01-Oct-2004
Title: Foolish Games
Author: CleverYoungThief
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: yaoi, angst
Pairing: 2x3 [past 1x2]
Genre: Duo POV
Timeline: Post-EW
Feedback: Please?
Note: I have absolutely no idea where this fic came from. I just heard the song and it was there. ^_^ So here it is.
"You took your coat off
and stood in the rain; you were always crazy like that
And I watched from my window
always felt I was outside
Looking in on me.Well in case you failed to notice, in case you failed to see
this is my heart, bleeding before you; this is me down on my knees
these foolish games... " - Jewel, Foolish Games
The first time I saw the figure standing out in the pouring rain as I passed my window on the way to the coffee-maker, I didn't even recognize him. It was still dark outside, still before dawn. The colony's synapses hadn't set in yet, the artificial sun wasn't risen. I didn't mind that it was raining, though. Here, any kind of water is still like a gift.
But it had to be uncomfortable for the person standing across the street from my apartment, leaning against a crumbling brick wall with a mural of the Madonna spray-painted across it. Our lady of the streets, like we say down here. He stood almost perfectly still in the shadows, head bowed, and it was impossible to see his face.
I started a pot of coffee, then sat down at the kitchen table. It was still strange to me, to be living alone after being with the others for so long. Sometimes I wanted to talk to the fucking walls, I wanted company so badly.
I had been considering getting a dog. But I got him instead.
As light started to creep into the pre-dawn alleys and I got up to get my second cup of coffee, I glanced back out into the street again. But this time it was light enough to see, at least for my night vision, anyway. And the revelation of who was now huddled on the sidewalk across my apartment was almost enough to make me drop my coffee cup. I didn't. I calmly sat it down on the table, opened the front door, and walked out onto the tiny little roofed enclave me and the other residents like to call mini-porches. I called out into the downpour.
"Trowa?"
He didn't look up when I shouted his name, but I saw his shoulders move slightly. His head lifted, but not enough to move the hair out of his face. He was completely soaked through. No jacket. I still couldn't see his face, but I knew it was him. I could feel it.
But there was a part of me that didn't want to, not after five years. I didn't want to see him, didn't want to see one of my old war buddies huddled on the pavement on L2-3689 like a homeless person, his knees drawn to his chest, a backpack that looked like it had been through hell and back propped up against his thigh.
That didn't change the fact that he was there. And that he flinched when I called out his name.
"Tro! Hey, Trowa!" I crossed into the street without thinking and almost got ran down by a taxi who was starting his rounds early. He slammed on his brakes and honked and cursed; I flicked him off and cursed, we both continued our business as usual. It got Trowa's attention, at least. He raised his head, and I saw his face.
It was him.
He looked older. There was a dark shadow of stubble across his chin and cheeks, and his hair looked longer, more wild than it had in the war. Less clean-cut. He was wearing a muscle shirt with the sleeves cut out of it, and I noticed some new scars that hadn't been there before. But those startling green eyes still blazed out of his face like emeralds, the kind of eyes that when you see them, you almost lose your breath. Heero has eyes like that.
Correction. Heero had eyes like that. I haven't seen him in five years, either.
"Duo. I was waiting until a little later. I didn't want to wake you up."
I stood in front of him, putting my hand on one hip. "So you stand out here in the fuckin' rain? You're crazy! Geez, man, you should have banged on the door. I woulda come and let you in, at least! And if I'd wanted to sleep some more, you could have just hung out! C'mon inside, before you freeze to death out here. Quatre'd kill me."
He flinched again, and I thought maybe I touched down on a sore subject. I made a note of it.
He stood up slowly, almost stiffly, and staggered against the wall, throwing his arm out against the brick to steady himself. That's when I saw the red stain against his side. As wet as he was, it was hard to see, but blood is unmistakable. Especially to guys like us. Guys like us, as Steinbeck would say. He had no fucking idea.
"Jesus, Tro, you're wounded!" I put my arm up under his, trying to help him support his weight and ignoring the way he stiffened in my arms. I forget, sometimes, that not everyone is as accustomed to the whole touchy-feely thing as I am. I got Heero pretty used to it before... well... you know.
But that's not who was in my arms now.
"It's nothing," he whispered, and his breath tickled a few strands of hair dangling over my ear. It was still pouring down rain.
"Come inside," I replied, grabbing his bag and helping him across the street. He seemed almost drunk, dizzy, and I figured it must have been blood loss. I wondered how long he had been sitting out there in the rain and the dark, waiting for me to wake up. All night?
"So you were sittin' out there bleeding on the sidewalk and you were worried about waking me up?" I muttered as I half-dragged him into the apartment and threw his dirty backpack on the couch. "By the way, you should know by now that when I put my arms around you, it's not to stick a switchblade in your back, so loosen up a little, okay?"
He obeyed automatically as I gently moved him to sit down on the couch next to his bag, and I wondered whether he had learned that unhesitating obedience from the same brutal school that Heero had learned his.
"Shuck out of those wet clothes, Barton, before you fuckin' freeze to death. I'll get you some suture and a cup of coffee."
"You keep suture on hand?" His voice still had that weary, flat tone to it, but it sounded vaguely amused. Which surprised me more than anything, actually. During the wars, I always got the feeling I was getting on Trowa's nerves. He's not like Heero -if I was getting on Heero's nerves, I had the bruise to prove it, you know- but it was always easier for me to tell with Trowa. He bristles, like an animal. You can almost hear a growl when he's pissed, and if you looked at his face, you'd never see any sign you'd upset him.
He wasn't looking at me like that when I first saw him again, though. Something about him felt older, worn. He was like a wolf with a limp, come to whine at my doorstep. What was I supposed to do? We were allies back then, yeah, but not really friends.
Never really friends.
What else could I do? I went to get the suture and the coffee, like I said I would. I stitched up his side while he sipped his coffee. It was a bullet wound, not doubt about it. Grazed his ribs. I sewed it up, and he didn't even wince.
Part of me hated him for that.
It was like watching a lion in a zoo.
There are times when the animal's eyes lock on yours, you know, but there's nothing in the contact. You can't ever be sure whether the lion is aware of you, individually or at all, or whether you're simply scenery, an unremarkable figment of the landscape, or prey. Do lions recognize human beings as distant kin, or even as other living things? Who the fuck knows.
Trowa was kind of like that.
As I watched him pace from one end of my apartment to the other, kitchen to bathroom, bathroom to bedroom, and back again, I wondered whether he even recognized me as a member of the same species. He was nothing like Heero or Wufei, who could stay still for amazingly long lengths of time without needing to move. Even when he sat at the kitchen table, smoking cigarettes from his pack and listening to Mozart on the classical radio station, he would get up every once in awhile, stalking the apartment again. He never said a goddamned word.
I wondered if he needed something.
Like sedatives.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly the most "still" person on the planet, but this kind of restlessness puts me to shame. And it makes me nervous. If you had an ex-Gundam pilot stalking around your apartment with the grace of a homicidal ballerina, you'd be nervous, too. Besides, he never used to be like that. Not before.
What I needed to do was talk to Quatre. Because I had no idea what Trowa was doing in my apartment in the first place, and I didn't know how to ask. I felt wrong going to Quatre, though. That one flinch from Trowa when I first saw him was enough to tell me that something had gone down, or was in the process of going down, and as usual, I'm the last fucking person to know. But I was afraid to call Quatre.
And I was afraid to ask Trowa...
...well... anything.
"Want to go shoot some hoops?" I asked a few days after he came to stay, when I got back from work. Salvage. The work is hard, honest, and it keeps me busy. I just left Barton at the apartment while I went. He could come and go as he pleased, for all I cared. I knew he would anyway.
He looked at me like I was speaking a different language.
"Want to go play a little one-on-one?"
He shrugged at me. Goddamn, out of all the gestures in the world, Trowa Barton had to perfect the one that annoys me the most. It's such a small movement, a slight shift of the shoulders, as if he's afraid to expend any more energy than that. I hate that.
He walked with me, and I opened the door for him. He passed through it quickly, head down, fists jammed in his jeans pockets. He was wearing one of my muscle shirts with ARMSTECH stenciled across the front in red, and he wore a red fishnet jersey over that. The jeans with the holes in the knees were his. When he came, he had two tee-shirts, one pair of jeans, and a set of faded, bloodstained BDUs... battle dress uniform. Web belt with two grenades, knives, bandoleers of ammo, and a pistol. How he fit all that shit in that one bag seemed like a blue-eyed miracle of organization to me.
I wanted to ask about all of it so badly, but I wasn't really sure I wanted to know the answers. Why did Barton only have one pair of jeans, but he was packing a private war in his bag?
"So, how do you feel about all this, Tro?" I asked finally, taking a deep breath. "I mean, you know. Everything. Why are you here?" I finished, finally gaining some confidence. "L2 isn't exactly the best vacation spot in the world, you know. Hell, you could have done better in Jamaica. Or maybe Key West-"
"Why do you do that?" he asked softly, interrupting me. His expression was inscrutable. His poker face is even better tha... was even better than Heero's. Between the two of them, I'd be in a world of hurt if we ever got together for a card game or two.
Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen.
We headed across the street, in the concrete basketball lot next to the building where I found Trowa crumpled and bleeding only a few days before. I grabbed one of the worn basketballs out from under a bush. It always tickles me that out of all the stuff that gets stolen in this neighborhood, nobody ever steals the two basketballs at the basketball court. I figure if one of them ever comes up missing, the guy who took it might end up dead in a dumpster somewhere.
Kids around here are a little serious about that kind of stuff.
I tossed him the ball, and he caught it effortlessly out of the air, spinning and fondling it like a pet before dribbling. His hands seemed larger, I guess, spread out over the ball. They looked hardened, callused. I wondered how Trowa had been spending his years since the peace.
Not doing anything peaceful, by the looks of his newer scars.
"You any good?" I asked.
"I've played."
Thank you, Trowa Barton, master of the monosyllable.
We took positions, pretty far back on the court. I watched him shoot, and it looked like an old Olympic basketball video from Earth-squared up, with a follow-through down the wrists to a fingertip flip. Perfect. It reminded me of Heero. But then again, lots of things do.
I took a step back and one-armed it. "Nothing but net, Chuckles. Beat that."
He gave me that look again. That look that is so much more violent than Heero's glares. I guess because even though Heero is one dangerous motherfucker, I always kind of knew Heero wouldn't hurt me. At least, not really.
With Trowa, I've never been so sure. We walk a tightrope, with murder and mutilation on either side.
But he didn't attack me, and I relaxed a little. He stepped back, took the ball, and matched the shot. No problem at all.
"Free-throw line," I said, and bricked one off the back of the iron. It flew wide and bounced in Trowa's direction. He caught it on the fingertips of one hand. It was beautiful.
"My turn," he replied softly, and a smirk hinted at the corners of his mouth the way Heero's always did when he tried to grin, and I saw his face change. He was suddenly different, then, not like before. He was there, right there, not revising the names of people on his permanent shit list or anything. I could tell before the ball left his fingers that it was a good throw, and seeing him make that shot reminded me of a basketball game at an academy during the war oh-so-many years ago.
He tossed the ball to me. I balanced the ball on one hand, and zeroed in. Miss.
"H," Trowa said, and got another one in without even having to set it up. I tried to imitate it, but I felt it go wrong the minute it left my hands.
"O," he said again, and that little not-there smirk was deeper now. I took the ball and dribbled down the side of the court, leaping up and finger-rolling it in. "Net this, Barton."
"I thought we were playing Horse."
"Horse is for preschoolers. Whatcha say we go for real, huh?"
"I can take you," he replied, evenly. But his voice was cold, and deadly serious. His eyes sparkled like emeralds sharpened to a razor edge.
I drove for the basket again, feet barely touching the asphalt, looking for that sweet spot of my old lonely days out on the courts when Heero had solo missions-boom. "Okay, Tro, ready to take it down? Show you how we play here in Bottomside?"
"What are the rules?"
I laughed. "I never learned rec ball, Trowa." I drove again, missing the lay-up. The ball bumped off the far side of the hoop. He caught it from me.
"To what? Ten?"
"Just play, hotshot. B-ball is therapeutic," I snarled. Trowa nodded, then checked the ball. He made as if he was going to dribble left, but feinted and dropped right three steps and set up for a shot off the board. "Count it!" he called. He tossed the ball to me. "Check."
I ignored him and lined up along the top of the key. He seemed to be measuring me up, green eyes roaming over me, and it felt like being stalked by a predator you know perfectly well could take you down any time he liked. The gaze made me shiver. I cut right, leading with my dominant hand. I slipped for the board, got my balance, and tipped it in over Trowa's extended fingertips.
We played hard, then. I don't know what it was. Something about the way he looked at me made me remember what he had done, back during the war. I never got him back for that. Never really forgave him, for that matter.
He felt something too, I know. There was something deadly in the play. Something to do with the grenades in Trowa's backpack, and the way he flinched at Quatre's name.
I just didn't know what it was yet.
I aired a shot, and Trowa boxed out, grabbed my rebound, took it up, and drove for the lay-up. We were even. I lined up for my run, and when Trowa came at me, I turned, feinted, and raised an elbow. Trowa stumbled, but caught himself so quickly you might have missed it if you blinked.
"Foul," he said, and there was that something in his voice again. It was like verbal acid. That silent growl. Tread carefully, his voice told me.
"Sorry," I said, grabbing the ball. "This ain't the YMCA, Tro." I laughed, and that deadly feeling grew.
"Stop fucking around, Duo." The tone in his voice was cold, like flat steel. I double-checked the look in his eyes, and scowled. "It's just a game, Barton, Jesus Christ."
"You play too many games." He shifted on his feet, an unconscious gesture. "Go to twenty-one, Shinigami?" He said it really soft, but I heard it, and drew back, gathering up, the way I had in the split seconds before a dozen fights, a hundred.
Suddenly, I didn't think we were talking about basketball anymore. I felt that killing chill in his eyes sink into my own flesh, turning me into a thing of stone. It ruined my concentration, but suddenly I didn't feel like playing anymore. At least, not with the ball. That part of me that likes to stalk looked at Trowa with new eyes.
Trowa shifted positions and stepped in to take a charge. He drove right at me, leading with his left arm to steal and smacking me across the bridge of the nose. My eyes watered, and that cold chill rose a little further, but I kept my head. Barely.
As I went up for the shot, my eyes were still on his face, and there was this look there, this fear... he looked like Heero the first time I had sex with him, back during the first war. That same wide-open look, right across the bones of his cheeks. Scared. Game. Coming. Heero... I thought, and in that instant of lost concentration, Trowa batted the ball away from me, and we both ran for it.
Trowa got the ball, driving right, but I knew his moves by then, and just spun on my heel, stiffing him with both arms. Surprised, he went down, his lip bloodied.
"Aw, Christ, Trowa, I didn't mean-"
But I didn't have time to get it out. The ball was forgotten. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back on the asphalt. My skull bounced off the concrete. Pinned. I can't stand being pinned. I bared my teeth at the man that had me caged to the ground. Green eyes blazed down at me.
He reminded me so much... and I was-
I kissed him.
I leaned up, and kissed him. Don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you now any more than I could have told you then. Something about the feel of him with his arms tensed on either side of my shoulders, the fury in his face, the feel of his hips against mine, the smell of sweat and adrenaline. I could taste the blood on his lips. His mouth opened in a gasp, and I took advantage of the fact, teasing his lips apart. He let me, slipping back into that passive chill before remembering where he was, what I was doing.
He jerked away from me as if I had bit him in the face. He rolled away with the agility of a ninja, the back of one hand raised to his mouth. His eyes were wide.
"Trowa-"
Before I could get out another word, he ran away from me. Fucking ran, like a spooked deer. He got one foot into the chainlink fence surrounding the courts and then just leapt over it, almost running again before he hit the ground. He was gone before I could call his name again.
"There's a gate, you know," I muttered. I brought one hand up to rub the back of my head gingerly, then stood up, chucking the ball back into the corner of the court before going back to the apartment.
There wasn't anything else I could do.
He came back, though. I thought he came back for his stuff, but he went into the guest bedroom where he'd been sleeping and closed the door behind him. He didn't lock it, but I knew better than to go in. I mostly sat in the living room / kitchen and pretended to read the newspaper.
I didn't understand a word of it.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I walked to the end of the hallway and knocked softly.
There was a period of silence, and for a moment I thought he wouldn't answer, but then I heard his voice, quiet through the door. "Come in."
I stuck my head in the door. He was lying on the bed stiffly, arms at his sides, I don't know how he could be comfortable like that, but it was obvious he'd been like that for awhile. I don't know why, but I could just feel it.
"You need anything?" I asked, suddenly awkward. His eyes were cool again. Calm. Like jade.
"No."
"Look, Tro, I just wanted to-"
Trowa just looked at me. It was a different look, now. "It's okay. Really."
No, it's not.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," I whispered, suddenly, leaning up against the doorway. "And... you know... I don't mean when I knocked you down."
"I know what you mean, Duo. I always did."
I felt a rush of heat in my cheeks at that. I couldn't tell whether it was rage or humiliation. I wanted in, cautiously, checking the vibes in the room. Trowa didn't seem upset, not anymore. I sat carefully on the edge of the bed, being sure not to accidently touch him.
"Yeah, well. I'm sorry."
"I'm not."
I jerked a little at that. I didn't really understand what he meant. But when I looked into his face, his expression was inscrutable. I drowned in his eyes.
That part of me that had reached out and risked death to kiss him leaned over slightly, ever-so-slowly, giving him a chance to tense, to give me any kind of signal that I was in his killing zone. He didn't move; he just watched me come.
I touched his lip gently, where I had knocked him down and split it.
"What's the war-gear for?" I whispered, softly. "The stuff in your bag."
Where have you been, Trowa?
"I did some mercenary work," he replied, his answer so soft I could barely hear it. The movement of his lips against my fingertips made me shudder. "Libya. Burma. All over Africa. Some other places. I'm not the only one who needed a place to go."
"Is that why Quatre-"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay." I just looked down into his face for a few moments, silent, until finally his eyes met mine again. He had been very far away there, for a minute or two. Probably in Africa or fighting in some other damned place with an unpronounceable name.
"Duo?"
"Yeah."
"Why did you do it?"
"I don't know. I wanted to. Why do I ever do anything?" I grinned down at him, but he didn't return it.
"Don't play games with me, Duo. Please." His expression was serious, now. But it was also open, just a little. That Heero look. Vulnerable. It made my heart hurt.
"I'll try," I whispered. "You're... gonna stick around, aren't you?"
"If you still want me to."
"I do."
"Then I will. But I'm going to sleep now." Which was, I guessed, a really nice way of telling me he didn't want to talk anymore. I started to stand up and move off the bed, but his hand on my wrist stopped me.
I looked back at him, and he put his free hand on the nape of my neck. His voice was soft. Nothing like jade, or emeralds. Just worn, crumbling river rock. He leaned up, and I let him. His lips didn't taste like blood anymore. They just tasted like him.
But that was the most I could take, or my heart was going to shatter like crystal on a high note. I broke the kiss first. Patted one scarred, bare shoulder gently before getting up and breaking for the door.
"G'night, Trowa."
"Good night, Duo."
I woke in the dark later, my double bed suddenly seeming way too big for one person, for some reason. Strange; I usually manage to take up both sides of it and then some. I got up to relieve myself. After I flushed the toilet, I heard a sound.
Automatically, my heart was pounding, and I wished I hadn't left my pistol on the nightstand. I toed open the door to the guest room, moving in minuscule increments.
Trowa was sleeping, or at least, his eyes were shut. I stepped closer. He was lying on his back with his arms thrown out, spread-eagle, sleeping that soldier-sleep where you go do so hard and so exhausted you drool. I looked for eye movements. He was dead to the world.
But as I turned to walk out, I heard him groan. His arm came up over his face, and he muttered unintelligible in his sleep.
What was he dreaming about? Death in a distant jungle? Death on a frozen tundra? Always death, that much was for sure. Either death, or something else.
I couldn't watch him anymore, because watching him made me want him, and wanting him was dangerous. I turned around to leave, but he spoke again, and it stopped me dead in my tracks.
Trowa rolled over on his side and moaned my name. It was soft, but distinct. His body shifted languidly beneath the covers. I could see his hands, callused, gripping the mattress cover. The muscles in his arms flexed, and his head tilted back.
Maybe he was dreaming of a different kind of Death, then, after all.
I couldn't stand it anymore. I may run and hide, but I never tell a lie. Note the "run" part. I took advantage of that part of my credo, most definitely.
I fled.
Like my hair was on fire and my ass was catching.
Trowa is more dangerous than Heero ever was. I don't know why I wanted him, or why I eventually took him for mine. It took a while. There was just so much shit left over that we hadn't worked through yet. Every day was like a landmine ready to be tripped. It still is, sometimes.
I don't know why I wanted him when no one else would have him. Maybe it was because we both had our masks, and when we dared to take them off, people couldn't accept us underneath, raw and hurt and bleeding. Or maybe it was because we both play games, and the games are always lethal. They always hurt someone, especially the people we love the most.
I didn't know then, and I still don't now.
But I do know one thing.
It's a whole new game now.
Owari
On to the sidestory, 'Galileo'
(:./cyt/games)
