Chapter Text
Waited
For exactly 87 minutes. There in the dark and the silence. He didn't mind waiting, really. He'd done a lot of it over the years. You learned the knack of it. Or anyway, he had.
Duo could wait too, when it was necessary. Tell him to watch and hide and he'd disappear. But in the day-to-day, he got restless. Fidgeted. Attempted conversation. Paced. He could be so distracting. Infuriating, at times.
The car was dark and still and silent. No one moved and no one spoke. No one laughed or offered him snacks or asked him how he was doing. Just. Silence.
The phone never rang. He'd known it wouldn't. Duo was exactly where he wanted to be.
Hadn't he said as much?
Broke In
Not quite. He got as far as contemplating the lock. It wasn't that he actually wanted to know what was going on inside. It was just—
He wanted to know what was going on inside.
When they talked, originally, Wufei hadn't said anything about keeping Duo there. He'd only said he'd explain things. And yes, admitted that he had his own interest in settling things between the two (three?) of them. But Heero hadn't expected that interest to be immediate. It seemed rushed.
The rush was concerning. Duo was prone to impulse. He didn't need Wufei enabling his more destructive whims.
He should have come home. But he hadn't.
So Heero resisted picking the lock and sat on the doorstep, knowing he wasn't going to go inside. You couldn't save someone from something they wanted. You couldn't be jealous of someone getting something you didn't want to give them. He knew these things, simple and rational and true.
He felt sick as he walked away.
Drove
Past the house and on and on, into darkness. Too fast and too far, not thinking. Wishing for a more powerful machine, one that could set the sky on fire.
He missed Wing more often than he liked to admit, missed the power and grace and impossibility that was piloting a Gundam. Nothing else was like it. Nothing.
Wing was gone. They were all gone. The war was over and soldiers became servants of the peace. Relena would tell him it was going so well. He believed her. Had to believe her. Had to believe there was a reason for it. For everything.
Duo would laugh and say there was nothing wrong with wanting to blow shit up. Would guide him through the darkness to the abandoned parts of the city, where the buildings held nothing but memories, and together they would do some guerilla renovation.
On weekdays, sometimes, they investigated their own actions. But no one really cared who blew up a few abandoned, condemned buildings. They always passed it back to the local police. Not Preventer business.
He thought about it, for a moment. Of finding something to break. Without Duo, the idea held no appeal.
He drove faster, instead. Until the lights blurred and controlling the car required his full attention.
Found a Bar
It seemed like the sort of thing you did. He picked one he thought Duo would like. Loud and bright, in the worst possible part of town. The music so loud the glasses shook. The air thick with the smell of cigarettes and booze and sweat. Bodies, everywhere. It made Heero's skin crawl, so many people, so close. Always had.
Relena said he'd been starved for affection, as a kid. Heero thought he just didn't like people very much and never had. Duo said there was no reason they couldn't both be right.
Alcohol had never had much of an effect on him, but he drank it anyway, something cheap and raw that burned all the way down and left him feeling no different.
Duo was the one who liked to drink.
Kissed Someone
The experience was as bad as he expected. She tasted of her drink, syrupy and sweet. Under that, something base and organic. The taste of flesh. Her hands went around his neck, and she was giggling, drunk, pulling back only to kiss him again, as if she were enjoying it. Though he couldn't imagine how she could be.
What surprised him was how easy it was. Unpleasant, but Heero was accustomed to unpleasantness. He had certainly endured worse. Easy to suppress the urge to peel her off him, sweat and perfume and warm saliva. Stepped away from himself, detached and watching. His body was a tool, and it did what he demanded of it.
Duo had been drunk, too, when it happened. That had been worse. Why had it been so much worse?
He had wanted to want it. Had wanted it to work. To be the person Duo so clearly wanted him to be. Maybe he'd even believed he might manage it. That whatever reservations he had would melt away if he only tried hard enough. That maybe you needed to do a thing, know how it felt, to want it.
It hadn't worked. No. He hadn't been able to make it work. Hadn't done as he was doing now and forced himself to endure. It wasn't like it was difficult. It wasn't painful or dangerous. Just unpleasant. He should have been able to make himself.
But he hadn't.
Because it was Duo. And Duo was safety and laughter and the voice that always drew him back out of himself. It should have meant he'd do anything for him. Instead it meant he couldn't.
Well, Duo had found his own solutions.
The woman's hands moved down his chest. He broke away, shook his head. Stood up.
Three days, Heero. Three fucking days! You don't do that to a person. Christ. You don't just leave.
Left.
Called Trowa
Without fully understanding why.
After he left the bar, he simply stood there, under the flickering illumination of a broken streetlight, and didn't know where to go. He took out his phone, bringing up Duo's number out of habit. Almost called, just to find out. Would he even pick up? Scrolled to Wufei next. Again, more from reflex than intent. Wufei had become someone he counted on, in these past few years, someone he thought he understood.
He was beginning to wonder if he understood anyone.
His contact list was short, and the first four entries were numerical. An easy thing, then, to flick up from 05 to 03. He listened to the phone ring, then regretted the impulse, hanging up before Trowa could answer.
Fought
It was what he was for, wasn't it? What they'd made him for. Trained him for. What he'd done and what he knew how to do. (He didn't know how to do anything else.)
Probably, someone started it. Probably, it wasn't him.
The empty parking lot suddenly filling, shouted words. Threats of violence. A swung fist and Heero stepped aside. It was easy. These days, it was always too easy. No life or death, no towering monuments to destruction, no self-destruction, either. Just bodies. People. People were so very easy to break.
Still, it felt good to break something.