Work Text:
Beneath: Western Civ 101
by Duointherain
disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing
Note: The boys are in their late 20’s. Heero and Duo are married.
Duo closed the door as quietly as he could, closed his eyes, and leaned against it as if moving any farther was just too much to be asked of a reasonable person.
“Hard day,” Heero asked.
As he spoke, the sound of typing faded away, and Duo thought that moment felt like sudden existential angst. “I can’t fucking do this.”
“Hn.” Heero said. The sound of his laptop clicking closed followed. “I’ll draw you a bath.”
“Fuck. I haven’t eaten in 16 hours.” Duo dropped his backpack, kicked it to the side so it wasn’t in the way of the door.
“Why didn’t you call me,” Heero asked, rolling his sleeves up. “I would have brought you food.”
“Dropped my phone,” Duo said, peeling out of his hoodie. “But wait! It gets better....”
Their apartment was fairly large, with walls of glass that overlooked Seattle. The floors were hardwood. There was a wine closet that Duo had converted into a small library for old books that the temperature control was nice for. The living room was take up by two large desks that faced each other. They matched, except that Heero’s neat as a pin with all his face folders sorted and aligned with perfect evenness. Duo’s desk looked like a civil war had erupted between extremely belligerent parties with no hope for a rapid resolution. There was a mini Roman scorpion and partially finished model of the HMS Ark Royal.
There were two large televisions with every game system commercially available and then some. Duo’s spot in front of his was a pile of pillows. Heero had a very nice gamer chair, which their cat, a white fluff with blue eyes named Shelby liked to sleep in.
Heero, who felt like he’d known Duo for nearly as long as he’d known himself, maybe just a little longer, kept his distance, though still moved close enough to let Duo know that he was the center of Heero’s attention in that moment. “What happened?”
“The phone, I just fucking dropped it. It was dumb. BUT then,” Duo said, voice elevating shrilly, as he toed off his barely professional-looking black chucks. “We got evacuated because some asshole brought a firearm into the social science building. WE,” Duo said, voice elevating, violet eyes darkening, “got evacuated! Dumb mother fuckers! Gonna shot someone? For fun! God, I hate people!”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No,” Duo said. “Security chased him off, but didn’t catch him. Then my friend Nancy said I’d never be good at this job! James, the receptionist is in the hospital too! Just bam! Friday he was fine and driving me home and Monday he’s gone.”
Heero filled his cheeks with air, then slowly breathed out. “I wish you’d emailed me. I would have come to see you on campus.”
“Fuck, ‘Ro. You can’t come help me every time something goes to shit.” Duo opened a cupboard, stared at their minimal pile of mismatched dishes, slammed it shut and opened up the fridge.
“Yes, actually I can,” Heero said, gently touching his hands to Duo’s shoulders. “Come here, please.”
Duo let Heero turn him around and disappeared into the shadow of Heero’s embrace. “I can’t call you to come to a place where the might be an active shooter. I couldn’t leave the students.”
Heero rubbed his back. “Bath? I’ll rub your back. Do you want a pizza?”
“Yeah,” Duo mumbled against Heero’s chest, face pressed to the soft button-up shirt that smelled legal paper and coffee. “I don’t deserve you.”
“On the contrary, there is no one that deserves me more. The anger is wrong. You deserve love and happiness and a pizza.”
“I’m tired. I’m too tired for pizza.”
“I’ll make you a smoothie. Bath, smoothie, bed,” Heero said, scooping Duo easily up into his arms. Duo was taller, but Heero would always be stronger. “Trowa and I got our request for a retrial granted today. He and Quatre are going to be in town for two months. I told them they could have the spare room.”
Duo sighed snuggling closer. “I must be really fucked up. Normally, I’d be really excited over that.”
“Everything will feel better after some rest.”
The AI in the house had responded to Heero’s words, already run the bath, to the right temperature, with the lavender-scented bubbles that Duo liked. Heero set him down on the counter, then set about peeling off his socks, his tee-shirt, and Duo was just happy to let Heero sort out all the difficulties in his life in that moment, like pants and his sore shoulders.
Duo nearly fell right to sleep as he sank down into the warm tub, then the massage jets started rotating over his back and he did fall right to sleep. Heero gave up on the pizza, turned the bed, back and carried his wet husband to their warm bed. He set a favorite white noise soundtrack of colony sized air filters and climbed in with Duo, arms around him, gently petting Duo’s hair, rubbing his scalp until Duo was in a deeper sleep. Sleep eventually came for Heero too, but they slept skin-to-skin, hearts entwined.
When Heero woke, Duo was gone, a note left on the nightstand. “Love you! <3”
<><><>
In his classroom, Duo had decided that he didn’t want to look professional. He had put up his warning about profanity on the outside of his classroom door. He sat on his desk in a tie-dyed shirt, rainbow nail polish, and comfortable black cargo pants. His students, except fort he couple that had religious exceptions to his language on the warning days, all filtered in. There was a happy energy in the classroom. Lectures on warning days were always pretty good.
“Today we’re going to talk about the Treaty of Westphalia. This is the beginning of the era of nations. About eight million people died leading up to that peace. You all fuckers better have read the assigned chapters.”