Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ And You Hear Me Call ❯ And You Hear Me Call, Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

And You Hear Me Call

Chapter 3

Pairing: 1+2/2x1

Warnings: Angst, trauma, permanent impairment

Category: post-EW

Rated R for eventual sex, language and other adult situations

Gundam Wing copyright Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu Agency.

 

Many thanks to Diamroyal and Natea for beta reading!

 

“You have to protect yourself from sadness. Sadness is very close to hate.” —Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

 

“Wow, you've got some real nasty split ends!”

 

“Yeah. That happens when you get sick, I guess. Hair goes to hell and all,” Duo said. “Now would you stop touching my hair? Don't remember saying you could, anyway.”

 

The new girl—well, not really a girl, since she was in her mid-twenties—dropped the end of his braid, raising both hands in the air. “Tou-chy.” She grinned, tossing her short curls out of her brown eyes. “But split ends don't happen after gettin' sick and all, y'know. Those look like they've been there a while. Why don't you get some conditioner?”

 

Duo sighed. He just /had/ to get stuck with this one during his coffee break. The moment she'd poked his head in his office, “just to say hi there,” she'd said, he knew she'd be trouble. Her name was Kathy, “with a K”; that part was never forgotten, since she repeated it every single time he saw or heard her.

 

“No way. I'd use half a bottle every time I washed my hair,” he said, turning the other way to pretend looking for some sugar. Maybe Kathy would take that as a sign to shut up; after all, if she got into Preventers, she couldn't possibly be that dumb.

 

“So why don't you just cut the darn thing off?” He felt Kathy picking up his braid again, and gritted his teeth. “Seriously. When's the last time you could move your /head/ with that? Eight? Enough already. Hack it off, man. You could make wigs for like, three people with what's not split ends.”

 

“Kathy.” Duo turned towards her, keeping the tone of his voice neutral. “I thought I told you earlier to not touch my hair?” He raised his eyebrows, wishing, for once, she was a guy, so he could whack her and not feel bad about it.

 

“I'm just sayin', cutting it off would do you a world of good.” She grinned, completely unfazed by the look he was giving her. “I did, and I'm not going back to long hair ever again.”

 

Duo took a deep breath and counted to ten. He considered adding in a comment about how long hair would have made her look like two beached whales instead of one, which is what she looked like right now. Unfortunately, that would have gotten him in trouble, so he instead grabbed the end of his braid back from her.

 

“That's nice,” he began. “I'm happy for you. But this really isn't...” He heard the sound of the door opening in the coffee room, and glanced over to see who it was. Maybe he could save himself from Kathy With A K by making the conversation not one-on-one.

 

Unfortunately, that wasn't happening, since it was Heero who walked in the room. Duo felt his jaw drop. He didn't know Heero was back at work. Well, he knew it would have happened eventually, but he thought that at least he'd /know/ about it so he could start mapping out routes to minimize seeing him.

 

This pushed the levels of shit he was in to intriguing new levels.

 

Duo was in no way prepared to see Heero at all, and while he knew that already, seeing Heero in front of him reinforced that in a way that made his stomach fall to his ankles.

 

“Shit!” Duo said, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. “Fuck!”

 

“Huh?” Kathy asked.

 

“I...shit, my coffee break's over and I gotta go and read some more of those files for that mission! Damn! Gotta leave now. Yeah.” Duo put down his still full coffee mug and dashed past Heero out the door, not bothering to look him in the face, much less greet him.

 

That didn't mean he didn't miss the glaring scar across Heero's neck. Squeezing his eyes shut, Duo realized he wasn't going to be ready to see Heero for a while yet.

 

******

 

Trowa, apparently, felt differently about whether or not Duo was ready.

 

“We need to talk,” were the first words out of his mouth. He stood in the doorway of Duo's apartment with a six-pack of beer in one hand.

 

Duo blinked at him. “About...?” And then, after a few moments of thinking, the old dread crept up on him. “Oh, about...”

 

Trowa nodded solemnly. “I brought your favorite beer.” He held up the six-pack.

 

“And here I was, thinking you went out of your way to do something nice.” Duo snorted, and then stepped aside. “You wanna come in?”

 

There was, for a second, a spark of mirth in Trowa's green eyes. “That was easier than I thought,” he said.

 

“Fuck you too, Trowa. Don't push your luck with me.”

 

******

 

Aside from the topic at hand, one thing Duo was learning was Trowa didn't seem to like drinking much. While Duo was on the last dregs of his second bottle of Gryphon Dark, Trowa had barely touched his own.

 

“I...fuck,” he said, taking another swig. “It's not like I see Heero as some sort of deformed freak or anything after what happened. But I don't think I can see him. Yet.”

 

Trowa, for the umpteenth time (Duo had lost count) asked, “Why?”

 

“Dude. Don't you get it? It's...it's his /voicebox/ they took out. He can't talk anymore. It's like getting a fucking arm or leg chopped off. Ain't the same.”

 

Trowa shrugged. “He's still the same person we've always known. At least that's what we found out. Why does it bother you so much? It's really not that bad.” He stopped to take another sip of his beer.

 

“I...I...well, if /that/ happened to me, I don't know what the fuck I'd do. I'd be fucking pissed off. You can't grow it /back/, and there's no way I'd be talking through those crazy robot voicebox things. That's just freaky. I'd be devastated. I can't imagine being without a voice.” This time, Duo tipped back his bottle and emptied it, setting it down with a bang on the coffee table. “Can I ask you a question, Trowa? How the fuck does Heero /communicate/ with you guys right now?”

 

“Like he did before the shooting happened,” Trowa said. “Only there's no sound coming out.” Raising an eyebrow at Duo's befuddled expression, he continued, “Duo, we all know how to lip-read, so it's natural, I guess.” He shifted in his chair, nodding at the TV set off to the side in the living room. “Talking to Heero is like watching TV with the mute button. Except sometimes you can hear his tongue click or his teeth when he's mouthing stuff.”

 

Duo got up from the sofa to get another bottle from the six-pack. “Damn. That's...that's...” He sat back down, bottle in hand, and took the cap opener from off the coffee table.

 

Trowa took a longer sip of his beer. “It took a while to get used to, I have to admit. For me, it was. Wufei and Quatre seemed to adapt to it better.” He set his bottle on the table and leaned forward, elbows on his thighs.

 

“What? /You/ had a hard time? You, Trowa? Aside from Quatre, I thought you'd have the easiest out of all of us.” Duo finally got the cap off the bottle and took a long, deep drink. “God, this beer is good.”

 

“What's that supposed to mean?”

 

“Well...it's not like you and Heero ever were known to rattle on and on. I mean,” Duo said, catching Trowa's skeptical look, “that you guys just said what you had to say and left it at that. You guys weren't /talkers/.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Trowa leaned back against the chair with a /fwump/ and exhaled loudly. “God, Duo. Just because I don't talk all that much doesn't mean seeing someone else lose their voice isn't scary. Seeing Heero initially after the operation scared the hell out of me.”

 

“No way. /You/?” Duo gestured at Trowa with his beer. Trowa nodded.

 

“It's like...” he looked away from Duo, staring at something over on the side—what it was, Duo had no idea. “You know, what if I was next? What if the same thing happened to me and /I/ couldn't talk? It's like you said; Heero and I don't talk much, so most think we don't care if we can't talk at all. But...”

 

Trowa picked up his beer bottle, furiously tapping his fingers on the dark green glass. “I /do/. When I went to the hospital, I don't know what happened, but I started to talk as much as I could about /anything/ in front of Heero. It pissed him off a lot, even though he was trying to ignore us.”

 

“Smooth, Barton.”

 

“At least I /saw/ Heero.” Trowa gave Duo a meaningful look, and he winced. “I guess, though,” he continued, “I thought for a while that if I didn't talk more, there'd be another bullet for me. And if not, there's other ways you could lose your voice permanently.” He took another drink of his beer before putting it down; Duo wondered if Trowa had even gotten halfway through yet.

 

“That's insane,” Duo said.

 

A nod. “That's what Quatre said as soon as we left Heero's room. We wound up getting in a small argument over dinner about it. He said it wasn't making Heero feel any better, and that I had to pull myself together. It wasn't easy, but after a few days I think I calmed down. And now that we're done talking about me, why haven't you gone to see Heero yet?”

 

Duo fidgeted on the sofa. “Well. I. The usual excuses about the field missions aren't going to work this time, are they?” he asked, sheepish. A shake of the head.

 

“Shit. Well. I just—how am I gonna say this? It's /complicated/.”

 

“We've got all night. Take your time.” Trowa leaned forward again on his elbows, ready to listen to whatever Duo had to say.

 

“Goddammit, Trowa. You really aren't letting me off the hook. Fine. Hold on.” Duo chugged as much beer as he could stand before slamming down the bottle. “Okay, so there's the thing about how it's kinda scary to see someone who's lost something permanently. But if it was just that, that would be okay, I mean, I /think/ I'd come around eventually, if not by now. There's something else.”

 

Trowa cocked his head, his long bangs falling out of the way so Duo could see both eyes clearly. “What's that?”

 

Duo groaned. “It should've been /me/ who got that bullet wound across my neck. Not Heero. Me.”

 

“Duo-”

 

“Listen to me for a sec. You're the one who wanted an explanation, so here it is. If I hadn't gotten sick, I'd have still been on bodyguard duty for Relena that night, and gotten that bullet. But no, Heero went in my place, /he/ got hit, and now he's suffering because of it. Don't you get it? It's my fault all of this happened, and fuck, I don't think Heero wants to see me, unless it's to, I don't know, tear me a new asshole or six or go all ZERO System on my crotch.” Duo looked down, hands on his knees, panting. There. Now he'd confessed, and the whole thing was out in the open.

 

Trowa didn't say anything for a while, but cocked his head and stared thoughtfully at Duo, mouth hidden between interlaced fingers.

 

“And you think /I'm/ insane,” he said, finally. “Look, you had nothing to do with Heero getting shot whatsoever.”

 

“Yeah,” Duo began, “but--”

 

“I know, I know,” Trowa said. “You think it should have been you who got the bullet. Well, it wasn't, so consider yourself lucky, all right? While we're on that subject, remember the surgeon saying that Heero could have died on the way to the OR?” He rested his chin on his hands.

 

“...Yeah.” Duo took another swig from his bottle and swished the remaining beer around experimentally. About a quarter or so left. “But that scar of his looks terrible, you know?”

 

“Better a scar than underground or scattered over someplace,” Trowa pointed out.

 

“I guess I forgot about that, huh? Better this than having him dead.” He looked at his knees again; his jeans were beginning to fray. Damn shame. He really liked this pair.

 

“Right. Also, Heero /wants/ to see you, and from the conversations I've had with him, you don't need to worry about your crotch.” Trowa smirked. “He's upset all right, but not for the reasons you gave me.”

 

When Duo kept staring at his knees, Trowa said, a hint of impatience in his voice, “Duo, would you just promise me to see Heero soon?”

 

“I know, I know, I know. Really. But tomorrow we've got that infiltration mission, and then next week is going to be a-”

 

“Duo.” The impatience in Trowa's voice was growing.

 

“I'll see him. Okay? Happy? `cause obviously, he needs it.”

 

Trowa leaned back, finishing his beer. “I don't think he's the only one who needs it,” he said. “Anyway, I think I'm going to go. Keep the rest of the six-pack.” He got up from the chair. “Heero's expecting you, anyway.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” was all Duo could say before walking Trowa to the door.

 

******

 

A few days later, Duo got home and saw a fat woman in a yellow flowered housecoat and bright red hair waiting at his door. Before he could ask what she wanted, she grabbed his elbow and said in Relena's voice, “We need to talk about Heero.”

 

“I'm gonna kill you,” Duo muttered. “And Trowa for leaking this out. What the hell are you doing dressed like this?”

 

“Disguise. What if I buy you a drink?” she asked.

 

“Make that two and I won't kick Trowa's ass.”

 

“Duly noted,” Relena said with a grim smile.

 

******

“So,” Duo said. “I /said/ I'd see Heero /soon/. I meant by the end of this week. Obviously, you and Trowa don't think that's quick enough.” He was glad the bar they'd gone to wasn't that crowded; he didn't feel comfortable shouting out an entire conversation.

 

Relena looked sheepish. “Er, well.” She looked down at her drink. “Everyone's getting worried.”

 

“About Heero.”

 

“No,” she said, “about you.”

 

“Christ, Relena.” He sipped his stein of beer. “Look, I /am/ busy. Seriously. We got handed a huge mission at Preventers and there's a lot of planning I gotta do. I'm not even supposed to be here right now. I should be sleeping.” Duo took the time to loosen his tie; he hadn't realized he'd forgotten to do it. Even though he'd gotten over his cold, he was being run into the ground. On the other hand, he'd done that to himself, what with requesting field assignments as soon as he'd gotten back in.

 

“And in the interim,” Relena said, voice stern, “in between getting better and that, you could have seen Heero and gotten it over with.”

 

Duo didn't say anything; Relena's tone of voice brooked no argument, and all the good excuses he had on the tip of his tongue withered and died right there.

 

“There's no reason to feel guilty. It won't sink in until Heero tells you so himself, I know, but for God's sake, Duo. It was his /job/.” Relena daintily sipped from her glass; she'd ordered a Shirley Temple, and the bartender had dumped too much syrup in. Duo had taken a sip to make sure it wasn't just her.

 

“I know,” Duo grunted. “It's in the contract, we should have been prepared for it, yadda yadda yadda. It's just...Relena, it's an all or nothing kinda thing, usually. It's there in the back of our minds, all right. But it's more like either we're in one piece or we're /dead/.”

 

The look on Relena's face scared Duo, despite the gaudy bright makeup she was wearing. “Would you rather have Heero die instead of the way he is now?”

 

“No!” Duo shouted, slamming a fist on the table so hard that some of their drinks spilled over. “Shit. I.../no/, I don't want Heero dead. I'm not that horrible.” He loosened his collar. The conversation was getting uncomfortable. Assuming he and Relena were still on good terms after this was over, she wasn't getting out of buying him that second drink.

 

“Good,” Relena said. “Because he very nearly did, and from what I saw, I thought he was killed instantly. I was close enough to see him get shot, and believe you me, it looked like they were going to take Heero to the morgue in more than one piece.” The seriousness in her eyes was enough to stop Duo's heart, it was that chilling.

 

“You don't mean—”

 

“I do. That bullet could have decapitated him,” Relena said, her jaw set. She clenched her drink in her hands so tight Duo was afraid it'd break right there. “In fact, it looked like it did for a moment, and just remembering it...” she stopped talking, lost in thought.

 

“He was lucky to only lose his voice, Duo. We should be grateful for that,” she said finally.

 

“It should have been me.”

 

“No. That I disagree with. It shouldn't have been /anyone/,” Relena said firmly. “Heero knew what he was getting into, and I'm pretty sure he's not blaming you for whatever happened.”

 

At that, Duo sighed. “Well, /I'm/ out of ammo here. I probably could reload, but I'm sure then Quatre and Wufei would come after me. I'll see him at the end of the week, okay?”

 

Relena smiled, or at least she attempted to without making the makeup cake off. No way in hell would any hit man take her for the Vice Foreign Minister, Duo thought. Even as a guy, he knew ketchup red wasn't an appropriate color for lipstick. “Good, or I'll shoot you myself,” she said.

 

“Traitor.” Duo made a mock-pout and dramatically grabbed his chest. “And after I gave you pointers on your gun technique.”

 

“Consider it payback, then.” Relena smirked, and then glared at something that caught her eye. “I am going to /kill/ my disguise people,” she growled under her breath. “People are staring at me like they've never seen a fat woman before in their /life./”

 

“It's the housecoat,” Duo said, grinning. “You can't expect to be out in February with only that on.”

 

“I'm already sweating underneath the fat suit,” she grumbled. “And this wig.” She scratched her head, scowling. “It's /itchy/.”

 

“Anything to keep you safe, Princess.” Duo leaned back, beer stein in hand. “Better off alive, like you said.”

 

She glared at him. “I thought we talked about calling me that,” she said. “Maybe you don't want that second drink after all.”

 

Duo gulped. “Sorry.”

 

******

 

Now that the end of the week was here, Duo wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. No weekend off this time, so it was a choice between Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

 

The talk with Relena at the bar had been on Wednesday. He'd thought about grabbing Heero just as he got off work, but Agent Morgan had been a royal pain in the ass and wanted to go over mission parameters with him only for the purpose of saying, in so many words, “I should be /here/, not /there/!”

 

By the time Duo had gotten the matter resolved, Heero—along with most of HQ—had left the building. And then, he was too cranky and tired to go talk to Heero anyway, because then, the chances of something coming out wrong were a hundred and fifty percent.

 

So it was today—Saturday—for sure. He'd gotten into his car and driven to Heero's apartment building the minute he'd finished his work at Preventers. Duo was nervous, even though he knew he really didn't have much of a reason to be. Still, that wasn't making the feeling come back in his legs any sooner.

 

He took his time going to Heero's apartment, going up the stairs instead of using the elevator. As he slowly climbed upwards, he muttered, “Relax, relax, get a grip” over and over. He felt a bit better by the time he reached Heero's floor, but the flip-flopping in his stomach wasn't stopping anytime soon.

 

Duo had meant to say, “Hey,” casually when Heero opened the door. Instead, the two of them staring at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds until Duo broke the silence with an “Ah. Buh.”

 

Heero continued to stare at him, only arching an eyebrow when Duo failed to follow that up.

 

“Okay. Look. I've been a complete dickwad, jackoff, asshole, whatever. I've been horrible. And I'm really, really sorry.” Duo held up his hands in surrender. “Here, you can punch my balls. And even though it's...not really going to make up for the shitty stuff I did, you can kick my ass more after the nut shot, `cause I won't fight back. Really.”

 

Heero opened his mouth to say something, but Duo cut in. “Yeah, I was sick. Which was a good excuse for about a week or so, but I know, I should have called. Or at least asked Trowa or the other guys to tell you...something. I don't know. But. And I should have swung by here two weeks...three weeks...ah, fuck it. I wasn't here and I /suck/ because the thing is, I was the one who got you into this mess anyway, no matter what Trowa and Relena said and-”

 

“Stop,” Heero said—or mouthed, as it were.

 

Duo stopped.

 

“Say that again. That last sentence.”

 

Duo gulped. “I got you into this mess. It's my fault,” he mumbled.

 

Heero made a disgusted noise and before Duo could elaborate, whapped him upside the head and hauled him by the arm inside his apartment before shutting the door.

 

“That,” he said—for it was really talking, Duo thought, but with no sound—“is the most idiotic thing I have heard from you. And you've said a lot of idiotic things, Duo.”

 

Duo slumped against the door, looking at his boots. “I can't help feeling that way, though. Okay? I'm not excusing what I did—it was shitty—but...what could I do? I mean, I thought you'd probably not want to see me `cause I should have been there at Relena's speech, not you. It's not fair you got hurt, and well...” he slid further down the door until he crouched on the ground. “God, Heero. It hurt me to see you after what happened. Especially since there's nothing I can do to...I dunno, make it better, I guess.” He drooped, closing his eyes. Damn, he'd gotten tired quickly.

 

He felt Heero shaking him by the shoulder and opened his eyes. The two of them were now a foot apart, but it felt a lot closer, thanks to Heero intensely pinning Duo to the door with his eyes.

 

“You don't have to do anything,” Heero mouthed, “except stay.”

 

“What? Stay?”

 

The grip on Duo's shoulder grew tighter as Heero nodded, not breaking eye contact. “I don't care if you need to pull back for a while. It was the same way with everyone else. Take as much time as you need, Duo, but I don't want you to leave. I want you here.”

 

Duo didn't know what to say. He blinked stupidly at Heero while mulling over any possibilities to fill the pregnant silence. He was too slow, though, since he hadn't come up with anything before Heero asked, “Can you do that?”

 

Duo nodded. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Yeah. Sure thing, buddy.” He laughed in relief, turning to the side. “God, I'm so glad that's over. I feel so much better. Now,” he said, turning towards Heero again, “Trowa and Rel-”

 

Before he could finish, Heero leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.