Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Alone ❯ Two Is Just As Bad As One ( Chapter 2 )

A/N: Now that the problem has been laid out...Lets see what we can do to our precious boys!!
Warnings: TWT, Angst!! Shounen Ai. Slight OOC. Duo-centric (Yes. I hate him. Whhhhyyyyy do I write him?!?!)
Pairings: 1+(2x5), 2x1, 2x5
Disclaimer: Not mine. If it were, GW would be rated NC-17 for hot boy boffing.

It had been weeks since the night with Wufei and Heero in the safe house. Duo had barely seen the boy from L1 since, but he'd become increasingly cold since, falling into the familiar habit of pushing everyone away. Despite what he tried to convey, that hurt Duo deeply. It kept him awake at night, worrying, and made him distant from his lover. He couldn't forget the way Heero had looked at him with so much regret and sorrow, nor his words.

"I loved you, you know...but I'm happy...that you're happy now..."

How could Heero have done that to him? After so long?

So long... Duo had fallen for him almost instantly. Heero was so strong, so indestructible. He was the kind of man Duo strived to be; yet there was so much pain behind the impassive cobalt eyes. Duo had wanted to soothe him, to bring out the boy he was sure lay inside. However...Heero seemed completely ice when it came to human interaction. The only one he really got along with was Wufei, though they seemed to have an odd kind of rivalry at best. They were always fighting, silent battles of will or telling each other their death counts in condescending tones. Duo felt jealous of their friendship, for that was what it was. He could only sit back and watch as the two Asians got closer.

And then Heero suddenly, and without warning, shut Wufei out. He didn't stop there, throwing a wall between himself and the rest of the world. The other four pilots had been completely confused and Wufei... Wufei almost broke. Before, Duo hadn't know the depth of what the ebony haired boy felt. Wufei had fallen for the boy from L1, fallen hard. And Duo watched as Wufei tried to do what Heero had in blocking everyone out. He had been determined to show that he hadn't been affected, that he was strong.

Duo found him after a particularly bad mission, soon after the great ‘break off’, as he called it. The Chinese pilot stared out the window as if his soul was too broken to move. His face was dry, but his eyes shined with tears he didn't dare let fall. The wounds he had were minor and already tended to. Sorrow was no excuse to let himself go. They still had a war to fight. But, the only thing in Wufei's head then was how much he wished for comfort and the one he wanted it from.

"Wufei..."

Dark eyes turned to him briefly before flitting away.

"What is it, Maxwell?"

It was a deadened tone, not angry and forceful but quiet and full of sorrow. Duo shifted uncomfortably. The words were there, stuck in his throat. He knew exactly what to say but he couldn't move his lips. That dark gaze swept over him again, questioning and sad. He didn't like seeing that in his strong comrade. A moment later, he found himself sitting next to the other pilot, arms wrapped about his waist and head against his chest, all before he knew he'd moved. Wufei sucked in a quick breath of surprise and stared down at him.

"Don't break," whispered Duo as he tightened his hold. Wufei sighed softly and stroked his chestnut hair.

"I won't..."

"You almost did, when Heero first-"

"Please," the Chinese boy's voice held a strange, pained tone, "Don't talk about him..."

Duo lifted his head and looked up at him. He cared for Wufei. Not as deeply as he did for Heero, but he still had a soft spot for him. Wufei was generally nice to him when he wasn't trying to make him angry. He always seemed to know when the American needed time alone or a quiet friend. Sometimes, they would play chess or some other board game together to pass hours alone in the safe houses.

"Do you love him?" Duo asked quietly. Wufei turned away, eyes shut with pain. The plaited pilot nodded and set his head back against the other's chest.

"It's okay," he murmured. "You can say it. Even cry if you want. I won't tell."

"Duo..."

He looked up, his violet eyes sad but his lips pulled into a smile. Ebony met violet and understood.

After that night, Wufei and Duo became better friends. And when Heero drew back for a second time, Wufei had been there to soothe Duo's broken heart.

He was stuck in a safehouse again. They were to lay low for a week. And this time, the only other one around was Heero. Duo didn't know whether it was a good thing or the worst possible. Heero ignored him almost completely. The Japanese pilot went about his way, checking over things around the area, getting supplies, or typing away at that damned laptop. Duo wanted to smash the thing. He wondered if there was a place in hell where the only background music was the sound of typing.

Duo spent his time watching the other pilot. At times, he thought Heero knew it, but the boy never reacted. By the third day, Duo was almost vibrating with nervous energy. He wanted to either talk to the other pilot or get the hell out of there, though he wasn't sure which was more important. Finally, he decided he would stay and talk to him. After all, Quatre was worried now and had asked him, Duo, to find out what was wrong. Since Duo was apparently Heero's best friend.

That confused him. Why would the others believe so much that he and Heero were close? They weren't. For a little while, they had been, but no more. Sighing gently, Duo pulled up all the courage he could muster and set off to find the other pilot. For once, Heero wasn't at his computer and the water wasn't running so he had to be outside. Duo slipped out the back door and started his search for the other pilot. Fortunately, they were in a sunny, warm climate this time.

A noise caught his attention. Duo paused and listened as it came again. It was familiar, almost like the sound of a fist to flesh, but different...more pronounced. The braided boy frowned a little and followed as he heard the sound keep in its tempo. Gradually, he came up upon a moving shape in the trees surrounding their safehouse. The doctors had a thing for places in the woods... Without a sound, Duo crept closer until he could easily make out the scene before him.

There was blood on the tree trunk, bright and fresh. Tanned fists drove into that spot over and over with only slight grunts of pain to count them. The fists themselves were torn and bleeding, perhaps even broken, but they only punched harder. There was a look akin to fury on the Japanese boy's face, his blue eyes almost frantic. Duo sprang into the open with a shout.

"Stop it, Heero!"

The other boy whipped around in surprise, one arm swinging and nearly hitting Duo in the face. The American was quick to catch the offending arm and the other before Heero realized who it was. The cold, blank mask slid over his features.

"Don't sneak up on me, Maxwell."

Duo glared at him. "What the hell are you thinking, ripping up your hands like this?!"

He turned his gaze down to the abused hands and let one go to examine the other carefully. No broken knuckles, but he'd have to wrap both of them when they got back inside. Duo was quite disturbed by how natural blood looked against the tanned flesh. He ended up dragging Heero back to the house, but the other boy offered little resistance. A time later, Heero's hands were both tended to and they sat in the small living room, silent. Duo stared at the other pilot, his gaze questioning and confused, but Heero didn’t seem to want to talk at all. Gritting his teeth, Duo started it.

“You’re an asshole!” came flying out of his mouth before he could stop it. Heero glanced at him, the blank mask accented by a little surprise. Duo’s frown only became more pronounced. “You never said thank you!”

Again, the blank stare was set on him. Then, “For what?”

“Taking care of you!” Duo growled. He folded his arms and turned his face away angrily. “’Fei and I took care of you when you were so sick you couldn’t even THINK straight, and I never knew you could babble, Heero, and you’ve NEVER thanked us for it!”

“Oh,” said Heero quietly. He settled back against the arm of the couch and stared at him before uttering a simple, “Thank you.”

The anger fled him and Duo sighed a little, sinking into the couch. “Damn it, Heero…Why can’t we be friends?”

Abruptly, Heero wasn’t sitting on the couch anymore. Duo blinked up at the standing pilot in confusion, but the tanned face was turned from him.

“Heero?”

The boy’s face shifted and one cold blue eyes glared from the nest of messy brown hair. Duo felt his chest clench and an unfamiliar sense of fear fill him. It was the murderous rage he’d seen in the other pilot many times…but it’d never been directed towards him before. His limbs were ice; they wouldn’t move an inch.

“Yuy,” snarled the boy with burning eyes. Duo swallowed thickly.

“Yuy,” he replied ever so quietly. And then Heero calmly walked away.

Though Duo wasn’t to know it, Heero barely got to his room before his knees gave him. He fell against the door and slid down to the floor as his eyes shut the world out. His hands, which Duo had touched so worriedly, tingled still from the contact as they dropped to either side of him.

‘What’s happening to me?’ he wondered fervently. He laid his head back against the door and stared into nothing. It didn’t matter that he should have been spending his time more wisely. His mind was out of control. The calm he had been able to invoke in himself so easily was slipping from him. One look of those violet eyes broke him every time.

Heero shoved his hands into his hair and gripped the clumps of brown tightly in his fists. The slight pain wasn’t nearly enough to make him focus but he pulled harder on the strands anyway. His scalp burned and his eyes felt wet as he clinched them shut. It wasn’t enough. The tightness of his chest refused to let go. His fine turned control… it was almost completely gone. Images of those big violet eyes haunted his vision. Heero felt a harsh sob well in his throat, but managed not to utter it aloud.

“I could never be just your friend, Duo Maxwell,” he whispered to himself. “Never…”

It was a long while before Heero was able to get up again. He spent the rest of the day ignoring Duo as completely as possible and updating his laptop’s database.

The next day Heero spent in his room. Duo barely caught sight of him all day and frankly, he was tired of the other pilot’s bullshit. Duo was sick of being ignored and sick of hurting, and he was sick of how it was affecting his partner. Wufei still cared a lot about the Japanese boy, probably as much as Duo himself did.

He’d received a message in his email only a little while ago from the Chinese pilot. Wufei had been increasingly moody and depressed since the incident. The message had been polite and loving as always, but Duo had made a study of his lover’s writing and could read the unspoken questions between the lines. They both wanted Heero to let them in. It didn’t matter how. They simply wanted him and he was spiraling out of control without them. Duo would try first.

That was why, just after nightfall, Duo burst into Heero’s room with a few bottles of hard liquor and a huge grin.

“Time to get drunk of our asses, buddy o’ mine!”

Heero gave him the oddest look but Duo ignored it in favor of dropping down on the other’s bed.

“Found these!” Duo said cheerfully. It was a half lie; he’d gone down to town for them and even paid for them. “Thought we could both use a little R ‘n R!”

“Go away, Maxwell,” muttered Heero. The Japanese pilot turned back to his laptop, determined to keep ignoring his companion. However, Duo wasn’t about to let him. A moment later, Heero felt the cold barrel of the other’s gun pressed against his skull and heard the faint click of the safety going off.

“Relax or I might get a little trigger-happy,” hissed Duo angrily. “I’m sick of your ‘I-Need-No-One’ bullshit. It stops now, understand, Yuy? I’m friendly to you, I do things for you, and you’re too much of a cold bastard to understand that I don’t want to hurt or inhibit you. I want to be your friend. Damn it, Heero… We could die tomorrow, you know? And I’d rather have known you as a friend today than to die feeling sorry for you. Now shut that piece of shit down, sit on that damned bed, and drink some of this fucking booze with me!”

Heero sat very still for a long while. Just when Duo was wondering if he’d failed, he heard the laptop shut down and the chair push back. Duo looked up in surprise as Heero stood there for a moment and then looked back at the braided pilot. Instead of sitting on the bed, Heero turned and sat in the chair backwards, arms resting on the back. A brow rose in question as Duo’s face split with a grin.

“Atta boy!” Duo said with a cheer.

He awoke with the urge to die. Not completely uncommon but usually it had to do with his emotions, not his body. His throat felt raw and dry, his body was sore and sticky, and his head was pounding. Sitting up, the bed sheets pooled at his waist. He couldn’t remember when he’d gotten into bed that night. Vaguely, he could remember Duo coming in and their drinking together, but as the night wore on, it became even less clear. He recalled flashes of images, of Maxwell’s bright eyes swirling with happiness, flashes of sensations, sharp pains that all encompassing pleasures soothed.

What the hell had he done?

A soft groan echoed beside him. Heero froze solid. The sheets shifted and a warm plane of flesh brushed across his side. A rush of exhaled air hit his naked skin.

Wait.

Naked skin?

What the hell had he done?!

The pilot from L1 was gone a moment later.

Chang Wufei was not one to ignore details in any aspect of his life. So, when he noticed his lover avoiding him in one of Quatre’s estates (all of the pilots were there, minus Yuy. 01 had dropped off their scanners rather abruptly.) he was a little worried. Duo was acting almost…guilty.

“Duo!” he called, spotting the other boy at the end of the hall. The braided pilot jumped before turning around quickly. Wufei walked up to him, wondering how he would figure out what was wrong.

“Oh, hey Wufei…”

The Chinese boy’s eyes grew very wide at the sound of his name - his full, unmangled name - from the lips of Duo. If anything, that was the last straw. “Duo, what’s wrong?”

The American smiled a little, weakly, but it fell quickly. “I…Wu…”

“What is it?” Wufei frowned a little and reached up to stroke his cheek. “Is it about Yuy?”

Duo went very pale. The Chinese boy put two and two together…and got very angry. With that, he turned on his heel and started for the door. Duo watched him before noting where the other boy was headed once he got outside. Panicking, the braided boy ran out after him, yelling.

“Wufei?! Where are you going?! Wufei!!”

Stopping, Wufei whipped around and glared at him angrily.

“I’m going to find that bastard Yuy and shove Nataku’s flame thrower up his ass for whatever he’s done to you!” he cried, fists clinched. Duo blinked.

“You…You think he hurt me?”

“Didn’t he?” Wufei frowned with confusion and loss of anger. “You freaked when I mentioned him and you were the last one with him before he ran.”

“That’s ‘cause…’cause…”

Duo looked away and shut his eyes tightly.

“Duo?” murmured Wufei with worry as he slowly approached the other boy. Duo’s shoulders shook as he summoned up his courage. He had to tell his lover. Had to. Wufei trusted him and he… When he felt the other boy’s hand on his shoulder, Duo jerked his head up as tears welled in his eyes.

“I had sex with Heero!”

The silence was deafening. Wufei froze, onyx eyes wide and hand still on Duo’s shoulder. The American took a shuttering breath, lip trembling.

“I…We were drinking…h-he had more than me, but I…I didn’t mean for it to h-happen…Wufei…”

The Chinese pilot turned his back to him, face scrunched as he tried to make sense of what he was feeling. Both of them had thought, when they entered the relationship, that the one they really wanted would never show interest. It was Duo’s idea, really. They both wanted someone to confide in and to care for them, to acknowledge them. It had started as just a deep friendship and understanding, but had mutated into the loving couple they now were. At least, Wufei had thought so. Now he wasn’t sure. He closed his eyes and let out a soft breath.

“Did you enjoy it?”

Duo hugged himself. He didn’t want to hurt the other boy, but he couldn’t lie. “It was wonderful.”

“Would you again?”

The violet eyes looked away. “I…I don’t know.”

“Then…you would.” Duo looked up sharply. Wufei was watching him, those dark eyes warm and a soft, if not sad smile on his face. He kept eye contact before slowly moving his gaze outward. “It’s…okay. I understand…”

“Wufei, I-”

Strong, tanned arms wrapped around Duo’s paler frame, holding him close to the other’s body. Wufei’s face pressed against his shoulder and neck, soft breaths hitting his collar. Duo broke. Clutching tightly to the other pilot, he cried long and hard, for his lover, his love, and himself as well. His half sobbed words made no sense, but the black haired boy didn’t stop him, one hand rubbing his back as the other caressed his hair. Only after he calmed down and the tears stopped did Wufei speak.

“It’s okay to still be in love with him,” he said gently. “I would be a hypocrite to fault you that.”

“Then you’re not mad?” Duo murmured into his shirt.

“No…A little jealous, actually.” The braided boy lifted his head and noted an embarrassed flush on Wufei’s cheeks.

“Jealous?” asked Duo, regaining his smile. “Fei-fei only wants Duo aaaaaall for himself?”

Wufei scowled and looked away in mock anger, pulling off to fold his arms over his chest. “It’s not fair that you got Yuy and I was stuck with a loud-mouth-MMPH!”

He quickly relaxed into Duo’s exuberant kiss that soon turned to passionate making out. They managed to get back to a room before it went further.

Heero sat alone in the quiet of his cockpit. One week. For a full seven days, he’d been on his own, doing everything not to think of that horrible mistake he had made, only to think of nothing else. How could he have been so stupid? It should have been obvious, what could happen. He knew Maxwell would never have shot him, no matter how angry he was.

He almost wished he had.

With a sigh, Hero went back to imputing new information into Wing’s database. It was mindless work that required little thought on his part and he was glad for it. This was how he passed the long hours in his cockpit.

Maybe if he avoided everyone until he died, he’d be able to pull it off.

His resolve was firm.

Unfortunately, the doctors didn’t know that. Hours after he’d made his decision, he was off on a mission with Change.

Damn them.

Wufei rested against Nataku's leg with his arms folded as he stared out over the landscape. It was a beautiful area, full of huge trees and clear lakes. He could live forever in that sort of land. It was a pity that Oz chose it as a base location. He'd have to blow up the poor place.

There was a plan in his head, one of action that he would fulfill without fail else he would certainly perish. However, it didn't have anything to do with the base. Oh no, it was much more important than that. Wufei's prey was much more human, despite the other's wishes not to be. He felt his lips quirk. With Shinegami's blessing, what couldn't he achieve?

The sounds of arrival alerted him from his thoughts. He swept the amusement from his face. It was time to act.

A/N: Well, THAT was original. Oh yeah, like getting drunk and having drunken sex was first thought up by me...Oh, I shame myself, I truely do.