He goes running

Duo POV

Last time:

I had never intended to let Heero spend the night. I didn’t know why I was so dead-set against it before, but I realized why in the morning when I woke up alone.

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I felt bereft, empty, like the organs in my chest were suddenly gone. Looking around, I hoped to see the bathroom door closed, light coming from beneath it, or a note sitting on the nightstand. But there was nothing; I sat in the bed with a tiny spark in my chest hoping that maybe the door would open and he’d walk in carrying muffins or something cliché like that. But there was nothing.

So I pulled myself together and crawled into the shower, washing away the evidence of what happened. But it changed nothing. I still felt like I had been split open, stripped bare. He had shredded my defenses, reached into my chest and gutted me, and I was hollow.

Yeah, yeah. It was morbid and melodramatic, but it was how I felt because I knew how this went. Granted, I had never been on this side of the whole ‘morning escape’ routine, but I was more than aware of what it meant when someone didn’t bother to take two seconds to leave a note with contact method. Even something as callous as “thanks for the fuck” on a dirty napkin shows a person that they were worth a few seconds’ goodbye.

And some part of me was trying to justify everything. He had told me that he had a lot of work to get done this weekend, and I took up almost all of his Saturday, maybe he needed to wake up early enough to get it all done.

I knew it was complete bullshit, but that little voice wouldn’t shut up, whispering “what if’s” and “maybe’s” into my ear. It even had the nerve to keep talking when Heero stopped his early morning jogs along the beach. So three days later when the vacation was over and the girls and I headed back to the States, and I still hadn’t heard from or seen Heero, I was really upset.

There was a war going on within me. I was sad for the loss of what seemed like such a good match between Heero and I; I felt betrayed and used by Heero. I was mad at him for demanding my surrender during sex then retreating like the victory meant nothing to him. I was pissed at myself for letting him use me, for letting him fool me so completely.

Then furious at him for leaving. But that pathetic side of me didn’t want to be mad at him, wanted to keep giving him excuses, wanted to keep giving me hope. This, in turn, made me even madder when those excuses fell flat.

The girls noticed the change in me. I am usually a really good actor, but they know me too well. No one else back home could tell I was not my usual self. The girls tried to pull me out of the funk I had created within myself, but it was no good. Every time the three of us got together, I would see the subtle signs of their blossoming relationship. The glances at each other out of the corners of their eyes, the way they would smile softly at each other, the way they found any excuse to touch one another.

It made me sick, almost literally. I would feel this pit in my stomach that would churn more and more violently, and my throat would clench like it was trying to find air underwater. Nausea would haunt the entire time I spent with them, so I stopped. I found things to do to keep myself busy. I upgraded all my software, spent some time creating more and better options for my business.

My ideas for vid games got a bit darker, the villains harder to beat, the hero less likely to succeed in his task.

And time crawled by. After about three weeks, that little voice was completely dead because I realized by this point; that Heero had had time to try his chances with Zechs. He could have failed or succeeded by this time because Peacecraft was notorious for his short-lived flings.

I avoided the tabloids and gossip shows like the plague because I was unsure if I could handle seeing the two together.

And if Heero decided to call me after Zechs was done with him, if I was his rebound…I couldn’t do it. So I locked myself away, just me and my computer. I had never been so efficient before, but there were still too many hours in the day, too many silences filled with thoughts of him.

But I still carried my cell phone with me at all times; it was never out of my reach no matter how angry I was with both him and myself for doing it. I told myself that was because my clients might need IT assistance, but I knew it wasn’t completely accurate.

So when I got a call from an unknown number a month after my vacation, I secretly hoped it was him, but I didn’t expect it. Business had been booming lately. Once word got out that Winner’s company outsourced for his tech security, everyone wanted to know who and jumped on the bandwagon. I was beginning to come to the realization that I would have to hire a few assistants to help with the installs and troubleshooting.

“Maxwell speaking.” Yeah, I’m a little bit more terse than usual, a bit less enthusiastic, so sue me.

“Hi, Duo. It’s Quatre.” The tenor voice sounded somewhat strained, but as optimistic as when they had first met. I had begun to wonder if that was a farce or his usual personality.

He must have been calling from a second or third line at work, because I didn’t have the number listed in my phone.

“Hey, Quatre. How are you?” I had met the young CEO when Maxwell Technology Services had been contracted out. It was a surprise, really, because the face of Winner Corp was Iria Winner, a gorgeous, thirty-something, blonde hair, blue eyed beauty who was as articulate and well-mannered as one can be. She was in the news quite often, attending meetings, supporting charities; she was the picture of poised, gracious wealth in society.

So meeting 25 year-old Quatre Winner, the youngest heir and corporate head behind the scenes, was quite the shock. It didn’t take long for me to learn why he was in charge. Quatre was polite and well spoken, optimistic and cheerful, but there was a steel frame in that petite body which showed when someone tried to pull one over on him. The man was wicked smart. I just happened to be in his office when a not-so-pleasant phone call occurred. Quatre may be young (and gorgeous) but he was no one to be trifled with.

Money had never really impressed me, so I treated him like any other guy you met on the street. It shocked him at first, but I think he found it refreshing.

We hit it off almost instantly, and though the man is extremely busy, he has taken the time to email me often over the past few weeks. He’s really the only one that’s kept me from being completely isolated in my personal endeavors. I still leave the house to make business calls, but my personal life had hit a slump.

I just didn’t want to see anybody, not really. Emails were easy to fib; I could pretend nothing was wrong, and nobody could tell. But face-to-face, its hard to hide. Then again, Quatre didn’t really know me well enough to know something was wrong, so he was probably a pretty safe bet. Plus, I got the feeling he didn’t have many friends.

Don’t get me wrong, the guy was super-sweet, very caring, but the people that surrounded him were either family or idolized him with a sort of reverence that I just didn’t get. All in all, hard to have friends in that sort of environment, plus, when you’re wealthy enough to practically own half the world, trust can be an issue.

“I’m fine, Duo; thank you for asking. I was wondering if you might want to have lunch with me tomorrow.”

A thread of nervousness shot through me. As I said, I had been locking myself away from the world for a month; now going out into it gave me a little bit of anxiety. I’ve lost a lot of my confidence; I know I have, but acknowledging that fact doesn’t make it return. But then again, neither would sitting around my place doing nothing.

I had to shake this depression that had settled over me. “Sure thing, man. Do I need to dress all fancy, or will jeans work?” It would be an active process to attempt to regain some sense of my former self.

But I was a shell of the man I had once been, and I’ll be damned if that becomes a permanent thing because of Heero Yuy. The past couple of weeks I had been completely pathetic, ok, so whatever; I had mourned what could have been, now it was time to try reconnect with myself.

I couldn’t find anything that was funny enough to laugh out loud anymore. My sense of humor was gone, and it was hard to feel any kind of emotional reaction to anything outside of Heero and his betrayal. It was time to get off my ass and change, force myself to try and have fun again.

It was nobody’s responsibility but my own to find happiness, though I knew I had the support of others who would help if I asked. I knew that, I just wasn’t sure how to ask. I had shunned all attempts from the girls over the past few weeks; there was shame lingering within because of that. But at the same time, I didn’t really want to be forced to talk about what was going on with me, so I wasn’t really ready to face them, yet.

“There’s no dress code where I had planned to take lunch. You can wear whatever you want as far as I’m concerned.” Quatre sounded a bit distracted as he said that, then I heard someone in the background asking questions. Never a second to oneself as head of a major corporation, I guess.

I felt a bit sorry for the guy. He was too young to have to deal with this kind of stress. I wanted to make him laugh, wanted to be a stress reliever for him. “You’ll be wearing your normal business-wear, right?”

“Mhmm.” Quatre was only half listening, so I jerked his chain a little.

“I don’t think I have anything up to Mr. Winner’s standards. I think I’ll just go nude.” I was actually feeling a bit like the old me, but he didn’t really respond. “Yeah, I know it’s a bit of a crime to walk around naked, but, you’ll bail me out, right, Q?”

“Wait, what?!” He was waking up a bit. His voice muffled, speaking to someone in the background then he was back on with me. “What did you say, Duo?”

“Naked. That way I’d match with you no matter what you wore. What do you think?”

Silence. I was trying my damndest not to laugh and spoil the moment. “You are joking, right?”

I couldn’t hold it anymore, laughter spilled from my throat for the first time in weeks, and it felt so good. Even if it was at poor Quatre’s expense. “Of course, Q. I’ll go in my Duo-casual fall line, due to hit the runways next spring.”

I could feel the man shaking his head at me.

“It’s a shame, though. I look damn fine naked.” I couldn’t help the final barb.

He chuckled. “I’ll have to take your word for it, Duo. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya.” I hung up and realized I had a smile on my face. It was fun teasing the blond bombshell, and I realized I had found a little part of who I used to be. Yeah, Q was definitely a keeper as far as friends were concerned.

He’d make a damn fine boyfriend, too. Cute, driven, self-made. Too bad he wasn’t my type. That’s okay with me, though; its still a little too soon after the burn.

Lunch was fun; I got to further my teasing of Quatre, and he loosened up more and more over the course of the meal. I asked how business was, and he just rolled his eyes and said “Busy, as always. But if it wasn’t busy, I’d be in trouble.” He spoke with a little smile on his lips that let me know that maybe he thrived on stress.

It would be the best job in the world for him if that was the case, if not, he was in for a long, hard life.

So, lunch was a nice little get together where I learned many things. One: Quatre Winner is not used to nicknames. He always got a funny little look on his face when I shortened or embellished his name. It was funny and kinda sad at the same time; no one was informal enough with him to use anything other than his given name. Well that was going to change if I had any say in it.

Two: Quatre called the lunch for a reason as well as companionship. Always the entrepreneur, he wanted to use me as a consultant if I was willing. It seems that Winner Enterprises Inc. had just bought out a tech company. He had intended to break it into pieces and resell at a higher profit margin. He wasn’t really well educated on all the possibilities offered by good computer design, software, hardware, and such; there was such a huge market for tech geeks like me.

And Quatre wanted to be a part of it, but he didn’t know enough to know whether his advisors knew what they were talking about or if they were full of it. So he wanted me to step in and take a look.

I was really excited about it. Didn’t I say I wanted to try my hand in designing a computer game? That shit takes work and a team of people coming together. Maybe Q could let me play a little after his business savvy and my knowledge makes his venture an astounding success. Yeah, ok, so it would take more than that, and my part is completely miniscule, but I was still super excited about it.

Then Q offered to pay me as a consultant, and I told him no. Friends help each other; associates pay each other. I saw him as a friend. He insisted due to the amount of time I might have to invest; I countered with the fact that I had spent weeks helping friends move, packing up boxes, moving bulky furniture up and down several flights of stairs completely unpaid. And what he was asking me to do was not manual labor and in my area of interest. He insisted again. I told him no, and if he offered again, I’d be offended.

He dropped it.

Then, the tricky bastard, asked about my business. I thought we had dropped the repayment thing (I mean, hell, I hadn’t even done anything, yet. I just agreed to do it.), and I told him about me having to hire several assistants in the future due to the increase in demand. My software was pretty hardy, and it didn’t need a lot of maintenance, but I couldn’t handle as many big companies as were contacting me by myself.

He looked a bit worried, asking if I had any sort of contract drawn up to protect my program or if I had a copyright patent pending to prevent others from stealing a version and selling it as their own. I hadn’t even considered anything like that.

And the jerk knew it. He smiled brilliantly and said he’d have several of his lawyers look into the situation and draw up a contract for me. The cheeky little bastard even had the nerve to send my words straight back at me and tell me not to even think about offering to pay for the service or he’d be extremely offended.

I glared at him for a second before laughing. I agreed, and he just sat there with an amused little smile on his face.

Our waiter showed up with the check, the jerk had told the server that it was on one check and snatched it away before I knew to even reach for it because I was waiting for my own receipt.

As I’m glaring at him while he pays for my meal, he starts to look a little tentative. “Duo, do you think we could make this a regular occurrence? Maybe a weekly luncheon or something similar?”

He was so assured in his office, so confident when he spoke of drawing up a contract and patent request, but just a small request for a social meeting made him the slightest bit shy. I’m so going to make him my new project. This man deserves to be as confident in the office as out of it.

I mean seriously, he’s gorgeous, wealthy, intelligent, and despite all of that, he’s humble, too. How is this man not surrounded by good friends that would kill for him? Because he spends way too much time dedicating himself to his late father’s business. He’s too awesome not to be fabulously happy.

I smiled. “I’d like that, Q. My schedule is way less hectic than yours, so just let me know when is best for you.”

He sighed a bit, though that little smile was still present. “It’d be easier for me if we set a regular schedule, say every Wednesday at 11:30, so my assistant will know not to allow a meeting set at that time.”

“That’s fine with me, Quat; it’d be easier for me to remember that way, too.” My phone rang, so I sent Q an apologetic look and I picked it up without glancing at the number. In the past few days, I haven’t recognized any of them anyways.

“Maxwell speaking.” Q was flagging the server down to send off his card to get scanned.

“Hello, Duo.” My heart stopped, and my body clenched. Part of me hated him, part of me begged for him, but every single part of me remembered the last time I heard Heero Yuy’s voice.

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Hi again. I hope you liked this little addition. This story just became a lot more involved for me, but I'm excited about it. I hope you liked Quatre's entrance. We'll meet Zechs and probably Trowa (depending on how long the next chappie is) next time, if think. Hit the button or leave me a blurb on your way out, please. Hate to say it, but reviews do make me more enthusiastic about writing, so I get more done faster.

Responses to reviews will be posted on my author's page, and I'm planning on starting the sequel to Two Sides of a Triangle after the next posting of this fic.

Best wishes and wet dreams to my readers and reviewers,
A