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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)	By : shinigamiinochi Category: Gundam Wing/AC > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2207 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing AC or the characters from it. I am making no money from this story

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A Stagnation of Love

Chapter 7

Part 2
　

December 16, 2007
　

I want to talk about forgiveness. I've never experienced it myself. Everyone that I might have wanted forgiveness from is either dead or I know never will. But it's something that people seem to talk about a lot. When I was little, I had thought that it was this powerful, cleansing thing, like being forgiven would make everything that was wrong better. I never went to church as a kid, so my grasp of religion had been pretty murky, but what little I had known about God had all come down to forgiveness. No matter what you did, so long as you were sorry and repented for what you had done, God would forgive you and it was like none of those bad things had happened.

God's forgiveness just washed you clean of all your sins. To me, that had been a magical concept. To be forgiven for everything that I had done wrong, for messing up my parents' lives and not being good enough, in trade just for being sorry about it, was the most wonderful thing. If a serial killer and rapist in jail could be forgiven just by converting to some religion and saying that he regretted all the people that he hurt and he could be forgiven, then couldn't God and my parents forgive me for what I had done? For all my failings?

But what the bible doesn't talk about when it talks about forgiveness is that, even if God forgives you and lets you into heaven, what about the people you hurt? As I got older and really started to think about these things, reading those passages didn't make me feel wonderment anymore. I felt a very strong sense of injustice. Why should a killer be allowed into heaven just by saying he was sorry, while the people that had loved his victims had to deal with the pain of loss every single day? Erasing someone's sins by forgiving them doesn't erase them at all. Rewarding someone for saying sorry after the fact is a crock of shit, as far as I'm concerned. If those people had really wanted forgiveness, had really wanted to go to heaven, couldn't they have not done that terrible thing to begin with?

Because you can forgive someone for hurting you, sure. Everyone seems to think that that's easy. Whenever I hear someone at school talk about a friend that hurt him or a boyfriend that cheated on them or a parent that grounded them from going to some big party, the responses of their friends and our teachers seem split between 'fuck them' and 'oh, just forgive them.' But it's not that easy. Even if you forgive someone, that hurt is still there. When you look at them, you still remember what they did and it doesn't matter how sorry they are because all you can think is 'if you're so sorry, why did you do this in the first place?'

Hate is a simple thing. Human beings remember things that have hurt them and they retain that information in order to keep from being hurt again. Because forgiving someone doesn't mean that they won't do it again. There are no guarantees of that. Faced with that kind of choice, getting hurt or holding on to hate, I think most people wouldn't be able to just forget what that person did to them. I think that, if the hurt is big enough, you just associate that person, their face and name and the sound of their voice, with hate and pain.

Even if you say 'I forgive you', can you really move on from those feelings? They're instinctual, like comfort food. A person associates that food with something good, and as soon as they smell it, they feel those good things, no matter the situation. Even if someone says that they're sorry, how can you just forgive and forget when every time you see them, you hurt? It's a pretty notion, to be able to forgive someone and all the hurt just goes away for both people, but the world doesn't work like that.

Why am I thinking of this now? Because there's someone I need to forgive and I don't think that I can do it. Does that make me a horrible person? Am I just too full of hate, too full of rage to be capable of forgiving anyone? Does that make me a hypocrite, to be unable to do the one thing that I crave? Or are some hurts just too big to forgive? I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should just let go of all these bad feelings, all these bad memories, and try to move forward, or if I'm just going to get hurt again, only worse this time because I'm letting hope in. I haven't hoped in a very long time and it hurts. I want to tell Heero, to ask him for advice, but there's no way I can do that. Not about this.

Ok, back up a bit. December 6th, Thursday, the day after Zechs had beat the shit out of me. It was just one of those days that seemed to never want to end, from the moment that I woke up. After that lovely little conversation with my mother, I made myself some dinner, tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, stole another one of my mother's pain pills, refreshed my ice pack, and returned to the couch. I felt a little bit bad about abandoning Pepper for the night, but I still hurt too much to lie on a flat surface.

The medication helped me sleep hard and long without many dreams. I thought that I had dreamed that my father had come into the living room and raped me right there on the couch at some point in the early morning, but when I woke up in time to get ready for school, the 'evidence' was still there, so I guess it hadn't been a dream at all. It was kind of disconcerting, knowing that he had done that and I had practically slept through it, but it was one less bad memory in my head. If I didn't try to think about the one moment that I had been awake for, before the medicine had made me slip under again, I really could believe that it had just been a ghost of a dream.

I had a thought, just a brief whisper, as I woke up and realized what had happened. I thought about taking more of those pills, or maybe just some heavy duty sleeping pills every night. If I did that, would I be able to sleep through it every time that he crept into my bed? He obviously didn't care if I was awake or asleep for what he wanted. My consciousness... I didn't matter to him. I could be in a coma for all that he fucking cared. And it wouldn't it be nice? Just sleep through a rape, like it never happened. I could pretend that everything is normal again. I would never have to experience that pain and humiliation again. And I would be able to have a decent night's sleep again.

I discarded the thought quickly. While it was a pleasant idea, that was exactly the problem. It was too powerful of a feeling. But the very last thing that I needed was to get addicted to pills. Wouldn't that be hysterical? To go my whole life not getting addicted to the poison that my parents were addicted to, only to get pulled in by something different? I would prove my mother right, that I was just like my father. Booze, pills, anger, sex, drugs, food, what was the difference? Wasn't it all just the same bullshit? Maybe I couldn't do a damned thing about my rage, but I could do something about all the rest.

Thanks either to the medicine or the ice pack, or perhaps a bit of both, my swollen eye had opened a little bit during my sleep, just enough to see. When I went to the bathroom to shower and took a look at myself in the mirror over the sink, I could understand a bit of Heero's fussing the previous day. I really did look like shit. The bruises on my face were still dark and I had a pretty bad black eye. Not the worst that I've ever had, but I knew that I was going to look like half a panda for weeks. Well, unlike when my father hit me, at least if anyone asked why I looked beaten to hell, I could tell the truth for once.

The bruises on the rest of my body looked just as bad as the ones on my face, some of them worse, but the pain wasn't quite as bad as it had been the previous day. I cleaned myself off, made myself a quick, bland breakfast, and left for school. Despite the long sleep that I had had, I already felt exhausted and hoped that I could survive the day without a repeat of yesterday. I had no clue then that I was going to get my wish, but I'm not really sure still if it ended up being better, the same, or worse. I managed to get through my first two classes without anything truly horrible happening. I was gawked at and teased mercilessly because of my wounds, with several of my classmates jeering at me that Zechs had 'given it to that fag good'. It wasn't anything more than what I expected from them, though.

None of my teachers had seemed to care when I showed up to their class that day looking like hamburger meat, so I was a bit surprised when I was summoned to the principal's office, considering that I hadn't done anything wrong. I hadn't even given any of my teachers any lip that entire week. Since I had made friends with Heero, my mood in class has improved a bit and I've found that the attitude that my teachers give me doesn't piss me off as quickly. To my surprise, Principal Stoan had called me down personally after passing me in the hallway before homeroom and seeing my 'state'.

I've mentioned it before, but Principal Stoan isn't so bad. At least, he's better than most of the other adults I deal with at school. He isn't so ready to believe that I'm a juvenile delinquent just because most of my teachers think that I am and tries to be fair with me. I have no idea where he stands about my sexuality. It never came up during our little chat and he didn't offer me any sympathies about it, but he didn't antagonize me over it, either. He didn't offer any well meaning advice or tell me that I wasn't welcome in his school anymore. He seemed a little unsure of himself, maybe a little bit uncomfortable where he hadn't before, but that was ok. I could handle discomfort, hostility is harder.

I won't bore you with the details of what we talked about. He asked me who beat me up and while I could have spun some lie, this man had always been forthcoming to me, so I felt the need to repay him for it. I told him the truth, that I wasn't going to tell him who had done it. He tried to convince me, gave me the whole spiel about how it was the right thing to do, how he could protect me, how I shouldn't protect someone who would do something like that to me. Blah blah blah. I had heard it before. I told him that I wasn't protecting anyone but myself. I told him that any punishment he gave this person was only going to make it worse, not better and there was nothing he was going to say that could convince me to risk more bodily harm.

There was no justice anyway. I didn't tell him that part because I knew he would just send me to the school guidance councilor over it, but that's the truth. What could he possibly do to Zechs? Give him detention? Tell him to talk to the councilor? Expel him? As far as I'm concerned, Zechs deserves to be beaten up every day for the rest of his life, to be made as scared and pathetic as every person he's ever tormented. For everything that he's done to me and Quatre and Heero, he deserves a hell of a lot worse than expulsion. Kicking him out of school wasn't going to stop him from hurting someone else, so what would be the point?

By the time that I was let out of the principal's office, it was the beginning of lunch. I felt this little, out of place, burst of joy. Lunch time meant that I could be with Heero for a little while. And no matter how much I told myself that my feelings were stupid, I couldn't help but feel happy about that. I was one, big, walking bruise, and Heero had been shooting me guilty, apologetic looks all morning, but I didn't even feel it as I left the office and started my way towards the cafeteria.

As I passed by one of the empty classrooms, I heard Relena's voice coming from inside, high pitched in a furious shriek. It's funny, if her brother hadn't beaten the shit out of me, I would have been in the cafeteria already and I never would have happened on the little scene that I saw just then. The world has a pretty fucked up sense of humor sometimes.

"What do you mean you're breaking up with me?!" she was screaming in pure, unadulterated rage.

Now, at this point, every logical, reasonable part of me was telling me to just keep walking, that Relena and Heero's relationship was just that, theirs and none of my business. Usually, I have no problem listening to that part of myself, it's gotten me out of some pretty awful shit before. This time, I couldn't stop my curiosity. It wasn't only that I was snooping for my own curiosity, I also remembered what I had told Heero yesterday, about watching each other's backs. If he really was breaking up with her, things could get really ugly.

"Exactly what I said," Heero's voice was remarkably calm, if worn. I wondered exactly how long they had been having this conversation for, he sounded like someone who was quickly becoming tired of trying to drill a point into someone, "I'm breaking up with you. I don't want to see you anymore."

I dared a peak into the classroom. Heero was standing feet away from Relena with his arm crossed defensively over his chest and looking very tired. His ex-girlfriend, on the other hand, was the picture of frustration and turmoil. She paced around, her face red and her blue eyes sharp with anger.

"You don't know what you're saying!" she screamed, "I won't let you break up with me! You're just confused-"

"I'm not confused," he cut in, "In fact, I'm thinking clearly for the first time since I moved here."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?! Why would you want to break up?! We were perfect together!" she ranted, "This is because of that faggot, isn't it?! Ever since you found out that he has a hard on for you, you've been acting strangely! Refusing to teach him a lesson, turning your back on your friends, hanging out with that little freak! I don't know what's been going on with you, it's like you've gone insane! I don't know what he told you about me-"

"This isn't about Duo," Heero sighed in exasperation, "It has nothing to do with him. I've been thinking about this for a long time, Relena, I just never had the courage to do it. You and I aren't perfect, we never were. The fact is, I never liked you. I lied to you and I used you. When you said that you liked me, that you wanted to date me, I wasn't thinking about what a great couple we would make or how attractive you are, I was only thinking about how ideal it would be, being your boyfriend, the kind of status that it would give me. But I never liked you like that. Hell, I don't even like you as a friend."

"How can you say that?!" Relena burst into tears and some part of me ached for her, knowing what it felt like to love someone and not have them look at you the way that you wanted them to, but after everything that bitch had done to me, I refused to feel sympathy for her and pushed all those feelings aside, "You've found someone else, haven't you?! You're just like everyone's been saying, a womanizer and a cheat! How long has this been going on for?!"

"There is no one else," Heero said tiredly, "There never has been. This has nothing to do with me cheating on you or anything else. I just plain don't like you. You're cruel, a bully, and prejudiced. I've seen the way that you treat, not just Duo, but other people in our class. Hell, I've helped you treat them that way. I was able to ignore it, somehow, but I can't anymore. I don't want to be around you, even as a friend, not if I ever want to be able to live with myself.

"You asked me why I was hanging around with Duo, I think it's obvious. If you would take five seconds to forget about your misguided hate for him, you would see that he's a nice, honest person, someone who's worth being friends with. But instead, you would rather terrorize him. Who would want to date someone who sees the world like that? You might not be able to accept it, but it's over between us. I'm sick of it."

I winced as Relena slapped him so hard that she split his lip open.

"Don't give me that shit! You're just... just a fag lover! You're just as much of a freak as he is! Who would want to date someone as disgusting as you! Go and be friends with that queer! In a week you'll come back on your hands and knees begging me to take you back!"

I took a step back away from the door as Heero stormed through it. In the classroom, I could hear Relena sobbing again. Heero blinked at me in confusion for a moment and I flushed darkly at being caught spying on them.

"I'm sorry," I apologized fearfully, "I shouldn't have listened in on that, I just didn't know if you were going to be ok."

He smiled weakly at me, the red mark on his face almost a twin to the one that my mother had given me.

"It's fine. It... it needed to be done. I should have done it awhile ago," he rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly, "I had no business dating her. I deserve everything she says and does to me for what I did. I used her and I hurt her. I know that you hate her for the things she's done, but that doesn't make it right, what I did."

"No," I agreed, "I might not like her personally, but that was still a shitty thing to do, pretending to like her and getting her hopes up. I won't say that she doesn't deserve it, but it was still cruel," he blushed guiltily at my words, "But at least you're taking a step in the right direction now."

"Yeah," he murmured, glancing back towards the classroom before starting to walk towards the cafeteria.

"They're going to make you pay for it, you know that right?" I pointed out to him.

He studied me and I was sure it was my bruises that he was really looking at.

"I'll survive," he said with a dry smile.

Despite his insistence, I went to lunch with a heavy heart. It wasn't just worry for my friend, the kind of repercussions he was going to get for breaking up with Relena, it was something more. It took the entire time walking to the cafeteria, finding a table, and taking the food that I had packed out of it's brown, paper bag to figure out what it was. Guilt. I felt guilty, not for being responsible for his getting bullied, but for his break up. I knew that it was stupid. Heero was gay and everything that he had told Relena was the truth. He wasn't attracted to her and he didn't even like her as a person. He had gotten himself into this mess and he had, admirably, gotten himself out of it on his own. It wasn't like I had forced him to break up with her. Hell, I hadn't forced him to alienate himself from their group to begin with, it had all been his own decision. So why did I feel like this, like it was my fault that Relena and Dorothy didn't show up to lunch that day, that Heero looked so miserable as he ate his own lunch?

Because wasn't it my fault? If it hadn't been for me blurting out the truth about my sexuality, Heero would never have tried to protect me. If not for me, he would probably still be dating Relena. But was that really something to feel badly about? Sure, Relena was miserable and Heero was feeling guilty, but he had made that bed, too. Just like he had said, he had had no business dating her and using her. Wasn't it a good thing for him to have come clean about it? I wasn't even sure what I felt guilty about anymore, I just didn't like feeling that it was all because of me that Heero's life had been disturbed.

Things escalated even more after that. Word that Heero had dumped Relena got around school pretty quickly and the general feeling of all our classmates was shock and outrage. If it hadn't been happening to someone that I cared about, I would have found it amusing. What is it about so-called 'popular' couples that makes everyone think that they have some stake in their relationship, that that relationship is their business at all? Some of the girls in our class were acting like they had been personally dumped by Heero. That any boy would break up with the rich and beautiful Relena Darlian was inconceivable to everyone except for me. He got more shit for that that day than saving me from Zechs.

Somehow, the rumor that he had left Relena for me or that he was gay didn't get started, for which I was very grateful. We were playing against other volleyball teams in gym that day and for once, it was Heero who was defending against getting hit instead of me. By the time it was over, the both of us were sweaty and pissed off. Heero is more athletic than me by a mile, so at least he hadn't actually gotten struck by a volleyball more than a couple times, and never in the face.

"You want to shower first?" I asked him as we headed to the locker room.

"No, you go, some hot water will probably help," he said, noting how stiffly I was walking.

My various aches and pains hadn't been bothering me overly much throughout the day, but trying to defend Heero from errant volleyballs had not helped my soreness at all. I gladly accepted first dibs on the shower, thoroughly washing my hair and skin free of sweat and dirt. I would have to make another ice pack as soon as I got home unless I wanted my eye to regress. When I got out of the shower and quickly dressed, I noticed that I was the only one in the locker room. Had I taken that long? But Heero wasn't there either. Worry pricked at me.

I left the locker room, expecting Heero to be right there by the bleachers, maybe talking to the gym teacher, but he was nowhere to be seen. The gym was completely empty, which was impossible at that time of day. There was always someone in there. People on teams, getting ready for their after school practices, people loitering and talking to their friends, someone. When I found Heero's backpack sitting next to mine on the bleachers where we had left them, this dark, foreboding feeling filled me. I knew, right then, that something terrible had happened.

I grabbed our things and ran out of the gym, looking for some sign where Heero might have gone, or where he might have been dragged off to. I didn't have to wait very long.

"Hey, come on, man, Zechs is beating the shit out of Yuy in the parking lot, I don't want to miss it!" I heard a boy say to his friend as the two of them ran past me.

"Seriously?!" his friend responded, sounding excited at the prospect of watching a fight.

"Yeah, he finally cornered him about what that asshole did to his sister. Now let's go before it's over!"

"Fuck," I swore under my breath and started running.

Just how long had this been going on for, the entire time that I had been in the shower? My heart pounded in my chest as I imagined my friend bloody and broken under Zechs Darlian's fists. And what the hell could I do about it? Grab a teacher? That would take time. And it wasn't like I could stop Zechs myself, but none of that seemed to matter as I ran frantically out of the school and onto the parking lot. It seemed like the whole damned school was out there, forming a large circle around what I was sure was the main attraction.

For a moment, I flashed to the day that Quatre had killed himself, how the entire school had flocked to the bulletin board to watch his embarrassment. Like a bunch of fucking wild dogs, eager for a scrap of meat. That day, I had been frozen with fear and hadn't been able to do anything. I didn't have that problem this time. Feeling my rage at everyone boiling inside of me, I didn't push it down, I let it fill me up and fuel me. I shoved at my classmates, pushing them aside as I made my way to the center of the brawl. And really, brawl isn't the right term for it. A fight would insinuate two parties attacking each other. This was nothing like that.

To Heero's credit, Zechs was sporting a few bruises on his face and neck, but they seemed like nothing compared to what the bully was doing to my friend. He had Heero by the shirt and was holding him almost off the ground. Heero only had an inch on me and Zechs towered over the both of us. It didn't matter how fast or strong Heero was, just like with everyone else, fighting against Zechs was a one sided match. I looked at Heero with horror, taking in the bruises on his face, the dirty imprint of a shoe on his shirt, his split lip and bloody nose. It was then that I realized that the mass of teenagers were chanting and cheering and goading Zechs on.

"Stop it!" I heard someone scream and it took me a moment to realize that it had been me.

Zechs had been in mid punch, his fist pulled back and he actually did pause. Those icy eyes glanced over at me and the sadistic, cruel smile that graced his lips chilled me to the core. He wore that smile as he slammed his fist into the left side of Heero's face and immediately cocked his fist back to hit him again. With a courage that I sure as hell didn't feel, I burst forward and grabbed at Zechs's arm, trying to keep that blow from landing. My actions were laughable. I was like a kitten trying to stop a crocodile. Zechs shoved me viciously, sending me flying to the ground on my back.

"You can relax now, Yuy," Zechs sneered at him, "The fairy is here to rescue you."

I'm not sure which of us cried out as the arrogant asshole punched Heero in the face again, letting him crumple to the ground, it might have been both of us. I struggled to my feet, unsure of what to do but still ready to try to defend Heero. I was too slow to do anything as Zechs stomped on Heero's stomach, then turned to me, a superior smirk on his face.

"I was done with him anyway," he breezed, laughing at my venomous glare and just like that, walked away from my friend.

The circle of people parted from him, letting him pass like he was some kind of fucking prince. About half of the mass left with him, their entertainment obviously over, but the over half stayed to gawk at the spectacle the two of us made. I don't know what possessed me, my fury becoming some living thing inside of me. I picked up a sizeable rock from the ground and advanced on them. It was incredibly satisfying to see the lot of them take a step away from me. I wanted to crow at them, call them all cowards for being scared of one, little queer.

"Get the fuck out of here!" I roared at them instead, drawing my hand back to let that rock fly if I had to.

They scattered like flies, believing that I really was going to start throwing rocks at them, or maybe I was just that scary in my enraged state. I'll never know if I would have really hurt my classmates like that. Giving in to my rage and hurting people isn't exactly something that I've done a lot, I've always been too scared. But I think that I might have, as angry as I was at that moment. With the spectators gone, the rock fell unused from my hand and I dropped to my knees on the ground by Heero.

"Oh, god, Heero," I said, pained by every injury that he had.

I reached out a shaking hand, almost touching his shoulder, and immediately drew it back, unsure of where he was and wasn't hurt. If I hadn't been so scared, I would have laughed. Wasn't this exactly what had happened yesterday, only Heero and I had switched roles somehow? Now I was the horrified friend, unsure of how to help. To my relief, Heero rolled onto his back and, very slowly, sat up.

"Ow," he muttered, one arm wrapped around his stomach and his other hand covering the left side of his face, "That really, really hurts. Fuck."

His voice was thick and nasally from his hurt nose, which was still steadily dripping blood. I imagined that this was the first time he had ever been hit by anyone.

"Where else did he hit you?" I asked, getting over my shock and the knowledgeable part of me that knew the kind of pain he was in taking over.

"Face, neck, arms and stomach, that's all," he informed me with a wince, "Mostly my face."

I could tell, even with his hand covering the side of his face. He was sporting some really nasty bruises that rivaled my own.

"Put your hand down and hold still," I ordered him.

He removed his hand without complaint and actually looked amused for a moment. I sure as hell wasn't feeling any kind of humor in all of this. The left side of his face was a solid, black bruise and he had a hell of a black eye on that side, the lid swollen shut just like mine had been.

"We're a matching set," he mused with a dry grin.

I rolled my eyes at him, but his ability to crack jokes after getting the crap beaten out of him was making me feel better.

"Quiet, this is going to hurt," I grumbled and touched his nose.

He flinched a little bit, but didn't complain as I examined his face.

"Well, your nose isn't broken at least," I murmured, handed him some tissues that I took out of my book bag and moved my half-assed examination down to his abdomen, making sure that he didn't have any broken ribs.

"You're a lot better at this than I was," Heero said guiltily after cleaning the blood off of his nose. "I didn't know what to do for you."

"Oh shut up," I muttered, pressing against his side and finding everything in tact to my satisfaction, "I get beaten up a lot, so I know what to look for. That's not exactly a good thing."

"Maybe, but you're a lot calmer than I was," he said mournfully, "and you got it worse than I did."

"Yeah, because threatening to throw rocks at people and charging at Darlian was really calm and collected," I muttered sarcastically.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, his bruised brow furrowing in confusion, "Yesterday you said that it was stupid to try to stop Zechs, to just let him do what he wanted. So why did you run at him like that?"

I looked down at the ground, remembering all the warnings that I had given him yesterday. He was right, of course, what I had done was stupid and pointless.

"I know what I said," I murmured, "but when I saw him hurting you... I just lost it."

"Hypocrite," he teased me good naturedly.

I glanced back up at him. His gaze was so warm and for a moment, I wondered if that panic that I had felt when I had seen him dangling from Zechs's grip, he had felt yesterday for me. That thought made me too happy and I had no right feeling that just then. I thought about apologizing to him. Apologizing for not being able to stop Zechs, about being so useless, but I knew that Heero wouldn't accept those apologies. In reality, I knew that there was absolutely nothing I could have done, just like I knew that there was nothing that Heero could have done for me the previous day. But that didn't stop me from feeling guilty. I guess I really am a hypocrite.

"Are you going to be alright?" I asked him seriously.

Heero nodded.

"Hurts like hell, but I think he let me off pretty lightly, considering," he said, rubbing at his swollen nose.

"Stop that," I scolded, "You should put some ice on your eye when you get home. And if you lay down, make sure you keep your head elevated."

"Yes, Dr. Maxwell," Heero smirked and struggled to his feet, wincing as the move hurt his stomach, "It will have to wait, though. I was thinking that we might go to the boardwalk today before you have to go to work."

"Are you nuts?" I asked incredulously, "You just broke up with your girlfriend, got the shit beaten out of you, and now you want to hang out on a cold beach?"

"Maybe I want to celebrate breaking up with Relena, and maybe I want to forget about Zechs trashing me today for a little while, because I'm sure this won't be the last time that he does it. Besides, I'm hungry and I'm sure you are, too. I'll treat you," he offered.

"If you're celebrating, shouldn't I be the one treating you?" I raised an eyebrow at him, "and you're the one who just got beat up."

"Semantics," he waved his hand half-heartedly at me, "Besides, your beating cancels mine out anyway, and I bet I have more money on me than you do."

"Well no shit," I snorted, "Fine, you buy us a snack and I'll buy you some ice for your eye, alright?"

"Deal," he agreed.

Heero took his book bag from me and started to walk, acting like his injuries were no big deal, but he kept one arm wrapped around his stomach for awhile and walked slowly and stiffly. We really were a matching set, I thought wryly. The cold, December air didn't really help, but at least it wasn't as cold as it had been last year at the beginning of Winter. That wasn't much of a relief either because it just meant that we were going to have a late spring. I decided not to tell Heero that as he huddled in his coat when we walked onto the boardwalk, looking miserable at the chilly air. He was going to hate it when winter really hit us.

We split up, him going to one of the food vendors and me going to the far end of the boardwalk. There were various machines at the end, set up specifically for the summer season when that area of the beach would be bustling. Vending machines, photo booths, arcade games, ice machines, all nestled between one of the shops that exclusively sold things that people stupidly forgot to bring to the beach like lotion, hats, sunglasses, and towels, and a carousel for little kids. I paid a dollar to get some ice out of one of the ice machines and wrapped it up in one of the free, plastic bags. I was walking back to the food vendor side of the boardwalk when someone came up on my bad side and shoved me hard into one of the photo booths.

I hit my head on the wall of the booth and grabbed desperately at the bench to keep from falling completely. Someone pushed their way into the booth with me and I heard the curtain being drawn closed. I fully expected to see Zechs leering down at me in that dim booth, it would surprised me one bit to know that he had followed Heero and I from school, but instead, it was his sister glaring at me, the glow from the booth's display giving her blue eyes a freakish tone. Those eyes were full of rage as she looked down at me, her hand clutching a can of something tightly in her fist.

"Just who the fuck do you think you are?" she hissed at me.

"What?" I blinked at her, unable to figure out what was going on.

"What makes a diseased rat like you think that you're better than me?!" she ranted, "What makes you think you even have the right to speak to him, let alone have the gall to call yourself his friend?! How someone as low as you was able to brainwash him into hating me-"

"Look," I interrupted, feeling a bit frightened at her livid, intense expression, "I had nothing to do with Heero breaking up with you, that was his idea. I haven't done anything to him!"

She laughed and it sounded a bit nuts to me.

"Bullshit!" she snarled, "I don't know what you said to him about me, what lies you've been spreading, but you have to know that it isn't going to work. Heero is just confused, thanks to you, but he'll come back as soon as he learns what you really are!"

"You're crazy," I couldn't stop myself from saying, "I haven't told him a single thing about you. I never needed to, he saw what you were like from day one."

"And you're a bug! A dirty, disgusting cockroach! Sooner or later, he'll see that and realize you aren't worth the air that you breathe! But I don't have that kind of time, so here is what you are going to do," she smirked in a cruel smile that was an awful lot like her brother's, "You're going to do what unnatural freaks like you do best. You're going to masturbate for the camera here," she looked over at the lens that was pointing right on the bench that I had fallen on, "and you're going to show him just how disgusting and loathsome you really are. When he sees it, just the mere thought of you will make him want to vomit!"

"There is no way in hell I'm doing that," I protested in shock at what she was trying to make me do.

Just what the hell was wrong with her? She had done a lot of sick things to me and Quatre, but this was more Zechs's style than hers. Had Heero breaking up with her really driven her nuts, or did she really believe that I was the reason for it and she wanted to punish me?

"Sure you will," she sneered and lifted the can that she was holding. It was bug spray, the heavy duty kind that you sprayed your kitchen with to get rid of ant and roach infestations, and she was aiming it right at my face, "If you don't, then I'll get rid of you another way. I'm sure this stuff gets rid of all kinds of vermin. If you don't masturbate, I'll spray this right down your throat. I'll make you fucking choke on it."

I stared right into the hole of the spray can. I was well aware of what would happen if she sprayed it in my eyes or in my mouth. While it probably wouldn't kill me, I would have seizures and a hard time breathing and who knew what else to look forward to. She was certifiably insane... but remembering what she had done to my best friend, I wasn't all that surprised. He had embarrassed her and she had gotten his arm broken. The last time that I had fought back against her, she had thrown pepper into my eyes.

Looking into her heated glare, so full of hate and revulsion for me, I understood that it didn't really matter if I did what she had ordered me to do, not that that was even an option, for so many reasons, the threat of Heero seeing those photos was only one of the bigger ones. But even if I decided to do it, I knew that she was going to spray that shit in my face anyway. She wanted to do it and, quite frankly, I was amazed that that was all she intended to do. I remembered what I had learned so many years ago, that fighting back was useless, but now the alternative was just as bad as the punishment.

I dared getting a blast of pesticide in my face and lashed out with one of my legs, catching Relena in the gut and pushing her out of the photo booth. I had the advantage. Not only am I bit taller than her, she was arrogant in thinking that I would just meekly do what she wanted. She fell down with an outraged shriek, the can miraculously not going off. I tried to jump over her, but she grabbed my shirt and pulled me down. Pure instinct saved me from being immediately blinded as I was pushed to the ground and I heard the threatening hiss of the can spraying it's toxins at me. I ducked my head down as far as it could go and shielded my face as best I could.

"Fucking cockroach!" Relena screamed and raved at me, "Why don't you just die?! Huh?! Why can't you just fucking die like the bug you are?! Die! Die!"

That sound, like a hissing cat, seemed to go on forever, but I didn't move, even as the spray soaked my hair and trailed down my arms and neck. It had a sickening sweet aroma to it and it completely coated my hair, weighing it down and making it stick to my skin. I didn't even move when I heard the telltale sign that the can was empty. I heard her cry of her rage and that was the only warning I had before she threw the can at my head, as hard as she could. The metal can struck me and I felt a burst of pain, then a familiar liquid heat that told me that she had reopened the scalp wound that her brother had given me. The furious clicking of her heeled shoes on the wood of the boardwalk as she stormed away from me sounded like the nails of some clawed animal to me.

I stayed crouched there next to the photo booth, one arm thrown over my eyes for I don't even know how long. I was too scared to put my arm down. I could feel the chemicals and blood from my scalp wound dripping down my arm and hair. The smell of it was overwhelming and sickening, there wasn't a single thing that I could do until the mess dried if I didn't want to risk burning my eyes. After what might have been only five minutes or twenty, I heard someone running towards me. Before he said a single thing, I knew that it was Heero.

"Duo!" I heard him exclaim and fall to his knees next to me, "What happened?!"

I couldn't help it, I laughed.

"We have really got to stop hanging out like this," I said wryly.

I felt Heero put a hand on my back and immediately, just feeling that touch, I felt instantly better, like all of my anger and anxiety just melted away. He comforted me without saying a thing.

"Relena sprayed me with insecticide, it's all over my hair. I'm just trying not to get it into my eyes," I informed him.

"Fucking bitch," he swore under his breath and I almost laughed again, "Hold on, just stay like that."

I did what he said obediently as I felt him try to clean off the mess with what felt like napkins, probably ones that had come with whatever food he had ended up getting.

"Come on," he urged, wrapping one arm around my waist to help me to my feet, "We need to wash it off before you can open your eyes."

I felt myself flush darkly at the sensation of his arm cradling me. Then, it was over all too soon. I found my sure footing and he let go of my waist, but I could still feel it, lingering, making my heart explode right out of my chest. Even when he let go, he kept his hand on my back, guiding me. I felt disgustingly happy, when I should have felt displaced by the whole thing. But I had been dealing with Relena's cruelty for years. This feeling... this warmth was something new.

"Here, we're at the wash station. Can you bend your head down under the faucet?" he asked.

He didn't even need to lead me, I knew where he had taken me. There was a communal showering area for beach goers and right outside of it was this huge double station that basically just looked like a sink. It was made of peach and orange colored granite and had thick, silver faucets that were used during the summer to rinse off sand. I felt the edge of it with my hands and dipped my head into it, automatically untying my braid before Heero turned the water on. The stream that fell on me was powerful and icy cold and I couldn't help but flinch in shock.

"Sorry," Heero apologized guiltily.

"'s fine," I assured him, but it probably got lost in the sound of water pouring.

I honestly didn't care. At that point, a myriad of memories were assailing me, ghosts of other times that I had been in that situation. Quatre helping me wash the marker off my face on the day that we had met. Him helping me to the nurse after Relena had thrown pepper in my eyes. My washing his hair clean when Zechs dumped mud in it. All those times... would it ever end? That I only had a year and a half left at that school wasn't a consolation to me anymore. I wasn't so sure that Heero and I were going to last that long at this rate.

At least the insecticide wasn't anything like the semen that Zechs had dumped on me, it washed out pretty quickly. I wrung my hair out before lifting my head out of the sink so it wouldn't drip down my jacket and probed gently at my scalp wound. It felt tender and the wound was bigger, but I didn't think that Relena had done a lot of damage. I turned and saw Heero staring at me with this weird expression, a light blush on his cheeks.

"What's wrong?" I asked with confusion.

"I... uh... you're hair," he stammered, "You look really different when it's down. It startled me for a moment."

I felt myself blush in response and had no clue why I felt pleased all of a sudden. At the same time, his embarrassment made me feel uncomfortable. I don't like people staring at my hair. It reminds me too much of things that I can't think about. But for some reason, it wasn't so bad when Heero stared. I nervously brushed my long, wet bangs out of my face.

"This isn't the first time you've seen it down, you know," I pointed out.

"No, it isn't," he said sadly, losing some of his awkwardness. I felt bad. I hadn't wanted to remind him of the things that he had done when he had been bullying me, "I never would have done it you know... cut your hair... I... I just want you to know that."

He looked so embarrassed just then, I ached for him. But I wouldn't tell him to just forget about it, as much as I wanted to soothe him. What he had done... while it hadn't been as awful as what Relena and Zechs have done to me, I don't think it's a bad thing for Heero to look back at how he had acted and feel remorseful about it, so long as he had changed. I thought back to that day, how Zechs had held me down and tried to goad Heero into cutting my braid off, how he had hesitated and seemed so nervous. It made sense to me now, that reluctance.

"You let me escape, didn't you?" I asked him, "You let me run right past you. You could have grabbed me or caught up with me, but you just stepped aside and let me run."

Heero ran a hand through his thick, chocolate hair.

"I was too much of a coward to tell him no... letting you escape seemed the least that I could do for you," he murmured.

"Well, thank you," I said and gathered my wet hair back into its braid, "and thanks for getting the chemicals out of it."

"No problem," he said flippantly and hesitated for a moment, "Does it mean a lot to you... your hair?"

"Not really," I shrugged, "Well... I guess a little. I mean, it's mine, one of the few things that I have that's actually mine. If I lose my braid, I want it to be because I chose to cut it, not as some sick trophy for Zechs or because someone else decided I shouldn't have it. I don't know if that makes any sense."

"No, it does. I can't really relate. Anything I ever needed, my parents gave me. I've never really needed to fight to keep anything that I wanted, but I still understand it," he told me, "I guess that makes me sound privileged."

"You are privileged," I pointed out, but not cruelly or with any anger or resentment, "But that's not a bad thing. Having parents that love you and want to give you things isn't bad," that last bit came out a bit bitter, even to my ears.

We fell quiet as we walked back to the photo booth. By some kind of miracle, no one, human or sea gull or feral dog, had stolen our food. It was cold by the time we found a bench to sit on to eat it, but it wasn't so bad.

"I've been thinking of something," Heero piped up after he finished with his cold burger, "Yesterday, you made me promise you something."

"Yeah, I did," I confirmed, finishing off my own hamburger.

"I think I've done a pretty good job of upholding it," he boasted.

"It's been one, stinking day," I rolled my eyes.

"Regardless, I hadn't tried to beat Zechs up all day long for what he did to you. And today, I got the shit kicked out of me. I think that warrants me asking you for something," he reasoned.

"Your logic is flawed," I grumbled, "but sure, go right ahead."

"Would you be willing to spend the weekend over at my place?" he blurted out.

I stared at him. That had not been what I had been expecting.

"That's... I already said I was going to have dinner with you on Sunday," I reminded him.

"I know-" he began.

"And I have work all three days," I pointed out.

"I know-" he repeated.

"Besides, I've met your parents once. Why would they be ok with that? A strange kid crashing at their place even for one night? I'm sure that I would have overstayed my welcome by Saturday night," I protested, "I've never been over someone's house before to sleep over, I don't know what I'm supposed to do about that sort of thing! I have my cat to feed and all my work clothes are at home-"

I think it was around that point that I realized I was just pulling excuses out of my ass and while all of those excuses sound perfectly reasonable, I knew that they weren't real reasons at all. I was just scared.

"Duo," Heero interrupted sternly, "I know all that. First off, my parents won't care if you stay the weekend. They like you and they don't mind stuff like that. I know that you have work and you have to take care of your cat. I'm just suggesting that you pack your clothes and stuff and crash at my house instead of your own. You can drop by to feed your cat on the way to work, can't you?"

"Well, yeah, I can do that, but I work really, really late. Hell, on Friday you won't even see me after 3:30 until you get up on Saturday, so it's not like we can do anything together then! It's the same case on Saturday and on Sunday I don't get off until 6 at night," I said lamely.

"So?" Heero pressed, "You can come home with me on Friday and have an early dinner before you head off to work. And we'll have all Saturday morning and afternoon if you want to do something and Sunday for dinner. Look, I'm not asking you over for some big, weekend party or anything. I'm just offering you a place to relax for a few days. We can hang out, play video games, watch movies, whatever when you aren't working. We have a spare bedroom with it's own shower, anything you would need."

The desperation in his voice caught me off guard. Did he really want me to hang out with him that badly? Was he really that lonely?

"Why?" I asked in a small and insecure voice.

I looked over at him and caught something dark in his handsome, blue eyes, some turmoil that I couldn't figure out.

"Because I like hanging out with you," he said softly, "and because... with everything that's been happening lately, I think you need a place to get some peace and quiet. I just think that it would be nice, that's all."

'I think you need a place to get some peace and quiet.' Such an innocent thing for him to say. If that look hadn't come across his face, I might have even thought that he just meant a place to get away from my problems at school. But I still remembered how he had looked when I had told him that my father had hit me. And all the time that we had been eating, he had seemed distant, mulling over something. He had only looked that way after I had told him that his parents caring about him wasn't a bad thing. Was that what this was really about, him offering me a place to get away from my family? Or was I just reading into this too much because, when he said 'peace and quiet', I didn't think about putting Relena and Zechs out of my mind. I thought about getting away from my father.

"Alright," I said.

I decided it a bit rashly. I didn't think about all my excuses or how nervous or afraid I was to be spending my weekend with the boy that I secretly loved and his family. I thought about getting away from my own home. I thought about that quiet, warm house and I thought about how, past the fear, I really did want to do it. I wanted to spend time with Heero. And I wanted to pretend like all the shit in my life... all that darkness didn't exist for a little while. That wasn't such a bad thing, was it?

"Your parents won't be mad?" he asked me worriedly.

"Nah," I assured him, "They won't even notice that I'm gone."

'Unless my father needs to get laid,' I thought bitterly.

I wondered what he would actually do if he wanted sex and realized that I wasn't home. I pushed that thought as far away as possible. I didn't want to think about that shit when I was with Heero.

"I'm sorry, Duo," Heero said mournfully.

"Don't be," I shrugged, "at least I don't have be concerned with telling them where I am."

"But they're your parents," he argued, "They should be worried when you don't come home, they should actually notice that you're gone."

"In my household," I said before I thought about what I was saying, "not getting noticed is a good thing."

His expression twisted into something incredibly pained, almost akin to shock or horror.

"I'm sorry," I stammered, "I didn't mean to say that."

He reached over and held my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. It's funny how something so simple, a little touch like that, can say everything that needs to be said, things that no words can actually express. I smiled at him and thought 'I could stay like this forever.' How was it possible that one person's sadness and pain at your situation can make you so happy? I only wished that I really could stay on that bench forever with him.

"I should get to work," I sighed, slipping my hand from his, "but I'll see you tomorrow and we can go to your house after school, alright?"

"It's a date," he said cheekily.

I flushed and it felt like my heart was going to stop right there in my chest. I knew that he was just being flippant, but it made me ache. I felt a sense of foreboding then for the upcoming weekend. Was this what it was going to be like, staying with Heero, this equal pain and contentment?

I wasn't so sure that I was going to survive it.
　

End part 2
Author's note: Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but I needed to cut it off there ^_^
Also sorry that very little happened in this part >.> I promise that part 3 will (I hope anyway) be more exciting.
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A Stagnation of Love (rewrite)