21-Sep-2000
Title: Intimates 1/1
Author: TB
Archive: yes please GW Addiction
Catagory: non-yaoi, angst
Pairing: 2xH, 4
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mentions of suicide, some swearing
Spoilers: some, very slight
Notes: Takes place some years after EW.
Feedback: at amiboshi_flute@hotmail.com
Disclaimers: I do not own, nor do I intend to stage a hostile takeover of, the Gundam Wing Universe or the boyz and their toyz.
Quatre spotted the thick head of shining black hair by the window, and waved away the waitress who appeared at his elbow. "My party is already here," he explained, and gently pushed past her, heading toward the woman in the far booth.
She half-stood as he approached her, a tentative smile lighting up her face. "Mr. Winner," she said, and held out her hands for his. "Thank you so much for coming to meet me here."
"Not at all, Miss Schbeiker." He took the seat she indicated, and laid his briefcase at his feet. Automatically he looked for the companion he was sure must simply be hiding behind the nearest potted plant... but Duo was no-where to be seen.
Hirde's round face was solemn. "I know you're looking for him," she said. "But it's him I want to talk to you about; that's why I didn't tell him about asking you to lunch while you're on L2."
The waitress from earlier, having identified Quatre's rather well-known features and prepared herself to gush suitably over him, appeared at his elbow with a complimentary wine. Quatre smiled at her helplessly, but accepted the glasses, and finally managed to urge the woman back toward the kitchen to secure him a plate of the house salad.
Hirde was grinning. "I see the hordes have found you," she noted.
Quatre sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "I honestly think it gets worse as time goes on, not better," he admitted. "Since this merger with the Catalonia Enterprises, though, it's been awful. Just once, I'd like to walk into a room and be recognised by absolutely no one."
"What's the saying? A snowball's chance in Hell."
He laughed. "You look lovely," he told her warmly, and meant it. Hirde was the perfect picture of blossoming womanhood; her skinny figure had rounded a little in the right places, and height added elegance to her slender limbs. Her black hair was still fashionably short, tumbling carelessly into her gorgeous blue eyes. The childishly pert nose and the small spattering of freckles were all that remained of adolescence, and served to draw attention to her expressive facial features.
She was currently blushing at his remark. "Thanks," she mumbled, and quickly grabbed her water to gulp it nervously. Quatre hid his amusement behind a sip of his wine--and a wince at its decidedly inferior taste--until she settled down again, and the grave look returned to her eyes. She clasped her hands on the table top and leaned forward. "Mr. Winner--"
"Quatre, please. After everything you did for us during the war, I'm hardly going to make you stand on formality."
"Quatre. Like I said--it's about Duo. Duo Maxwell."
"I seem to recall him," he deadpaned. "Braid? Attitude? Grin?"
"Scratch the last two, now," Hirde muttered. "I think you'd be surprised. But that's kind of why I asked you here."
He nodded slowly. He took another sip of the wine, then set it aside. "I suppose you'd better just tell me straight out."
Hirde nervously unclasped her hands, then clenched them into fists and hid them in her lap. "He'd kill me if he knew I was telling you this," she confided. "Kill me. But I have to say something, to someone, and you were his closest friend during the war."
Quatre was surprised by that. "Heero--"
"I know," Hirde interrupted. "We all thought that. That's not what Duo says, though. D'ya know, he called you his best friend? Whenever he talks about you I can tell how much he likes you. He thinks the world of you, you know."
"I didn't," he replied, feeling a little flattered. "Of course I feel the same about him."
"That's good... it's going to take a good friend to pull him out of this. Someone who'll take the time 'cause they want to, not because they feel like they have to."
"It sounds serious."
His salad came. The waitress lingered to repeatedly ask if he wanted anything else--"Only the bill, please"--no, no bill for Mr. Winner, Mr. Quatre Winner who was so popular with the colonies since his generous campaign for war charities hit big-time-- Hirde glared until the woman left.
"I see what you mean," she muttered. She swiped a hand at the fleeing server, scowling; then slumped back in her chair. "Eat," she commanded. "I bet you don't get too much time to eat right."
Her maternal air made him smile, before he obeyed. Duo had often joked that there was no possibility of him ever starving, with "that girl" in his life. Quatre could see Duo had meant it.
Hirde began to talk while he ate; soon he found himself just sitting still, and listening to her. The picture she was painting was not a happy one.
"And he was fine, for a while," she related. "He settled down pretty easy--I guess too easy. He found work right away, with the local scrap yard--I guess that doesn't sound like much to a man like you, Mr--I mean Quatre--but here on L2 it's a big business with a fair amount of mobility. He never seemed depressed or anything. I even thought that he was kind of happy."
"But?" the blonde Arabian prompted gently.
Hirde swirled her straw in her water, a glum look crossing her face. "It was about a year and half after that Mariemaia kid kidnapped Relena Peacecraft-Dorian, and Duo heard from an old contact about it and decided to go help where he could. Quatre, you should have seen him. He was so excited. Part of it was all the urgency, part of it was getting to see all of you again--he missed you all--but it just seemed... disproportionate to the occasion. I didn't figure it out until a while ago. Other things were starting to crop up. Little things.
"The job at the scrap-yard isn't the most exciting thing in the world; I know, I work it, too. And he's fine while he's there, he's never slacked off a single day. But it isn't very satisfying for him. He gets bored. Really bored. He started taking all these classes at the universities on Earth through the mail and the net. He finished his undergrad studies in six months. Six months! This man never went to secondary school. And then he branched out a little. I can't keep track of all the hobbies he has. He gets books delivered all the time, encyclopaedias and text books and novels the size of stereos. He reads all the time, he wears glasses now. Every time we have a vacation, he learns a new language. He's *bored,* Quatre. He does all this in his spare time." Hirde shook her head, agitated. "He doesn't sleep, I swear. He works, and then he studies. But he never finishes anything! He runs through it all so fast that he's miles ahead of the moderators of these classes, so he drops them. And starts a new one."
"I had no idea he was so... " Quatre searched for a polite way to say it. "Bright."
"He's smarter than me," Hirde admitted, without shame. "But that isn't it. That was just the second clue."
He was all ears, now. "What was next?"
Softly she said, "He doesn't have any friends. He used to talk to you and the other pilots all the time, but mostly, you've all fallen out of touch... Wufei is so busy doing whatever it is Preventers do, and Heero--well, no one knows where *he* is, half the time. The other half, he's with Relena Peacecraft-Dorian, and I guess he doesn't think he can be friends with both Duo and her at the same time, because when he's with the Vice Foreign Minister, he won't even answer Duo's calls."
"Trowa?"
"For a while, Trowa would come and visit as often as he could," she nodded. "But you know--him and Duo, I don't think they really ever forgave each other for some of the things that happened during the war. I don't know the whole story, and I wouldn't presume to ask. But there's some bad blood there, Quatre. They used to try so hard, but they're not nearly as close as you'd think they'd be."
He nodded, thinking.
"And you--" Hirde hesitated. "Well, you're--you. Busy all the time. He follows your business, you know. Stock and everything. He's got a scrapbook this big full of clippings about your latest triumphs. You're just so--"
"Visible," he supplied.
"Yeah." Relieved that he wasn't insulted, Hirde pushed on. "Outside of all of you pilots, he didn't have other friends. Some acquaintances. People to talk to, have dinner with whenever they dropped by L2, like you're doing now, but no one really close, except for me. And you know, he alienated a lot of people during the war."
That caught his attention. "I don't understand," he interjected, leaning forward unconsciously.
She gestured to him, but the significance of the movement was lost on him. "Not all of you became heroes after the war," she told him softly. "You know Duo. He doesn't keep his mouth shut if he doesn't feel like it--and he said a lot of harsh things during the war. People didn't like his decision to keep fighting after the colony declared the Gundams outlaws. I mean, you remember the reaction to his first capture. Not a friendly face in sight. And then he went and made it worse for himself, when White Fang asked him to join them."
Quatre started. "I didn't know that!"
"He didn't tell you?" She nodded. "I overheard him 'discussing' it with some of their hotheads. Sometimes I wish he could be a little more... diplomatic. Did you know that L2 supplied the majority of White Fang's troops and supporters? And Duo told them flat-out what he thought of them, and he didn't think very highly of them at all. He all but threw them out of our apartment. People think--even now, with the war over for five years!--people think it meant he didn't care about the colony, and that he was only out for himself. Which isn't true at all! Duo cares so much about--"
"I know," Quatre assured her hastily, as her voice began to rise. He laid a hand on her wrist. "Keep going," he urged.
She grinned suddenly, a little abashed; then the expression slid off her face into near-despair. "So now, he's bored, and he's lonely, and he can't even admit it," she mumbled. "I didn't realise how bad it was for him until... there've been a couple of-- accidents."
He stared at her. "Accidents?"
"Yeah. Just--accidents." Hirde began to fiddle with her straw again. "He was working in the garage at the scrap-yard, and someone had left an engine running on one of the trucks... About two months ago, I thought he had food poisoning. Horrible food poisoning. I ran him to the hospital, he was barely conscious, and there was some medication in his system when they took blood-samples--lots of medication. He said later it was for tension headaches, but there was too much--accidents. Nothing out of the ordinary, almost, unless you look at the whole picture."
Quatre felt a little cold.
Finally he asked, "What do you want me to do, Hirde?"
She looked up; then she reached across the table and took his hands again. "Talk to him," she begged. "He'll listen to you, I just know it. The way he talks about you-- Quatre, please. I don't know what to do to make him happy. But you do. I'm sure you do! Help him."
He hesitated. "I've barely seen him in--it's been years, Hirde... "
"Please. Please don't tell me you can listen to all of that and then just walk away! He's your friend. And he needs you! He'd do it for you, Quatre, he'd be there in a *second* if it meant dropping everything and rushing to the ends of the universe to get to you!" Her eyes were urgent, locked on his, pleading. Her callused hands squeezed his tightly.
Softly he sighed. "I'll clear my schedule," he said.
Harun still looked disapproving, as he shook out Quatre's casual coat and held it up for the Winner executive to slip into.
"I have to do this," Quatre repeated. "He's an old friend, Harun. I couldn't face myself if I didn't at least go and talk to him."
"Your sister will not be pleased," the servant sniffed. "Miss Iria made it quite clear that you were to be home in time for Miss Cecile's wedding."
"I will be, I will be." He took the proffered comb, and ran it through his hair once or twice before tossing it onto the bed. "Ready?"
Harun looked him over carefully. "Barely," he sighed finally.
"I'm sure Duo will forgive me if I forgo the three-piece suit just this once," Quatre teased.
Not even a hint of a smile lightened the Arab manservant's glower--but he didn't protest again. Sometimes Quatre wished for the company of his Manguanacs. At least they'd had a sense of humour. Rough, certainly, maybe even a little crude... but he'd take *any* humour over Harun, some days.
The rented but thoroughly security-checked vehicle his compulsively meticulous secretary had arranged for his use on L2 was waiting for him when he exited the hotel, briefcase in tow and baseball cap plunged far down over his eyes on the slight chance that he could somehow disguise himself long enough to get to Duo's. For once, luck--or more likely the bulky body-guards--were with him, and he was smoothly inserted into the old-fashioned chrome interior of the car and putting off before he knew it.
Hirde had given Quatre explicit instructions, and Quatre had dutifully repeated those to his driver, a colony native, who warned him the trip would be a while, in rush-hour traffic. Quatre took the time to compose himself. As he often did when he wanted to relax, he meditated--a personal combination of techniques learned from Wufei, Rashid, and a certain circus performer who played target for his sister's knives--and mentally began a conversation with himself.
*What's the situation here, Quatre?*
Duo's in trouble. At least, based on what Hirde's saying, he is; and she has no reason to lie.
*You don't sound too certain.*
Well--I don't believe she's lying. But it's possible she's... over-reacting. Anyone with eyes could see how devoted she was to him, and that was before the war had even ended. It just seems likely that she's reading into Duo's activities too much.
*So what are you planning on doing?*
I want to talk to him. Certainly, I have a duty to him, even if this isn't anything more than a slump, a minor depression. Duo was always so emotional.
*And if it's not just "minor"? Then what?*
Then--then I might be here a while longer. Better hope Iria will forgive me.
"Mr. Winner, we're here," the driver informed him.
"Thank you," he said, and opened the door himself. He leaned over to the man's window and added, "Why don't you head out for breakfast? I don't know how long this will take, but bet on at least two hours. I have a one o'clock appointment that I'd really like to keep if possible... if not, I'll give you a call."
"Sounds like a plan, Mr. Winner."
"Enjoy your breakfast." Quatre pressed a few bills on the man, and hurried to the door of Duo's apartment. He lifted a hand, and rapped his knuckles three times against the door.
It cracked open. A cobalt-blue eye peered out.
Quatre put his best smile on. "Duo," he said warmly. "It's a pleasure to see you again."
The eye blinked. "Hi," a muffled voice replied, sounding surprised.
The door stayed cracked. After a pause, Quatre asked, "May I come in?"
The eye blinked again, apparently considering him. "Sure," the voice decided at last. Duo opened the door, and stood aside to let him pass.
Once inside, Quatre put his briefcase against the wall, and moved to embrace Duo. Duo was stiff and a little flushed. He backed away as soon as Quatre let him go.
"What're you doing here?" he asked.
The young Winner heir studied Duo, a little surprised by the strangely unfriendly greeting he was receiving. Duo had been kinder when they'd first met, and the American wasn't even sure Quatre wasn't with OZ!
Duo was taller, taller than Quatre, but much too thin for his height. His ever-present braid was longer, a little frazzled, the bangs pushed back off his forehead by a red fabric headband. A smear of black oil decorated his sunburnt-and-peeling nose, on which a pair of oval-shaped, faintly lavender-tinted lenses perched.
Quatre had to admit that Duo did look- haunted. There was something in the way he held himself that indicated inner torment. Maybe Hirde hadn't been over-reacting, after all.
Duo nervously broke the silence. "You want something to drink? It's always so hot here. Takes years to get used to. Water? Pop? Uh, something stronger?"
"It's a little early for me," Quatre politely refused. "Water sounds great, though."
"Yeah. I'll get you a glass. Um, sit down, okay? Be right back." Duo hesitated a moment more, then abruptly abandoned his guest for the kitchenette.
Quatre slowly moved to the couch set before the television, pausing here and there to examine the various stacks of items set inconviently around the room. Bits of scrap parts--from his job, Quatre assumed--were placed on piles of spread newspaper, some greasy-smelling and oily-looking; but mostly the stacks were books, just as Hirde had described. He was skimming a few of the titles when Duo returned with two coffee mugs.
"Here," he said, and held one out. Smiling his thanks, Quatre took it and sat. Duo lowered himself onto the floor, and leaned his back against the easy-chair, his eyes never leaving Quatre's face.
"What're you doing here?" he asked again.
Quatre sipped the water. It was deliciously cold. "I came to see you."
"Why?"
"Ah... Well, actually, I ran into Hirde, and we were talking... I thought I'd come by, since I have some free time."
Duo became, if possible, even stiffer. "You talked?" he asked. "What about?"
Quatre was beginning to feel decidedly uncomfortable. "About a lot of things. I don't remember all of it."
"I didn't know she knew you," the braided man pressed.
"Well, you know, we were never actually introduced, but of course I remembered her from the Libra incident. And we just, ah, happened to run into each other at the resturant--"
Duo interrupted. "You're lying," he snapped. "I can tell. I know why you're here. She said something to you, didn't she?"
Quatre recognised the intense look Duo was giving him; but he was older now, and it didn't affect him the way it had when he was fifteen and so unsure about everything. He decided to be blunt. "Yes," he replied. "Yes, Duo, actually she did."
"And she asked you to come here and make it better, huh?"
"In a nutshell."
"So." Duo crossed his arms insolently, and tilted his head back so that he was peering through the violet lenses of his glasses at Quatre. "I'm flattered. You probably had to re-arrange some meetings to get out here. How long do I get to pour my heart out to you? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Your driver even shut off the engine?" His tone was cutting.
Quatre did not so much as wince. "Take as long as you like," the Arabian softly told him.
Duo stared at him--and then suddenly the mask crumbled. "You swear?" he whispered.
Quatre's throat was tight. The look of need in those oddly tortured eyes tore at his soul. "On my life, Duo."
Duo leaned his head back and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. "You'll think I'm a fool. And maybe, I am. But try to understand, okay, and don't laugh, or I swear I'll-I don't know. Kill you, or cry."
"Of course I won't laugh," he replied gently. He leaned forward and put his hand on Duo's ankle. "And as for understanding, I promise to do my best."
Duo nodded.
His voice was rough and almost to soft to hear as he started. "I just didn't let myself think about it at first," he admitted to his friend. "I told myself that life was going to go on whether I moved with it or not, so I moved. And you know, I don't dream about the war, the way Heero used to--remember that? Those awful nightmares... the way he'd break into a cold sweat and start shaking--not me. I never dream at all! Didn't think much about it, either. Had the job. Classes. Hirde."
Quatre was sitting beside him on the floor now, jacket tossed somewhere behind him and with his long legs loosely curled before him. He had leaned his head on his shoulder to watch Duo as he spoke.
"What is she to you?" he asked softly. "She loves you, you know."
"We're on and off." Duo shook his head, hair flying. "Mostly off. I don't know. Aside from the fact that I don't deserve her, and I'm so fucking aware of it that there are days when I can't even look at her... I've tried to drive her away from me. Date other girls. Bring them here, even, dick around right under her nose and pretend I didn't hear her crying in her room--" He rubbed damp palms over his thighs, head shaking again and shoulders slumping. "They just don't match up to her, though. She's--perfect."
Quatre had a sudden flash of insight. "Is this about her, Duo?"
"A lot of it, yeah." He shook his head again. "She just won't go away!" He slammed his fist into his palm. "I try and try to make her go away, and she just *won't* leave me! What the hell is there for her here? How much can one person give?"
"You need her."
"No!" Duo stood, and began to pace, avoiding out of habit the many piles on the floor.
"Yes, you do. And you're not used to needing anyone but yourself, are you?"
"You're wrong. What do *you* know? You're never here, you don't know me."
Quatre caught Duo's ankle as he passed, and Duo stopped and glared down at him, fists clenched at his sides, mouth twisted in fury. Quatre climbed to his feet (an awkward move, because he refused to let go of Duo, recognising instinctively that if he did Duo would be away from him like a shot) and put his hands on Duo's shoulders.
"I have always loved you," he said. "You know that. Without loving each other, would we have been such a cohesive team? I didn't agree with much of what Treize Khushrenada believed in, but I did, and still do, believe as he did that the heart of a man or a woman is truest in battle. That's when the struggle becomes personalised, when the will to live is strongest, when freedom is most precious and all the world looks infinitely more beautiful because at any moment it could be ripped away forever. The five of us-- we were *always* battling, don't you remember? Fighting our doubts, fighting our own principles and our own griefs, fighting our own people--fighting each other, even, struggling just to breathe when it seemed like Space would swallow us whole. And I could look in your eyes, look into all of your eyes and see your true soul, all the pain and the hate and the--the vast, incredible capacity for love. But Duo, the rest of us... we've found peace. We faced the worst, and it ended; we learned as much as we could from it and we've gone on. You need to do that, too."
"What peace is there for a man who called himself the God of Death?" Duo tried, half-heartedly, to break away. "Do you know I've never had it as easy as I do now? All the stuff I used to dream about--money, a house, regular meals--I have all of it. I even have the perfect girlfriend. And none of it matters. I have so much time--*too* much time on my hands, and I spend it all thinking, Quatre, even if it's just in the back of my head... "
"What do you think about, Duo?"
"I think--I think--" The blue eyes overlaid with that amethyst sheen were at once wild, and dim. Duo reached up, and took Quatre's hands from his shoulders. He stepped back, and sat on the couch, fingers weaving into his hair on either side of his face. He muttered, "I used to think that I was cursed, you know. That everyone who came near me would die, until God finally decided I'd been punished enough and came to take me Himself."
The blonde man shook his head, and sank onto the cushions beside his friend. "Why would you believe that?"
"Why?" Duo leaned back, and his stare was discomfiting. "Let me tell you something. The first time I was captured by OZ, you remember that, I was supposed to have been executed, and if OZ hadn't done it, Heero was going to. What happened? Heero shows up right on schedule, and I was ready to go, man. I even said something insane like 'It's my destiny to be killed by you.' You know who I thought he was? Shinigami, coming for me in the form of my friend. Kind of appropriate, you know?"
Quatre opened his mouth to speak, but Duo kept going, ignoring his attempted interruption. "But he didn't shoot me. Instead, he rescued me. Mr. Perfect Soldier abandons his plan and wings it, pulling off an escape that would have been impossible for any normal human! And so I thought God had figured that I hadn't payed enough yet."
He bit his lip, and listened; there wasn't anything else he could do.
"You see, I have a lot to pay for." Duo flopped back against the couch, glaring at the far wall. "I don't know what happened to my parents, whoever they were. But I've always known, in my heart, that it was my fault. What else could I have done to curse myself? So by the time I was four I was living on the streets, with a gang of other kids, and a boy named Solo. I tried not to love him. I knew it would kill him, if I loved him, but it snuck in, Quatre. And wham. A plague. It killed hundreds on the colony. Most of the gang, too--but not me. I was the *only* one who didn't get sick, not so much as a fever! And even though I stole the vaccine from a hospital nearby and brought it back to save Solo, he still died. God took him.
"Then the Feds, the Alliance troops, rounded us up, all us dirty orphans. They dumped us in the churches. You ever hear of the Maxwell Church Massacre? You know how many people walked away from that? One. Me. Father Maxwell, and Sister Helen, they were like parents to me. And I tried not to love them, either. I wouldn't let them cut my hair or clean me up, I fought with the other kids all the time to make them mad at me. I even used the sanctuary to hide all the stuff I stole, and sometimes I'd leave clues lying around so that Father or Sister would find my stash and yell at me. But they never did. They were always so kind to me, they never raised a hand to me. And when no one else would take me, they adopted me!" He shook his head again. "I couldn't help loving them. And so God took them, too. And Lord, I can't even tell you how many times I thought I'd lost one of you guys during the war, especially Heero. I thought I'd cursed you guys, too."
Quatre quietly spoke. "Duo, those deaths weren't your fault. They were tragedies, but you can't blame yourself."
A soft sigh answered that. "I know."
The blonde hesitated. "I don't understand."
"I said I *used* to think I was cursed." Duo pounded a fist into the cushion. "But I'm not a little kid anymore, and I can't hide behind superstition and Old Testament "thou shalt fear God" bullshit anymore. It hit me after the Mariemaia incident. I'm not cursed, Quatre. I'm just one hell of a liability to my friends."
For a moment, Quatre honestly could not think of anything to say. What struck him were a hundred memories of Heero expressionlessly saying exactly the same thing, or of Wufei contemptuously ignoring "that clown," of Trowa describing how he'd looked on dispassionately as Heero had sucker-punched Duo and knocked him out so there'd be no way for the "braided baka" to ruin his escape plan. He was struck by guilty thoughts that had come from his own heart-times when he'd doubted Duo would come through for them.
Duo was just repeating what he'd been told, routinely, by the four people who'd been closest to him-that he did nothing but get in the way and endanger the mission. None of them had realised how horribly they were feeding his fears, playing on a subconscious that they'd imagined him too shallow to have.
The other young man hadn't noticed Quatre's sudden troubled silence. "So, for a while, I tried to be happy. I shaped up, I worked harder, and me and Hirde, we were fantastic together. We even talked a little about saving up for a house instead of this hole in the wall. But I couldn't make it last. There's this spectre hanging over my head. Maybe God doesn't strike down everyone I love. Maybe Shinigami doesn't walk beside me. 'Cause maybe, I don't need them. I'm enough of a screw-up all by myself. All that's left to do is make sure no gets close enough for me to ruin their lives."
Quatre felt cold. "You actually think you can do that? Shut yourself off from-no-no, I get it now. You don't really think you can, in fact. So you thought you'd just help out Death a little. Poison yourself with monoxide and drugs! It sounds to me like maybe you're afraid of living, and nothing more." He was suddenly angry. "What a crock, Duo! You're reaching for excuses because you've lost your wars and your gundams, everything that made you feel in control of yourself. You can't see this kind of life as a challenge, so instead you see it as just another of your curses!"
"*What the hell do you know about it?*" Duo shouted, jumping to his feet. "Your life is perfect! I bet you don't even think about the shit that happened during the war, do you? Do you? Well, *I'm* not perfect, Quatre. Yes! I hate living, and I'm scared of dying but it sure as hell beats sacrificing Hirde because when the eternal wrench in the works, yours truly, *does* fuck up, it might be at the cost of her life!"
That was more than enough. Quatre stood, furious, and shoved Duo, hard, knocking him back so that he stumbled over the easy chair and fell. "What the hell makes you so special, Duo, that you think God would make you just to be His personal executioner? What in hell gives you the right to believe that you're the reason for those accidents? Haven't you ever heard of coincidence!" Duo was staring at him, dumbfounded, from the floor; and somehow this only made Quatre more enraged. "I think you're an egotistic coward! How dare you assume that we can't take responsibility for our own lives? How dare you assume that you're so important in the grand scheme that all of us will just keel over and die the minute you do something wrong?"
Stunned, and shaking, Duo stared up at him.
"Let me tell you something, Duo Maxwell," Quatre said. He crouched, and reached out to put his hand over the other man's heart. "The people who love you are not going to be shut out, just as you can't lock away what *you* feel for us. All that you can accomplish by pushing us away is hurting us-and yourself. Look at you. You're miserable, Duo. Sometimes you just have to give in and let yourself be happy."
"It isn't that easy."
"Then make it that easy. It seems to me that you're going out of your way to complicate it." He stood, and offered Duo a hand up. "If nothing else, I think you're missing a big point. Several big points, in fact."
"And those would be?" Duo was slightly less wary of him now. When Quatre drew him back onto the couch, he watched the other man with eyes that tried hard not to beg for the reassurance that the Arabian offered.
"First of all-you said you'd thought that you cursed us, the pilots, during the war. But that can't be right, Duo, because we're all still alive and kicking. Maybe we've fallen out of touch and started to forget each other, and the bond that we had... but we're still here. And Hirde, too, you know, isn't going anywhere. And you've been with her for five years now, Duo. That's a substantial amount of time, and despite the way you've acted towards her, she loves you more than ever. And think of our other friends. Sally and Noin, even Zechs-Relena Peacecraft, Howard, people who took great risks in working with you during the war and still made it out alive. Each of us loves you, Duo, and I think you love each of us, too. And that blows your theories out of the water."
"He's right, love."
They looked up; Hirde slowly closed the door behind her. "Is he ready to listen to reason?" she asked Quatre, not taking her eyes off her beloved.
The blonde Arabian turned to Duo as well, a small smile lighting up his face. "Well?" he asked.
Duo rubbed his eyes, not quite brushing away all the moisture that had gathered there. "Conspiracy," he mumbled, and sniffled unattractively.
Hirde came close enough to him to run her fingers through his hair. "Duo, love. It's time to give it up, okay? Let go, baby. Let *us* take care of *you*, now." Silently, she drew him close, and he pressed his face into her belly, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
The quiet knock on the door was Quatre's driver. He looked askance at Hirde; she shrugged. It was his call, her look seemed to say: they'd make it, either way.
Quatre pressed a fifty and a list of numbers into the man's startled hands. "Call my secretary," he instructed quietly. "And have her call my sisters... I'm afraid something's come up, and I won't be able to make the wedding."
"Something's up, sir?"
He glanced back at Duo. "Something more important than my appointments, Hamed. Iria will understand."
Duo wouldn't be healed overnight. But then, Quatre wouldn't learn to fix his own attitudes and mistakes in a miracle of twenty-four hours, either. And he'd told the truth.
Watching as Duo kissed Hirde with a sudden urgency born of his need, and their love, he knew he'd told the truth. Some things were more important.
He smiled.
The End
(:./erin/intimates)
