little inside pocket," Duo helped as he noticed the delay.
There was only one inside pocket, I reached my hand inside but did not find the rectangular form of the navigation device. Instead I felt paper against the tips of my fingers. I grabbed it and pulled it out and my mouth turned tight and thin as I identified Duo's nostalgic idea of "navigation".
When I gave up on trying to set the road map on fire by glaring at it, I turned my ferocious stare to Duo. Of course, it lost all of its power in the small space between my eyes and my glasses. I made sure my mouth clearly conveyed my displeasure.
"Please don't tell me this is it," I stated, knowing better.
Duo quickly glanced sideways, long enough to see the map I held up, flapping in the wind, not long enough to recognize the danger in my expression. "Yeah. Come on, it will be fun. It's old school!"
"Duo! What if we get lost?"
He huffed. "We were Gundam pilots."
I pushed my glasses down to the tip of my nose so I could properly glare at him. "I seem to remember navigation devices built into the cockpits," I retorted sarcastically.
"It'll be fun!" he assured me.
"It will be disastrous!"
"It's not a proper road trip if we have to take directions from a computer," he argued; then he chuckled. "You'd better turn on the navigation, make sure we don't lose our way."
"Why bother? You've obviously already lost it," I grumbled.
"Heero, don't worry so much. We just have to follow the US-50. How hard can it be?"
I had the sinking feeling both of us would end up paying for his arrogant confidence somewhere along the way. I folded the map so the exposed area was where we currently were, for the moment it was indeed the simple matter of following the highway.
"I wrote down some stuff we can go see along the way. It's on my notepad on my tablet."
Grumbling I pulled out the tablet and switched it on. God bless modern technology. I pressed my finger on the icon for the notepad and the screen turned beige with writing in a creative, swirly font to resemble handwriting.
"What's first?"
"Wine tasting," I said dryly and demonstratively looked down at my watch. It was ten thirty in the morning.
"Relax, just a little scheduling hiccup. We'll go wine tasting somewhere else."
"Why?"
"Cause it's fun."
I was about to argue but then I figured a light buzz might be a welcome way to get the edge off the discomfort and pain I was feeling. In fact, the whole trip might go a lot smoother if I just played along. However much I was hurting inside, I had to remind myself that I had not come to push Duo farther away, I had come to keep him close to me and to let him know that in spite of everything, I was still willing to give him my heart.
Above all, whether or not he remembered it at the end of the journey, when he would be overwhelmed with novel fatherly joy, he needed me with him right now. There were a lot of bad memories that we could only fight together. We had tried fighting them individually, only to discover that we needed to rescue each other. It's easier to fight the demons of the other, than it is to fight the demons of the self.
"What's next?"
I looked down the list. "Museum of Modern Warfare," I read aloud, slightly surprised by his choice of entertainment.
"Cool. We'll go there."
I looked at my watch, noting time moved slowly, and did the math. "We won't be there till the end of the afternoon."
"That's fine." He switched from lane to lane, pushing the speed, testing the car. "I already checked the website, the museum is open 'til ten o'clock. We'll walk around a bit, have some dinner and look around a bit more."
"Fine. Whatever." I put the map in the glove compartment box and the tablet back in his bag. I set it between my feet, next to my own bag.
The journey was a monotonous one. I watched the parch dry fields that we passed, the ground was bone dry and cracked under the heat of the sun. The heat picked up more but the wind in our faces and through our hair provided all the relief we required. Duo appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the car and profusely expressed his pleasure in a vain attempt to diffuse the tense atmosphere between us that the wind just couldn't blow away.
"You'll like driving it, it handles just like a modern sports scar. I toyed around with it a bit before we left of course." He didn't wait for any kind of response or even acknowledgment that I was listening because he knew he'd be waiting forever, he just babbled on, like he always did when he was worried about me or about us.
I listened to it with only half an ear. Most of my senses were attuned to our surroundings. We passed through wine plantations where the irrigation systems massively sprung alive. It was supposed to smell like rain but all I could smell was industrial grade glue that was used to secure the inside paneling of the car to the basic structure. It was quite pungent and increasingly prominent as the journey continued.
Brief glances at the speedometer verified my estimate that we were averaging close to one hundred miles per hour - probably close to the maximum speed limit for the dated vehicle - yet it seemed like we were crawling along in the great outdoors. It took a long time for the scenery to change, to show any kind of progress. The change was not a welcome one. More dry wasteland, vast and infinite. In the quivering air at the horizon were the vague blue silhouettes of distant cities, their skylines dominated by towering skyscrapers. The traffic had quickly thinned out as well and mostly consisted of large trucks and busses with tourists.
Only when Duo paused his elaborate review of the car's handling and statistics did I realize he was actually still talking about it. "We should probably stop for lunch somewhere."
"There's a gas station and diner two miles ahead," I stated matter-of-factly. We had just passed a sign indicating so. It was already two o'clock, a little late for lunch.
Apparently Duo had been too wrapped up in his appreciation for the car to notice and I - well, I didn't expect to regain my appetite any time soon. I would have made no objections to skipping meals, especially lunches. Just one less time a day we had to sit across from each other and find neutral words to make irrelevant conversation to spare each other's already hurt feelings.
"I actually had a different idea," Duo said. He looked around to check the position of the surrounding traffic before slowing the car significantly and turning it onto the shoulder. Dust flew up behind us as he steered the car into the sand and slowly let the old-timer roll away from the highway.
"Is this where you kill me and dispose of my body?" I dead-panned.
Duo laughed, long and hard, probably not because my comment had been particularly funny but most likely because he was relieved I finally made a joke, albeit a dark and sinister one, seeing how quiet I had become since yesterday. 'Progress', he would have fondly called that, a long time ago. I didn't know what he was thinking now.
"Seriously what are you doing?" I unconsciously clamped my hand down on the doorframe for support as the car shook traveling across the uneven surface.
He didn't reply, he stopped the car only when we were about fifty yards away from the highway, a trail of tire marks and slowly settling dust behind us. He got out, again, climbing over the door rather than simply opening it. He opened up the trunk, this time moving back to evade the sudden pop of the trunk lid.
I stubbornly remained seated, my seatbelt still fastened. I looked in the rear-view mirror but couldn't see much: the large trunk lid blocked my view.
He slammed it shut and walked back to the front, neglecting the elastic so the lid instantly went up again. He didn't rectify it. He was holding one of the bags he had brought along.
I watched with slight curiosity but pretended not to be interested in the least.
The first thing that came out of the bag was a thick blanket and he spread it out over the large, level hood of the car.
My mind instantly supplied images of the last time we had made ourselves comfortable on the hood of a car. It had been in Duo's garage, after hours. He had skipped dinner at home to finish a car for a customer on time, so I had come by to bring him a simple fruit salad. Instead of eating it himself, he lowered me down onto the hood and picked out the strawberries which he fed to me with one hand while the other roamed over my body, pushing aside my clothing.
"Do they taste good?" He had asked.
My reply had been: "A little sour, but I like them."
He had then proceeded to kiss me lengthily and passionately, his hands becoming more bold and focused. When we parted after the breathtaking kiss, he commented with a devious grin: "Taste perfectly sweet to me." Then his lips had descended onto mine once more, pausing only to sit up and pull off my pants before climbing on top of me, his pants undone and pushed down his thighs just far enough.
We had soiled the blanket that had been covering the hood, protecting it from scratches during work, with our sweat and passion. Three times over.
The joke since then had been that to Duo and I strawberries were an aphrodisiac.
So I wasn't entirely pleased when he started unpacking more and out came a box of strawberries among other things. I worried about his expectations, knowing that if they were what I suspected them to be, he would be left disappointed and this trip would only - if possible - get more uncomfortable.
With everything unpacked he hopped onto the hood and patted the empty space beside him, inviting me.
Reluctantly I peeled myself out of the faux-leather seat and joined him on the hood. I could feel the heat through the blanket, but it wasn't unbearable. I sat next to him with my knees drawn up, my elbows resting on them as I tried to look casual. "What are we doing?" I looked at the food between us. A lot of fruit - including strawberries - some toast and cheese and a lukewarm bottle of alcohol free root beer.
"Lunch," he simply declared. He put a piece of aged cheese on a slice of toast and held it out to me like a peace-offering.
I accepted, though questioned: "Why are we having lunch by a highway in the middle of nowhere?"
"I thought it would be nice and I figured it would be impractical to do this further along the trip without you noticing." He poured us both a plastic cup of root beer.
The gesture came from a good heart but was not received in the kind way in which it was intended. I looked at the toast in my hand, not at all hungry. I didn't want to cause yet another argument but after spending such a long time trying to find the smile I lost as a young child, I could not bring myself to make the expression insincere by faking it. I couldn't do it, it didn't seem right, it didn't seem fair. "Why are we doing this?" I wondered aloud, deliberately not seeking eye-contact.
"Well, you're hungry, aren't you?" His own stomach growled as if on cue, drawing a sheepish chuckle out of him.
Not particularly, I thought. "No, why are we doing this?" This time I made sure to emphasize 'we'. "Why did you invite me along?" I finally looked at him, only able to because I knew my eyes were invisible behind my dark glasses, protecting me from exposing something raw and vulnerable within me that lay curled and beaten on the floor of my heart.
Duo sighed, looking away as his fashionable eyewear did not offer him the same kind of privacy and protection. "I need you with me, Heero," he started, pensively looking into the distance with a deep frown over his far-away eyes. "You are part of this. I know you didn't ask to be, but you are. If I'm having a child, then so are you. We are inextricably woven together. At the end of this trip, you'll be a father too."
"But that isn't really true, is it?" I challenged.
He looked at me, taking off his sunglasses, fully exposing his honest and heartfelt gaze to me. "It is the truth, it is real, Heero. Genetics don't matter, remember?" He looked at me poignantly, causing me to look away. The glasses may protect me from damaging UV rays, but not from the flashing memories of pain he inadvertently evoked. "We are going to be one family. Dysfunctional, but happy." He tried with an askew smile.
"How would that even work?" I wondered, biting my lips as I heard the faint quiver in my voice.
"I don't know yet," he answered honestly after giving my question thought. "But we will figure it out."
I liked how he said 'we', but I didn't dare to hope.
"Please Heero." His eyes glistened but that may well have been because the bright sunlight was irritating his eyes. "I can't do this without your support. And I won't. I need you with me. I want you with me."
All the right words, but, to my disappointment, they did not evoke the right feelings.
I wished I could tell him to get behind the wheel and turn this car around and take us back home. I thought about it, but I knew I couldn't. I was too afraid he didn't mean what he had said and that he would go on, with or without me. However, what I feared even more, was that he did mean what he said and that he would abort this trip for my benefit and I would forever feel the guilt of taking this away from him. As painful as this was for both us, deep within there was happiness as well, the happiness that a birth, a child, inevitably bestowed on everyone involved. Even I felt a fringe of happiness at the corners of my pain, guilt and hate; that feeling - which I barely acknowledged to myself, never to him - that I was happy for him, happy that he had been given the opportunity to be a father and to experience that joy. In spite of everything, I wholeheartedly believed he deserved it and I had the utmost faith that he would be a wonderful father. All of this was still heavily overshadowed by my negativity, but it was there, that I could not deny.
And it is why I said: "We'll do this together." I was prepared to hold myself to that, I wasn't sure to what extent he was. I knew he loved me, that I did not doubt, but would he love me enough to neglect this escape into a better version of his life and come back with me to within the walls that had listened to the fall of our tears and the sound of our arguments so often?
My words seemed to relieve him: he let out a deep breath he had been holding and the corners of his mouth turned into a slight smile. "Good. I want you to be part of this."
I nodded. I moved my arms from on top of my knees to between my legs, to hide the fact that my hands were shaking.
"Eat something," he urged.
I steeled my nerves and reach out to grab a piece of mango and ate it in small bites. My stomach was upset, churning and knotted up. The fruit, though it tasted sweet, felt like a clay brick in my gut. Only because I knew I needed the nutrition, did I force myself to eat as much as I could - some more slices of fruit and two or three pieces of toast. I purposefully avoided the strawberries; I didn't want to create a negative association with the fruit by eating it in my current state. I wanted to hold on to the positive memories that now accompanied the sweet smell and the taste. Memories might be all that I would be left with in the end, why taint them and make the sweetness bitter?
The lunch lasted only briefly. Duo, it seemed, wasn't all that in the mood for food either and he, too, left the strawberries for what they were, I think because he was as aware of the memories as I was.
He had said all the right words and I still didn't feel right. This worried me. Was there ever going to be anything he could say or do to erase the damage he had done? To make us feel like we were "us" again, like we belonged?
I never would have figured matters like these would be of my concern, but he changed me. I was once a scared little boy. Then I became cold, I became the perfect soldier. Duo stopped me from taking the next step in my downward spiral. He changed me, he helped me up. Now, I couldn't help but feel like he had carried me to the top of the stairs, only to push me down. Not to say that I believed he did it on purpose. It just made me wonder what the worth of it all had been in the end and if I may have been better off distanced from my emotions. I may have never felt happiness in that state, but it also protected me from hurt.
I helped him pack everything back up, to speed up the process and then we got back into the car and continued on our journey. In silence. We both had a lot to think about.
I wasn't sure what Duo's expectations had been regarding the picnic, or the entire trip, but I got the distinct feeling I was not living up to them. Over the years, Duo had just gotten too used to melting my heart and making me smile with even the simplest of actions. He could wink at me and have my knees turning weak. He could have his hand on the small of my back and have me lean into him. He could kiss me and have me wrap my legs around his hips, my arms around his neck and let him carry me to our bed - or the couch, or the kitchen counter, or the bench all the way in the back of the yard.
To be honest, I had expected things to go like that too. Certainly not as simply as a single touch or a teasing look; but I never thought that six months later I would still feel like this, longing for his touch, but always ending up disappointed. There had been many grand gestures on his behalf since, in an attempt to right his wrong, yet, it appeared, not the grand gesture my heart was holding out on.
By now we must have both been left wondering what else he could do to win back my trust - not my heart, mind you, that was his to keep. I couldn't take that back even if I wanted to, because cradled in his hands it beat and it felt; in my chest it was utterly useless and still.
We had been driving three hours when we spotted signs along the road that directed us to the Museum of Modern Warfare, an odd choice of entertainment. The parking lot was practically empty; apparently more people figured there are better ways to spend a sunny day than looking at machines of destruction.
Duo paid the double entry fee and was given a map and a set of information folders. Once we had left the lady behind the ticket desk out of earshot, Duo held up one of the folders with a grin.
MOBILE SUIT EXPO.
I didn't know why, but it was the first exhibition hall Duo led us to.
The large space was divided into sections with temporary walls and visitors were directed along the mechanical parts that increased in size as the path went further into the hall. Near the back of the hall, where the ceiling angled even further up, I already caught glimpses of larger equipment in a familiar, distasteful shade of green.
The parts all looked familiar. I could identify them effortlessly, so could Duo, yet he made a point to study the more interesting pieces. Only later did I discover that he was looking for errors and he seemed victorious every time he found one.
He talked as we slowly walked by the exhibits: "They had to transport all this in tiny parts, more cost effective that way. Museum staff was responsible for putting things together. Quatre told me the exhibit on L4 was also humorously erroneous."
"Why are we visiting this now?" I questioned.
"It's along the route," he answered matter-of-factly as he bent over to inspect the internal communication unit taken from an automated Taurus.
"Well, it has obviously been a while since Quatre told you this. If you had really wanted to see this, wouldn't we have gone a long time ago?" I questioned, looking at him intently to gauge his response.
He straightened up but didn't meet my gaze.
"Is it just a ploy to take me down memory lane?" I challenged, beginning to realize that if it was, this sure as hell wasn't the 'grand gesture' either.
He looked at me with narrowed eyes. "You make it sound like I was trying to manipulate you."
I shrugged. Wasn't he?
He sighed and looked away, agitated. "I just thought it would be a good way to reconnect. I thought it might be fun to have something else on our minds for once."
"Something other than what, huh?" I asked, even though I obviously knew the answer. "That you snore when you have had too much to drink? That you finish a drink and then put the empty bottle back in the fridge? That you always pester me for a dog?" My voice echoed through the hall. A couple further up ahead quickened their pace to leave the tense atmosphere behind them, leaving us alone. "Certainly you don't think that a trip to a museum is going to take my mind off the fact that my husband is having a baby with his ex?" I finished demandingly.
He looked miserable.
I kept glaring at him, not sympathetic to his apparent heartache. I was stunned and displeased when I felt a tear escape my eye and roll down my cheek. "Shit," I hissed. I brought a hand up and furiously wiped the tear away, but when I was reminded that this was only the first day of a nine day trip, the tears kept coming. They weren't necessarily sad; I think they were mostly shed out of frustration and utter helplessness.
I pivoted on my heels and walked back to the restrooms we had passed.
I didn't want Duo to follow me in there. I felt embarrassed and I wanted to be alone, regain my composure and once I had, walk back out there like nothing had happened. Yet I was disappointed when, after a few minutes, I realized he really wasn't going to follow me into the restrooms. It was so irrational, but I felt it nevertheless.
I was grateful there was no one else there, because the tears came even more freely then. I washed my face with cold water and then dried it with paper towels, erasing the trace of the tears.
There was a soft knock on the door, followed by: "Heero? Can I come in?"
I shaped my features into something indifferent and replied: "Whatever, it's a public restroom."
He slowly opened the door, slipped inside the white, clean space of the restrooms and then closed the door behind him, leaning back against it.
I didn't look at him. I didn't trust my eyes yet, they always more easily betrayed my inner conflict than the rest of my features did.
"You clean everything up after me and put stuff away in places where I can't find them without your constant help." He started calmly. "You get petty whenever I beat you at something, even something stupid, like a game, or cooking, or gardening. You won't even let me have a goldfish."
I snapped my head to look at him finally. "So what?" I spat. "We are even now?"
"No," he shook his head and looked down with a sad smile, "what I mean is that those are the things about you that annoy me the most, before any of this big shit happened. And you used to only be annoyed by my snoring, my messiness and my begging for a pet. If those were the only things wrong in our marriage, than it was pretty perfect, and we were pretty blessed."
"Yes, 'was' and 'were'," I pointed out bitterly. "Things have changed now."
"I have faith that we can still get back to that place. That place of having the freedom to be annoyed by the little things," he said lovingly and patiently even though I was still glaring daggers at him.
I snorted and leaned heavily against the sink. "A lot has happened since." I clenched my hands into white-knuckled fists.
He nodded and I saw him reach up a hand to swipe a finger along his lower lash line. "Yes," he agreed, but then stated: "A lot has happened before that too and we managed to fight our way through that."
"That was different..." I breathed.
"We are stronger now. Because of it." He pushed away from the door and approached me.
I had no fight left in me, the memories that hit me disarmed me, stripped me down to my most vulnerable state and I was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to have his arms around me. I felt him standing close by me. I looked at our reflection in the mirror; he didn't meet my gaze, he just looked at me, the real me, not my reflection.
He softly kissed my temple and when he pulled back I was ashamed to admit I leaned my head to the left, following him. Encouraged, he closed the distance between our bodies and embraced me warmly, his lips against the outer corner of my eyebrow, occasionally placing a kiss.
A long time passed, but neither one of us cared. Duo held me and I let him, I could never refuse an embrace of his. Somehow the strength of his arms around my waste still tricked me into a feeling of safety and security, even though the ground beneath my feet was shaking and crumbling.
I opened my eyes and glared at my own reflection, displeased with the redness around my eyes and the weakness within them.
"We will make you hard inside," a memory of J said, towering over a short young boy that used to be me. "We will make you hard as stone and cold like it too. It is the only way to protect you and keep you strong to complete your mission. Nothing can ever get inside here." He placed his one, large hand over the boy's small chest, above his beating heart that thumped quickly with fear. "Because in the end it will destroy you."
The old asshole was right.
"Let's go eat. You must be starving." Duo petted my hair once or twice and turned his worried eyes to my face.
I nodded. "Give me one more moment, okay?"
He didn't say anything for a while, just looking at me, searching my intentions and thoughts through the wide open windows that were my eyes. "Okay," he agreed softly and then he excused himself, closing the door behind him.
I stared at my face in the mirror in contempt. I hated that no matter how painfully my heart ached, I could not bring myself to regret letting him in. I could have spared myself a lot of pain, but I would have cost myself even more happiness. I hated that those two always seemed to go together! There was no one without the other and it was so unfair! Every time you get something, it gets taken away, to show you just how much you love it and how much you will miss it. It is cruel and it made me angry. Explosively angry. Why, for once, couldn't I just get peace and quiet? Why was there no end to the punishment?
I yelled and with large steps I turned around and walked up to the doors of the stalls. I balled my fist tightly and rammed it into the firm doorpost. The doors trembled with the force. I hit it again, with the same effect. And again! And again! At the fifth impact something splintered; the solid doorpost. I retreated my hand, bitten, and stared at my bloodied fist breathlessly. A large splinter protruded from between the third and the fourth knuckle.
"Fuck." I walked back to the sinks to wash my hands clean and watched the red, circling around in the water before disappearing down the drain. Then I pinched my thumb and forefinger around the end of the thick splinter and carefully pulled it out to avoid smaller splinters from breaking off and staying buried in the tissue. I threw the toothpick-sized splinter in the trash, the bottom inch of it red, and washed my hand once more before pressing a single paper towel against it to absorb the blood that still flowed from the small wound that stung but was overshadowed by all other pain.
Duo had known better than to come inside and check on me. He knew I could get volatile at times, a small remaining attribute of the hostile character I used to be. He had his own tempers, so he understood.
My hands trembled. I hadn't lost control over myself like that in a long time. I had been a veritable poster-boy of the reformed soldier for the past few years, as I should, it had taken me long enough to get there. Now it appeared the foundation of my hard work was crumbling. I had so deeply desired to be gracious in the face of all this and I had been managing alright so far. I started to realize that I did not - yet? - have the strength to stand in these winds of change and keep my footing. I was slipping, being pushed into something worse than who I used to be.
Once the bleeding had stopped I got rid of the soiled, crimson paper towel and emerged from the bathroom. Duo shifted, leaned his shoulder against the wall casually and crossed his arms in front of his chest, pretending he had not been paying attention to the wrath I had momentarily succumbed to. He didn't make any observation; he just asked if I was ready to go eat.
I still felt like I couldn't possibly eat anything, my throat was constricted, but my body knew better and my stomach growled in response to his inquiry.
He dared a sheepish laugh. With his hand on my shoulder he guided me to the museum restaurant, where it was quiet, only a handful of tables were occupied and most of the staff was lounging around. Obviously modern warfare wasn't very popular among post-war museum-goers.
Duo decided on a corner table by a large window. It looked out over the parking lot, but beyond was the city with its glass towers that shone like a single piece of architectural art, and in the distance was the expanse of the desolate desert we had come from, with the highway cutting through it. I looked at the scenery intently as I did not wish to make eye-contact with him, even though from the corner of my eye I could tell he was studying me. I finally turned my head to look at him when I caught his gaze darting down to my hand that rested on the white tablecloth, the small wound from my previous outburst clearly visible. I pulled my hand into my lap, tendering to the throbbing I still felt and hoping it would be out of sight, out of mind.
A waiter came to bring us menus; he seemed perplexed at the quiet between us and made vain attempts to start up conversation and boost his tip by asking us about the museum's exhibits.
Duo expertly made meaningless small-talk with him as I studied the menu. The dishes were unimaginative, but fine. I chose something simple and light and Duo just said: "I'll have the same."
Alone again, the silence returned relentlessly, but this time, it seemed Duo was determined to break it.
"Give me your hand."
I gave him my left hand and watched his big hands envelop it briefly. The warmth went straight up my arm to my heart where I felt it erupt into something that used to be wonderful, but now had an aching pain to it. He kissed my hand and then looked at me, kindly, and spoke: "You know I meant your other hand."
With a surrendering sigh I brought it up from my lap where I had had it cradled in my napkin.
He took my hand gently and inspected the wound. "We should probably clean it." He stated. He did not release my hand even though he was clearly done with his inspection. His thumb idly circled lightly on my skin. "I brought a medical kit. We can take care of it when we get to a hotel."
Just then, the waiter returned with our plates and he caught sight of the red, torn skin between my knuckles, still raw and fresh.
"Oh my God, are you alright? Can I get you something?"
I pulled my hand away and could only glare at him.
"It's fine," Duo said and then thanked him for the food, making a point to comment politely on how delicious it smelled.
The waiter left as abruptly as he came.
We ate quietly; we had nothing to say to each other. I was thinking of my own troubles as Duo thought of his. Even though I blamed him for the situation we were in now, I couldn't help but be sympathetic to him. He had made it very clear how sorry he was and a brave voice in the back of my head dared to suggest he wasn't the only one of the two of us to blame, certainly not the only one of "the three of us".
My life had become such a rollercoaster ride of emotions. The plains of apathy abruptly dipped and rose with sadness, anger, guilt and despair. And then all of a sudden the ride stopped and for a moment I was so dazed - all my negativity straggling behind me somewhere on the looping track - that I found myself back at the station where I long was, so comfortably: just loving him.
But sooner or later everything caught up with me again and the ride started anew.
After dinner we left the museum without paying more attention to the gathered artifacts. I wasn't very interested and had grown tired physically of my own, overwhelming emotions, and Duo must have figured the benefit of spending a couple more of the evening hours driving that little bit closer to our ultimate destination. Before we left he put the roof up as the air was chilling. This was accompanied by many colorful curses as the distortion of the windshield made the roof difficult to close. Once all the muttering and cursing was over we got back into the car. Duo still did not open the door but rather climbed through the open window, making it clear to me that there was some defect in the door that permanently sealed it.
I didn't comment on it, I just made myself comfortable in the passenger seat. With the previous night having been sleepless and my heart overworked with the stress of the day, it was inevitable that I would eventually fall asleep. I remember watching the sun set, but I don't remember ever seeing the moon or the stars; blackness overcame me.
It was the sound of Duo's voice and the warmth of his hand firmly planted on my shoulder that awoke me. I blinked my eyes open to a dark world. Pale blue moonlight revealed the silhouette of dozens of cars parked neatly all around us. Duo crouched by the passenger door, his arms reaching in through the open window. His eyes were patient and soft, with something heartbroken beneath the surface.
"Hey sleepy," he whispered and his coarse palm cupped my face. I felt his thumb swipe across my cheekbone, wiping something away; I think the trail of tears spilt in my restless sleep. "We're at the hotel."
I willed my body into motion and climbed out of the car. I looked over my shoulder and saw the modestly sized hotel to a backdrop of lit up skyscrapers, as it was set in the outskirts of whatever town we had arrived at.
We shared the load of our luggage and went inside where everything was bright and shiny and the ceilings impossibly and impractically high. It was an elegant, no doubt expensive hotel. We could easily afford it, we both enjoyed well paying jobs; however, I feared the romance of the setting was completely lost on us.
The receptionist offered help to carry our bags upstairs. We were quite heavily packed because we couldn't risk leaving anything in the trunk of the car overnight, seeing as the observing eye would notice nothing but an elastic band stood in the way of a bounty. However, we refused this help, the bags weren't heavy and I guess we both weren't in the mood to be accompanied upstairs by a bellboy.
The room Duo had arranged for us was nicely sized. The view was nothing spectacular, just the street four stories down below and the building across from it, but the interior was luscious; soft carpet, satin sheets, velvet throw pillows, heavy, dark purple drapes and glossy gold faucets in the adjoining bathroom. The wallpaper had a subtle baroque motif and the lighting was just a soft glow coming from a classic, silver chandelier. It was quite impressive, very unlike the other hotels we stayed in in the past, when we used to travel around the world in search of ourselves, on the trail of happiness.
In different circumstances I could imagine dropping my bags and lowering myself onto the soft mattress of the queen sized bed, beckoning Duo to come to me. When he would stand in front of me, I would look up at him and while maintaining eye-contact I would unbutton his pants and pull the fabric down his thighs along with his underwear. I would kiss the skin surrounding his groin whilst my hands would roam up under his shirt to explore the defined muscles of his abdomen and chest and I would do this until he was hard and wanton. Once he would start begging me for more I would take his erection into my mouth and proceed to drive him insane, albeit far less subtly. Just when he would be close to orgasm I would suddenly stop and crawl back on the bed, my legs spread, my eyes peering into his, inviting him.
And I would be lost in rapture as he would make love to me just perfectly. Without any words there was always an understanding of how I wanted it: hard, gentle, slow, fast, loving or aggressive. He always "simply knew" and would overwhelm me with the intimacy of his knowledge to which I could only gratefully surrender.
I loved making love with him. It was the only time that my body felt right, felt like my own and at the same time felt like it was completely his. The way he knew what patch of skin to ghost his fingers across, where to squeeze me, when to rub my nipples and when to worry my earlobe between his teeth. In return, I knew exactly where to caress him, when to raise my head and capture his lips in a kiss, how to moan in a way that made his erection harden even more and how hard I can pull on his hair - that delicate line between pain and a pleasurable sensation.
But we didn't do any of that in that beautiful, romantic hotel.
I dropped my bags and lay, face down, on the bed, exhausted by my own thoughts and the way my heart beat so irregularly. Duo excused himself to make a phone call; I heard him leave the room and through the door I could hear his muffled words as he talked into his cell phone in hallway. It was no mystery who he was calling. He would be calling Hilde every day to inform her of our progress and ask her how she was doing. I didn't know why he bothered having these conversations with a door between us; I knew exactly what he would be saying and how he would be sounding. Everything had been the same for a while now.
I wished I was as apt at deducing what Hilde would be saying at the other end of the line. I wondered what her reaction had been when Duo had told her I would be coming too. I imagine she would not have been pleased, she might have even tried to talk Duo out of taking me along. Of course that is what I thought, that was easiest for me to think. It was easier for me to see her as "the bad guy" in all of this, the one I had the right to hate. Because God knows I couldn't keep that up with Duo. I loved him too much. This was sometimes frightening, to think of all the things I would let him do to me, just because I loved him so damn much. I really didn't think there was anything he could do to make me stop loving him. This didn't use to frighten me, because I trusted Duo with this responsibility, I thought I knew for sure he would never abuse that. Obviously I had been given plenty of grounds to question this certainty.
Duo came back into the room and I turned my head to watch him as he sat down in a random chair in the corner by the bathroom door and started taking off his shoes. He looked pale.
I finally decided to ask the question I had been too fragile to ask before. "How is Hilde doing?"
His surprise was unbridled and stunned him into momentary silence. He searched my face for malice but all I could express was exhaustion. "She is fine,"he started cautiously, gauging whether or not I truly cared to know. "She's nervous about being induced. She is afraid something might go wrong." He squeezed his eyes shut.
I suddenly felt sick. I turned my head to the other side and closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, to stop myself from throwing up. "I'm sure she'll be fine," I tried, my voice shaky. "She's made it this far..." I added in a pathetic whisper.
"Yeah." His voice was coarse with emotion.
When I felt like I had my emotions under control and my face molded into something impassive, I sat up and started undressing. Normally I would have crawled under the sheets in just my briefs, but considering the romantic setting, I was careful not to give the wrong impression, so I made the extra effort to put on a pair of sweatpants and a loose T-shirt before heading to bed.
With my back turned towards him, I listened to the rustling of clothes as Duo changed as well. I got goose bumps thinking of the way the fabric of his clothes would glide over his skin and how I wanted to kiss every piece of skin that was exposed.
But I couldn't.
We hadn't made love in a very long time. At least not since Hilde called six months ago, but even before that, the feeling that would lead up to it had mostly been... absent.
It was getting to me. To him too. My bodily desires were trying to trick my heart and mind into something that those organs were uncomfortable with. It was hard, but each time I longed for his touch, I had to remind myself that I longed for his touch from before, missed the way that felt. It wouldn't be the same now, after.
Suddenly, he kneeled down before me, beside the bed. I noticed the small medical kit he had in his hands. Without words I offered him my right hand and he cleaned the small wound and pressed a flexible band aid over it. I studied his fingers as he worked.
"There," he said when he finished, but he held my hand for a little while longer, our fingers entwined.
Kiss me, I thought, instantly berating myself for my weakness. "Goodnight," is what I said.
Before he came to bed he switched off all the lights except for the small lamp on the nightstand on his side of the bed. The mattress dipped as he climbed into bed and I heard the beeping of his phone as he likely set the alarm. He asked me if I was okay with getting up at seven thirty, I made no objections. He flicked off the final light and settled in the bed. It seemed like he was miles removed from me, even though I could touch him with a simple reach of my arm.
Things had seemed so much easier yesterday. I guessed because then I could still fool myself into thinking that none of this was actually happening. Then all of a sudden here I was, away from home, en route to something that could mean the end of us. I wished I could go back to pretending.
There had been a change in Duo as well. I think he, too, quickly realized that this journey was going to be harder on the two of us than he imagined. It had taken only a single day for his optimistic confidence and careful enthusiasm of the day before to wither away and the prospect of all positivity being left behind as this trip continued was insufferable.
"Each night a different hotel where we can make love," I still heard him say. And yet here we lay, about as far away from each other as the bed would allow. I couldn't put my feelings into words. I was confused because I wasn't sure if I was ready to make love with him again, I supposed I had just expected him to help me find out. Maybe I was even disappointed that he didn't try harder.
Immature concerns started to get the better of me. Perhaps he was losing interest in me sexually, now that I had left him hanging for so long. The last time I pushed him away like this, he found solace in Hilde. I didn't want to make that same mistake again and thrust him further in Hilde's arms.
Fuelled mostly by jealousy and the fear of losing him, I rolled over to his side of the bed, noticing his breath hitch as I lay on my side against him. He was lying on his back, immobile, uncertain, but in the dark I could see him licking his lips and staring into the dark pools of my eyes waiting for me to take further initiative.
I was nervous, even more so than the very first time I had been on the brink of kissing him. I guessed, in a very real way, it was much like that first time. A lot of uncertainties, a lot of past pain, a lot of ghosts that you couldn't trust to keep their distance. But at the same time, that anticipation, that hope that when lips meet, everything will cease to be of importance except for our lips melting together and our fingers mapping each other's skin. At the same time, I recognized how strange it was, after all, he had kissed me many times since, trying to rekindle something and I had enjoyed those kisses for what they were: signs of hope. But this time I didn't want hope, I wanted a promise; the promise that he still wanted me the way I wanted him and that just like his night with Hilde and its consequences couldn't stop me from loving him, it also couldn't stop him from loving me.
So with the weight of the world - our relationship was my world - on my shoulders, I leaned down, hesitating only briefly at the last moment before softly pressing my lips to his.
It was the first time I had kissed him, instead of vice versa, since Hilde... happened. It clearly elated him, his lips moved, kissing me back, gently at first but the urgency quickly increased. Soon his hand wrapped around the back of my neck, pressing our mouths together more firmly and he tentatively brought his tongue out, meeting mine. It was an awkward meeting at first, laden with both our thoughts, feelings and expectations that we had previously fought to ignore. Of course it wasn't long until we remembered how to kiss each other exactly the way we knew how the other liked it. Duo was aggressive and demanding and I was receptive but feistily fighting back.
Our breaths came strongly through our nose but oxygen, at that point, was a secondary need.
A quick exploration of my right hand down his chest and abdomen revealed that he was already hard. This didn't surprise me, he had always been exceptionally eager and it had been an extremely long time. Still, I didn't find myself in the same bodily state, I was only half erect and even though I gyrated my hips against the side of his body, it took all my focus not to stray from the sensations of his lips on mine and the friction through my pants and go to a place where I knew I would lose all excitement.
However, I forced myself to continue. I was no stranger to the power and importance of sex in a relationship and I knew the risk of omittance. Romance withers away until you are left with a friendship that isn't worth the effort you have to put into it to make it work. I was acutely aware of the fact that I might have to use my body like that to remind him that we were still us, that there was still this chemistry between us that was worth fighting for, that was worth staying with me for. I wouldn't be able to give him babies, make him a real family - the jealousy of that simple thought, with Hilde nine months pregnant in D.C was an insanity that blistered my brain - but I could give him my body, caress him in all the right places, kiss him at the right time, moan in that way that makes his dick even harder and tug on his hair just hard enough.
I refused to believe Hilde could give him those things, those things were mine to give; if she could, Duo wouldn't even be with me in the first place. He chose me. He did. I had to hold on to that, stop it from slipping through my fingers.
Duo rolled on his side, facing me, pressing our hips together, pressing his hard length against me. From his harsh pants that blew hot air along my cheek and the shell of my ear, I could tell how much he wanted this. What "this" exactly was, I wasn't sure, neither was he, I presumed, but we seemed to be moving in the right direction.
He paid attention to my nipples through the cotton fabric of my shirt, his hands needy and unfocused, but they did the trick regardless, teasing the hardened nubs. One hand slipped underneath my shirt and caressed up my body to pinch one of them between his thumb and forefinger. Normally, these touches would get me painfully hard, something that always embarrassed me, but amused and pleased Duo. This time, there was no magic. I just couldn't get beyond that pathetic, half-erect point.
Either Duo didn't notice or he was just determined to make this work, as he ceased his attack on my nipples and moved that one hand that had been under my shirt down till his fingers reached the hem of my sweatpants and the tips of his digits slowly pushed inside, giving me ample time to refuse should I want to.
At that point, I didn't know what I wanted. I was waiting for the spark that used to happen whenever he would touch me. So I let him, hoping it would happen.
He pushed his entire hand through the elastic band of the sweatpants and his fingers ran through the dark curls before firmly wrapping around my penis. Surely now he noticed my body wasn't on schedule... He tried to amend the situation with several strong jerks, moving his tight fist up and down my length repetitively. Needless to say this action didn't use to leave any margin of error. This time though, it wasn't working.
My thoughts were badgering me. All I could think about was Hilde and Duo on top of her, in her bed. The image wouldn't leave me be, it pestered me. I started to wonder whether it had been better for him with Hilde - something I hadn't even begun to think about previously, too caught up in all the baby-drama. I wondered if he liked sex with her - or girls in general - better. He seemed eager enough to be intimate with me, yet I could not get the question out of my mind: would he rather be in bed with Hilde right now? She was so beautiful and delicate and pure, whereas I felt like a coarse brute in comparison, like used goods.
Why did he ever choose me over her? How could he not regret that decision now, after all the heartache this relationship had put him through?
And so the final shred of confidence that I had latched on to, disappeared and I suddenly felt disgusting for ever having thought that I had anything to offer that would be better than Hilde.
My body started to shake with suppressed sobs and I broke our kiss, which had become distracted, with a breathless: "I'm sorry."
With his hand still vainly enveloping me, he asked from the darkness, his voice thick: "Do you want me to stop?"
"I'm sorry," I just repeated pathetically. "I'm sorry." I struggled for air when his hands abandoned me, but I tried to hide it.
I couldn't do it, not with all the wrong feelings knotting up my stomach. Sex was easier before - before Duo - more physical, barely emotional, if any at all. When Duo introduced me to this new kind of sex, lovemaking, I had been thrilled; it had felt so much better than anything else I had ever experienced. But this did not come cheap, sex became complicated.
That hadn't been a problem before. We had always been in this perfect place, with the right kind of feelings and thoughts from which the lovemaking naturally blossomed. It appeared, to my dismay, that there was no turning back; there was no extracting the complications of the act. I could no longer let go, shut off and just let my body do what it knew by instinct. A throbbing heart ran interference.
Duo cupped my face and I felt him close to me, his breath warm as he assured me "it's fine" even though he, too, must know that it was not fine, nothing was fine, hadn't been for a while and I predicted it may never be fine again.
My breath came in short pants, I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and tried to think of calming things, but of course calming things were the last on my mind, I was assaulted by a chaotic collection of all the bad memories I had gathered over a lifetime. All the bad memories that I had once claimed I had overcome, that I had beaten. They were on a winning streak again after I had suffered a crippling blow from an unexpected opponent.
Duo.
Before I would completely lose myself in a state of raw emotion, I knew I had to separate myself from him and regain control over myself. I pushed his hands away and hurried out of the bed.
"Where are you going?" he asked, worried.
"I need some air." And with that, barefoot, dressed in my nightwear, hoisting my pants back up, I stepped out of the room, into the brightly lit hallway. I berated myself for being so weak and emotional as I started down the hallway, following the EMERGENCY EXIT signs. I burst through the emergency door at the end of the hallway and gasped when cool night air chilled my skin and momentarily frosted up my airways. The wind blew roughly against me as it traveled around the building and through the streets, looking for something to get a grip on. It tugged on the loose fabric of my pants and shirt, like fingers urging me to go somewhere.
I sat down on the top step of the fire-escape. Goose bumps riddled my skin but my face still felt hot. I managed to take back the control over my body, leveling out my breathing and wiping all emotional contortions off my features to leave me with a blank face that I have just always felt more comfortable with. I hoped Duo wouldn't follow me; I knew that if he would, my fragile control would shatter again and I didn't like being like that in front of him - in front of anybody. It was fine when it was fine, when we were fine, when our relationship was fine. I didn't mind sharing smiles and laughter with him, even though the first few years I had to force myself. That wasn't the kind of exposure I had always feared, these emotional outbursts are exactly the things that J tried to prevent. I now realized why, they were obstructive and crippling.
The old fool made a good argument from the dead. If there was an afterlife, which I greatly doubted, I would presume him to be snickering in that hideous way of his and saying: "I told you so, boy."
For some reason, my eyes were drawn beyond where they had been staring at my hands in my lap and they settled on our "classic" car, parked at the center of the parking lot. The faded, mint green paint reflected the pale moonlight peculiarly.
If I was going to make it through this trip with my sanity more or less intact, I knew I had to change my attitude. The way I had been was too exhausting and it would only drive Duo further away from me, which was the opposite of why I had agreed to accompany him on this journey. I didn't know to what extent I could still hide my feelings when making a good effort to do so, but I had to try. I could apparently not sleep with Duo, but certainly I hadn't completely lost my ability to distance myself from my emotions and keep my reactions in check. I knew the Perfect Soldier was still somewhere inside me, he was strong, I had learned this the hard way, when I started fighting him ten years ago.
I didn't want to be this emotional wreck anymore, it was humiliating and counterproductive.
I didn't want to be at war with myself anymore, I wanted peace.
Most importantly: I wanted Duo to still want to come home with me at the end of all of this.
Another thanks to my beta, CaramelAriana! You know when they say: You never know what you have until it's gone? Well, in this case: You never know what you are missing out on until you have it. I am really grateful for the help :)
Let me know what ya'll think, I'd really appreciate it :)