Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Winning Duo ❯ Chapter 29
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Calic0cat 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.06.2003 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.1K | Visits: 1.4K | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / / Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.06.2003 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.1K | Visits: 1.4K | Status: Completed
*****************************
Title: Winning Duo
Chapter: 29/?
Author: Calic0cat <calic0cat@fastmail.fm>
Story Started: Jan. 2003
Genre: Yaoi, Romance, Humour, Angst
Pairings: Working towards 1x2x5; 3x4; 6x9; others may be implied
Rated: R
Warnings: OOC, Swearing, Shifting POV, Threesome
Archives: At Mediaminer.org under Calic0cat. Anyone with archive permission for my other fics can help themselves; anyone else, please ask.
Disclaimer: Duo and Heero and the rest of the GW gang aren't mine. This story is. Nuff said.
Notes: Starts one year after Endless Waltz. POV changes frequently.
'Thinking'
"Speaking"
*** Time passing or scene change
Author's Notes: I usually write 1x2x1, so a 1x2x5 is a first for me (well, writing one is - I've been reading them for quite a while now, that's the *only* threesome I actually *like*). Feedback is appreciated.
#################################################
Heero watched as Wufei carefully settled himself on the other side of Duo, leaning back against the headboard. While Duo had been elsewhere, the two of them had quickly agreed that the best place for whatever it was that Duo intended to tell them was the place he seemed happiest and most secure. Which meant between the two of them. And the small couch - only a loveseat, really - simply was not designed for three. So here they were, back in the bedroom again.
Seeing Duo fidgeting with the end of his braid, Heero's heart sank. He'd been so sure that Duo had finally accepted that his past wouldn't drive them away... But this nervousness seemed to be saying otherwise.
Brow wrinkled in concern, Wufei reached out to rescue Duo's braid before it started unravelling. "Duo, I - we - love you. Whatever you have to say won't change that." He winced a bit at the frustration that was clearly audible despite his attempt to keep his tone level and understanding.
Duo looked up, startled. "Sorry - I'm just..." He gave an exasperated huff, then started over. "I know you both love me. If yesterday's fucked up mess did anything good, it at least finally got that fact through my thick skull," he added with a sheepish grin. Turning serious again, he took a deep breath to gather his resolve and continued, "I love you too. Both of you. This stuff is just - really hard to talk about. I've never actually told all of it to *anyone* before. G didn't even know most of it.
"It's not exactly your reactions that I'm nervous about. More like, I'm nervous about digging up all these memories. If I hesitate, or stop, it's not 'cause I doubt either of you, okay? There's a lot of other stuff going on in this mixed-up head of mine and I kinda think it's at least partly responsible for the problems we've been having...
"This is some of the stuff I sort of skipped over when I told you about my past before. It wasn't really about not trusting you to listen and understand even then; I just couldn't handle reliving all that crap at the same time. So I skipped some of the most painful stuff 'cause I didn't want to end up breaking down in the middle." Duo stopped for a moment to take a sip from the bottle of water he'd brought with him. He wasn't sure it would do much good to prevent the coughing, but Heero and Wufei really needed to hear this *now*; he couldn't afford to put it off until his bronchitis cleared up.
Heero felt a bit of the tension drain from his muscles at Duo's explanation. He could understand being nervous over digging up old memories. He hadn't exactly gone into great detail while telling about his own past for the same reason. Just mentioning the training accident and the retraining that followed had been difficult enough; he wouldn't have wanted to remember the details of the retraining on top of that.
"Are you sure you can handle this much talking?" Wufei asked a bit reluctantly. He really *did* want to know what Duo had to say but Duo's voice was a bit hoarse to begin with and if he was already sipping at his water, Wufei was a little concerned over whether this much talking was a good idea.
"No," Duo answered honestly, "but I owe you both an explanation for my behaviour. And I think you *need* to know before we end up having any more misunderstandings..."
"Go ahead then," Heero said. "Tell us as much as you can, then if the memories are too painful or your cough gets too bad, just stop for a while and take a break. Okay?"
"Okay," Duo agreed. He took another small sip of water and marshalled his thoughts. There were two specific things that he figured he needed to cover. Solo. And the church. The church was a fresher wound, fresher and a little more painful. Best to leave it till last. It would make more sense covered in chronological order anyway.
Duo started abruptly, "I don't have a lot of good memories from the streets. The whole sleeping-in-a-pile thing that I mentioned before is one of them. The others all have to do with the kid who led the gang I was in. Solo's the one who found me and looked after me till I was old enough to hit the streets begging and picking pockets with the rest of the gang. He was probably at least a few years older than me but it's hard to say 'cause malnutrition kept everybody a little on the small side. I don't remember anything before being with him and the gang. Nothing about a family or anything. As far as I was concerned, Solo *was* my family. Big brother and parent all in one.
"With Solo running things, we usually had a semi-decent place to hide out for the night - some sort of shelter if it was rainy or really cold - and at least a bite or two of food and a little water every day. He took good care of us. Made sure we got to play a little bit even. Taught us how to play catch with an old rubber ball he found someplace; somebody'd thrown it out I suppose 'cause there was a chunk missing so it didn't bounce properly. Taught us how to play hopscotch by scratching lines in the dirt. Even started teaching us how to read and write letters and numbers. Not much, I don't think he knew an awful lot himself, but enough to sort of figure out signs and labels on boxes and cans.
"We didn't have much, but we were happy. Most of us couldn't remember anything better than what we had now, so we just counted ourselves lucky to be alive and have somebody who cared about us."
Happy with a bite or two of food and a little water every day. Wufei swallowed at the reminder of just how privileged his own childhood had been.
"It didn't last though," Duo continued, staring down at the braid he was again twisting in his hands. "The L2 slums have a big problem with viruses. On the streets, they call'em plagues but really they're just things like variants of influenza. Plus some of the regular childhood diseases that kids elsewhere are vaccinated against - stuff like measles and so on. But let that kind of thing get started in an area where nobody's been vaccinated, where everybody's malnourished and there's no shelter or medical care available..." He shrugged miserably. "All of a sudden, something that most people would just get a little sick from turns into something downright deadly." He went silent for a few minutes, fighting for control. He hated crying, didn't want to do it at all if he could help it, but knew that it was probably unavoidable before he was through. Not yet though, he had too damn much left to tell them to give in to tears already.
Heero bit back the urge to say something. To tell Duo that he really didn't have to tell them all this. Didn't have to dig up memories that were obviously so painful. Memories that clouded his eyes and left his cheeks pale and drawn. Duo had said that they needed to hear this, interrupting him would only make things even more difficult. Painful as this obviously was for him, painful as it was to watch him force out the words, it was necessary.
Almost automatically, Duo drank a bit of water before picking up his story again. "We lost almost half the gang. I'm pretty sure it was just an influenza variant, but it was a nasty one and the weather was cold and damp 'cause the colony's weather controls were malfunctioning again. Solo started getting sick too. He'd got sick before but he'd always pulled through. This time though, too many of us had been sick. Too few of us were out working the streets and there wasn't enough food to go around, so Solo hadn't been eating his share, he'd give it to somebody else almost every time. Usually me 'cause I was still healthy enough to be out working. His fever kept going up and he wasn't eating or drinking enough and - well, he didn't pull through. Solo died and things weren't the same anymore."
Duo swallowed and angrily wiped the moisture from his cheeks, disgusted at his lack of control. "I was the oldest one left, so leadership fell to me. That's when I became Duo. But I wasn't ready to lead. I made some bad decisions; took too many risks. We had to resort to stealing from a grocer just to get at least a few bites every day. There wasn't any energy left over for playing, let alone time for it. We just kept getting more desperate. That's when I led the few kids left in the gang on a raid. We went after food stores on an Alliance base."
Heero's breath caught sharply. A gang of street kids raiding an Alliance base? One kid alone, maybe. The Alliance tended to be pretty cocky back then; a single person might have made it in and out again undetected. But a whole gang, even a small one? The odds against success would be astronomical.
"They shot at us. I mean, I knew when I took the kids there that we could get in real trouble, but they actually *shot* at us, a bunch of *kids*!" Duo shook his head unhappily. "I really fucked up. We were lucky. None of the kids were seriously injured and we all got away. But the people in the neighbourhood got mad because of all the attention we'd attracted. They got together and knocked down the abandoned house we'd been using for shelter. That's when the church took us in."
He sighed and despite the knowledge of what eventually happened, Duo couldn't help smiling slightly. "For a while, things were pretty good. I was damn suspicious; nobody ever gave you something for nothing, after all. There had to be a catch someplace. But I couldn't find one. And we were happy again. We didn't get just a bite or two every day. They gave us *three whole meals* every day. And we had a complete roof over our heads and four whole walls with windows that actually had glass in them. Life was great. Even after the other kids got adopted and I was left behind, things were pretty good.
"Then I fucked up again." Duo's voice wavered and cracked as he admitted it.
Heero reached over and gently pried Duo's clenched hands apart, taking one in his own and stroking it reassuringly. Wufei slid closer to Duo, wrapping his good arm around Duo's shoulders and pulling him against his side.
Duo let his head drop against Wufei's shoulder. He closed his eyes and drew as deep a breath as he could without triggering off the coughing. "Some rebels showed up at the church and used it to hide out. Father and Sister Helen helped tend their wounded. Father kept telling them that they shouldn't be fighting. That the colonies shouldn't be fighting. Finally, they hit him. Sister Helen intervened and they hit her too. Threatened them both. One of the rebels had mentioned something about needing just one mobile suit. So..." His voice wavered again. 'Almost done. Just *finish* it, dammit.'
"So I told them that I'd steal one but that they'd have to take it and leave. And I did it. I stole a transport with a suit on it and took it back to the church. But I took too long. And the Alliance knew I'd done it. I don't really know whether it was 'cause I took the suit or if they knew the rebels were there already, but they bombed the church while I was gone. Everybody died. And I was alone and back on the streets again." Duo stopped for a moment, fighting off a cough.
"See, it's not exactly that I don't trust *you*. Not that I don't trust your love. But anytime I've ever been happy, it hasn't lasted. Something's always happened to wreck it. Or I've fucked up and wrecked it. It's being happy that I don't trust..." Duo let his voice trail off on his admission. He left his stinging eyes closed and his head resting against Wufei's shoulder, desperately needing the contact right now.
Heero tightened his grasp on Duo's hand and shifted his gaze from Duo's unhappy, tear-streaked face to meet Wufei's eyes. He didn't know how they were going to handle this. Duo had good reason not to trust happiness. And they couldn't promise him that nothing would go wrong. They were both Preventers and on active field duty. The possibility of injury or death was always there on every mission. Not to the same degree as during the war, but it was still there. And even if they were to resign from the Preventers, that didn't automatically guarantee safety. The chance of being killed in a car accident or contracting a fatal illness would still exist.
Meeting Heero's eyes, Wufei saw confusion as great as his own looking back at him. How could they overcome this? Duo obviously understood the problem himself; that was why he'd been so insistent that he tell them this *now*. But acknowledging its existence didn't automatically make it go away. He was actually relieved when after a few minutes the change in Duo's breathing and the heaviness against his shoulder made it clear that Duo had fallen asleep, exhausted by his illness and the emotional strain.
"He's asleep?" Heero asked very softly.
"Yes," Wufei answered.
Between the two of them, they managed to shift Duo into a more comfortable position without waking him. Heero stroked his fingers gently down one tear-stained cheek before raising his eyes to meet Wufei's again. "Where do we go from here?" he asked quietly.
Wufei shook his head slightly. "I don't know. As long as he knows this is a problem, I think we can eventually get past it. But it's going to take time. And a lot of patience and reassurance from both of us."
Heero nodded thoughtfully. "Security. Someplace to call home. When we get back to Sanc..." He stopped abruptly. When they went back to Sanc, they were going to have a problem. They had two very small single-person apartments waiting for them. And... 'Oh shit.' Heero looked at Wufei, horrified. "Wufei, we've never actually discussed anything beyond this week with him." He scrambled out of bed and grabbed Duo's wallet off the dresser, hurriedly searching it. "And he has a ticket back to L2 for Monday morning!"
"When was it purchased?" Wufei demanded, hoping desperately that it had not been bought within the last few days.
Heero sagged against the dresser, relieved, as he found the information they needed. "At the same time as his ticket to Earth for the auction, thank god."
"We *have* to talk to him about this and the sooner the better," Wufei said. "I can't believe we've never actually asked him to stay..."
Shuddering at the oversight, Heero agreed, "That is a very large mistake on our part." He climbed back in bed and settled beside Duo again. "Neither of our apartments is going to handle three people," he observed.
Wufei winced at the thought of even trying to cram three of them into the double bed that was all that would fit in his bedroom. Or Heero's, for that matter, since they lived in identical apartments. "No," he agreed.
"We *could* just get a bigger apartment. But..." Heero hesitated. What he was going to suggest would be a very big step for all of them. However he didn't think a rented apartment would provide the kind of security that Duo needed. "But I think buying a house would probably be better. More - permanent? secure?"
Initially startled by Heero's suggestion, Wufei realized after a moment's thought that he was correct. An apartment or even a rented house didn't suggest the same degree of permanence or commitment as a house that they owned together would. And for three people to share even a moderately sized apartment would put considerable additional stress on their relationship that they really didn't need. He nodded slowly in response to Heero's questioning look. "You're right. We'll have to finance it though..." He was abruptly glad that he hadn't drained his savings account for the sake of the auction. He didn't really regret that the hacked money was gone, though. It might have allowed them to pay cash up front for a house but he didn't think any of them would have been comfortable with living in a house paid for with Oz money.
"Assuming that Duo even agrees..." Heero qualified. After all, Duo was part-owner of a business based on L2. Was he really going to want to sell out, move to Earth, and join the Preventers?
"Agrees to what?" Duo murmured sleepily, struggling to wake up. He didn't think he'd been asleep very long; he was still awfully tired. But the quiet voices sounded pretty serious.
"Agrees to stay with us," Wufei answered, smiling slightly at Duo's obvious struggle to pry his eyes open.
Provided with sufficient motivation, Duo managed to get his eyes open and drag himself into a sitting position. "Umm..." He hastily discarded the first responses to come to mind, deciding that "Really?" or "Do you mean it?" carried way too much doubt.
"Uh, I'm going to have to go back to L2 at least long enough to help Hilde hire a yard manager to take over from me and teach him or her the ropes... But..." Despite his best efforts, Duo couldn't *quite* manage to keep all the doubt out, "But if you're sure you really want me to, then yeah. I'll stay."
#################################################
Title: Winning Duo
Chapter: 29/?
Author: Calic0cat <calic0cat@fastmail.fm>
Story Started: Jan. 2003
Genre: Yaoi, Romance, Humour, Angst
Pairings: Working towards 1x2x5; 3x4; 6x9; others may be implied
Rated: R
Warnings: OOC, Swearing, Shifting POV, Threesome
Archives: At Mediaminer.org under Calic0cat. Anyone with archive permission for my other fics can help themselves; anyone else, please ask.
Disclaimer: Duo and Heero and the rest of the GW gang aren't mine. This story is. Nuff said.
Notes: Starts one year after Endless Waltz. POV changes frequently.
'Thinking'
"Speaking"
*** Time passing or scene change
Author's Notes: I usually write 1x2x1, so a 1x2x5 is a first for me (well, writing one is - I've been reading them for quite a while now, that's the *only* threesome I actually *like*). Feedback is appreciated.
#################################################
Heero watched as Wufei carefully settled himself on the other side of Duo, leaning back against the headboard. While Duo had been elsewhere, the two of them had quickly agreed that the best place for whatever it was that Duo intended to tell them was the place he seemed happiest and most secure. Which meant between the two of them. And the small couch - only a loveseat, really - simply was not designed for three. So here they were, back in the bedroom again.
Seeing Duo fidgeting with the end of his braid, Heero's heart sank. He'd been so sure that Duo had finally accepted that his past wouldn't drive them away... But this nervousness seemed to be saying otherwise.
Brow wrinkled in concern, Wufei reached out to rescue Duo's braid before it started unravelling. "Duo, I - we - love you. Whatever you have to say won't change that." He winced a bit at the frustration that was clearly audible despite his attempt to keep his tone level and understanding.
Duo looked up, startled. "Sorry - I'm just..." He gave an exasperated huff, then started over. "I know you both love me. If yesterday's fucked up mess did anything good, it at least finally got that fact through my thick skull," he added with a sheepish grin. Turning serious again, he took a deep breath to gather his resolve and continued, "I love you too. Both of you. This stuff is just - really hard to talk about. I've never actually told all of it to *anyone* before. G didn't even know most of it.
"It's not exactly your reactions that I'm nervous about. More like, I'm nervous about digging up all these memories. If I hesitate, or stop, it's not 'cause I doubt either of you, okay? There's a lot of other stuff going on in this mixed-up head of mine and I kinda think it's at least partly responsible for the problems we've been having...
"This is some of the stuff I sort of skipped over when I told you about my past before. It wasn't really about not trusting you to listen and understand even then; I just couldn't handle reliving all that crap at the same time. So I skipped some of the most painful stuff 'cause I didn't want to end up breaking down in the middle." Duo stopped for a moment to take a sip from the bottle of water he'd brought with him. He wasn't sure it would do much good to prevent the coughing, but Heero and Wufei really needed to hear this *now*; he couldn't afford to put it off until his bronchitis cleared up.
Heero felt a bit of the tension drain from his muscles at Duo's explanation. He could understand being nervous over digging up old memories. He hadn't exactly gone into great detail while telling about his own past for the same reason. Just mentioning the training accident and the retraining that followed had been difficult enough; he wouldn't have wanted to remember the details of the retraining on top of that.
"Are you sure you can handle this much talking?" Wufei asked a bit reluctantly. He really *did* want to know what Duo had to say but Duo's voice was a bit hoarse to begin with and if he was already sipping at his water, Wufei was a little concerned over whether this much talking was a good idea.
"No," Duo answered honestly, "but I owe you both an explanation for my behaviour. And I think you *need* to know before we end up having any more misunderstandings..."
"Go ahead then," Heero said. "Tell us as much as you can, then if the memories are too painful or your cough gets too bad, just stop for a while and take a break. Okay?"
"Okay," Duo agreed. He took another small sip of water and marshalled his thoughts. There were two specific things that he figured he needed to cover. Solo. And the church. The church was a fresher wound, fresher and a little more painful. Best to leave it till last. It would make more sense covered in chronological order anyway.
Duo started abruptly, "I don't have a lot of good memories from the streets. The whole sleeping-in-a-pile thing that I mentioned before is one of them. The others all have to do with the kid who led the gang I was in. Solo's the one who found me and looked after me till I was old enough to hit the streets begging and picking pockets with the rest of the gang. He was probably at least a few years older than me but it's hard to say 'cause malnutrition kept everybody a little on the small side. I don't remember anything before being with him and the gang. Nothing about a family or anything. As far as I was concerned, Solo *was* my family. Big brother and parent all in one.
"With Solo running things, we usually had a semi-decent place to hide out for the night - some sort of shelter if it was rainy or really cold - and at least a bite or two of food and a little water every day. He took good care of us. Made sure we got to play a little bit even. Taught us how to play catch with an old rubber ball he found someplace; somebody'd thrown it out I suppose 'cause there was a chunk missing so it didn't bounce properly. Taught us how to play hopscotch by scratching lines in the dirt. Even started teaching us how to read and write letters and numbers. Not much, I don't think he knew an awful lot himself, but enough to sort of figure out signs and labels on boxes and cans.
"We didn't have much, but we were happy. Most of us couldn't remember anything better than what we had now, so we just counted ourselves lucky to be alive and have somebody who cared about us."
Happy with a bite or two of food and a little water every day. Wufei swallowed at the reminder of just how privileged his own childhood had been.
"It didn't last though," Duo continued, staring down at the braid he was again twisting in his hands. "The L2 slums have a big problem with viruses. On the streets, they call'em plagues but really they're just things like variants of influenza. Plus some of the regular childhood diseases that kids elsewhere are vaccinated against - stuff like measles and so on. But let that kind of thing get started in an area where nobody's been vaccinated, where everybody's malnourished and there's no shelter or medical care available..." He shrugged miserably. "All of a sudden, something that most people would just get a little sick from turns into something downright deadly." He went silent for a few minutes, fighting for control. He hated crying, didn't want to do it at all if he could help it, but knew that it was probably unavoidable before he was through. Not yet though, he had too damn much left to tell them to give in to tears already.
Heero bit back the urge to say something. To tell Duo that he really didn't have to tell them all this. Didn't have to dig up memories that were obviously so painful. Memories that clouded his eyes and left his cheeks pale and drawn. Duo had said that they needed to hear this, interrupting him would only make things even more difficult. Painful as this obviously was for him, painful as it was to watch him force out the words, it was necessary.
Almost automatically, Duo drank a bit of water before picking up his story again. "We lost almost half the gang. I'm pretty sure it was just an influenza variant, but it was a nasty one and the weather was cold and damp 'cause the colony's weather controls were malfunctioning again. Solo started getting sick too. He'd got sick before but he'd always pulled through. This time though, too many of us had been sick. Too few of us were out working the streets and there wasn't enough food to go around, so Solo hadn't been eating his share, he'd give it to somebody else almost every time. Usually me 'cause I was still healthy enough to be out working. His fever kept going up and he wasn't eating or drinking enough and - well, he didn't pull through. Solo died and things weren't the same anymore."
Duo swallowed and angrily wiped the moisture from his cheeks, disgusted at his lack of control. "I was the oldest one left, so leadership fell to me. That's when I became Duo. But I wasn't ready to lead. I made some bad decisions; took too many risks. We had to resort to stealing from a grocer just to get at least a few bites every day. There wasn't any energy left over for playing, let alone time for it. We just kept getting more desperate. That's when I led the few kids left in the gang on a raid. We went after food stores on an Alliance base."
Heero's breath caught sharply. A gang of street kids raiding an Alliance base? One kid alone, maybe. The Alliance tended to be pretty cocky back then; a single person might have made it in and out again undetected. But a whole gang, even a small one? The odds against success would be astronomical.
"They shot at us. I mean, I knew when I took the kids there that we could get in real trouble, but they actually *shot* at us, a bunch of *kids*!" Duo shook his head unhappily. "I really fucked up. We were lucky. None of the kids were seriously injured and we all got away. But the people in the neighbourhood got mad because of all the attention we'd attracted. They got together and knocked down the abandoned house we'd been using for shelter. That's when the church took us in."
He sighed and despite the knowledge of what eventually happened, Duo couldn't help smiling slightly. "For a while, things were pretty good. I was damn suspicious; nobody ever gave you something for nothing, after all. There had to be a catch someplace. But I couldn't find one. And we were happy again. We didn't get just a bite or two every day. They gave us *three whole meals* every day. And we had a complete roof over our heads and four whole walls with windows that actually had glass in them. Life was great. Even after the other kids got adopted and I was left behind, things were pretty good.
"Then I fucked up again." Duo's voice wavered and cracked as he admitted it.
Heero reached over and gently pried Duo's clenched hands apart, taking one in his own and stroking it reassuringly. Wufei slid closer to Duo, wrapping his good arm around Duo's shoulders and pulling him against his side.
Duo let his head drop against Wufei's shoulder. He closed his eyes and drew as deep a breath as he could without triggering off the coughing. "Some rebels showed up at the church and used it to hide out. Father and Sister Helen helped tend their wounded. Father kept telling them that they shouldn't be fighting. That the colonies shouldn't be fighting. Finally, they hit him. Sister Helen intervened and they hit her too. Threatened them both. One of the rebels had mentioned something about needing just one mobile suit. So..." His voice wavered again. 'Almost done. Just *finish* it, dammit.'
"So I told them that I'd steal one but that they'd have to take it and leave. And I did it. I stole a transport with a suit on it and took it back to the church. But I took too long. And the Alliance knew I'd done it. I don't really know whether it was 'cause I took the suit or if they knew the rebels were there already, but they bombed the church while I was gone. Everybody died. And I was alone and back on the streets again." Duo stopped for a moment, fighting off a cough.
"See, it's not exactly that I don't trust *you*. Not that I don't trust your love. But anytime I've ever been happy, it hasn't lasted. Something's always happened to wreck it. Or I've fucked up and wrecked it. It's being happy that I don't trust..." Duo let his voice trail off on his admission. He left his stinging eyes closed and his head resting against Wufei's shoulder, desperately needing the contact right now.
Heero tightened his grasp on Duo's hand and shifted his gaze from Duo's unhappy, tear-streaked face to meet Wufei's eyes. He didn't know how they were going to handle this. Duo had good reason not to trust happiness. And they couldn't promise him that nothing would go wrong. They were both Preventers and on active field duty. The possibility of injury or death was always there on every mission. Not to the same degree as during the war, but it was still there. And even if they were to resign from the Preventers, that didn't automatically guarantee safety. The chance of being killed in a car accident or contracting a fatal illness would still exist.
Meeting Heero's eyes, Wufei saw confusion as great as his own looking back at him. How could they overcome this? Duo obviously understood the problem himself; that was why he'd been so insistent that he tell them this *now*. But acknowledging its existence didn't automatically make it go away. He was actually relieved when after a few minutes the change in Duo's breathing and the heaviness against his shoulder made it clear that Duo had fallen asleep, exhausted by his illness and the emotional strain.
"He's asleep?" Heero asked very softly.
"Yes," Wufei answered.
Between the two of them, they managed to shift Duo into a more comfortable position without waking him. Heero stroked his fingers gently down one tear-stained cheek before raising his eyes to meet Wufei's again. "Where do we go from here?" he asked quietly.
Wufei shook his head slightly. "I don't know. As long as he knows this is a problem, I think we can eventually get past it. But it's going to take time. And a lot of patience and reassurance from both of us."
Heero nodded thoughtfully. "Security. Someplace to call home. When we get back to Sanc..." He stopped abruptly. When they went back to Sanc, they were going to have a problem. They had two very small single-person apartments waiting for them. And... 'Oh shit.' Heero looked at Wufei, horrified. "Wufei, we've never actually discussed anything beyond this week with him." He scrambled out of bed and grabbed Duo's wallet off the dresser, hurriedly searching it. "And he has a ticket back to L2 for Monday morning!"
"When was it purchased?" Wufei demanded, hoping desperately that it had not been bought within the last few days.
Heero sagged against the dresser, relieved, as he found the information they needed. "At the same time as his ticket to Earth for the auction, thank god."
"We *have* to talk to him about this and the sooner the better," Wufei said. "I can't believe we've never actually asked him to stay..."
Shuddering at the oversight, Heero agreed, "That is a very large mistake on our part." He climbed back in bed and settled beside Duo again. "Neither of our apartments is going to handle three people," he observed.
Wufei winced at the thought of even trying to cram three of them into the double bed that was all that would fit in his bedroom. Or Heero's, for that matter, since they lived in identical apartments. "No," he agreed.
"We *could* just get a bigger apartment. But..." Heero hesitated. What he was going to suggest would be a very big step for all of them. However he didn't think a rented apartment would provide the kind of security that Duo needed. "But I think buying a house would probably be better. More - permanent? secure?"
Initially startled by Heero's suggestion, Wufei realized after a moment's thought that he was correct. An apartment or even a rented house didn't suggest the same degree of permanence or commitment as a house that they owned together would. And for three people to share even a moderately sized apartment would put considerable additional stress on their relationship that they really didn't need. He nodded slowly in response to Heero's questioning look. "You're right. We'll have to finance it though..." He was abruptly glad that he hadn't drained his savings account for the sake of the auction. He didn't really regret that the hacked money was gone, though. It might have allowed them to pay cash up front for a house but he didn't think any of them would have been comfortable with living in a house paid for with Oz money.
"Assuming that Duo even agrees..." Heero qualified. After all, Duo was part-owner of a business based on L2. Was he really going to want to sell out, move to Earth, and join the Preventers?
"Agrees to what?" Duo murmured sleepily, struggling to wake up. He didn't think he'd been asleep very long; he was still awfully tired. But the quiet voices sounded pretty serious.
"Agrees to stay with us," Wufei answered, smiling slightly at Duo's obvious struggle to pry his eyes open.
Provided with sufficient motivation, Duo managed to get his eyes open and drag himself into a sitting position. "Umm..." He hastily discarded the first responses to come to mind, deciding that "Really?" or "Do you mean it?" carried way too much doubt.
"Uh, I'm going to have to go back to L2 at least long enough to help Hilde hire a yard manager to take over from me and teach him or her the ropes... But..." Despite his best efforts, Duo couldn't *quite* manage to keep all the doubt out, "But if you're sure you really want me to, then yeah. I'll stay."
#################################################