Contains: Queer Duo | kuroiyousei

Ultramarine

Sep 7, 2015 | Art Archive Entries, Fiction, Gundam Wing Fanfiction

That was the urge he felt: to travel, to go, to do… but there had been that stupid war.

After the war, Duo can’t seem to figure out what to do with himself.

The thing that had struck him most about Earth the first time he’d gone there was the sky.

It wasn’t the color that surprised him, since you grew up with that. Pictures, narratives, movies… everything reiterated that the sky was blue, with a dogmatic firmness to rival the skepticism of the most visual colony native to whom the sky was indisputably either star-studded black or just… the rest of the colony. No, it wasn’t the blueness that hit him, but rather the size and the openness. No camerawork could ever really capture the apparent endlessness, the almost space-like forever of this sky. No wonder people from Earth didn’t appreciate space as well as they should: they had their own version, and you could breathe in it.

To Duo that sky meant freedom. He’d have thought it would be overwhelming and agoraphobic, but it turned out he was much like a goldfish (or whatever fish it was that kept getting bigger if you put it in a bigger container). Under that sky he felt like he could do anything. And that was the urge he felt: to travel, to go, to do… but there had been that stupid war. He’d promised himself that, as soon as it was all over, he would be free, would live the way he longed to under that sky, at least for a while.

Hilde had invited him to come work the scrap lot with her, but there might be time for that later. Howard had welcomed him back to the salvage business, but Duo wasn’t entirely sure he was interested. And Heero had wanted him to… well, Heero had just wanted him. Oh, he’d phrased it like a request for Duo to come do Preventer work as his partner, but the underlying appeal had been far more concerned with their personal lives. It had not been a comfortable conversation.

“I don’t want to be tied down to anything right now,” Duo had told him. “I’ve been taking orders so long, I just want to be free for a while, you know?”

Heero had looked taken aback, maybe even a little hurt. If Duo’d had to guess why, he would have thought it was because he had just likened their potential relationship to accepting terrorist missions from a mad scientist in space.

“It’s nothing personal,” he’d hastened to add.

“Nothing personal,” Heero had echoed dully.

Feeling that every word he said was digging him deeper down a hole he hadn’t even realized was in his path until he’d tumbled right into it, Duo had tried to explain. “I mean it’s not you. I have to– I need to do things. I need to stop being a soldier for a while.”

At this Heero had given him a skeptical look, as if the concept of not being a soldier was so alien it bordered on the absurd.

“I just need to be free for a while,” Duo had insisted, and even in his own ears it hadn’t really made much sense.

But Heero had nodded slowly and said, “I see.”

And Duo had wanted to say something else, to apologize for hurting him, to try again to explain, to let him know that, if he did have to be tied down, there was no one else in the world that… But words had failed him, and eventually Heero had left, and Duo had set out to taste freedom and live life his own way.

Somehow this had ended up meaning ‘live life as a trucker.’

It was extremely unromantic and not really what he’d envisioned, but it did involve going places and doing things. Mostly roads and warehouses and truck stops, mostly loading and unloading, mostly crashing hard (his body, not his truck) at cheap motels that reminded him of shared missions back in the gundam days undercover with Heero, only without the benefit of actually having Heero around. That still counted as tasting freedom, didn’t it?

Only then there had been the stupid hostage situation in that one stupid town. He hadn’t meant to get involved, wasn’t really sure how he had gotten involved, but it had just kinda happened… the local force wasn’t very good at dealing with that sort of thing, and Duo was very good at dealing with that sort of thing (though, he had to admit, when it came time to try to soothe hostages, he wished he had a bit of Heero’s endless logical calm), and, next thing he knew, he was a hero, and it was a chore just to get out of being awarded keys to the city.

And then by total coincidence he’d somehow gotten dragged into that gang thing in practically the next town. OK, well, it had technically been a couple towns away and an entirely different country, but it was within a few days of the previous incident. The little rival criminal groups were wreaking havoc on legitimate businessmen like honest Duo, and their little street fights were making life (particularly the act of retaining it) difficult for everyone; he just couldn’t stay out of it.

So that one had been his own fault for sticking his neck out, but it hadn’t been his fault when some radical had attempted to assassinate the president of the next city-state he’d visited right when he happened to be in a good place to stop it. Well, maybe it was his fault for choosing to stop it, but you didn’t just let presidents get assassinated in front of you if there was something you could do about it. A memory, hailing from early in his acquaintance with Heero, of a horrified voice and a nearly suicidal demeanor in response to a mistaken assassination simply would not let him.

He hadn’t realized the entire world was still so damn violent, even after everything that had happened. And he’d had no idea that violence was going to be so damn difficult to stay out of. He was a trucker, for god’s sake; he didn’t need to be jumping on people out of windows, wrenching guns from their hands, maybe laughing a bit at their surprise but then giving a longsuffering sigh when they, seeing how young and fresh-faced he still somehow was, decided his success thus far must have been luck and it was OK to attack him despite the fact that he was now holding their gun. What he did need to be doing was getting his deliveries done without wondering whether he couldn’t perhaps help prevent the recurrence of this kind of incident if he just had a brief coaching session with the local authorities. Not that they were likely to listen to him, despite his impressive past achievements, given his lack of current credentials.

And now he lay atop his trailer staring into a fading sky and wondering what freedom really meant. Whatever it was, he was pretty sure he didn’t have it.

He’d been trying to avoid admitting this to himself for a while: that his attempt at living his own life, at doing the doing he’d been longing for and seizing at the freedom he’d always seen hazily in the distance during the war, was failing spectacularly. It shouldn’t have been difficult to admit… some things just didn’t work; it wasn’t the end of the world. Perhaps it was the thought of everything he’d turned down and walked away from to make an experiment that had subsequently miserably failed that called up this stubborn reluctance to admit that this wasn’t working and he should probably give it up.

Against this idea he squeezed his eyes tight closed, shutting out the sight of a sky and an offer of freedom that he, apparently, was unable to grasp. The sun was almost gone anyway; that freedom would soon be invisible to him as the sky turned colony-black, and he wasn’t sure he could stand to see it right now.

Why couldn’t he get away from what he’d been through and what he’d been, both during the war and leading up to it — why couldn’t he rise above all of that, be free of it? He couldn’t, evidently, build a new life for himself, and at the same time couldn’t deal nearly as efficiently as he had during all his life preceding this with the remnants that clung of everything that had gone before. He was caught in between, trapped, and he didn’t even know exactly what by. It was frustrating, dismaying… There was something he just wasn’t doing right, something that, if he could only recognize and rectify, would make everything else snap into place and this troublesome unfulfillment begin to fade.

When he opened his eyes again, his next move was to catch his breath suddenly, harshly. The memory of a different set of eyes — no, not one memory, but a multitude of memories of those eyes, in every variation of expression and condition — was suddenly before him… because the sky above him — that vast and beautiful sky, that expansive, unending, unsurpassable sky that had always, always meant freedom to him — the sky, in the gradual wake of sunset, had turned a very precise shade of blue that he would never forget.

And it occurred to him abruptly that having responsibilities, that answering to an authority you specifically chose to place yourself under, did not necessarily entail a lack of freedom… that there were different types of freedom, and one of them definitely involved putting yourself into the right kind of situation so that what it turned out you were going to be doing anyway got done right. An establishment and taking orders and following protocol might seem restrictive, but when it gave him the opportunity to do what he thought needed to be done in the most effective manner — not to mention the chance to be with someone he’d missed a lot more than he cared to admit — it was really just a means to an end, wasn’t it?

This was no more than had always been the case. The sky had always turned that color just after sunset; he’d always longed to go back; he’d always needed that specific type of freedom. It had taken him a while to see it; that was all — to be looking up and out, to have the correct train of thought already running, just at the right instant.

Though it was a distended moment of realization that seemed forever long, stunning, still, and silent, its immediate aftermath was all activity. Duo scrambled up and flung himself down over the side of his trailer, catching at the support bar beside the door and tugging the latter open before his fall had even entirely stopped. Mere seconds later he was buckled in with the engine roaring to life beneath him.

His head was awhirl with thoughts — contract details, who was expecting him where and when, the quickest cross-country routes, who might be in need of a rig like this right about now, and whether or not what he’d at one point considered a failed experiment might better be looked at as a breather between other phases of life — a spinning storm of ideas, crackling with the lightning of excitement and realization, whose distant eye, the one clear spot beyond the churning vortex, winked freedom at him. As he stepped on the gas he pictured himself shooting out, as if from a tunnel, into that clarity, as if onto a placid lake from the plunging rapids leading to it. And he headed back, back to what he probably should have been doing all along… back to Preventer Headquarters… back to where his freedom lay waiting in Heero’s eyes.

I’ve rated this fic .

This story is included in the Gundam Wing Collection ebook (.zip file contains .pdf, .mobi, and .epub formats).

Veritas

Apr 4, 2015 | Art Archive Entries, Fiction, Gundam Wing Fanfiction

There came a time when the truth was more important than the fallout of the truth, and at such a time Heero would simply act.

A recent series of voicemail messages from Duo has brought Heero to a realization… and a decision.

Every step of this process had been incredibly difficult: the initial decision to go through with it, reached only after weeks of agony; the plans he’d made as to how, where, and when, drafted, revised, scrapped, and rethought a dozen times; dragging himself to someplace where flowers could be purchased, something he didn’t recall ever having done before; trying to decide on the relative merits of the available options and what each would communicate, and eventually selecting a bouquet of sunflowers and some other things, bright orange and red (he, far from a flower expert, didn’t know exactly what they were); actually buying the flowers and dealing with the cheerful comments of the sales clerk; reentering the car and contemplating turning it on again, and then really thinking about his destination… He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t.

Twisting the key with perhaps more vigor than was strictly wise — he’d bent a key out of shape and rendered it completely useless once in the past, doing that, and been forced to make his getaway in a different and much less convenient manner — he breathed deeply and started to back out of the parking space at the florist. He was going to do this. He could. In fact, he must.

Nevertheless, he needed some encouragement, and fortunately knew exactly where to get it. The car had by now recognized and synched up with his cell phone, and Heero hit the voice command button on the steering wheel and said, “Voicemail.”

Seven weeks ago, in accordance with the usual rotation designed to keep Preventers from getting burned out, he and Duo had been pulled from fieldwork and assigned more sedate clerical tasks. With this had come a new, regular schedule, with proper weekends off and everything, and that had significantly changed… well, everything.

“You have no new messages,” the computerized voice told him as he left the parking lot and headed up the street toward the highway. “Six saved messages.”

For Heero, the luxury of days off had required some adjustment. It wasn’t as if he had a social life that could occupy his free time, and he was so accustomed to disregarding his own idle desires as to be unsure, at first, how else to spend it.

Duo hadn’t had that problem.

“First saved message,” the monotonous voice announced when Heero didn’t give any command, followed by a date exactly seven weeks ago today. Heero realized suddenly that he wasn’t breathing as he waited for the half-yell-half-drawl he knew was coming.

“Heeyyyy, Heeeeerooooo!”

He let out the held breath in some irritation and self-deprecating amusement. Really, this had become absurd. Well, it had always been absurd.

“I thought you’d answer!” the message went on, with a force of wonder greater than seemed entirely rational and that had, the first time Heero had listened to this, confused him a little. “You always answer!”

He never would have thought of Duo as a drinker. Technically they were still too young to drink legally in most places anyway, but nobody ever said no to Duo. And evidently, once Duo had Saturdays off, alcohol was the order of Friday nights. A lot of alcohol. Well, Heero didn’t know specifically how much it took to get Duo drunk, but his estimate was ‘a lot.’

“I was at the bar, but… I forget… no, I came home from the bar…”

Heero might have worried about this new or apparently new pastime of Duo’s, except that it never seemed to interfere with his work or his health. At least it hadn’t the last six weeks. And unless it crossed that line, it wasn’t Heero’s business what Duo chose to spend his weekends on. Though he might like it to be.

Duo’s voice from the car speakers continued in a cheerful near-slur. “I came home because I wanted to come home, and I totally ordered this food. Did I order it?” Here he paused for a long moment, as if pondering deeply. “I think I made the taxi guy stop so I could get it on the way home, but maybe I ordered it too. Yeah, I think I did both.”

This first dissertation about the food (ordered or stopped for or both) had been recorded by pure coincidence when Heero hadn’t been able to get to the phone in time. In fact he’d been in the bathroom, because mundane circumstances sometimes led to extraordinary ones. Emerging, he’d seen that Duo had called, but assumed he would leave a message or call back if it was important. And leave a message Duo had.

“Yeah, so, this food! It came in a box! A paper box. Like I was going to pack it up and mail it to you. I could put your address — I mean, I did put your address: I took a marker and I really wrote your address right on this box.”

Heero hadn’t been aware that Duo knew his address at all; he definitely hadn’t been aware that Duo knew his address well enough to remember it when drunk. He would have liked to see that take-out box.

“Not like I’m actually going to send it to you, but I could because it’s in a cardboard box — I mean, a paper box; it’s that kind of thick paper that’s like cardboard — and it has your address on it. I wonder what the mailman would think!”

Of course Heero had originally intended to delete the message after listening to it, as he would any other, but, from a certain point onward, that had suddenly ceased to be an option, even had its entertaining nature not prevented him.

“Oh, I have this… I have this!” Evidently abruptly distracted from the box, Duo had begun laughing at its contents. “I have this shrimp. Shrimp is hilarious. It looks like wrinkled fingers or something.” He made a squeaking noise — “ee-ee, ee-ee, ee-ee” — then laughed again. “Oh, you can’t see that, can you? Too bad. It’s like some kind of monster with these fingers is trying to claw its way through the window, only it doesn’t have any claws, because it’s shrimp.” He paused.

“Heero, I want to eat shrimp with you.” This was spoken so levelly, so earnestly, that taken out of context it would have seemed entirely sober. But then he continued at a moaning, pathetic sing-song, “I waaaant to eeeeaaaat shriiiii–” and cut himself off abruptly. “Oh, wait,” he said in an I-just-remembered tone, “you’re allergic to shrimp, aren’t you?”

How he’d known this in the first place, let alone how he’d remembered it at that point, Heero hadn’t the faintest idea.

And when he added almost disgustedly, “I’ll never eat shrimp again,” Heero had to grin.

Whether the misery of this realization had been too much for Duo, whether he’d dropped the phone into his shrimp, or whether something else equally logical had occurred to end the call, Heero would probably never know. In any case, after a few moments the computerized voice announced, “End of message. To delete this message–”

“Save,” Heero cut her off.

“Message re-saved. Next message.”

The second time, though the pattern hadn’t yet been established, Heero had anticipated it and deliberately refrained from answering. After that, with two messages in a row, he’d had no doubt on subsequent Friday nights what he was to expect when his phone rang with Duo’s number.

“I’m drinking coffee.” No greeting preceded this statement, and Duo’s tone was that of someone recently blessed with an epiphany and more than a little enthusiastic to share it. “I mean, it’s coffee, but it’s got, like, raspberry schnapps in it; I wanted some coffee, and the bartender thought I’d like this, and she’s right! Wow!”

Heero hadn’t had much occasion to be around intoxicated people. During an assignment, the presence of such — anyone with judgment and abilities chemically diminished — would usually just make his job easier and quicker, and therefore he could get away from them sooner. During anything other than an assignment… well, as previously mentioned, he had no social life. But he’d overheard enough conversations carried out by drinkers and those that hung out with drinkers to be aware that drunks were typically divided into various more and less desirable classes.

“Have you ever tried this stuff? It’s like coffee, but with raspberry schnapps in it. So I was drinking this coffee stuff and thinking about you… I mean, I was thinking about coffee, and that got me thinking about you, because you know how when you drink coffee it’s usually too hot for the first few drinks, but you try to drink it anyway because you need the caffeine to wake you up and you don’t want to wait or you’re going to be late to work, or you’re just really craving the coffee, so you start drinking it anyway, and you usually burn your mouth so half the time you stop being able to taste the rest of the coffee, and you kinda feel like an idiot because of that?”

Heero had heard people mention ‘weepy drunks’ and ‘angry drunks’ and ‘slutty drunks’ and ‘fun drunks’ and he did not care enough to remember what else. It was pretty clear, without going any farther down the list, that ‘fun drunks’ was the category into which Duo fit. Whether he dallied in any of the other divisions Heero didn’t know, as the only evidence currently available was six voicemails that were undoubtedly mere fractions of the nights of drinking on which they’d come. But of the given descriptions, those voicemails definitely represented ‘fun’ more than any other. It took a lot to amuse Heero enough to make him laugh out loud, but the squeaky shrimp noise, as well as several other moments, never failed to have that effect.

“And then the last few drinks have gotten all lukewarm and gross, and you have to force yourself to drink them because you don’t want to waste the last of your coffee and you need all the caffeine, but you almost feel like you’re going to be sick because they’re just that gross temperature that’s not cold but definitely not hot enough, so you do force yourself to drink the last of it because you just have to?”

Not that Duo had to be drunk to make Heero laugh, or even to be labeled ‘fun.’ In fact Heero could say with a fair degree of surety that Duo was his personal definition of ‘fun,’ and made him laugh out loud on a regular basis. Which was something nobody had ever done before. He’d never had a personal definition of ‘fun’ before. It had never mattered before.

“Well, and in between those there are, like, two drinks in the middle, between where it’s so hot it burns your mouth out and lukewarm and totally gross, and those two drinks are… just… perfect… just the perfect temperature, so they’re absolutely like heaven to drink? They’re exactly what coffee should be like and would be like in a perfect world, like, some world where there wasn’t war and stupid terrorism and nobody needed mobile suits or armed space stations or even thought they did?”

How Duo could have altered Heero’s perspective so completely — so that he had come to value the concept of ‘fun’ and his own ability to laugh — Heero couldn’t begin to think. How could one person change him so much? How could one single person render something he’d previously ignored so valuable to him, make him see an entire concept and part of life in so totally a different light?

“Well, I was drinking this coffee — it’s got, like, raspberry schnapps in it; it’s really good — and I got to those two drinks, and, God, they were just perfect, and I was thinking about the world and how things should be and how we’re always working to try and make them, and I was thinking… you’re those two drinks, Heero. You’re those two perfect drinks from that perfect world. I kinda feel like I don’t even need to drink coffee anymore ever again, since I’ve got you around so much of the time.”

The impression the end of this message always made on Heero, a piercing poignancy and wonder, left him so breathless and fragile that the computerized voice had to prompt him twice, then threaten to disconnect, before he managed to tell her to save it.

“Message re-saved,” she said again. “Next message.”

Having chosen the closest florist, by map, out of what was perhaps an unnecessary sense of precision, he’d made it by now more than halfway to his final destination. He was only going to get through three of the six messages on this brief drive. He hoped they would be encouragement enough.

“I saw these…” Duo began. “Ha ha ha, I saw these flowers! Oh, God, Heero, you have no idea about these flowers. I don’t know if he was proposing to her or if they just come from somewhere or what, but they were at the bar, and she had these flowers, and I just…” He laughed incoherently for several seconds. “They were all white, first of all — I mean the flower part, not the, obviously, not the stem or leaves or whatever — they were all white, but that’s fine; I mean, lots of flowers are all white, right? But these… I swear, they looked just like…”

Evidently what they looked just like was about the funniest thing Duo had ever thought of, because once again he dissolved into helpless laughter. When he went on, it was in a breathless, almost choking tone. “They look just like… crumpled… tissue! Like somebody just blew his nose and… stuck the tissue on the end of a flower stem!”

Heero had never heard Duo laugh this hard in person. He’d observed him in pretty serious mirth at times, but at this point it was clear that tears had gotten involved, and it was possible that Duo was not even upright as he made his borderline-incoherent statements. Where he was — whether he’d completely left the bar or was making a fool of himself in its parking lot or restroom hallway delivering this raucous voicemail — wasn’t even clear.

“God, I would never get you flowers like that,” he eventually continued, coming slowly and painstakingly down off his laughter high. “Maybe, like, sunflowers or something, but… what would it say if I got you flowers that looked like used tissues? ‘Oh, I want to blow my nose on you!’ How meaningful! That is not what I would want to mean.”

It was easily, almost painfully apparent: Duo liked him. Duo perhaps even loved him. The problem was that Duo only seemed to realize this when he was drunk. Whereas Heero, who had never been drunk in his life, realized that he liked Duo, perhaps even loved Duo, and had to deal with that awareness, every single almost painfully sober moment of every day.

“End of message. To delete this–”

Duo’s day-to-day obliviousness of this fact wasn’t just almost painful. Because it wasn’t merely that Duo’s ignorance of his own feelings presented a formidable barrier to action — it was the truly awful question of what that ignorance implied. Why was this state of liking or even loving buried so deep that it took intoxication to bring it out? Was there something about being in love with Heero so disgusting to Duo’s awareness that he’d shoved the entire condition into his subconscious for the sake of self-preservation?

“Save.”

On the other end of the spectrum — and Heero had assessed the entire prospect spectrum meticulously over the last few weeks — lay the possibility that love of Heero had come so naturally and transparently to Duo that there had never been the need for a moment of realization — that Duo simply hadn’t noticed yet because loving Heero was so much a part of him that it would have been like noticing the texture of his own skin. This was very much what Heero’s experience had been, but he hardly dared postulate that Duo might have had a similar evolution of feeling. It seemed improbable in the extreme, far too much to be hoped for.

“Message re-saved. Next message.”

The end point was — how would Duo react to a declaration? The range of apparent possibilities was as great as the spectrum of potential reasons for Duo’s ignorance, and the numbers seemed to be against Heero in terms of the desirable/miserable ratio. And that the numbers had been against him many times in the past without having any impact on his subsequent decisions did not improve the situation. The situation that was extremely different, in composition, probable outcome, and consequences for his future and morale, from every previous.

“Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini,” Duo began, “qui fecit caelum et–” but Heero interrupted with a command to disconnect. He would have preferred to listen to the fourth message — and the fifth and sixth — all the way through, not only because he loved listening to them but for their strengthening effects… but he’d pulled into the parking lot of Duo’s apartment complex and needed to turn off the car. He needed to turn off the car, vacate it, walk up to Duo’s door, and knock. He needed to carry his flowers to Duo’s door, remember his preplanned words, and knock. He needed to knock, present his bouquet, present everything, hazard everything.

He needed to refrain from wasting time. It was Friday evening; Heero had changed clothes at work (what to wear and what message it might send having been weighed and judged to a precise point over the last couple of days), gone directly to the florist, and then come here, specifically so as to stage this scene before Duo had a chance to leave for the weekly alcoholic outing. There wasn’t a huge window in which to sit dithering in the car.

Not that Heero was the type to vacillate once he’d made up his mind, no matter the apocalyptic potential of certain possible outcomes of the venture. There came a time, after all, when the truth was more important than the fallout of the truth, and at such a time Heero would simply act, difficult as it might be.

Perhaps that this was so difficult made it a little easier, nonsensical as that seemed. Enough of his original training and brainwashing remained with him still that, when confronted with the seemingly impossible and a situation that spoke directly to his sympathetic nervous system, adrenaline appeared just where he needed it, self-preservation curled up and receded behind whatever he perceived as duty under the circumstances, and he suddenly found himself ready, willing, and able to do whatever he had to do.

Of course that meant he regressed somewhat into a robot, but if that was what it took… Certainly his movements were a bit stiffer (if no less effective) than usual as he closed the car door behind him, taking care not to catch the large bouquet in it, and walked away, but as long as there was no actual sound of grinding gears, he was fine. And as long as his voice didn’t actually have a metallic ring to it, it didn’t matter much if the words he’d chosen and was rehearsing in his head came out sounding scripted. If he could love Duo even knowing what Duo was like when drunk, perhaps Duo could love him even knowing what he was like when a robot.

Toward the building — he was grateful Duo’s apartment was on the opposite side so as not to have treacherous windows looking over this parking lot — past a couple of flower beds laid out and maintained with institutional care — no crumpled tissues here, only boring carnations of a type he’d rejected at the florist — up the concrete stairs to the second floor past doors that interested him far less — was he imagining the smell of coffee brewing behind at least one of them? — and down to the end, to a door that technically looked no different from any of the others yet seemed to glow with life-altering potential like something radioactive, he made his somewhat jerky way.

At this point it was all about the mission. And it wasn’t really as different as he’d considered it before from missions he’d carried out in the past. Failure simply meant the end of the world. That failure, in this case, depended far less on his own performance and far more on outside circumstances lightened the burden somehow.

He arranged the bouquet in front of him against his chest in as casual a hold as he could manage. He forced himself to breathe easily, naturally. He lifted his other hand and knocked in a motion that, though it perhaps lacked grace, certainly lacked hesitation. And with ears far more sensitized than they’d ever been even to the sounds of enemies stealthily approaching through the brush, he caught the sounds within of footsteps approaching, then the deadbolt undone, then the knob turning.

And then the door opened.

I’ve rated this fic .

This story is included in the Gundam Wing Collection ebook (.zip file contains .pdf, .mobi, and .epub formats).

Eloquent

Jul 19, 2011 | Art Archive Entries, Fiction, Gundam Wing Fanfiction, Visual Art

I guess that’s what we are… just kids who don’t know what we’re doing. But at least we have each other. I think.

The ambiguous comfort two confused soldiers can offer each other may be precisely enough.

I would get naked for Heero Yuy anytime, anywhere, no matter what was going on. Back alley? Sure. Open street? Why not? Fire fight? Bring it on. Space battle? Well, you get the picture.

OK, I may be exaggerating just a little. I might have to give him an I.O.U. if I was on a mission at the time. But you’d better believe that when he comes in, dirty, ragged, sweaty, tired, to the motel room we just happen to be sharing (absolute coincidence, I swear) and gives me that look, I’m not about to hold back.

Just because I’ve finally managed to get him to open up to me in certain ways doesn’t mean I can usually get him to talk about whatever this is that we’ve got going here, and it’s a little frustrating not knowing whether or not there’s actually an us in this situation because he always avoids the subject. He’s very good at avoiding subjects. But then sometimes he gives me that look, and there’s no need for words.

I hustle him out of his clothes and equipment and into the shower, mostly just because I don’t know what he’s been crawling through, but I can’t even wait for him to half get started cleaning up before I join him. It’s probably a good idea anyway; the hot water available in this place is limited, so it’s better for us both to get clean at the same time before it runs out. Not that I’ve really got anything ‘clean’ in mind at this point. This braid can last without attention for another couple of days.

Despite the fact that he gave me that look, really the only way I can tell he doesn’t mind what I’m doing is the lack of any actual objection. If he didn’t want me putting my hands all over him, if he didn’t want me pushing him up against the plasticky shower wall and sucking on his neck, if he didn’t want my fingers wandering quite so far down his body, he’d tell me, undoubtedly by means of a bullet or two.

I haven’t been able to decide whether I like it better when he tops or when I do. I know that what I like best is both in a row, but that’s not a frequent occurrence. We just don’t have that kind of time, even when we do happen to, absolutely coincidentally, be sharing a motel room because we’ve both got missions in the area. We need sleep — actually, I should have been in bed hours ago, but I was waiting around for him — so there’s no opportunity for doing things the way I’d really prefer.

I don’t have the faintest clue which he likes better either, but usually when he gives me that look, it means that he wants to take it from me. OK, I don’t really know that it does mean that; just that’s how things end up, and he doesn’t complain.

In fact I never get any feedback on this from him. Slower? Faster? Harder? Softer? Different angle? Different position entirely, maybe? It seems like it’s all the same to him, and if I ask, he just turns red and mumbles something I can’t understand; if I insist, he gets angry. But I must be doing something right, since he spreads his legs a little wider and shifts his hips with just the faintest groan of pleasure, and over my hand that’s braced against the wall he puts his own, his fingers pressing at mine as if he wishes they could be interlocked.

If only I knew, though, whether he really likes it like this or if there’s something else I could be doing. I’d do anything he asked, if he’d just ask. I mean, I’m noisy as Hell when he’s the one taking the lead, and he tends to do whatever I ask… I’d love to return the favor… But maybe he really is OK with it like this. I just wish I knew.

He doesn’t seem to have any problems orgasming, anyway.

And, God, neither do I, when he tightens up around me like that.

So afterwards there actually does turn out to be some real getting cleaned up. I just can’t help lavishing attention on my beautiful Heero, even if it is only with this crappy little hotel soap and a tiny travel bottle of shampoo that I could have used on myself but would rather use on him.

And sometimes… sometimes… I even get the feeling that he likes it. That’s probably wishful thinking on my part, though, since I don’t really know how I ever manage to get that impression. Not that Heero isn’t extremely good at subtle cues; I just never thought I was all that good at picking up on them.

I still don’t bother with any washing of myself beyond just the basic standing under the spray, since I’ve spent my entire allowance of hot-water-time on Heero; anyway, since I’ll be the one crawling through mud and God-knows-what-else in the morning, it doesn’t really matter. And I’d much rather get to the toweling-Heero-off phase quicker anyway.

Even when he’s tired out and obviously not terribly happy, there’s only so much coddling a guy like Heero can take before he pushes my hands away with a grumble and does the rest on his own. I don’t mind; actually, I think I would seriously worry if he let me do too much for him. But he doesn’t object to me checking the bed for parasites, turning off the lights, and half tucking him in before I lie down beside him. And then we sort of sink into each other in this nice kind of melty way where our breathing is almost synchronized and we are, if not totally relaxed, at least fairly comfortable together.

I love this more than anything, and it’s not just that the sex is incredible — though it definitely is. For a few hours in a cheap motel that thinks we’re a couple of illegal immigrants trying to keep our heads down and find work and a more permanent place to stay, before we have to go separate ways that are pretty much guaranteed to lead to gunshots and explosions and mobile suits battles, I can pretend to forget about the rest of the sphere.

I can pretend to forget that I have no idea who’s going to suffer because of what I’m doing, and the fact that nothing’s going to change that; Hell, they might be suffering already as I’m doing it; innocents might be hurting right now, and I can’t even offer them a quick death, because I have no idea who or where they might be. And at the same time, the fighting is so often invigorating and fun, and maybe it really shouldn’t be; maybe I’m turning into someone who enjoys hurting other people; maybe I’m not doing any of this because I think it’s going to help, but how the Hell can I even tell? Is the specific destruction I cause going to do any good, short-term or long-term? Maybe this whole damn plot is just an insane and pointless string of terrorism that’s actually just making everything worse… and maybe I don’t care. I don’t even know anymore.

But in here, things are different. Here, I can be with someone I definitely do care about, and concentrate on the good feelings between us. Here I know for a fact that I’m fulfilling a need of someone I maybe kinda sorta love. The simplicity and positivity are so totally opposite everything else I have to deal with in this shitty Hell of a war, it’s like we’ve shifted into another dimension entirely.

He’s clinging a little tonight, and I cling right back; we huddle together in the bed more like a couple of kids protecting each other from the dark than a couple of soldiers who happen to be ambiguous lovers taking a momentary break from a war. And, really, I guess that’s what we are… just kids who don’t know what we’re doing. But at least we have each other. I think.

“So what brought this on?” I wonder eventually, so quietly that he probably feels my words through his skin more clearly than he hears them. “Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

Heero takes an almost inaudible deep breath and actually answers the question, which is a bit of a surprise. In that forced tone he sometimes uses when (I’m fairly sure) what he has to say isn’t something he’s reluctant about, necessarily, but something he’s not entirely certain how to articulate, he murmurs, “Out there, everything is… twisted. Here, with you, it’s right.”

I wonder if he can feel my increase in heart-rate as he says it. Miserable as the sentiment itself is, at least in part, it’s fucking glorious to realize that he was thinking the same thing I was, even if he took about two hundred fewer words to express it.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “You’re absolutely right.” And I hold him tighter.

It’s funny how just a short little phrase like that can make me feel so much better about everything. I still may not be entirely sure about the degree of us I’ve got to work with here, I still definitely have to go back out and play Death God tomorrow, and, really, nothing in the world has changed… but somehow this kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing is suddenly a little less afraid of the dark. And I fall asleep relatively content, thinking that, for all I complain about the amount of effort it sometimes takes to get things out of him, at other times Heero really is every bit as eloquent as he needs to be.

Holy Tolkien, did I write something in the canon setting? It looks like I did. It’s a fairly generic soldiers-comforting-each-other-with-romance-or-the-next-best-thing kind of plot, but everyone has to write at least one of those, right? I think I’d read one of those in the GW world before I’d even ever seen the series XD I’ve rated this story .

This story is included in the Gundam Wing Collection ebook (.zip file contains .pdf, .mobi, and .epub formats).

On Your Mark

Nov 12, 2008 | Art Archive Entries, Fiction, Gundam Wing Fanfiction

They hovered above the city and both looked out for the same absent person.

Duo and Relena aren’t going to let a little thing like romantic rivalry get in the way of their friendship.

Relena didn’t have nearly as much attendant staff these days, but still it was damn hard to catch her alone; he’d followed her for hours, in fact, before he managed it. It probably wasn’t even necessary to talk to her privately — most of her aides surely knew who he was anyway — but old habits died hard.

“Delivery for you, ma’am,” he said in his casual-professional tone as he held out the envelope in her direction.

She was emerging from a bathroom (such the expedient to which he’d been driven), but if she was startled either by his sudden greeting, his playing a delivery boy again, or his presence in general, she didn’t show it. Accepting what he offered with barely a glance at him, she stepped out of the way of the door she’d just let swing shut behind her and opened the envelope.

He thought she probably was surprised to see him, as her reaction was just a little too politic. If she hadn’t been at all surprised, she would have greeted him; her first remark would have been more like, “Oh, hello, Duo; how long have you been in town?” and less like, “Who is this from?” as she looked at the all-day-pass to the local fair that the envelope had contained.

“Oh, did I…?” Duo patted himself down in an exaggerated fashion and pulled out his own ticket. Flipping it over, he nodded in understanding. “I put the wrong one in there. Pretend you never saw that; this one’s actually for you.”

With a somewhat skeptical smile, she accepted the trade and examined the new ticket. It was identical to the first, of course, except that on the back it read, How about a day at the fair with some old friends tomorrow? –D.M.

“I fail to see the point of writing a note on the back when you knew you’d be delivering it yourself,” she smiled. “And do I even want to know how you knew I had a clear schedule tomorrow?”

“Probably not,” he replied with a grin. “And I wasn’t planning on delivering it myself, but my other plans fell through. Good thing I did!”

She glanced at the pass again, and when she looked back up at him she had a slight, hopeful spark in her eyes that had not been there before. But her tone was merely curious as she asked, “‘Old friends?'”

“Yeah, Heero’s here too,” replied Duo, perfectly casual. “Unfortunately…” He held up the third day-pass that was still in his possession. “Convincing him that having fun is OK sometimes is something I just can’t do.”

The barest tilt of head and narrowing of eyes was all the indication Relena gave that she didn’t miss the unspoken addendum ‘yet.’

“You two are here together?” she asked. Duo might be good at making casual statements simply because casual was one of his basic modes of conversation; Relena was good at making casual statements because she’d become so practiced at all modes of conversation. Of course, when they both knew that the casualness of the statements they were making was deliberate, the entire meaning was altered.

“Naw,” he answered, not letting the light informality slip a jot. “We both have assignments here, so we’ll be in your hair for a while, but we’re not ‘here together.’ I had to track him down just to try — and fail — convincing him to come to the fair with us.”

“You might fail convincing me too,” she warned.

“How could I possibly fail twice in a row?”

“Tomorrow is my only free day before the conference, and I really can’t think of anything less relaxing to do than spend the day at a fair with you.” Her smile and friendly tone took any possible sting out of the words.

“Less relaxing??” He threw his arms out in astonishment. “How could anything be more relaxing than pretending to be a normal person for a day?! We can wait for rides and complain about how hot it is and how our sunscreen smells and how long the lines are like it’s the worst problem we’ve ever faced! Or moan about the concession stand prices or how much it costs just to buy a stupid baseball hat — ’cause the day-pass only gets you unlimited rides, not food and stuff, you know! And wonder how anyone can get drunk in the middle of the day on cheap fair beer and puke on the roller coaster and then decide not to go on that particular roller coaster and go on some kiddie ride next to it instead and get strange looks because we barely fit in the seats! Come on, seriously, how could you not think that’s the greatest way to spend your day off you’ve ever heard of?”

By the end of this little oration she was laughing, and raised her hands to ward off further persuasion. “Well, I’m not sure how, with that description,” she grinned, “but you’ve convinced me. I should hire you to write speeches for me.”

“It’s more the delivery, I think.” He returned the wide smile, his somewhat triumphant.

“With enthusiasm like that, it’s no wonder you scared Heero off.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Who says I tried that approach with Heero?”

Hers did much the same. “I wouldn’t trouble you to tell me what you try with Heero.” And there followed a sudden silence that, though brief, was palpably tense.

Finally Duo said, “So, meet me at opening time?” continuing the conversation naturally as if there had never been a break of any sort. “That’s eleven. And don’t come in a limo, OK?”

With a mildly skeptical look she answered, “Only if you promise not to come in a mobile suit.”

“No, that’s reserved for very special occasions,” he said aloofly.

“Like the limo.”

He grinned. “See you tomorrow, then!” And, pulling down over his eyes the cap he’d lifted to talk to her, he turned and sauntered victoriously away.

Duo was a little early the next day, or so he guessed by the fact that Relena was not there when he arrived at the sidewalk just outside the fair gates. He’d lost his watch, and therefore couldn’t be entirely sure that he wasn’t actually incredibly late, but the last clock he’d seen had only said 10:30 so he figured he was OK. He leaned against the wall beside the gate in the shade of a tree growing out of a square patch of mossy earth in the asphalt and waited.

While thus engaged, he couldn’t help noticing a somewhat gawky girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen, pass by at least three times — mostly because each time she did, she threw such a look of longing onto the fairgrounds as to be downright heartbreaking. She was wearing the kind of sensible, unfashionable clothing that spoke of guardians that, while not necessarily badly-off, were definitely on the frugal side; probably the type that would never even consider going to a fair unless somebody else paid, or perhaps for a once-every-five-years family treat.

The fourth or fifth time she stopped and peered around the ticket booths at the colorful hints of towering rides beyond, Duo fished through his pockets and stepped up to her. “Here you go,” he said in something like a conspiratorial whisper, and put the third pass into one of her open hands before she had time to register his presence. “Have fun,” he said, ruffling the girl’s hair and moving on almost before she could understand what she now held.

He found Relena watching him as she approached up the sidewalk from the bus stop on the corner, and ran toward her, waving. The expression on her face indicated that she’d marked the exchange. “How nice of you!” was her greeting. “That girl looked like you made her whole week.” Her tone was somewhat forlorn, for some reason, as her eyes followed the progress of aforementioned girl through the turnstile.

“You say that like it’s something you wouldn’t have done,” he protested, scratching his ear.

“But you do it so freely… It’s more like camaraderie than charity.” She smiled ruefully, shaking her head. “From me it would seem condescending. I think your kindness is easier for… some people to accept than mine sometimes is.”

For the sake of fairness he replied, “Well, if mine’s freer, that means yours is worth more, right?”

Her smile turned slightly amused. “Let’s go in. Something came up for this afternoon, so we only have a few hours.”

With a shake of his head, “Why am I not surprised…” he murmured.

As he’d told her yesterday, it really was pleasant, every once in a while, to pretend to be an innocent tourist with no more interest in people’s destiny than who was cutting in line at the slushee stand and no more pressing concerns than accidentally stepping on chewing gum and feeling slightly grossed-out. So, through an almost dizzying succession of rides and the obligatory hot dogs and giant pretzels, he teased her about having taken the bus to get here — what did her staff think of that?? — and having worn slacks — had she ever worn jeans in her life? — and she gave him what news of the area she thought would be good (or at least somewhat entertaining) for him to know.

At last they came before the appropriately- if inelegantly-named Snake-Knot, the largest ride in the park, an impressive roller coaster boasting some supposedly phenomenal number of loops at some unheard-of speed. As if by one accord they paused before its monumental gates and stared.

“Scared?” Duo asked after a long moment.

Relena gave him the same mildly skeptical look she’d used for his limo comment yesterday.

“Well, let’s go, then!” And he dragged her to where the line began.

It definitely resembled a knotted snake; it had twists and g-forces and white knuckles and all the traditional roller coaster creaking and rumbling… it just wasn’t all that much fun. Beside him, though, he could hear Relena laughing breathlessly throughout most of the ride. She never shrieked like the girls in the other cars did; she was obviously affected, but it would take more than a little shakeup like this to get such a childish reaction out of her. Her laughter was infectious, though, and her genuine pleasure a treat to watch; it enhanced and enlivened what would otherwise have been a rather dull experience.

“That was fun,” she remarked with honest enthusiasm as they were disembarking.

Duo shrugged.

“You didn’t enjoy it?” she wondered. “I would have thought that was just your type of ride.”

He made a well-what-can-you-do? gesture with his hands and then put them both behind his head as they moved away from the machine. “I guess after piloting a Gundam, rides like this just aren’t the thing. Sure, nobody’s shooting at you on the ride, but that whole element of mortal peril really makes a difference, you know?”

Laughing softly, she said nothing for a moment, but then remarked quietly, “Heero would probably agree with you.”

Duo nodded slowly. “Yeah, he probably would.” Unwilling to let it go at that, though, he gave her a sidelong glance and added, “But he’d probably enjoying watching you enjoy it.” He shrugged again and grinned. “I mean, I did.”

Without answering, Relena was looking toward the next ride on their theoretical list; Duo followed her gaze and saw to his dismay that the line was twice as long as the one for the Snake-Knot had been.

“I don’t think I can handle that right now,” she almost groaned.

“I knew you were scared,” he grinned in triumph.

“No more than you are,” replied she in mock haughtiness.

As they were already ambling somewhat unconsciously toward a shaded bench rather than toward the next ride, Duo decided to let fate run its course and agreed with her. “Standing in line shouldn’t be nearly so tiring,” he complained as he sprawled onto the seat, threw his head down over the back, and stared wearily into the sky.

“Standing anywhere for a long time is tiring,” Relena said; her tone was just as worn-out, but also very knowing. And he reflected that she should know; she probably did more standing still on any given day than he’d done his entire life.

He sighed and closed his eyes, relaxing the same way he did everything else: as if it were the most important thing he could possibly be doing at the moment, making rest into an almost active pursuit. As such, it was doubly effective, and after not too long he straightened and looked around again.

Relena was watching him with a neutral expression but an eye that didn’t appear to be missing any detail of his figure. She seemed to be studying every part of his body as she might study some do-it-yourself equipment she had to put together… or maybe take apart. He grinned at her and, leaning into a new, different lazy pose, returned her scrutiny with interest.

She was so poised, even sitting here on a dirty bench at a fair wearing the most casual clothing he’d ever seen on her; the way she held herself was just so quietly elegant and yet somehow tense, ready for anything. There was something about her expression that said simultaneously strength, experience, innocence, and purity. He had no idea how she pulled it off.

Then her body was so nice too, for a woman’s. Nice limbs, good proportions, trim but not unhealthily thin. And her face was beautiful, what with expressive eyes, kissable lips, cute little ears, and all that. There was just no way an intelligent person could fail to have their eye caught. It was disturbingly possible that few intelligent people could fail to be attracted. If they were into women.

“I really like your hair,” she said suddenly, “you know that? I always have.” And she smiled at him.

He flipped his braid casually over the edge of the bench and returned the smile. “Thanks. But yours is nice too; that cut you’ve got now looks really good on you.”

Her smile widened slightly. She knew he didn’t lie, so she was able to accept the compliment exactly as it was meant — that is, on both levels. “Thank you,” she nodded.

“Hey, son, why not buy your sweetheart a souvenir?” called a barker from a nearby stall. “Don’t just sit there talking her to death!”

After glancing over at the man, Duo looked back at Relena; as their eyes met, they both smirked slightly. It was no surprise: anyone observing the previous exchange, even from a distance, would have instantly misinterpreted the tension between them.

“Well, fine.” Duo jumped up. And he sauntered to the stand to look over the logo-chocked keychains, pencils, stuffed animals, and whatnot arranged there. “A souvenir for my sweetheart,” he announced, picking out the ugliest item he could find (the fair’s anthropomorphic frog-mascot really didn’t add any appeal whatsoever). After paying for the overpriced whatever-it-was, he shoved it into his pocket and turned away. Then he stopped with deliberate abruptness and turned again. “I guess I’d better get her one too,” he said to the barker, tilting his head in Relena’s direction.

“Oh…” the man said, chuckling in some abashment, and accepted Duo’s second payment for another incredibly unattractive bit of nonsense.

“That was unnecessary,” Relena chided upon Duo’s return.

He presented the keychain with a flourish. “And I don’t really have a sweetheart.”

Taking it and looking it over with open skepticism she murmured, “Then you lied to the gentleman.”

“Oh, no,” Duo protested, “as long as I just hang onto it until I do have a sweetheart to give it to.”

“If it’s as ugly as this one–” she twirled his magnanimous gift around her raised pointer finger– “someone should do your intended sweetheart a favor and keep you away.”

His eyes narrowed somewhat as he reached out a hand to help her up. “They can try.” Oops, that was too blunt, wasn’t it?

She took his hand and stood, facial expression acknowledging his slip but words moving on: “Let’s ride the ferris wheel.”

“Good idea.” He hadn’t planned on the ferris wheel, given that he knew it from painful experience to be the most brain-crushingly boring ride ever invented, but now he realized suddenly that it was about the same as sitting around on a bench — so they might as well.

“I want a blue one,” he mused as they stood in line watching the ponderous circle move through its slow paces.

“I don’t think we get to choose,” Relena replied. He thought she was watching a blue one too, though. It was almost the right shade, even.

They were out of luck, ending up in a car the color of vomit, but once inside it didn’t really matter as the color was no longer visible. Ascending in silence, they gazed out opposite windows and felt the increased wind as they approached the highest point (except for some Doom Tower thing not far off) of the entire fair. Beyond the latter’s walls and fences the city was visible: alive, indifferent, gratifyingly peaceful.

As the wheel rotated slowly, giving each car its minute at the top, Relena finally broke the silence, though in such a soft, light tone that she almost hadn’t. “So he’s out there somewhere, is he?”

“Yeah.” Duo glanced at her, but she was still staring out the window on her side of the car not looking at him. Shaking his head, he returned to his own view.

“Do you ever wonder what he does?” she asked. “When you’re not around, I mean.”

“Not really; I pretty much know the gist of it.”

“Not what he’s physically doing… what he’s…” She laughed faintly. “It’s hard to describe what I mean. When he’s around, do you ever get the feeling… that he’s alive there… for you… but that when you leave he… shuts off somehow?”

So all of a sudden the subtlety had been completely abandoned; was that it? There was, somehow, an oddly pensive and almost mournful atmosphere in the small car as they hovered above the city and both looked out for the same absent person.

“You mean like his human side comes out when you’re around,” Duo continued for her, figuring he might as well, “and you get the feeling not many other people ever see it? And you kinda hope that maybe it’s actually for you that it happens?”

“And it hurts thinking of him thinking he has to live that way?”

“And you hope that maybe you can become what he needs to realize he doesn’t?”

“Why did you tell me he was here?”

They were descending now, and Duo watched in pensive silence as the ground, and the multitude waiting for their chance at mind-crushing boredom, approached gradually. This hadn’t been that boring after all, though — little as the actual ride had to to with that.

“Duo,” Relena persisted, reaching out and taking his hand so he was forced to pay attention, “you didn’t have to tell me that Heero was here too. We could have done this without him today and I would never have known.”

“You know, I thought about it,” he admitted. “But…” He shook his head and gave her a relutctant grin. “Somehow him and me both here, right under your nose, without you knowing… it felt like a lie.”

Almost mimicking his movement and expression, Relena also shook her head and smiled. “What a good sport,” she murmured.

At that moment the ride attendant opened the door to their car, and gave them a knowing (or, rather, mistaken) look at the sight of Duo’s hand in Relena’s. The latter two exchanged another amused glance and disembarked.

“I wanna try that Doom thing,” he pointed.

“More simulation that can’t compare to reality?” she wondered with a raised brow.

“Two friends at a fair,” he pontificated, “are going to have fun no matter how lame the ride is.”

“Though it’s probably more fun if you both have that reality in your experience to compare it to.”

“Not necessarily! Sometimes it’s more fun to be with someone who hasn’t ever…” He scratched his head and ended somewhat lamely by half-quoting her, “…’had that reality in their experience.'” And he laughed at himself. As if the few minutes spent in the ferris wheel had been sublimely lifted above the entendres and unspoken ripostes, the subtlety seemed to have returned the moment their feet touched down on the ground again. Not that Duo minded — it seemed kinder this way, and it was rather entertaining… he just wasn’t very good at it.

The Doom Tower actually turned out to be somewhat fun on its own merits, and Relena’s reaction to being lifted 150 feet and dropped again made the experience better than it would otherwise have been. But looking at her watch after it was over and once she had her balance back, she frowned slightly. “We don’t have much time left; I don’t think we’ll make it through any more lines before I have to leave.”

“Aw, but I was looking forward to standing in more lines!” he complained facetiously.

“I know you were,” replied she in mock sympathy. “But let’s play some of the games instead.”

“I guess that’s kinda like standing in line…” he allowed with a show of reluctance.

So they took turns paying to throw rings at bottles and fake shuriken at wooden targets. Partly as a handicap and partly just because it was fun, Duo did them all with his eyes closed or after spinning around several times. Relena laughed, but eventually ordered him to do the next one properly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he acknowledged, snapping off a salute, before taking his place at some sort of rifle-contraption that shot a stream of water at a hole that filled up a balloon somehow. It obviously wasn’t designed with people like Duo in mind; the attendant glanced at him rather skeptically when he practically aced it almost without trying, and her tone was very grudging as she said, “That’s the highest score we’ve had all day.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Duo replied with a lopsided smile.

“You can pick any prize from the second row down.” The attendant gestured at the almost painfully colorful set of stuffed… things… available for his perusal.

“What?” demanded the young man, “Not the top row??”

“You’d have to get that same score three times in a row to get something from the top.”

Duo waved away the suggestion that he spend even more money on this kind of thing. “Well, that’s not worth it. Give me…” He scanned the hanging animals thoughtfully and finally pointed. “That one.”

“Do you always choose the ugliest thing on purpose?” Relena wondered as they walked away from the booth.

“What??” Duo pulled an exaggerated expression of wounded surprise. “You think it’s ugly?? I got it for you!”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

Examining briefly the large, shiny, blue and green bear that looked like it could burst its cheap seams at any moment, Duo handed it to Relena with a full-fledged bow this time. “You’re supposed to give your prizes to the girl,” he informed her in a tone that suggested she really should have known that.

With a defeated gesture and an amused half-roll of eyes, Relena accepted the second hideous gift. An expression something like nostalgia passed swiftly over her face before the latter reverted to the same casually friendly smile she’d been wearing most of the day.

“I may not always be so generous,” he added, wondering what she was remembering.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, though her smile didn’t change. “You may not have occasion to.”

She was steering them toward the exit now, so obviously playtime was over. Duo pondered whether that should extend as far as their conversation as well, and couldn’t quite decide. It turned out he didn’t need to, for as they left the fair gates behind them (he with a stamp on his hand in case he wanted to come back later) and approached the bus stop, Relena turned toward him suddenly with a serious expression.

“Duo…”

“Yeah?”

“We’re friends.” The inflection said ‘statement,’ but her eyes said ‘question.’

“Yeah?”

“We’re not the closest friends, but still I think we’re strong enough to stay friends through just about anything.” Now those gentle, purposeful eyes were almost challenging, but there was still something ineffably insecure about her expression. How many friends had she lost in the struggles and twists of life of war? And was she to lose Duo, whom by her own admission she hardly even had, over this unspoken rivalry? Funny thing was, he would be very surprised if the exact same look wasn’t in his own eyes.

His grin in reply was a little softer than usual. “That sounds about right,” he said.

Immediately the smile of the day was back on her face, though the friendliness of the expression had perhaps deepened somewhat. She extended her hand. “Let’s shake on it,” she suggested mildly.

He complied without hesitation. “It’s a deal,” he said.

The bus pulled up in front of them, and Relena released his hand and jogged toward it. “Thanks for the day, Duo!” was her goodbye.

“Thanks for coming!” he called back. “Have fun at your conference!” And he waved as she climbed aboard; she waved back, and then was out of his sight.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he turned and ambled away from the bus stop. The fair really had been fun; he could even go back now if he wanted. But it just wasn’t the same alone. He knew how it could be even better, though, than it had been with Relena, and was pondering a second attempt at setting up that particular situation.

He might as well, he reflected with a grin. The starting gun had sounded, after all; it wouldn’t do to stand around and let someone else win the race.

This was my first Gundam Wing story, and was intended as a friendship fic disguised as a rivalry fic. Did it work as such? I’m not sure. I’ve rated it .