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1x2 request fic
"I didn't think that you liked those kinds of get togethers," Quatre was saying as he watched Duo stand up from his desk and stretch a tired back until it popped. "You pulled a double shift with the swat team and you said yourself that you weren't feeling well. Why Kenneth would insist on going to Milliardo's wine tasting party, knowing all of this, makes me believe that he-"
"Don't start that again!" Duo retorted as he closed his laptop and began pulling on his leather jacket. His braid swung, a cinnamon rope, that was brushing the backside of tight jeans as he settled the jacket into place. "Maybe I don't give a shit about wine, or Milliardo, but Kenny puts up with a lot from me. In case you hadn't noticed, I spend a lot of time, here, and not at home. It's not asking too much to do what he wants to do and to be a couple doing it."
Quatre was frowning. Still in the dress uniform that he had been wearing for a meeting with Preventer commanders, he looked ready to pull rank. Duo's soft voice stalled him.
"Quatre," Duo said, almost pleading. "Things aren't going well, if you know what I mean? I need to make things right or I'm going to lose him."
Quatre was quiet, but then he asked, "What would you be losing, exactly?"
"A good, stable home," Duo supplied quickly. "A normal relationship. Happiness."
"Not love?" Quatre pounced. "You never use the word 'love' when you talk about Kenneth."
Duo shrugged. "What's love? I think it's over rated. People use the word a lot, but then they cheat on each other, break up, and say they never really loved who ever it was they dumped. It's an ideal that makes things... unstable,too emotional."
Quatre watched Duo zip up his jacket and pull on black leather gloves. "Stable," he finally said. "You use that word a great deal. Maybe you really mean 'safe', Duo?"
Duo scowled again. "Safe. Stable. What ever. What's wrong with wanting those things?"
"Nothing, unless it blinds you to other possibilities," Quatre pointed out. "Possibilities, that would truly make you happy."
Duo snorted. "Are you trying to tell me that some guy is out there, waiting for me to stop being a pussy and look past Kenny?"
Quatre was uncomfortable with the language, but he replied, "When ever you don't want to face something, you resort to crudeness, I noticed. A defense mechanism, It tells me that you know that what I'm saying is true."
Duo shook his head. "You're wrong about that. It's my way of telling you to butt the hell out of my business, friend Quatre."
"I apologize," Quatre said without sincerity. "Please continue to yet another party, arranged by Kenneth, regardless of your state of health or current heavy work load. I'm certain that you will have a good time."
"I hate wine... hate Milliardo, too," Duo grunted as he fished his keys out of his coat pocket. "I don't think that he likes me, either. I don't know how Kenny managed to get us invited."
"Yes, curious, isn't it?" Quatre replied with emphasis. "Maybe you should think about that properly as well?"
"Later, Quatre," Duo said with a curt and crude hand sign as he brushed past his friend and headed towards the elevators and the parking garage.
Quatre looked past several desks to where Heero was sitting. Heero, frozen in an attitude of listening, paperwork forgotten in his hands, started guiltily and began putting his work away again. When Quatre came to his desk, he turned his back to the man.
"Why are you letting him crash and burn?" Quatre wanted to know.
"Let him?" Heero couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I'm a fellow agent. Good in a fight. Dependable. We share some history. I'm not his friend. Not like you and Trowa. What I say to him, doesn't matter."
"I think that it would matter," Quatre replied impatiently. "You both need to grow a pair, if you ask me, and get out of your self imposed fox holes."
Heero frowned. "He's with Kenneth," he pointed out and meant it for the end of anymore conversation.
"Kenneth isn't with him," Quatre persisted. "He's using Duo to climb some steep social ladders."
"Duo probably knows that," Heero replied as he stood up and grabbed his own coat. "What he chooses to do about it is his own business, just as he said."
"You're very good at staying in the shadows," Quatre observed. "Quiet, uninvolved, only putting yourself in front of everyone's notice when it comes to work. That, Heero Yuy, is your kind of 'safe'. You'd rather sit near the man, work with him peripherally, than chance rejection."
Heero's jaw worked and then he bit out, "Duo was right. It's our business, Quatre."
Quatre motioned to the space between their desks. "This close for how many years, and neither of you man enough to walk across that distance?"
Heero turned on him, then, furious. "What do I have to offer him? We're all screwed up from our lives, from the war. Two of us together... what can that be like, except a recipe for disaster? Duo knows that. With Kenneth he can have peace, he can have his stability. I can only hope that I find someone like him, as well."
"Someone that you don't love?" Quatre wondered.
"How well did it work out between you and Trowa?" Heero shot back, intentionally cruel. "Was love enough to keep him in the Winner bed?"
Quatre looked pained, but he replied firmly, "We do love each other. I understand Trowa's need to travel, to be in the circus. Our relationship isn't normal. That can't be expected. It doesn't make it a bad thing, though, or impossible, just different. When you accept that about yourselves, you'll find that it's all right. You'll find your own way to live your lives together."
Heero glared. "You're so sure that we care that much about each other? Where do you get that belief?"
Quatre snorted. "You're both trying so hard to not notice each other, to fight your attraction to each other, that even an idiot can see it."
Heero blinked, not sure how to reply to that. He shrugged in the next instant and dug his car keys out of his pocket. "He's with Kenneth," he reaffirmed. "End of conversation."
Quatre put a hand on his arm, looking at him with some desperation. "Heero, go to Milliardo's party."
"I wasn't invited," Heero ground out, shaking off the hand.
"I'm sure that many people will be there who weren't," Quatre told him. "It's the nature of being famous. Go there and see Duo and Kenneth together. See how much that man cares about Duo. If you come away, thinking that they are good together, then I won't ever say another word."
Heero grimaced. "That would be worth the trip, to shut you up."
"My word," Quatre assured him. "Not another mention of your non relationship."
"I trust your honor in keeping that promise," Heero replied. "I'll go."
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It was too easy to gain admittance. Heero simply had to dress the part, in formal attire, and slip in with a larger, glittering, party of guests going into the Peacecraft mansion. Laughing and talking excitedly among themselves, they barely deigned to notice the security detail at the doors. Waving invitations, or like colored squares of paper, seemed enough to gain admittance.
The grand entrance of the mansion had three large doors leading to different sections of the home. One set lead into a ballroom, while another lead into the mansion proper. The last set led into a hall large enough to host the wine tasting party and a few leos. The well dressed guests swept into that room, Milliardo's long white hair a beacon where he stood by tables arranged with expensive wines, trays of delicacies, and a host of servants to cater to the guests.
It wasn't hard to spot Kenneth. A bright, tall, blonde, he was at Milliardo's elbow, wine glass in hand and his handsome face showing amusement at something Milliardo had said. Duo was conspicuously absent.
Damn, Quatre! Heero thought as his eyes told him, after a long search of the guests, that Duo, was in fact, not at the gathering at all. He should never have listened to the man.Quatre was an alarmist, a dreamer, a meddler. Of course Kenneth had cared enough about Duo to tell him to stay home and rest. Of course there was really something good between them, something that was stable and normal, and something that he, Heero, could never give Duo. He should never have let hope get a toehold, especially when that hope had been based on seeing Duo's relationship fail.
Kenneth laughed and leaned in close to Milliardo, touching the man's arm. Milliardo, for his part, appeared to be on very friendly terms with Kenneth. That seemed at odds with what Heero knew about Duo and Milliardo. They were not friends. They certainly never had chance to meet and discuss wine tasting parties, or anything else, for that matter. That Kenneth had found a chance, told Heero that Kenneth wasn't limiting himself to Duo's sphere of friends and acquaintances. He was making his own, in very important rungs of the social ladder.
There was nothing wrong with that, Heero reminded himself. Ambition was something that Duo lacked. It wasn't a crime that his lover possessed it. It did mean that Duo was going to have to attend more parties, like Milliardo's, in the future, parties that he had already expressed a distaste for. He wouldn't always have the excuse of feeling ill and exhausted. For his lover, though, he would do it. That was the kind of man that Duo was and one of the qualities that had, long ago, caused Heero to fall in love with the man.
"I can't say that I'm displeased that Maxwell isn't attending," Milliardo was saying as Heero neared them. "He makes for a gloomy decoration when he sits and drinks all night."
Because he's bored at those kinds of gatherings, Heero thought irritably in Duo's defense, especially gatherings in places where he disliked the host.
"I hope that you don't think that he is being rude by staying home?" Kenneth asked smoothly. "I know that he can be impossible, but the man had a high temperature when I left and wasn't really fit company."
Milliardo raised a pale eyebrow. "That sounds serious."
Kenneth smiled and shook his head, as if they were sharing a joke, "He is a gundam pilot. He can take care of himself."
"I'm sure," Milliardo replied, but still looked concerned. "Perhaps I should call Dr. Po and have her contact him?"
"Thank you for showing such concern, but really, he will be all right," Kenneth assured Milliardo. "I don't want to spoil your party with these kinds of concerns."
"If you're sure?" Milliardo pressed.
"Of course," Kenneth replied.
"All right, then," Milliardo said and then motioned to a servant to pour a wine into Kenneth's glass. "Here, try this one. It's from my private stock, a very amusing vintage..."
Heero had intended to ask Kenneth about Duo's absence. That the man had left Duo at home, that ill, to attend a social function, had made him angry enough to curse him, to confront the man and demand to know what the hell he was thinking. He had held back with a supreme effort of self control. It wouldn't do Duo any good if he ended up escorted to a lock up, by security, for crashing Milliardo's party and making a scene.
Heero slipped out as neatly as he had entered the mansion and couldn't remember the drive, afterward, to Duo's home, his mind filled with worry for the man. When Duo answered his tenth knock on the door, looking very ill, Heero found himself at a loss to explain his presence there.
Duo was wrapped in a blanket, his eyes bleary and watery and his hand grasping kleenex. He leaned heavily against the door, as if he needed that support. "Heero?"
Duo looked beyond Heero as if expecting someone else, as if Heero couldn't possibly have come there without some coercion by someone else. It pained Heero to know that he had pretended indifference to the man that well.
"Something happen at work?" Duo guessed when Heero remained silent. He eyed Heero's suit, confused. "No, not work, I guess..." and then he started and looked upset. "Something didn't happen to Kenny, did it?"
"No," Heero was quick to reassure him and Duo was relieved. The silence stretched after that.
Duo rubbed at his face and then looked impatient. "Heero, I'm not well enough to play 'Guess why I'm here?'. If you could give me a clue?"
"Duo, I-" Heero began to explain.
Duo swayed a bit on his feet. He mumbled, "Gotta sit down.", but then seemed unable to leave the support of the door.
Heero took his arm. Duo was very warm. "I over heard Kenneth tell Milliardo that you were very sick. I was... worried."
Duo was frowning, trying to puzzle that out as Heero helped him to the living room and settled him on the couch. The couch was full of kleenex, strewn medicine containers, and empty sports drink bottles. Pillows were piled high and the remote was close to hand for the vid.
"You were at the wine tasting party?" Duo said as he settled into the cushions and closed his eyes. One hand rubbed at his forehead while the other pressed a kleenex to his nose. "Not really your kind of thing."
"Not yours either," Heero countered. "Do you have a thermometer, Duo?"
"Bathroom, left hallway," Duo replied.
The house was a showcase of fine things and well appointed furnishings. Duo had been happy with cinder block bookcases and metal work tables, Heero recalled. Once, Duo had scavenged lockers being tossed out during a Preventer headquarter renovation, saying that a bit of paint would make them decent enough for storage and clothes dressers. Heero had been impressed by the man's ingenuity. It seemed that Kenneth had thrown it all out.
Heero found the thermometer and returned to the living room. Duo was pale, eyes closed, and looking as if he had fallen asleep. Heero put the thermometer to his ear and took his temperature. The reading was 107 degrees.
"Duo!" Heero exclaimed, beginning to panic. "Your temperature is very high."
Duo rolled eyes open at him and gave a weak shrug. "I know. Kenneth took it before he left. 106 degrees, he said. I'm a big boy, though. When he said, 'Stay home, you'll just ruin everything if you go.' I had to agree with that. You don't want Maxwell puking and passing out at Milli's stupid, stinking party."
Heero felt that rush of violent anger course through him again. "He knew... and he still left you here?"
"Why not? I'm a freakin' drag on him, anyway. He's always saying so... calling me an... an... idiot, street trash, no manners... embarrassment..." Duo trailed off as if he had forgotten what he was saying, and then he gathered strength, blinked, and added blearily, "What you got to put up with to get normal. Sucks, sometimes."
"I'm taking you to a doctor," Heero announced as he searched for Duo's shoes. He found them in a hall closet and began putting Duo's feet into them.
"You get me, always have," Duo rambled as he watched Heero work as if he couldn't figure out what Heero was doing. "Wish we could be good for each other, ya know? Just screw it all up, though, make each other miserable."
Heero paused, hands on Duo's shoe, body tense and angry as he replied, "Miserable? It seems that 'normal' makes you miserable as well. I don't see how this is good for you."
Duo was quiet as Heero went to get his coat. When Heero returned to put that on him, he replied, frowning, "I just wanted... stable... normal... like everyone else seems to have. I never had that."
Heero zipped up his coat and then hauled Duo to his feet. As he put Duo's arm over his shoulder and headed for the door he said, "Maybe it's time that we were both okay with that? Maybe that's just the way things will always be... not normal? Not stable? It could be, that, together, we could be happy living that way."
Duo was hardly carrying any of his own weight. "You think so?"
"I don't know for certain," Heero replied. "But, we can at least try."
"Get rid of Kenny?" Duo pondered.
"I think Kenneth is already... gone, don't you?" Heero pointed out angrily.
"Yeah," Duo agreed, almost sadly.
"First, you need to go to the doctor, and get well," Heero promised him. "After, we'll sort things out."
"Okay," Duo replied softly and then, almost shyly, "It's good to have someone care."
Heero smiled, even through his acute worry, and bundled Duo into his car.
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Two days in a hospital, being filled with antibiotics, had given Duo and Heero a good deal of time to talk, especially since Kenneth had been reluctant to even visit Duo there. It had made it that much easier for Duo to confront the man when he was released and to put an end to a relationship that had become toxic.
"You'll regret this," Kenneth ground out as he took hold of his suitcases and stood in the doorway of their home.
Duo frowned and shrugged, "Think what you like, you always have. I'll make sure the movers are careful with your things."
"Back to your cinder blocks and old locker decor?" Kenneth sneered.
"That's my style," Duo replied calmly.
"I thought that I taught you to want the finer things in life," Kenneth said as he looked Duo pointedly up and down, "but I can see, now, that you were a hopeless cause. You can't take trash and make it fine porcelain."
Duo smiled, but it was tight, as if he were holding back his reply with a supreme effort.
"Trash?" Heero said from behind the man. "Not trash. Not fine porcelain, either. Duo is well oiled machinery, Gundam gyros, and buster rifles. He's a top soldier, a crack pilot, and a war hero. He's fast reflexes, handsome looks, and good humor. He's self sacrifice, bravery, and front line."
Kenneth started and looked at Heero wide eyed. His expression went bitter and angry all in an instant. "I would ask if this is my replacement if that wasn't laughable," he said with a sniff. "I wasn't using you as a quick fuck."
"No, you were using me as a long fuck OVER," Duo growled. "Using me, is using me, Kenny. I'm not going to go along with that, anymore. Maybe that's some kind of normal, but it's not the normal that is going to make my life any better."
"And he will make your life better?" Kenneth demanded. "Call me after he gets what he wants and leaves you. I might consider taking you back."
"If you don't leave, now-" Heero began warningly, but Kenneth hefted his suitcase up again and laughed outright.
"You're a Preventer agent," Kenneth sneered, "So, I know that I'm safe enough, despite your posturing. You're the one that should heed my warning. I know people, now, in high places that respect my opinion. I'm certain that my opinion about your performance might prove career changing."
As Duo and Heero watched him walk away, Duo said reassuringly, "Don't worry about him, Heero. He'll find that Milliardo is the one playing the game until he gets his ass. He's not about to mix pleasure with Preventer business, for anyone."
"I wasn't worried," Heero told him as he followed Duo inside his home and shut the door on Duo's old life.
Duo smiled and turned to face him, then, hands in his pockets and cheeks blushing uncertainly. "Well, I am."
Heero slowly took Duo's hands out of his pockets and held them in his own. Broad and competent, they squeezed back strongly.
"It's not true, what Kenneth accused me of," Heero told him. "I hope that you understand that I'm very serious about being together with you. I want a long term commitment.. forever, actually, if you're agreeable."
Duo chuckled nervously. "Is their a contract to sign, Mr. Yuy?"
Heero blushed then and smiled. "Sorry, but I just want you to know how much this means to me, how much you mean to me."
"I think I'm beginning to," Duo replied more seriously. "After what you told Kenny-"
Heero put a calloused finger against Duo's lips. "There isn't a Kenny any longer. I want to forget that you were ever with him... or anyone else."
"You want me virginal?" Duo snickered with a waggle of his eyebrows.
"You are. Completely," Heero replied firmly.
"We'll have to imagine that really hard," Duo warned.
"We have, so it's true now," Heero told him.
"So, then, this being my first time, and all," Duo said, his eyes sparkling with humor, "You will be gentle, won't you?"
"Always," Heero breathed and touched Duo's cheek as he bent and kissed him deeply on the lips.
"Forever, since we are staying together forever?" Duo asked more seriously, eyes searching Heero's.
"Forever," Heero assured him.
Duo found what he needed in Heero's eyes. He slid and arm around Heero waist and led him towards the bedroom. "Let's start forever, then."
END