Chapter Eight: Revelations Part 2

Jumping out of an Oz hospital without pulling his parachute didn't rattle him. Hitting the self detonation button on Wing was easy. Texting Duo on Monday to ask if he wanted to grab lunch was the culmination of days of agony.

After spending Friday night sulking and Saturday going back and forth on a plan of action to reconnect with Duo, on Sunday morning Heero woke up convinced that asking him to lunch that afternoon was the correct course to take. He would not call lest Duo was busy, and instead text him so the act of reaching out would intrude as little as possible. As a bonus he could see if the message was delivered and read, thereby giving him more data to work with in regards to how receptive the former Deathscythe pilot was to him.

Heero subsequently spent hours procrastinating the task until it was well past lunch. Mission: failure.

Pivoting his plans to dinner was too intimate a gesture, and though drinks were an option he worried it would seem almost too casual. Drinks might be what strangers do to get to know one another, but for two people already well acquainted Heero worried what kind of message the invitation would send. He still wasn't totally comfortable with social cues and this was nothing if not delicate. He couldn't afford to fail again.

When he set lunch on Monday as his mission he thought he'd go through with the text by Sunday evening. It was only a text. He'd set his own bones. He could send a text. Instead he stayed up all night, restless and worrying about how to word himself in order to optimize the results. His alarm went off an hour before the deepest despair arrived, but he had no will to go for a run and instead laid in his bed until he felt everything was crashing down around him and he needed to get up and go to work or drown inside his own mind. He chose drowning.

It was only when sunlight peeked into his room and warned him he'd be late to work if he continued to lie in bed any longer that he decided to move. As he struggled to pull himself from bed he was overcome with the sense of being completely and thoroughly a failure.

His eyes were fixed on his phone when he entered the office he shared with Trowa, reading and re-reading the text he'd composed. He would send it. Today. By 11:00 in order to give Duo two hours to respond and hopefully meet him. That, he decided, was optimal. Not too much time to say yes and then possibly back out at the last minute, not too little time to make Heero seem inconsiderate or as though he expected Duo to be available at a moment's notice. Days of planning and he was certain he could not execute this mission any better. Wait until 11:00 and send the text. He could do this.

When something shot across the room and flew past his face Heero looked up to see Trowa with a pile of rubber bands on his desk and another loaded on his finger ready to shoot again. The Frenchman quietly lowered his hands as Heero glanced around to see at least 17 small rubber bands littered about his desk. He turned back to his partner with a furrowed brow.

"Status?"

"What?"

Trowa leaned back in his chair. "Heero you didn't respond to verbal engagement and you can clearly see that coming under fire did not grab your attention." The skeptical look thrown his way assured Trowa that this time his words were heard.

"I would hardly call a deluge of rubber bands under fire."

"Then what would you call staring at your phone for over two hours without so much as turning on your computer?"

That got Heero's attention. Trowa watched with amusement as his partner checked his phone to be certain of the time as though he hadn't been looking at the same device all morning. As Heero's eyes widened his face turned the slightest bit red. Trowa wished taking a photo wouldn't be seen as a violation. It wasn't every day Heero Yuy blushed. Quatre might not believe him when he told the story later. But watching his friend flounder quickly took any joy out of the situation. As Heero gripped his phone and looked critically at the device Trowa felt decidedly badly for him.

"What's on your mind?"

Heero bit the inside of his cheek and looked to be thinking something over for a moment before hesitantly asking "What happens if he says no?"

The lost look on his partner's face was the only clue Trowa needed to know the man Heero alluded to was Duo. He sat up at this and leaned forward resting his forearms on his desk.

"Says no to what?"

"Lunch" came the soft reply.

A small and sweet smile graced Trowa's face. "Did you ask him to lunch?"

Heero tensed at the question, still looking at the mobile device in his hands. "Not yet. I constructed a text and plan to send it at 11:00 today. It seemed the optimal time to commence the operation." His eyes met Trowa's then, a haunted look buried within them. "What happens if he says no?"

"There's a lot of reasons someone might say no to lunch."

"I never changed my number!" Heero's voice became desperate. "All these years I kept the same number hoping he'd call. And he never did. And he still hasn't." He put the phone down on his desk and held his head in his hands. The sight of him was hard for Trowa to bear.

"You should still ask, Heero."

Heero's voice was pained and muffled behind his hands. "He technically didn't even give us his current number! Une gave that to us and probably without permission. He'd have given it himself if he wanted us to use it."

"Just ask him to lunch, Heero."

And then, despondent, Heero reached out a hand and hit send on his text. It was 18 minutes earlier than planned.

Hi Duo. If you're free today I'd like to meet you for lunch. Please let me know if 1:00 works for you. We can meet outside HQ and walk until we find a place. This is Heero.

Monday afternoon was filled with Heero furiously working through case files and refusing to discuss or think about what it meant when Duo responded "I can't" to his lunch invitation.

Tuesday he sulked and got little work done until Wufei stopped by and reminded him to be prepared for an afternoon meeting. He ended up scrambling to organize intel reports. He blamed Duo for his lack of preparedness and for the look Une gave him when he was less than fully on point for their briefing. He took that anger and channeled it into action, texting Duo not long after his meeting ended.

Are you free tomorrow?

Fourteen hours and six minutes later his phone vibrated, waking him in the night.

Out of town.

He wasted no time replying.

When are you back?

He waited. There was no reply.

Friday was, if Wufei was correct, the day Duo would come to HQ and drop by his office before heading out and going incognito for another week. Heero finished his work early and camped out in an empty conference room where he had a clear visual shot of Wufei's office door while remaining unseen. When Duo showed up he'd corner him and confirm one way or another if he was being ghosted. He rolled his eyes at that thought: ghosted by Agent Ghost.

He hated that name. It sounded like Duo was dead.

Time never moved more slowly. Watching water come to a boil or paint dry had nothing on waiting for Duo Maxwell to show up when expected. Tapping his fingers on the conference table he checked the time again. From what Wufei told him the previous week Duo should've shown up by now. He always showed up around 4:00 and it was seventeen past the hour. Impatient, he called Wufei.

"Chang here."

"Did Duo stop by earlier?"

Wufei chuckled. "Are you keeping track, Yuy?"

"Yes."

Heero heard his friend let out a puff of air. "I appreciate the honesty. But no, he's not been here today."

"Is that unusual?"

A pause. "So far, yes. He's… not missed a Friday since his visits began in October."

"Did he contact you?"

"No."

In the silence that followed Wufei thought perhaps Heero hung up. He pulled the phone away from his ear but saw the call was still connected. Before he could say anything a soft voice on the other end told him "I'm sorry. I think this is my fault."

"Heero-"

"He's avoiding me and now he's avoiding you because I'm here, too."

"You don't know-"

Heero disconnected the call. He stayed in the conference room until Wufei left for the day. With him gone there was no reason for Duo to stop by. Checking his phone for what must have been the hundredth time that day Heero confirmed that the message he sent Wednesday morning hours before sunrise was still unanswered. This, he decided, was final. His biggest fear after Duo dying was never being forgiven for what he'd done so many years ago. And it appeared Duo had no intention of forgiving him. Even after the first war ended Heero never felt as lost as he did now, knowing bringing Duo back into his life was a lost cause.

Auto pilot got him from HQ to his apartment. He collapsed on his couch, laying on his back and staring at the ceiling. He imagined Duo did the same thing. When they'd first barged into his apartment Heero wanted to make rounds and secure the area, checking for any exits the American might use to sneak out. But he found none. It was a small studio, barely the size of Heero's living room. Duo had a chair, a couch, a coffee table, and a monitor sitting on top of a dresser. The alley kitchen on the back wall was efficient at best. So it was safe to assume that when Duo arrived at home he probably laid on his sofa. And Heero wondered if the subject of his all-consuming thoughts ever looked up at his own ceiling thinking of him the same way Heero stared at his ceiling and thought of Duo.

Eventually, when he couldn't take the narration in is mind, he grabbed his phone and dialed Quatre.

"Heero! How are you?"

There was an edgy cheer to Quatre's voice that made Heero know he'd been expecting this call. It was also clear that he also knew how miserable Heero was feeling. Undoubtedly Trowa clued his other half into what was going on all week and Heero couldn't blame the guy. His misery didn't make Trowa's life any easier. It was a wonder Quatre waited for him to call instead of doing it himself.

Heero cut to the chase and spoke in a low and defeated tone. "I'm in love with him."

"I know."

"I think I might have been in love with him as early as the second war."

"Yeah, I know."

"He won't even talk to me, Quatre. He's actively avoiding being alone with me. The few times I saw him at HQ he ignored me. The one time I tried to suggest spending time together, weeks ago, he didn't even let me finish asking. I thought he hated us."

"Yeah."

"But then Wufei… he's nice to Wufei. So I tried again. And when I texted he shot me down. And then stopped replying."

Quatre waited a beat for Heero to continue in case he needed to say more. When he didn't, the blonde man suggested "Maybe it's time to let your feelings go, Heero." He didn't flinch at the sharply pained sound on the other end of the line. "Duo's making it clear he doesn't reciprocate. And honestly? You deserve happiness. If I could magic things so you'd be happy the way you want to be happy, the way you think you'll be happy, I'd do it in an instant. But I can't control Duo any more than you can."

The silence that followed weighed heavily on Quatre's heart. He shifted his phone to his other hand and was careful to make his exasperated sigh inaudible. "You've changed so much since the wars. You've learned better communication skills, you've stopped misdirecting anger at others, and when you slip up you recognize what you've done and quickly admit you're wrong. You're still the person you always were but you're better at showing who you are, even if it's mostly just to those close to you. It's been wonderful to see my friend really come into his own. But relationships aren't a singularity, Heero. You can't will him to love you back. If Duo won't give you what you need then you'll never be happy with him and you have to let that dream go."

Heero's intensity was palpable through a short silence on the line.

"I'm not ready to do that, Quatre."

"I know."

"This isn't how I wanted this call to go."

"I know."

"You weren't supposed to say these things."

"Yeah."

"I hate you."

"Yeah."

"You're a good friend. And that's why I called you."

"I know."

"Damnit."