Adult-FanFiction.org : Gundam, Beyblade, DBZ, FMA

Sand Castles	By : kracken Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male > Heero/Duo Views: 2255 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing and I don't make any money off of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Sand Castles
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
- 7-7
- 8-8
- 2
- 3
- 4
"This way, Yuy!" Sally Po said as she passed him in the hallway and plucked at his sleeve. "You know you need the physical and I have the time."

Her hair was caught up in a braided bun at the back of her head and that had a few pencils and pens stuck into it. In her baby blue lab coat, peppered with Preventer medical badges, and with her computer pad tucked under one arm, she still looked like the no nonsense soldier from the war. Her voice, used to command, had Heero falling in beside her even as he protested.

"I was going to speak to Duo."

"He won't talk to you," Sally assured him. "He won't talk to anyone, as a matter of fact. You'll only be standing outside of his room and getting bored, if you try."

Heero didn't say anything else until they were in Preventer medical, in her private examination room, and away from anyone who could hear their conversation. Then he said simply, "Trowa believes that Duo might be looking for a hero's funeral."

"Take off your jacket and shirt," she ordered as she made notes on her medical pad. Without looking up, she replied. "We' re all aware of how fragile Duo has become. I can't discuss his case with you, but I can ask you some questions, because your answers might impact my patient's welfare."

Heero tossed his jacket and shirt over a chair. She looked over his tightly knit body, with it's peppering of scars, and nodded with a pleased smile as she made a note on her pad.

"You've been relaxing," she said. "There's some meat on your ribs for once. I was of the same mind as everyone else, that your 'Gone to the beach' story was just that, a story."

"I want to talk about Duo," Heero replied as he sat on the exam table, feet swinging shy of the floor.

She raised eyebrows at him as she strapped a sensor to his chest and wrist. "A lot of grief could have been avoided if you had bothered to talk to Duo instead of about him with someone else."

Heero frowned. "You don't know anything."

"Then enlighten me?" Sally prodded. "Duo is my dear friend, not just a medical patient. Even a few words from you would have made a difference."

"I wasn't what Duo wanted," Heero managed though the words caused him pain. "I wanted to be. I would have given anything..." he swallowed hard and looked away. "He saw it differently. I wasn't the one who didn't want to talk."

She bit her lower lip, looked confused, and then said, "My interest is in Duo's fragile psyche. He needs to heal. He needs to come to terms with what happened. If you don't handle him right, you could do severe damage. Understand? I won't give away his confidences, but I will say that you do have the power to break whatever that bastard left of him. Support him, as Agent Yuy, but don't try to open old wounds and be something more, now, when he can least deal with it."

Heero recalled that look in Duo's eyes, the one that hinted at things lost that were never, perhaps, to be recovered. "He told me how things were, between us. Whatever I feel, I respect him and his decisions. I'm here to do a mission and then I'll be out of his life again. I won't try to force him to change his mind."

"Force is a good term," Sally said brutally. "When a person is violated as completely as Duo was by that man, it can be just as traumatizing, just as life shattering as any physical attack. He was used, thoroughly. He may never recover from that."

"You shouldn't be telling me this," Heero replied as he pulled off the sensors and reached for his clothes. "That's a violation as well. If he wants me to know it, he'll tell me himself."

Sally looked bitter. "I haven't told you anything. It's the tip of the ice burg, Heero. I'm only warning you, the same way I would warn you to watch out for an injured man on your team. The only difference is, that Duo is injured in a way you can't see."

"I can see it," Heero retorted.

Sally read the readings on a machine and made notes as she said, "Disgustingly healthy, of course. You're free to join the team." She gave Heero a level look. "Don't imagine that you know anything."

"We're all ignorant," Heero growled as he headed for the door. "Keeping ourselves that way isn't going to help anything."

Heero found his room was just as he left it. depressingly free of anything personal. His bag had been delivered. When he set it at the foot of the plain bed, and taken off his gun to place on the lone table, he realized that he had made his room look just like Trowa's.

Heero remedied that by digging into his pack and pulling out several photos. They were elastiphotos. Their laser images of his beach home, his new friends, stretched between his fingers to become large as he touched them to walls. They clung there, bright sunshine and smiles, though, doing little to lift the heavy weight on his heart. A seashell went on the table next to his gun and a small stand up photo that opened up to reveal a well aged picture of Duo during the war. He was half turned towards the camera, cocky smile in place and hair messy and half unbraided as he climbed up his Gundam.

Was that look gone forever? Heero wondered as he smoothed fingers over he image. Was that man, that he had fallen in love with, now a ghost in his memory that he needed to bury and mourn? Sally and Trowa seemed to think that he was.

"Location of Agent Duo Maxwell," Heero asked his cell as he pulled it from one pocket.

"Access code?" the phone asked cheerily. Heero gave it. "Preventer Gym." was his answer.

Heero coded in the location of the surveillance, abusing his permissions ruthlessly. The color image of the gym, on his cell, was small, but he was able to pick out Duo right away. he touched the image to enlarge it.

Duo was dressed in ugly gray shorts and an overlarge white shirt. He was pushing weights up and down at a frantic pace on the machine, his breathing going in and out like a bellows. His eyes were fixed and intense, muscles corded and trembling.

The image gave Heero a small amount of comfort. A man ready to end his life didn't take time to burn off steam, or worry about his physical condition. If Duo was looking for a hero's death, it was possible that it was subconscious, still, not a full blown decision.

Heero tried to imagine how he felt. He could only put it in a context that he could understand if he imagined that it had been Duo. pretending for months to love him utterly, sharing every secret, every intimacy, and promising a life together. Then could Heero feel the pain Duo must be experiencing, the helplessness and violation of watching a promising life and love collapse and burn under the weight of the lies that it had been.

Heero had felt that sting only once, but their love had been a hope, only, not this full blown thing that Duo had experienced. Heero had gone on, not ever willing to kill the hope entirely, but ready to live without it, somehow, if Duo desired it. Wasn't that the difference between love and a lie? He cared that much for Duo, to stand aside if he wanted it, to live alone, for his entire life rather than impose himself where he wasn't wanted, for Duo's happiness.

That didn't mean that Heero couldn't feel bitterness, or even anger, sometimes, at the situation, but he wouldn't ever let it make him hate Duo.

Duo finished his set out of exhaustion, not any agreed on count. Wu Fei was suddenly there, tossing a small sweat towel at him and saying something sarcastic. Duo wiped his face and grimaced. He froze and looked at Wu Fei, and then threw the towel back at him. Wu Fei let it drop. Madness, Heero caught, from Wu Fei, and Duo's, Mind your own business, as he stood and tried to relax over worked muscles. Yuy isn't here just for the mission, from Wu Fei, and then Duo's walking away without another word. Wu Fei stared after him and then seemed to sigh.

"Mind your own business," Heero agreed and turned off the cell. He tossed it onto the table and it clattered against his gun. He didn't think that he, himself, could follow that advice.

TBC
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Sand Castles