Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this.
Warnings: Heavy angst. Guys talking about having sex with guys. Violence. Language. Graphic.
Support a starving artist, buy Kracken's book, The Storm, at amazon.com under Della Boynton. For all of you who bought my book, thank you! Books Two and Three of the series can be read online at www.jhanian.com. If you have ANY trouble at all acquiring the sequels this way, please email me and let me know. I refuse to have ANY unhappy fans! ^_^
"You are troubled," Wu Fei said as Duo shifted weight yet again and sighed.
Seated in front of Wu Fei, Duo cracked open an eye and then opened them both in defeat when he saw the Chinese pilot looking back at him.
"Is it your wounds?" Wu Fei wondered. "They should be healed by now."
"No, it's not that," Duo replied and fiddled with the end of his long, chestnut braid, impish face serious. "I can't stop thinking."
The run down room, floor covered in exercise mats and a few weight machines against a wall, was very quiet, removed from the rest of the safe house by a long hallway and a thick door. It was perfect for meditation, whitewashed walls and spartan interior giving little distraction, if one didn't bring the distraction into the room with him, Wu Fei thought.
In a loose, black tee shirt and a pair of black, jersey pants, Duo's pale skin and sparkling purple eyes were startling and ethereal. He looked light as air or as transparent as the sun coming through a nearby window, yet Wu Fei knew that slim body held a dangerous strength and a dangerous mind. Wu Fei never treated either lightly or allowed himself to grow complacent, even when the self proclaimed Shinigami seemed to offer a modicum of trust by sitting down near him and daring to close his eyes.
"Perhaps we should do this another time," Wu Fei suggested.
Duo smiled. "You can ask me, you know."
Wu Fei raised an eyebrow. "What would I ask? It's not honorable to ask for information of a personal nature. That is something to be offered."
"Ah," Duo acknowledged with a small nod. He was silent, staring down at his fiddling fingers and the end of his braid. "Uh, well, it's Heero. I don't know how you feel about us being... 'together', but we haven't had any 'together' since Heero was in that screwed up mission a few months back."
Wu Fei scowled. "This is too personal!" he protested. "I am not the one to ask about such things. Quatre and Trowa perhaps.... they share your... inclinations."
"Sorry." Duo threw his braid behind his shoulder and stood up. He stretched his back until it cracked, reaching his lithe body up towards the ceiling. Wu Fei found himself staring and Duo caught him at it. Smirking, Duo joked, "Are you sure you don't share my inclinations?"
Wu Fei could hear the edge in his voice and the brittleness behind the smile. A land mine. He scowled fiercer and then closed his eyes as if he were going to begin meditating again. It was a position vulnerable enough to calm Duo and bring him back from what ever dark thoughts had begun to form.
"I hate all of this relationship crap!" Duo grumbled.
Wu Fei said simply, with his eyes still closed, "Then end it. If Heero has decided to forgo your companionship-"
"I didn't SAY that!" Duo protested hotly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I just meant that he seems as Heero like as ever, but... well... shit! Wu Fei! You aren't making this easy! I don't want to sound like a complaining wife, or anything, but that's just the way it's going! I'm not GETTING any Wu Fei! That's it, bottom line!"
Talking about sex with Duo Maxwell was another land mine. Wu Fei sidestepped it with skill by saying, "Talk to Heero."
Duo pulled at his shirt irritably, stretching the black material at the collar as if he was ready to strangle himself. His purple eyes were pained. "I can't."
Wu Fei waited. Duo paced the cushioned floor, black stocking feet silent. Duo faced him again and said very low and viciously, "I can't because half of me is glad and the other half isn't. I can't ask him for something I'm not sure I really want. It's been good, don't get me wrong, but it's... well, it's always a struggle. Maybe Heero just doesn't want to deal with it any more."
"Maybe Heero is tired," Wu Fei countered, keeping his tone and his words neutral. They could have been talking about tired of exercising, tired of food, or tired of the war. He left Duo to fill in his own sexual interpretation. "A warrior will grow tired of the battle. He can't always fight."
Duo nodded. He plopped down in a sitting position again, cross legged. "Maybe that's all it is. Maybe we both need a rest. I was just worried that-"
"You know that would never happen," Wu Fei retorted, cutting off foolishness.
Duo gave Wu Fei a lopsided grin. "I guess he would have cut me loose a long time ago if he didn't really love me." Wu Fei shifted, uncomfortable. "Oh, sorry." Duo chuckled, and then amended, "If he didn't want to be my lifelong, sworn companion in battle."
Wu Fei gave a slow nod and said sternly, "Now, if you are done simpering like an onna, perhaps we should meditate?"
"I lost the mood, I think," Duo replied glumly.
Wu Fei grunted. "Putting yourself 'in the mood' at will is part of the technique."
Duo puzzled over his words, hearing a double meaning. He sighed. "I guess you're right. I'll try." His answer covered both levels of Wu Fei's comment and he felt himself relax. He had spent a life time dealing with his own problems. He hadn't been very good at dealing with Heero's. Now that it was his problem again, it was nice to already have a solution. Heero had obviously grown tired of Duo's reluctance. It was now up to Duo to do something about that.
"Thanks, Wu Fei," Duo said in relief.
"Meditate," Wu Fei growled.
"I just wanted to say-"
"Onna."
"Hmph," Duo snorted, blowing his wild, chestnut bangs into the air in annoyance. "Whatever." He composed himself and was satisfied to feel the welcome calmness of meditation steal over him.
"Duo?" Wu Fei saw the pilot of Deathscythe huddled in a dark corner of the attic. It was cold. Wu Fei's breath misted the air as he climbed up off of the ladder and stood, half crouched in the cramped space. "We've been looking everywhere for you."
Duo's eyes were half closed, his knees held tightly to his chest with his arms wrapped around them. His pale face was tense, his mouth set in a hard line. The livid, swollen bruise covering part of his cheek and one eye told Wu Fei the story without a word from Duo's lips.
"He hit you, didn't he?" Wu Fei said unnecessarily, trying to draw Duo out of whatever mood he had screwed himself into.
"I'm leaving!" Duo said viciously, not looking at Wu Fei, but drawing tighter into himself. "I'm not putting up with this shit! I won't stay here and be asshole's punching bag! I know when I'm not wanted. Deathscythe and me will do just fine solo." He blinked tears, wiped them harshly away.
Wu Fei looked around the cold attic. "If you want to run away, then why are you hiding up here?" His voice said the words 'run' and 'hiding' with contempt. He saw Duo flinch.
"I am not running or hiding!" Duo snarled back. "I came here to think, to be alone, to get out of the Perfect Jerk's reach, so I could figure out what to do!" He stood like a spring, fists clenched and amethyst eyes manic. Wu Fei went into a defensive crouch, unsure what Duo intended, but Duo continued to snarl, "I'm not stupid! Somebody hits you once, they keep on hitting you. Heero and me are through!"
"The war-," Wu Fei began, but Duo cut him off.
"This has nothing to do with the war!" Duo reassured him. "I'm still going on missions, I'm just not living under the same roof with Heero Yuy."
Wu Fei nodded as he turned towards the ladder. He said, without looking at Duo. "You are insufferable at times, and I will admit to having felt the urge to punch you on several occasions. It doesn't seem odd to me that Heero would wish to do the same... yet, it isn't like him, Duo. I don't lose control. Heero doesn't lose control."
"Well, he did!" Duo retorted.
"Then maybe you should wonder why?" Wu Fei suggested, "Instead of losing control as well and making irrational decisions?"
Wu Fei put his hands on the ladder. He couldn't ask directly what had happened between Duo and Heero. It wasn't his custom. When Duo spoke, confused and hesitant, he was glad.
"Don't you even care what happened?"
Wu Fei paused and then said, as if to the empty, chill air. "That's for you to tell, not for me to ask."
"Oh." Duo sniffled and Wu Fei turned, seeing Duo sit down again and huddle in on himself. "Hm, well, I took your advice. I tried to be more... accommodating with Heero. I tried making moves first, letting him know I wanted.... I just... I just put my arms around him.... I just slid my hand down along his ass..."
Wu Fei felt a flush. That wasn't what he had wanted to hear. The more personal relationship between Heero and Duo was still something he didn't want to acknowledge. "He rejected you?" Wu Fei managed to ask nervously.
"He cold cocked me in the face!" Duo shouted. "When the lights behind my eyes stop flashing, and the room came back into focus, he was gone! He didn't even stay... he didn't even wonder if I was okay!"
"He looked for you," Wu Fei corrected. "He was concerned for you. He told us to search the house while he ran to see if Deathscythe was still in the hanger."
Duo frowned, confused. "I don't get it! What the Hell is wrong with him?"
Wu Fei nodded as he began descending the stairs. "Good! You are asking questions instead of reacting like a fool. Now, dare to ask the questions of the man who you need the answers from, and I will consider you a man again."
Wu Fei ducked a thrown piece of cobweb laden antique junk. It clattered against the old wooden floor. Wu Fei ignored it and the curse that followed. He needed to work on Nataku and get back to the war, he thought irritably, not worry about the complicated relationships of his fellow pilots.
Heero sat on the foot of Deathscythe and stared very hard at nothing. The hanger, lit by bare, hanging bulbs from the makeshift ceiling, was as drafty as a snow covered mountain peak. Heero ignored that. In his green tank top, black pants, and steel toed boots, he hadn't even conceded to the cold enough to put on a jacket. He wanted his body to freeze until it was as cold as the hollow, aching feeling in his gut. He wanted to punish his body for betraying him, for not obeying him at the worst possible moment. Duo had reached out to him, had dared to trust him, finally, completely, and he... he had hit him with the full force of a balled fist backed up by blind panic.
It had been the hand on his ass, Heero knew, and the memory of other, crueler hands that he couldn't erase from his perfect memory. In that moment, Heero had become Duo, their roles reversed. He had finally understood, completely, what Duo was forced to live with every day. Knowing that he, Heero, would have to live with it now, too, had been too much, to painful, too overwhelming.
Heero had run, tireless legs taking him far into the forest surrounding the safe house, before he had been forced to stop, forced to calm himself, forced to realize what he had done. The run back had nearly burst his heart, and finding Duo gone, ordering the others to search, and reaching Deathscythe, had almost finished the job. Finding Duo's Gundam still in its hiding place, Heero had collapsed where he was now, exhausted, mind frantically trying to think of where to search next.
A jacket was flung into Heero's face. He jumped up, reaching for his gun, before his mind caught up with his reflexes and recognized the jacket as his own and the glaring face beyond it as that of Deathscythe's pilot.
"You must be upset to let me sneak up on you," Duo grated. "Especially since I wasn't even sneaking." He was wearing his black long coat, black gloved hands sinking deep into the pockets. His face was pale above the high collar, the bruise a shocking sight disfiguring half his face. "We need to talk."
Heero nodded, looking down and swallowing hard as he clutched his coat against him, not bothering to put it on.
"Put it on!" Duo snapped. "I'm not mad enough to want you to die, not yet."
Heero meekly put on the jacket, the sound of the zipper going up loud in the silence of the hanger. The tall Gundams all around them seemed stern judges, waiting to pass sentence on the tiny humans at their center. Duo wasn't any less imposing to Heero. He wasn't bothering to wear his mask. His true, haunted expression struck Heero full force; the shadowed face of an abused boy from L2 who had just had his only joy brutally taken from him. There wasn't even a hint of forgiveness.
"There are some things that we can't talk about," Heero said, breaking the silence at last.
"I know," Duo agreed tightly, "but there are some questions that you are going to have to answer."
"I-" Heero began to protest, but Duo cut him off.
"If you don't answer them, then I'm going to shoot you off of my Gundam's big toe and I'll leave right now!" Duo snarled, amethyst eyes snapping with anger, yet also filled with a deep seated dread of the answers he was demanding.
"Careful," Heero warned. "Careful what you ask, Duo."
Their eyes locked. Things unsaid and unacknowledged hung thick in the air between them. "Is it me?" Duo asked, daring. "Did I... Are you tired of me, tired of dealing with my problems?"
Heero replied firmly and without a hint of hesitation. "You can't grow 'tired' of the other half of your soul, Duo. You are that for me. Never doubt that."
Duo felt a warm flush at those words, but he wasn't even remotely ready to forgive. He pointed to the ugly bruise on his face. "This makes your words a lie."
"Tell me what to do," Heero begged.
"Do?" Duo echoed.
Heero's hands clenched and unclenched, so sure on the controls of his Gundam and on the trigger of a weapon, he was finding them useless now. "How can I explain that I didn't mean to hit you?" Heero clarified, voice edged and desperate. "What will prove to you that I- I."
"Won't do it again?" Duo finished mockingly. "How likely is that?" When Heero stayed silent, Duo felt his heart begin to crumble. Heero wasn't good at lying. He didn't make the attempt now. "You can't even say it," Duo accused, "because you don't know for sure that you won't!"
It made Heero angry, Duo's judgment. How easily he forgot, Heero thought, and determined to remind him. With one motion, he ripped apart his jacket and shirt, leaving his upper torso bare. Duo had started, stepped back, and reached for his gun. Heero knew then, that he was armed, and knew also, with a black, sinking feeling, that the trust between them was shaken. He hoped that it wasn't shaken to its core.
Duo was staring at Heero's patchwork of scars. He knew what point Heero was trying to make. His face went hard. "Yeah, I know, Baby," he said angrily. "I made some of those when you touched me the wrong way. You forgave me. You kept loving me. You kept loving me even when I didn't love myself."
Duo sighed and took his hand off of his gun. Heero wrapped his arms around himself, closing the ripped jacket and shirt over his freezing skin. There was a long silence between them, each trying to find a way through an impossible situation.
"I won't let you hit me, " Duo said at last. "We can't go on like that. If we can't talk about the reason behind why you hit me, then at least let me know what triggered it. I've never reached out to you that strongly before. Was that it? I thought you wanted that. I thought you were tired of coming after me. Was I wrong?"
"Yes," Heero replied in a whisper.
Duo said grimly, "So, if we are to continue, I have to be the one to suffer."
Heero widened his eyes, puzzled. "Suffer?"
"Do you think it's easy letting you touch me?" Duo snapped back. He crossed his arms over his chest and they stood that way, each in a defensive posture. "You know it's not," he continued. "You know it's a battle each time." He paused and then shrugged. "I guess I'm used to it. I'll accept the burden. So, you can touch me, but, do you want to? You haven't done anything except hold me once in awhile."
Heero didn't say anything, but his eyes were downcast and his jaw had tightened. Duo felt a gut wrenching suspicion which he quickly buried. He couldn't think that. He couldn't put two and two together. Heero was his strength. Nothing could touch the man. He never failed in his missions. Duo relied too much on that being true, so he refused to realize that Heero was acting just like he did and maybe for the same reasons.
"Heero," Duo said, knowing how to reach the young man. "We have a mission in ten days. If we can't find a way through this, whatever it is you're going through, then we have to end this relationship. I-" He swallowed hard, feeling grief welling up, but throttled it down and continued, "It'll kill me, I think, but... the war comes first, it always has. Maybe, if we can't find a way, we'll save all of this for after the war."
Heero should have agreed. He had been raised from childhood to make just such decisions without emotion and without remorse. Now, he couldn't. His blue eyes searched Duo's face and Duo felt shaken by the pure 'neediness' of that look. "I can't function without you," Heero finally said, low and rough. "I will retrain myself. I will regain control.... if you will forgive me... if you will let me be with you."
Duo didn't know how to handle Heero's sudden show of vulnerability. Heero wasn't acting like Heero and that told Duo how deep his problems went. He did need to regain control. Heero Yuy couldn't live the unpredictable, manic life that Duo could. He needed structure, orders, and, most of all, perfection in himself. Duo could see how his weakness was tearing him apart.
"Okay," Duo relented. He took a slow look around at the cold hanger. "Well, I guess this place is quiet enough to start in."
"Start what?" Heero wondered, confused and nervous.
"Retraining you," Duo clarified.
"Duo..." Heero began and then stopped, not daring to hope.
Duo gave him a sideways look as he cleaned a space on the dirt floor. "You still have to prove yourself to me, Yuy," Duo warned, but then softened, "but you know that I love you. You've forgiven the unforgivable where I'm concerned. A punch isn't as bad as a stab wound. I get that, don't worry. On the other hand, I won't let you get away with another punch either. You'll have to learn to control yourself again before I really forgive you."
"Acceptable," Heero replied, watching Duo curiously, then asked, "What are you doing?"
Duo sat cross legged on the dirt floor and motioned Heero to do the same. "I'm going to teach you what Wu Fei's been teaching me," he said. "I'm going to teach you to meditate. Wu Fei tells me it's the first step to learning to control your reactions."
"I learned to meditate as part of my training," Heero replied doubtfully.
"Not like this," Duo said. "You learned to control your body, this is all about the mind. This is all about your emotions. They taught you to cut them off and pretend that you didn't have them. This will teach you to deal with them and react the way normal people react. Believe it or not, Heero, normal people don't punch or stab one another when they are startled or unsure."
Heero sat cross legged in front of Duo, keeping a few feet between them. Duo smiled at him tensely. Heero couldn't smile back. It was too serious. Too much depended on success. "Mission accepted," he said softly. "I won't lose you."
"Then don't fail me again," Duo told him, not able to help the anger and the hurt from coloring his voice. He saw Heero flinch. It wasn't a good way to start. "First," Duo began, forcing himself to forget anger and concentrate, "you have to imagine a blank white wall. That's your safe place. Any time you feel upset, or unable to control yourself, you step into the white wall. Inside, there isn't any sensation at all. You feel nothing mentally or physically. You need to clear your mind and practice stepping in and out of your imagined wall. You have to make that place yours. Get to know it. Make going there a reflex."
Heero nodded and tried to concentrate on Duo's words, determined to force his body and mind to obey his will once more, and more than eager to do what ever Duo wanted of him to bring them back together again. There wasn't another option for him. Duo was the other half of himself. Without that half, he knew, he would die.
Outside the hanger, watching from the partly open door, Wu Fei sighed in relief and then left the two meditating figures alone. He holstered his gun as he walked back to the safe house. He hadn't been sure how things would turn out, but he was satisfied that soon, Heero, with Duo's help, would win the war on the inside so that he could rejoin the war on the outside.
TBC