13-Mar-2000
Feedback appreciated as always... Welcome to part seven of the on-going saga...
Quatre stifled a sigh - not that he expected Heero to be able to hear him through the closed door - and knocked again. "Heero. Please. We *have* to talk."
Silence - profound and mocking - greeted him.
The Arabian raised his eyes to his lover's. Trowa shrugged, green eyes gleaming with something like regret. Regret for being the cause of dissension between Heero and Duo, though now, the honor of being the one person Heero would most like to kill was probably Wufei's.
Quatre tried again, rapping lightly on the door - an undercurrent of growing irritation in his voice. "Heero. Will you *please* open the door?"
"Just open the door and go in," Duo's lovely tenor advised them. "Even eternal life is not long enough to wait for him to say 'Come in'." The braided pilot stepped past them, and twisted the door handle, pushing the oaken door open. "The worst he can do is say -"
"Omae o korosu."
"Yes, that," Duo grinned. Heero's cold, flat tone fazed him not at all. "Hi ya, Heero," he flashed a grin at Heero's back, waggling his fingers in a vaguely insolent gesture at his ex-lover.
No, don't look...
Baka betrayed me, betrayed my love...
But the ache was too strong... the ache to see Duo... to see the violet eyes softly glowing with love... the generous smirk gentled into a tender smile. The ache to touch him... to glide his hands down the pale, satin-smooth skin and run his fingers through the long, silken chestnut hair. The ache that gnawed at him... tormented him constantly to have Duo so near... yet so very far away...
Heero glanced back over his shoulder... just in time to see Duo vanish in a blur of motion, long braid swinging out behind him. The sharp flash of pain... of loss... flared for the briefest moment in the brilliant blue eyes, then quickly vanished behind the impassive, perfect facade of the Perfect Soldier. The cobalt blue eyes locked accusingly on Trowa's green ones, then looked away.
Quatre's expression, normally so gentle, hardened. "We must talk about Duo and about what happened that day."
"There is nothing to discuss. Duo does not care. And I do not care either."
If Quatre hadn't seen the muted, cleverly disguised pain in Duo's violet eyes, he might have turned away then, driven away by the calm finality in Heero's cold, flat voice. Idiots, both of them. Imbeciles. Couldn't they see they were halves of the same being - that they needed each other to be complete? Instead, Heero was pushing Duo away, driving the beautiful one further and further away with his callous indifference.
"Duo *does* care," Quatre stated, his voice quiet yet firm. "If you bothered enough to look at him, you would know that. If you cared enough to listen to him, you would have realized that what he did - though obviously wrong - he did only because he cared for Trowa, as a *friend*," the blond pilot emphasized. "You're the only one he loves and wants to be with. What do you gain by pushing him away like this?"
"He made his choice," Heero stated flatly, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the laptop, blue eyes boring into the computer screen. He did not even bother to dignify Quatre with a glance.
"But it wasn't a choice!" Quatre raised his voice, his delicate, graceful hands curling into fists. Heero could be so dense - sometimes he wished he could just pound the truth into Heero's thick skull. "He wasn't choosing between you and Trowa. It was always you!"
The harsh beeping of the laptop cut Quatre off in mid-sentence; the red flashing light indicated a priority incoming message. Heero paused only momentarily before his fingers danced over the keys, entering the required passwords and codes to access the message. Blue eyes flashed across the screen, then Heero rose abruptly, shutting down his laptop then walking past Quatre and Trowa without a single glance at them.
"You've been given a mission?" Quatre asked quietly, following Heero from the room. "How long will you be away?"
"As long as it takes," Heero stated in the same cold, dead tone. "You no longer need concern yourself with Duo and I. It will be a non-issue by the time I return."
Quatre's eyes narrowed sharply, "Heero, what do you mean?" he reached out, placing a gentle hand upon Heero's shoulder, but the Japanese pilot shrugged it off.
Non-issue... Cold fire flared in the cobalt blue eyes. He had seen Wufei stake his claim on the braided baka. Whatever had possessed Wufei to... no, he knew precisely what had possessed Wufei... The very same thing that had possessed him - the embodiment of beauty and life that was Duo Maxwell. Which left him two options. To stay and fight for the baka who had betrayed him in the cruelest way possible, or to walk away... To stop the pain and hurt... to never allow himself to be hurt again... To never allow himself to be anything less than what he had been meant to be... the Perfect Soldier...
Duo looked out of the cockpit of Deathscythe where he had been messing around with the power coupling mechanism as footsteps echoed hollowly in the hangar. His violet eyes widened with surprise as Heero strode past Deathscythe and proceeded to climb into Wing's cockpit. "Hey, Heero," he called out. "Where are you going?"
Heero did not look at him. Did not even appear to hear him...
"Heero! Did you get a mission?! Isn't anyone else going with you? Tell me where you're going."
Heero's graceful hands danced over the controls, bringing Wing to life.
Duo resisted the urge to slam his fist into the control panel out of sheer frustration. Talking to Heero was worse than talking to a brick wall! "Heero!" Duo leapt down from the cockpit and raced after the Japanese pilot. "Can't I come with you? At least tell me where you're going."
It was so hard to turn a deaf ear to the voice that was lovelier than the sweetest song in the world. But with his bleeding heart - when did he ever *have* a heart - clenched in an iron fist, Heero ignored him...
"When are you coming back? When are we going to see you again? Will you come back here when the mission is over? Damn it, Heero. Talk to me. Heero no baka! Where are you going?!"
Heero pulled the helmet down over his head as Gundam Wing's powerful engines flared to life. He deliberately turned the external audio monitors off... cutting off that sweet voice that haunted his nights. Duo was a small figure on the ground, seeming strangely delicate and vulnerable, gazing up at Wing. If Heero had been any closer... or if he had cared enough to zoom his external visual monitors in on Duo, he would have seen the despair that crept over the sparkle of the violet eyes.
"Heero!"
The Gundam stepped out into the night... prepared to leave... And from the entrance of the hangar, Quatre and Trowa watched in silent compassion as Duo raced after Wing. "Heero! Damn it, baka! Just tell me when you're coming back!" From the window of his bedroom, Wufei watched Duo chase after the Gundam. The Chinese pilot shook his head in disgust. "Heero no baka," he muttered under his breath. Such a treasure you are giving up...
Within the cockpit of Gundam Wing, Heero fought the unfamiliar sting of tears in his eyes as he pushed down on the controls that would take him away from the braided maniac who had - against all odds - squirmed his way into the heart he never would have believed he possessed... 'Goodbye Duo...' his lips shaped the words that he had never, *would never*, give voice. 'I think I love you... have always loved you... '
Duo Maxwell stared helplessly at Wing as it took off with silent grace, becoming an ever smaller speck in the night sky. "Heero," the name flowed from his lips as if it were life's breath - reverently, caressingly, half whisper and half sigh. The word itself... a prayer. "I never told you that I love you... "
Come back... Please come back to me some day...
The End
(:./danyale/tangled7)
