NOTE: This is my first (and probably last) fic. It’s a depressing psychological drama, so don’t read if you’re in a good mood!
ARIGATOU: Ash, you've always understood. Thank you Ophelia, JC, and David for your kindness, loyalty, and unconditional support throughout all these years (how long’s it been? 5, 7 years? Wow). Thank you Cinderzol for your sweetness, sensitivity, and inspiration. Thank you PhoenixFire for proofreading and for your pixie magic. Love you all a lot!
AND: Kentra and Midnight, I think of you…
DISCLAIMER: Make me write one.
Ah, there!
My eyes lock onto him; rather, what little of him I can discern amidst the bustling crowd. With one arm forward, I squeeze past a group of hysterically giggling teens and their loud, inebriated dads, brushing away a bouquet of balloons one of them maneuvers into my face. I lose him for a moment then the back of his head floats into my sight again, now from behind a row of chattering housewives. Involuntarily, I flick my eyes over their perspiring faces, their cheap Capri pants, and the wrinkled pamphlets they’re using to fan themselves with from the heat. They see me, but they aren’t about to budge. So I halt with my arms at my sides, folded upward in anticipation of any projectiles. Much to my agitation, while I wait for an opening, another ebullient bunch nudges him further from my reach.
I’ve never encountered quicksand, but I suspect it resembles this. I’ve been pursuing him for twenty-two minutes and eight seconds, and have yet to breach the five foot gap between us. No, quicksand would be more favorable: it isn’t spouting festival edibles and miscellaneous clothing articles in every imaginable direction. Ironically, that thought concludes with a signature-embellished jersey landing on my shoulder. Irked, I note the vicinity of the stifled tittering and the subsequent squawk, the latter presumably made by the jersey’s owner.
“Go over there and ask him for your shirt; he’s so cute!”
“No way, you guys, I’d, like, totally die!”
I consider the idea, but exterminating civilians is strictly prohibited. So, I subvert the desire into further irritation. Discarding the jersey (disappointed squeals ensue), I concede that I’ll never acclimate to crowds—even outdoors. All these people are so boisterous—jabbering, cackling, flailing their limbs and banners every which way—that their presence seems to fill the space to the sky. A solid block of humanity and I’m swimming in its center.
The stench is the worst of it. It’s this putrid mixture of the sweat of hundreds and of steaming, sugar-drenched food. It’s all pouring into my nose and mouth, clogging my throat like a knot of sludge. Ungh.
Hastily, I force myself to stop visualizing these horrors and push ahead just a bit more. Finally, I’m within an arm’s length of him. He still hasn’t noticed, so I reach over a petite blonde and yank at his braid. His head jerks in my direction. A disoriented blink later, his face melts into a grin. He shouts something at me.
“What?”
“I said, ‘join us after the fireworks!’” he shouts again.
“Where? Hold on, I can’t hear you…” Still clutching his braid, I loop around the merrily oblivious blonde. Now, I'm practically hugging him. I realize this and attempt to create some distance, but the perpetually moving mass keeps pressing us together. He doesn’t seem to mind. Somewhat distractedly, he brings his mouth to my ear and yells the name of the café at which I am to meet him. I nod in acknowledgement. Before we can communicate any more, a succession of thunderous pops sound above us, followed by exhilarated cheering and clapping. We turn in time to watch an umbrella of silvery sparks cascade earthward then fade into the evening sky.
That was the Fourth of July, Midwestern Earth, AC 201. We met up at the said café: he, his friends, and I. We were just acquaintances then. The two of us had never had the chance to truly get to know one another until that night. We had a marvelous time—naturally, he more than I, being the gregarious entity that he is; I simply indulged in the pleasure of his company. At two in the morning, when all the drunken antics had finally wound down, we exchanged numbers, vowing to never lose touch and to always stay good friends.
It’s been five months since that day.
“Duo?”
If grins indeed shined, he would’ve blinded me just now.
We’re in the kitchen: he at the counter and I at the table, newspaper in hand. He’s wearing his favorite jeans (navy denim, torn to rags), along with the fitted brown t-shirt I bought for him the other week. No, it’s not like that: we’re just roommates—sharing a musty two-bedroom on the fifth floor in the warehouse district. We’ve decided that it’s convenient this way since we’re both involved in predominantly local and somewhat questionable jobs. Government supervised, not entirely legal. Nothing grand, not like in the past, but assuredly something Relena would seek to abolish were she ever disclosed any details.
“The root of our decline as a unified humanity,” she’d proclaim, “is this sort of business!” Or so I envision it.
Anyway, I don’t know what came over me then. I was in need of a new top myself (wore the green tank till the stitching came loose) and just grabbed the brown tee on my way out. He was surprised, but appreciative—truly appreciative. I remember how odd it felt. He simply paused for a moment with his eyes on the gift and lips curved in a genuine smile. It was brief and polite; sans verbose jeering or superfluous exultation—a side of him he seldom shows. It embarrasses me to think about, especially because I hadn’t meant to provoke such a reaction, or any reaction. I hadn’t meant anything at all.
The thought spins in my head like sheets in a dryer and I can’t help but stare at him. He, however, is busy with his own agenda—whatever that may be. All I can see is random bits of food being shuffled along the counter. Eventually, he sorts the mess into piles, grabs a celery stick, and starts dicing it so energetically that his braid virtually dances to the rhythm. He looks so silly and homey that I have to smile.
“What are you doing?” I inquire softly.
“Well, see…” he begins with his back still towards me, making grandiose gestures to assist his explanation. “Quatre gave me this cookbook and it’s got this recipe that’s, like, just unfuckingbelievably fantastic, so I wanna… um…” he trails off, distracted by a single carrot floating in a pan of boiling water. Disgruntled, he places a hand on his hip.
“I dunno about this cooking business, Heero. Do you think I could just go buy this stuff somewhere? It can’t be that special!”
I allow myself a barely audible chuckle. “Perhaps. What it’s called?”
“Uh… it’s… I think it starts with ‘m’. Yeah, like m-something. Mmmo-, no, mmmi-? I just saw it in here but it kinda vanished.”
Suddenly, I’m tingling with happiness. I have no point of reference, but I intuit that this is how a normal relationship is supposed to be; that this is how millions of others—for whom we’ve fought—interact with their close ones. This how they build their bonds; bonds that remain. Yes, undeniably. It makes me feel as light as the air. I don’t know how he does it, but at times like these, I yearn to discard my defenses and utter everything we’ve left unspoken: how hard it was and how it’s over, how we’ve survived, how we’re all right despite all odds, and how—
He chucks the cookbook in the sink.
“You know, whatever. Fuck it. Fuck it! And fuck Quatre! Pompous bastard… he was all like, ‘it’s splendiferous and easy to make’ like he’s ever cooked in his life. What a bag of crap, man! I’m fucking sick of it. All this shit. Everything. Everrrrrythiiiiiiing!”
His last words near a scream. It startles me. My fantasy shrivels and spills down the drain along with the water he’s just flicked on. Dumbly, I open my mouth to speak, but don’t. I can’t see his face, but his shoulders are rigid, propped up on tremulous arms and hands that grip the sink as though to bend its frame. I rise from my chair. A minute elapses as we stand, listening to the sound of the running faucet. Then the tide breaks.
He swings his arm and, instantly, everything on the counter is in midair: food, cups, pans, knives. Again and again and again; now all that could break is in pieces. He grabs at drawers, yanking them out and hurling their contents across the room. More knives tumble down, screeching as they scrape one another. The floor becomes a mesh of glass and metal through which he kicks towards a cabinet door; seizes it as if it’s just burned down the Maxwell Church, slams and tears at it until it comes off its hinges.
I found 02’s file in Dr. J’s records. It was brief and incomplete, containing nothing that could explain what had happened but one sentence: “intolerance towards failure.” Intolerance towards failure. I fix on the idea. It hasn’t occurred to me before and I struggle to apply the characteristic. Failure. How has he failed? Especially then. And hasn’t he failed prior to this without erupting? Surely he must have. Surely.
A memory of him held captive by OZ surfaces from the corner of my mind. Yes, then. A tremendous failure, yet he was utterly passive when I found him. Affable even.
I sigh, leaning away from my laptop. This is difficult; I wasn’t trained to analyze emotions. Even if I could digest this, I wouldn’t know how to respond or whether I even should. Duo is no longer my subordinate; I’m not to supervise him and he isn’t to obey my commands. As it is, I hold no authority over him.
I barely have a reason to interfere, actually. He’s an excellent roommate: tidy (incredibly enough), efficient, loud but dependable. So what if there’s no silverware? It hardly bothers me, much less disrupts my work. I’ve endured so much that our current life—cabinet doors attached or not—practically constitutes paradise.
I tap my pen on my palm. Still, what triggered such a vehement outburst? More importantly, what if it happens again? It’s unlikely that I’ll react any differently: wait in a stupor until he’s wasted all his strength and kneels, panting, on the floor to pick up the shards. I’d vacate the apartment to let him regain his composure like last time. When I returned, the kitchen’s been cleaned and repaired… sufficiently. Several days of silence later, he was going about his business as usual, albeit less obtrusively.
Strange.
It’s 1:09 am. I’ve been out all day on a job. One of questionable nature, yes. Immediately, I hear Relena’s pained preaching. She’s like the miniature saint on my shoulder.
“Heero, this is socially irresponsible!”
My lips twitch, half surrendering to a smile. “Please,” I protest, “this organization does not intervene in civilian affairs; it’s solely internal.” My imaginary martyr halts, eyeing me suspiciously, then charges from a different angle.
“But it’s taxing you! Haven’t you endured enough strain?”
I wave it away. “It isn’t really.” In fact, I feel rather elated. What I do costs no lives, yet there is risk and a sufficient degree of difficulty. It’s exceptionally satisfying and far more than a cast out Gundam pilot could ever hope for.
With that thought, I open the door to our apartment to find Duo seated on our worn, secondhand sofa in the middle of the room. In the dark. And, clearly, he’s been waiting.
“You’re looking cheery. Enjoying your nocturnal escapades?” His voice is hollow.
It catches me off guard. I stare, absorbing his appearance: arms draped over the back cushions, legs sprawled, torso slouching; black boots, black cargo pants, and… that brown t-shirt. Despite his placid posture, there’s perceivable tension. Perhaps it’s the twitch of his left bicep as I close the distance between us and the minute hitch in his breathing as I kneel before him to peer at his face.
I’ve never been so close to him and I can’t explain why I opted to now. Maybe because there is something I must know, something that’s only evident at this proximity. So, Duo, show me—show me this something.
His expression is dark: lips a taut line, eyes like two inky voids encircled by the thinnest rims of violet. A strained silence saturates the room as I am unable to interpret the meaning of his unwavering gaze. Truthfully, it begins to annoy me. What does he want?
Impatiently and somewhat of a surprise to myself, my hand rises to his bangs and brushes a wisp away from his brows, clearing a bit of his forehead. He remains motionless save a tiny glimmer of—glee?—that passes over his face. Perhaps it wasn’t an indication of anything, but I choose to translate it as the faltering of an eerie façade and sigh in relief. So this is another one of his jokes, is it? All right, I’m shaken. Victory is yours, Maxwell. And the eagerly awaited five or so hours of sleep are mine.
As I stagger towards my room (damned blood rush), I hear his quiet footsteps disappearing into the night.
It isn’t really how I found him that’s so shocking—tripped over the idiot on my way to the bathroom that very morning—but what I realized while nursing him through his delirium.
“Like it matters to you… fuhhhmg… it… you like living like this! You like your phony job with its phony missions an’ y-your p-phony…”
“What…? Stop talking, baka, you’ll bite your tongue!” He’s convulsing; braid writhing behind him like some sort of demonic tail. He smells so strong of incense, drugs I couldn’t even begin to name, and sex (with whom I’d be most grateful never to know) that I’m seriously considering dumping the fool into the bathtub and leaving him there for the day, except that he’d almost certainly drown.
Too aggravating. Sharing a residence does not obligate me to tend to his erratic behavior. Or even to interact with him, for that matter. I do my part, he does his, but we exist apart, we always have—
Stop.
That… how long has it been like that?
This is how a normal relationship is supposed to be.
Suddenly, it’s clear.
This is how millions of others interact with their close ones.
The lines converge and the message gains coherence. These fits aren’t meaningless—they’re a method to arrest my attention.
But I am paying attention! I’m always keenly aware of his presence and condition; I simply seldom find the need to verbally acknowledge it—if sentimental outpouring is what this is about. A couple mandatory words here and there, a tempered smile, a nod, a sign… but it seems that my frequency is too low for his range. I suppose, from his perspective, I’ve spent all these months snubbing him and, being an inexhaustible extrovert, it must’ve distressed him—enough to maul our kitchen and ingest enough pills to make up for a hefty midnight snack (by the looks of it).
To go this far for pampering—how ludicrous, how wasteful, how unlike a Gundam pilot! Couldn’t Mr. Extrovert communicate this any other way? I would have listened. Aside from his exasperating tantrums, I support and cherish him. Only… it’s not reaching him; my means are too mild for his extravagant nature. And, apparently, the friends he sees every so often aren’t able to compensate for our presumed estrangement. Could our relationship really be of such importance to him?
Puzzling.
Hnn, a method to arrest my attention. ‘Method’ sounds calculating; it’s also possible that these spells aren’t premeditated, that they’re a purely emotional breach of his constructed self; a manifestation of an inhibited longing—to be noticed? To matter? To be provided for? To be dear? To be loved?
The last I positively cannot accommodate for, but the others… if this is so, if these elemental pursuits are the cause, and if he is indeed seeking fulfillment in me, then this matter has a relatively simple solution.
My fingers are in his in hair, forcing his head down. He’s on his knees, arched backwards with one hand locked around my wrist, immobilizing it; the other twisting its knuckles into my sternum. I gasp from the pain, but he does more when I veer his skull to the floor, striking it at the temple. There’s a dull thud and a momentary stillness. The knuckles withdraw long enough for me swallow a proper breath then tighten and launch at my chin, colliding with more might than I would’ve thought him to have. In the second that it takes me to shake the red, he unfolds his legs from under him, rotates his hips, and swings a boot into my ribs. That hurts. Thoroughly.
Always been the faster one—but I’m the stronger.
Blocking the ache in my side, I yank at the hair I’m still clutching, drawing his upper body onto my thighs. In surprise, he loosens his grip on my wrist, which I instantly wrench free and, in turn, seize his. A quick motion later and his other as well. With his most hazardous limbs secured, I loop my available arm around his neck, fastening his head to my chest.
Heero Yuy Headlock. Try to squirm out of this.
He does. Try to, that is. And commendably so. Kicks the air and thrashes until his strength deserts him, by which point, I’m fairly exhausted myself. Adversely to his malice—or whatever he’s currently experiencing—I don’t intend to release him until he’s completely calm. Or incapacitated. Whichever happens first.
Thankfully, he soon decides to give it a rest and just lays there, panting. I can tell that he’s still angry by his clenched fists. However, they open rather abruptly and I feel his back slack and lean into me. Good, it’s almost over.
The pain in my side and chin creeps back into my focus. Not bad; that’ll string for a while. Well, it was worth it. Had I not stopped him, the probability of him dissipating through nighttime lures (or worse—exactly what he does out there is still a mystery), would have been discomfortingly high. Not to mention the aftermath I’d have no choice but to clean up. Though, I suppose I ought to be thankful for the unexpectedly lengthy interval since his last paroxysm.
I brood in remembrance of the bathroom episode.
Meanwhile, Duo’s breathing steadies and he relaxes the tug on his captured wrists. I notice this along with the tingling in my legs. We weigh approximately the same and it’s beginning to show.
Cautiously, I test my grounds, easing the hold around his neck. No response. I lean forward to glance at his face. No luck; from this viewpoint, the boy’s thick bangs curtain everything but the tip of his nose. Gently, I lower my hand (with my other still in possession of his wrists) to his clavicles then lift it to his forehead, dragging a batch of strands to the side. In the process, my fingertips brush against his skin, catching a bit of perspiration. He blinks a few times then does something I would’ve never expected to see: draws his legs to his core, assuming a near fetal position. In my lap.
If it weren’t for my legs going numb, I would have let him lay like that forever.