23-Dec-2001
Title: A Friend in Need
Author: Yoiko
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Type: Angst
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, yaoi, het, bad language.
Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing, and the Gundam Wing characters are used here without permission. This is a work of fanfiction, intended solely for entertainment purposes, and is not meant to be taken as a claim to copyright for the elements in the story which were not created by me. Also, I intend no disrespect whatsoever towards the creators and rightful owners.
C&C: Please, feel free. ^_^
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
You know if Heero Yuy actually asks someone for help, it's a big deal. I mean, as in, he'd rather bite his own tongue off than admit to needing help.
I guess it's obvious enough that I've kind of had a crush on him for a long time. Obvious to everyone but Mr. Oblivious, I mean. I mean... you know, I've seen him in ways nobody else has. I've seen him sleep, looking sweet and innocent and almost fragile, with circles of exhaustion imprinted so deeply under his eyes that you could tell they'd still be there the next day. I've seen him bent over his Gundam in the wee hours of the night, frowning in concentration so intense you'd almost think he could start fires with a look. I've seen him wild-eyed in shock and terror, waking up from a nightmare so terrible he couldn't have voiced it if he'd tried. And I've seen him vulnerable and in need of help, looking so lost... Oh, the other guys have seen him through the same stuff as I have, but they haven't *seen* him like I have. In each of those moments, I *saw* him, the real Heero I know is in there, and I ached for him. I'd have done anything, *anything* in the world, to make him happy.
Ok, so I'm in love with a man who might as well be a computer, for all the reaction I get out of him. So sue me. My little crush does nobody but me any harm.
The only other person I know who would claim to see Heero as I do is... you guessed it. Miss Perfect Snob herself. Oh, I don't really think there's anything wrong with Miss Relena. She's not a bad sort of person, and she really has some guts in her own way. But... well.
Ok, so I'm not only in love with a computer of a man, I'm jealous of a girl whose car looks like someone spilled Pepto Bismol all over it. As Wufei would say, there is no fucking justice in this life.
He came to me -- Heero, I mean -- just a few days ago. I actually thought... well, never mind what the fuck I thought. He came to ask me for help.
He was all sweet, and had that vulnerable look on his face that would make a stone statue melt. Not that he realized it, I'm sure, and he'd probably rip my tonsils out if he heard me calling him "sweet" or "vulnerable." But I swear that's exactly how it was. He has just the sweetest face anyway, when he's not scowling and threatening to kill someone, and his expression was that same open, needy look he'd get when he woke up from an especially bad nightmare and didn't want to go right back to sleep, but didn't want to have to ask me to do my usual "too-chatty Duo" act and keep him awake and grounded in reality for a while.
Naturally, I never made him ask. But this time... this time, I had no way of guessing what he needed from me.
"Duo..." he said, and ducked his head, looking up at me through his bangs. I swear to God, it made me want to just pull him to me in a big hug and tell him that it would be Ok and that he could tell me anything. Instead, I just stood there like the macho man I am, and waited.
"Yeah?"
"I need... I need a favor."
"You name it," I said, and I had to struggle to swallow because my mouth was suddenly dry. Anything, *anything* he wanted...
"I don't... I don't know how to say what..." he was stammering, and his hands were clenched together anxiously, and so help me God I saw him blushing. "I don't know how to say what I feel...."
"What is it you want from me?" I asked, laying a hand on his shoulder, and if my voice was a little breathy at that point, who the fuck can blame me?
"I want you to help me," Heero said, and drew himself up straighter as he turned to face me directly again, and since he didn't try to shrug my hand off, I left it where it was. It would have been so natural to lean into that contact, to lean into him until we were chest to chest... lip to lip...
"I want to tell Relena how I feel about her, but I can't," he said. "Every time I try to talk to her my thoughts get... muddled, and I can't seem to speak." I was still in the same position, my face locked in some stupid, half-expectant expression, and I felt some part of me freezing over. Yeah, I'd say the heart, but that would be bullshit. If my heart had frozen, it wouldn't have hurt so badly. The rest of me, though... the rest of me was completely cold and numb.
"She's so... she's so perfect," he was mumbling, his head ducked again, that blush working its way over his cheeks, and it killed me even more that he looked so adorable at that moment. "Everything about her is so beautiful... she makes me feel like... like..."
"Like you could spend your life just looking at her, if she'd let you?" I heard my own voice asking.
"Yeah."
"Like you're amazed that someone so perfect could exist. Like just the sight of her is a poignant sort of joy, acute enough to be painful. Like you'd give anything, do anything just to have her look at you and really *see* you, just one time..."
"Yes."
"I know how you feel," I said through frozen lips, "...but this has nothing to do with me."
"Please..." he looked up at me, and for once those eyes were un-shuttered, and I saw him, really saw him, and I crumbled. "I need your help."
"Just write down the stuff you want to say. She's a romantic-minded sort of girl. She'd love a love letter."
"But that's so... impersonal. I want to be there."
"Just show her, then, if you can't say it. Take her out to dinner, give her flowers."
"But that's what everyone does. I want this to be special. Like she is. I want to tell her what's in my heart."
My gut was twisted in tighter knots than last year's strings of Christmas lights. And that was when I suggested the idea.
It was simple, really. He had a little receiver tucked into his ear, like a hearing aid. He wrote down what he wanted to say, and while he was on his way to Miss Relena's room, I found a concealed spot behind her rose bushes. Once Heero passed in front of the window, I read his own words into the microphone, reminding him of everything he wanted to say so he could repeat it to her, woodenly but not forgetting anything, and not tongue-tied because he knew that good old Duo was there supporting him.
Pouring his heart out for him, and my own as well.
I stepped back and looked up at the glow from her window, and watched as their two silhouettes came together, lips meeting in a tender first kiss. Something inside me twisted and then broke, and I turned away. Heero doesn't need me any more, and I've got better things to do than play Peeping Tom for Miss Relena's moment of glory.
Yeah, yeah. At least he's happy, and that's what I wanted. Just call me Cyrano de fuckin' Bergerac.
~owari~
(:./yoiko/need)
