Title: Koji ma Oshi
author: Sol 1056
rating: NC-17 for sex, violence, and dirty mouths
warning: BDSM, psychological issues, post-post-EW
pairings: 2x1, 3x5x3, 4xR
Chapter Nine
I woke up, and for a long time I just stared at the ceiling. It was one thing to have such a revelation, and another thing in the light of day to do something about it. I had to laugh at myself; when did I become such a damned wimp?
But the answer was clear, even if I'd spent a long time denying it. I'd always had someone at my side, watching my back. It might not be the same someone as it'd been the year before, but... shit, the last time I lost someone who really mattered, I was six. The impact just isn't the same, or maybe it is but twenty years have dulled the notion.
We'll always be two, I'd told him, as he died.
Then I saw the clock: nine in the morning, and I groaned. Sitting up, I promptly sneezed, then had to clutch at my stomach. The room spun, and I collapsed back on the bed, rolling over onto my side. Not a hangover--I'd not drunk at all the night before, and I'd even come home by midnight.
What the fuck?
I rolled onto my back, blinked at the ceiling, and gingerly sat up. Immediately I wanted to fall over again. My throat felt sore and my lungs wheezed; I could feel a cough coming--and when it exploded, I coughed for several minutes.
Oh, great. A fuckin' summer cold? Damn Earth and its stupid allergens.
I'd get up in a minute. Yeah.
I rolled over, grabbed the pillow, and was asleep immediately.
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I woke up to the sound of pounding on my door. For a minute the dream mixed with reality, and I could've sworn I was back in Deathscythe, and someone was hammering on the cockpit door. Grumbling, I sat up, holding my head carefully and dragging the sheets along with me.
The pounding stopped long enough for me to be heard. "Hold on, I'm coming, shit, just hold on... "
Then I realized the books from Zorya were all over my coffee table. Fuck! Grabbing them up, I tossed them into my clothesbasket by the door and covered them with the clean sheets and towels. Satisfied, I undid the security mechanism, threw back the deadbolt, and slid open the door.
Heero's wide blue eyes were the first thing I saw, and then his gaze narrowed. He opened his mouth, but the only thing that came out was a grunt when he was shoved aside. Relena burst into the apartment.
"Duo! What's happened?"
"Hunh?" I pulled the sheet tighter around me and scratched my head. Big mistake. It made my nose itch, and the next thing I knew, I was coughing up a fuckin' lung. I waved her away and managed a somewhat controlled fall onto my sofa. "I'm fine," I choked out between coughs. "Just need to take a shower--"
"You need to get back in bed," Relena said. Heero was leaning by the closed door, arms crossed, as though preparing to shove me backwards should I make a run for it. Her voice was coming from the kitchen, and she reappeared with a distraught look. "Duo, the only thing in your fridge is beer, leftovers and condiments."
"I'm a single guy," I protested. "I'm just following the guidelines for single guys." I didn't want to get up--from the bright light in the apartment, it was probably mid-afternoon--and I really just wanted to go back to bed. One day wouldn't hurt, right? Maybe. No, I had to get up. I took a deep breath--and immediately started coughing--and followed it with a sneeze. Fuck. It fucking sucked. "Just gimme a minute, Heero... "
"You'll get two days, if you need to," Relena said. She put her hands on her hips, and looked around the room. "Heero, stay here and make sure he doesn't go anywhere."
Heero didn't salute, but he looked tempted. I smirked, and he narrowed his eyes at me again. Fine, fine; I threw my arms in the air and laid down on the sofa. If Relena was going to lecture, I knew how to get around that--same thing I'd done to Hilde. I picked up the remote for the television.
Relena took two steps to the wall and jerked the television's cord out of the wall socket. "You are getting into bed," she announced. When I opened my mouth, she brandished the cord at me. "No television! No beer! No three-day old leftovers! You are twenty-seven, Duo Maxwell, not fifteen. Your body cannot handle this. You have been working seven days a week, ten hours a day, for four months now--"
I couldn't help it. I pointed at Heero. "So has he! I don't see you lecturing him!"
Heero smirked at me over Relena's shoulder, but the minute she turned to look at him, his expression was impassive. Asshole.
"Because he knows," she told me, in an imperious tone, "that if he didn't take care of himself, I'd kick his ass. Now. You. Bed! Now!"
"Going, going, jeez, woman," I muttered, and clambered to my feet. Almost immediately my head wanted to fall sideways off my shoulders, and I coughed, one arm flailing for support. Then someone was at my side, my arm around a shoulder, and I realized it was Heero.
"Boy, this looks familiar," I said, and coughed a few more times.
"You're pathetic," he growled, helping me into my bedroom.
"I liked you better when you were quiet," I whined. "Rel-baby, Heero's being mean to me."
"You deserve it!" She yelled from the living room. "I'm going out for groceries--"
"Heero, did you come alone with her?" He nodded, and I grabbed his arm just as he let me down onto my bed. "You let her go grocery shopping without a bodyguard, I'll kill you. Slowly."
He snorted. "Before or after Quatre is done with me?" He tried to pull away. "Get off me." He sighed, and rolled his eyes. "Of course I'm going with her, idiot."
I let go, pleased, and fell back onto the bed. Sneezed a few more times, wiped my nose with the back of my hand, and didn't even give a fuck when I realized they'd left without me resetting the security. Whatever. Pillow was soft, and my head hurt.
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"Sit up, Duo," someone said, and I batted at the direction of the sound. "Stop that." Something clattered on the metal box I used as a bedside table. "Sit up."
I was grabbed by the tank-top's straps, rolled over, and jerked upright. I blinked at the voice, and realized it was Heero. The room was a little darker; sunset, I guessed.
"Your bedside manner sucks rocks, Heero."
"Your idea of healthy living sucks rocks, Duo."
I stuck out my tongue, and barely had time to react before a piece of meat was shoved into my mouth. I choked, chewing and swallowing as Heero put the bowl of stew in my lap and handed me the spoon.
"Eat it. All of it."
"Did you cook it?"
"Yes. I'll be back in ten. When you finish, I'll start up the shower for you."
"That's service," I grumbled, and took a bite of soup. Holy fuck, it was delicious and since when did Heero learn to cook? "I don't need a shower. I want to sleep."
"You need a shower. You reek," he called from the living room.
Suddenly I thought of the books in the clean-clothes basket, and nearly upturned the stew all over my lap. "What are you doing in there?"
"Reading," he replied. He didn't sound happy about something.
"What? What are you--you haven't touched any of my stuff, have you?"
"I'm not investigating on the grounds I don't want my fingers blown off, if that's what you mean. Eat."
Out the open door of my bedroom, I could only see the bathroom door, and the bathroom past that. Heero was around the corner in the living room, probably quite comfortable on my sofa. I bet he even had his feet up on my coffee table.
"Get your feet off my coffee table!" I hollered.
There was a thump, and Heero appeared in my doorway. He looked pissed off, but if Relena had read him the riot act, that was no surprise. "Eat your damn dinner. I am not enjoying babysitting you." He paused, and I could've sworn he was grinning, however subtly. "If you refuse, I have permission to force-feed you."
I gaped at him, before I managed to find my voice. "Only if you promise to tie me down first," I shot back.
His eyes went wide, then he covered with a glower and stomped from my doorway back to the living room.
"Sweetie!" I added, just to be obnoxious.
And then I settled down to finish the bowl of stew, because it was good. Other than my lunches twice a week with Zorya, most of my meals had been restaurant food, loaded with salt or sugar. Too bad Heero was being a real bastard. It would've been nice if he were sitting on the end of the bed, talking to me while he ate. I stirred the spoon in the stew, and thought about how Hilde always wanted me right there while she was sick. Not like I could do anything, but she wanted me reading beside her while she slept. I had figured it was something to do with not being up to guarding herself--y'know, the usual post-war soldier paranoia.
Maybe that was why Relena had strong-armed Heero into staying. I wasn't sure, but I did finally understand what Hilde had wanted. Besides, if Heero stayed in my living room, who knows how long it'd be before he would start poking around.
I finished the stew and set the bowl on the bedside table, fully intending to call him in to sit next to me with his book. I had another coughing fit, and when he didn't appear, I sighed and curled up in my bed sheets. I'd call him, in a minute. Would be nice to have a warm body next to me, someone who could shoot straight if someone broke in and I were too busy coughing...
I fell asleep, and when I woke up the next morning, the apartment looked the same as it had the morning before. Except for one big gaping hole: no Heero.
At least he'd had the decency to reset the security alarms for me. I could see the stupid light blinking from across the living room.
I stood there, and wondered why I was so disappointed. All I'd done was be cranky... why was it a surprise he'd not wanted to stick around? I shook my head and nearly fell over again. The sensation of no equilibrium just made me pissed-off more than it made me unbalanced, and I kicked the end of the sofa for lack of anything better to do.
"No abusing the furniture," someone said, and I did nearly fall over at that. Only some judicious pinwheeling of the arms saved me, and it wasn't the most graceful save, either. Trowa leaned against the doorway, a cup of coffee in his hands; the steam blurred his features. "You should be in bed. I'll bring you some breakfast."
"What?" I sneezed, wiped my nose, and squinted at him. "Fuck, I think I'm hallucinating."
"Why?" Trowa's expression, as always, was damn impossible to read. I couldn't tell if he were amused or irritated. "You don't believe we noticed you're working yourself into the ground?"
"There's a reason for that," I said, crossing my arms. I tried to stifle a cough, and failed. Naturally it had to kick my ass, and remind me who's master. Damn it. I hate it when my body rebels.
"Wufei got back from L1 late last night," Trowa replied.
He pointed to the sofa, and I gave him a petulant look and dropped onto the sofa. He then pointed to an unfamiliar blanket over the back, and I pulled it down on top of me. Trowa settled onto the one chair facing my sofa, and stretched out his legs.
"L1's Upper Ring is now complete chaos," he continued, and it seemed as though he found this somewhat amusing. "But the good news is that on the Crow-71 surveillance, so far, there's no sign anyone knows we're paying attention." He sipped his coffee, his gaze never leaving mine. "If you go back to bed, I'll bring you breakfast. I have plenty to keep me busy today."
"Hunh." I poked at the blue and green blanket across me. "Who's is this?"
"Heero's, I suppose. He was here this morning when we traded off."
"He spent the night?" I sneezed again, and Trowa leaned over, digging in a satchel. Bringing out a box of tissues, he tossed it at me. "Thanks. I didn't know he spent the night."
"Quatre's command," Trowa replied, and this time he smiled outright. It completely transformed his face into something not just handsome, but also devilishly charming. "He said something about the last time you got sick, and Hilde had to sit on you for three days... "
"Man, she really did, too," I said, laughing despite myself. "It was right after the war... " I remembered her throwing the blanket over me, and leaping on top, her hands fisting in the bed sheets. "'You're not moving from this bed even if I have to staple every appendage to the sheets,' she'd yelled." I chuckled, and curled up tighter on the sofa. "She could be such a pain in the ass... "
"But she was your pain in the ass," Trowa murmured.
"Yeah." I shrugged, and scratched my head. "I have so got to take a shower." Trowa nodded, and I groaned. "Don't go agreeing with me. And don't leap up to help, either. Leave a man some kinda pride."
"Wufei will be here this evening."
My legs just about went out from under me. "What is this? Party at Duo's place?"
"It's about time, don't you think?" Trowa's gaze was cool, over the steam from the coffee. "You've been here four months. If you're not going to send invitations for an open house... "
"You'd just invite yourselves?" I snorted. "Your L3 logic does not resemble my L2 logic, bud."
"No, this is Relena-logic. And Dorothy-logic," Trowa added, with a foreboding note.
"Dorothy... crap! Fuck!" I shot up off the sofa. "What day is it?"
"Thursday."
"Fuck! Fuck! Where's the damn phone?" I scrambled for the phone, resting on the end of the sofa buried somewhere under the blankets. Hitting the speed dial for Zorya's work number, I tried to ignore Trowa's startled look, waiting for Zorya to answer.
"Hey!" I said, when she picked up. "It's Duo, I'm terribly sorry but--" And just then, I sneezed. Five times. When I finally stopped, Zorya was laughing, and I scowled at the vidphone. "It's not funny."
"Is too, sweetheart," she purred. "You make a funny sick person." Her humor was gone just as quickly, and what I guess I'd call Zorya-Mom-Mode kicked in. "Have you been eating well? Don't tell me you're going into work like that. Do you have any chicken soup at your place?"
"Stop that," I chided. "I already have a bunch of mother hens." I turned the phone around to show Trowa, who waved. When I turned the phone back, Zorya was giving me a surprised look. "Another old friend," I said.
"Tell your old friend I'll swing by with dinner for you, then," she said, and she leaned away from the screen for a minute, then returned with her personal screen device and a stylus ready. "Give me your address."
"No way!" I dropped my head into my hands. "Stop that. Would everyone stop babying me?"
"Hush, you whine worse than my son," she shot back. "Give me the address or I'll get it off your membership records."
"Bloody hell, woman," I muttered, and dutifully listed my address. She jotted it down. "Just... no celery. I don't like celery in soup."
"So noted." Zorya beamed. "Now, back to bed. Hop-hop."
I stuck my tongue out at her.
"Move it." She went completely serious, and leaned into the phone. "You look like crap, and I know you've been doing double-time. After recent events, it's no surprise your body's finally caught up and demanded you have the space to process. Now. Back to bed."
I let my shoulders drop, and pulled the blanket closer around me. "I'm bored," I whined... partly because I was--and partly just to push her a bit further.
"Duo... " She sighed, and gave me a look remarkably like what Hilde used to do, and Relena as well.
"I hate you," I said, and she laughed as I disconnected the phone.
Trowa didn't say anything while I climbed to my feet, sheet and blanket completely twisted around me. He just stared, sipping that damn coffee like the fucking sphinx of caffeine.
"Fine," I snapped. "Go ahead. Say it."
"She is...?"
"A friend," I huffed. "A rather overbearing friend sometimes."
He just nodded, and I stormed back into my bedroom before realizing the bathroom was where I'd been headed. I thought of sleeping some more, then decided if my apartment was going to be full, there was one thing I needed to do. I threw the blanket and sheet on the bed, and stalked back into the living room, grabbing the basket of clean sheets.
"Hey," Trowa said, coming to his feet. "No chores--"
"Not doing chores." I coughed, hugging the basket to my chest. "Just putting these away someplace safe." It dawned on me that this was probably the stupidest thing to say, so I added, "because you're not allowed to do chores, either."
"Right," he said, picking up his mug. "Take a shower, and I'll make you breakfast."
Thirty minutes later I was clean, fed, and certain I'd be wide-awake and bored stiff--and unable to read the books from Zorya thanks to Trowa's presence in the living room.
Thirty-five minutes later, I was sound asleep.
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It must've been planned. I know it had to be planned, with the exception of Zorya's timing, which was to arrive at seven in the evening, on the dot, with a massive crock-pot of chicken noodle soup. Wufei met her at the door, and Trowa introduced himself.
"Colette Reboulet," I heard her say. She didn't sound like she was leaving, so I struggled out of bed and was on the sofa when she reappeared from the kitchen.
"Duo," she said, immediately checking my forehead. She turned my head either way, and I swear she would've looked down my throat if I hadn't swatted her away. "Part of my job," she whispered, and kissed me on the forehead.
"You're not leaving immediately, are you?" Trowa stood up. "I was about to make some green tea."
"That would be delightful," Zorya replied, and dropped onto the sofa right next to me. Wufei settled on the chair opposite, and the next thing I knew, they were discussing politics. I wanted to bury myself under Heero's blanket.
Then the door opened--doesn't anyone fucking knock anymore?--and in swept Quatre and Relena, with Quatrina. Dorothy was right behind them, Esté in her arms; I think the two of them were probably discussing world domination plans or something. Hard to tell--Dorothy is too damn good at speaking three-year-old. Relena gave me a hug and refused a kiss, and showed she'd brought plastic bowls. I can only guess Trowa informed her that it was dinner at Duo's.
"Hey, when I'm sick, aren't I supposed to be... like, left alone?" I sighed and made room for Quatrina on my lap. She had Quatre's white-blond hair and Relena's clear blue eyes, and she managed to hold still for all of five minutes before rushing over to crawl into Wufei's lap next. What amazed me was how he could have a wriggling seven-year old on his lap and continue to discuss international corporate corruption without missing a beat.
The door opened again, and this time it was Heero. He took one look at Zorya, and froze. In the noise and bustle of so many people in the small apartment, I had no idea what to do. Should I pretend like they didn't know each other? Should I pretend like I'd just met Zorya on the street? What the fuck should I do?
I solved the question by having another coughing fit. Long, loud, and enough to make my eyes water. I came to with Quatre pounding my back.
"You can stop that now," I grumbled.
"I just like beating on you," he said, then leaned forward to whisper in my ear. "I owe you."
"A good owe, or a bad one?" I kept my voice low, while Trowa introduced Zorya to Heero. No bloodshed yet, although Heero looked somewhere between stunned and majorly irritated. Until he opened his mouth, though, it'd be hard to tell.
"A little of both," Quatre said, and glanced across the room to leer at Relena. She caught his look, and gave him a smug grin.
"I am not getting in the middle of this," I said.
"Uncle Duo! Uncle Duo!" Quatrina came pelting into the room from my bedroom. "I wanna look at pictures."
All I saw was a big black book and I just about flew into the air. Holy fucking crap, if that yard ape were digging in my laundry basket I was just going to--
She landed on the sofa beside me, and flipped open the scrapbook. I took a deep sigh of relief, and had to fight through another coughing fit. Quatrina didn't seem to mind; instead, she snagged Zorya to sit next to her, and commanded Uncle Heero--man, I would've laughed hysterically if I weren't so busy thanking every god known to humankind--to sit next to Zorya--Colette--Zorya--whatever.
"Uncle Duo during the war," Quatrina said, and held the book up to show everyone. I'd forgotten how fascinated she was with her father's friends. "Aunt Hilde during the war." She stared at the picture for a moment, then asked the last thing I'd expected: "Do you still have that pretty hat?"
"Uh." I had to think a moment. "Yeah. It's in a box in my closet."
"Can I have it?" Quatrina stared down at the picture, then gave me a toothy smile--with the front two missing, but still. I bet she knocked them out falling off the roof or something. "When I grow up, I want to be that pretty."
"You will," I said, and the next thing I knew, I'd headed into my bedroom and done a minor archeological dig. I returned with a box, and then Heero was next to me, helping me carry the other two. All of Hilde's stuff, that I'd kept, that she'd given me or I'd given her. I couldn't bear to throw it out, and I just hadn't known what to do with it.
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A year and a half ago, my best friend died. For a long time, there was an empty space in my life, in my heart. I didn't want to fill it with anything, because I didn't want to risk forgetting that it could be so empty.
Maybe Zorya was right; maybe getting a summer cold--me, a damn healthy man if you ignore the knee problems and the back problems and a few aches in cold weather--was just my body telling me to slow down and think about things. Or maybe it was all Relena's doing. I wouldn't put it past her. Or Zorya, for that matter, but from the way their heads bent together with Dorothy's over an old school picture of Hilde... I was halfway worried what they'd do as a threesome, and halfway tempted to whisper in Relena's ear that Zorya would have some damn good ideas for making Quatre beg for mercy. Naw. I'd save that for later.
A year and a half, and one minute she was asking me if I wanted some coffee from the corner shop, and fifteen minutes later I was getting a call from the EMTs. The funeral was a stuffy affair, her corpse--yes, corpse, that wasn't Hilde if it wasn't laughing and teasing me--and we all stood around in dark somber clothes and I stared at nothing. Just like all the men from the scrap yard; we just stared, that mile-long look that has no beginning and no end because you can't believe it's happening...
Hilde would've hated it.
But she would've loved this night, I knew.
"This is the forged entrance paper," I explained to Quatrina, and Zorya leaned over Quatrina's shoulder while Esté slept on Heero's lap. "Hilde saved it. It's from when I stole a mobile suit to get to the lunar base."
"To rescue Uncle Wufei and Uncle Heero!"
I raised my eyebrows at Wufei, who looked like he'd just swallowed something quite distasteful. Quatre was laughing into his hand, while Relena merely nodded and murmured something reassuring to her daughter.
"I remember meeting her on Libra," Relena said. "She was everything I wished I could be. Spunky and determined and... sneaky. A good match for you."
"I didn't tell her to do that!" I shook my head, all cough, sneeze, or ache forgotten. "I would've knocked her out and tied her up if it'd kept her from doing something that stupid."
"Stupid, but brave," Trowa said. "She was amazingly brave. And a good chess player, too."
"Hunh?" I gave him a suspicious look.
"I played with her during her recovery, after the last battle," Trowa said. "Mostly while you were sleeping."
"So you knew she had a major crush on you?"
Trowa's eyes went wide, and he turned beet-red.
Even Heero laughed.
"And then there was the argument you had the night before our wedding," Wufei said, in a pensive voice. "You never did say what that was about."
"I wouldn't wear a bow," I mumbled.
"What was that?" Relena leaned closer.
"She wanted me to wear a bow in my hair that would match her dress," I said, making a face. "As a matter of fact... " I dug through the boxes, and pulled out a small box. "This is it." It was a long blue velvet ribbon, and Relena took it with a smile.
"Hilde took me on my first mobile suit ride," Relena said, and told us the story of learning to pilot while visiting with Quatre, when Quatrina was six months old.
"She used to send me video-recordings of the scrap yard," Quatre said, and laughed. "Great blackmail material."
"I never laughed as hard as the one of you doing battle with a trans-connector cable," Trowa said, winking at me.
Zorya tapped me on the chin. "Close your mouth, sweetheart, you look like a fish." She turned to Quatre and Trowa. "What tapes?"
"Hilde sent out tapes annually of what they were up to," Heero said.
"Wait... " I sputtered, unable to form words. "Hilde... what... wait... "
"We all got copies," Dorothy said. She was looking through one of the scrapbooks with Wufei. "Mostly of the two of you being idiots."
"A natural state of events," Wufei observed.
"She never told me," I whispered.
"She said you worked too much," Quatre told me.
"I did not."
"Did too," Heero retorted, shifting the sleeping three-year-old in his arms. "You still do."
"I have a reason." I didn't want to go there. Bad enough to find out everyone had almost a decade of my idiocy--recorded!--but to bring up my reason for being on Earth--
"Maybe it's time you realize we all do," Trowa said.
The room was quiet for a few minutes, except for Quatrina whispering into Zorya's ear about the dress Hilde had worn to Trowa's and Wufei's wedding.
"Oh," I said, and I couldn't manage more.
On the other hand, one way or another, these people had once been my friends, and were still my friends. Maybe I had Hilde to thank for that, but it was just one more thing I owed her. I looked past Zorya's bent head, and Relena's smile to Trowa, and Quatre laughing with Dorothy at a picture in Hilde's scrapbook--probably of me, covered in grease and making a fool of myself--and saw Heero.
He was smiling down at Esté, with a tender expression I'd not seen in years. He grew still, then looked up at me. I don't know if he was aware of it, but his gaze immediately cut to Zorya and then back to me. I didn't know what to say, so I just smiled, and hoped he understood. Just a friend, I wanted to say: there's room in my heart again, if you want to stay awhile.
I don't know if he got all that, and I don't know if I could have even put it into words. But I do know he gave me a shy smile, ducking his head and looking at me from under his eyelashes. Perhaps he was saying he was pleased I'd found a friend, perhaps he'd concluded Zorya and I were an item and all my attempts at nonverbal were woefully inept. Or perhaps he'd just...
Or maybe it didn't matter, and it was just a smile, a bright spot in an evening of mourning... and celebrating... an absent friend.
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