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"Going the Distance"Written By: Clara Barton Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following
is an intellectual exercise with no intention of profit. That said,
these characterizations, words, and situations are mine. Please ask
before reprinting. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Angst, language, violence, sex, AU Pairings: 1x2x3 Summary: Duo Maxwell has just signed on to join Team Gundam Wing, an upstart League of Legends team looking to win the World Championships. Duo Maxwell, the first openly gay professional gamer. Duo Maxwell, the guy hated by almost all of Reddit. Duo Maxwell, the guy whose own brother hates him. Duo Maxwell, the guy who really just wants to find a team that doesn't hate him. A/N: This fic is an AU that has the boys playing
professional League of Legends. I'm going to try my best to not get
bogged down too much in game terminology or things like that, but,
well, I WILL reference the game and try to explain as much as I can,
as I go. I'm also way too lazy to make up "new" teams for
the league, so I will be using existing teams and players, with the
exceptions of Team Gundam Wing, Zodiac Gaming, and the Valkyries.
So… I will be referencing real people and real teams. "Going the Distance" Chapter Twenty "So, how does it feel to be a winner?" Hilde looked torn between wanting to punch him and wanting to grin, so Duo decided to focus on his own self preservation and hugged her. She immediately hugged him back. "It feels really, really fucking good," she said into his shoulder. The Valkyries had just won their first game, and Duo had watched backstage with his team, cheering them on, and as soon as the game ended he left the waiting room so he could see Hilde and the rest of her team as they came backstage. He had congratulated the other girls, but Hilde had hung back so they could talk. "You were great out there," he told her. She rolled her eyes. "I'm always great." He smirked. "Yeah, you are," he agreed. "But you were doing the shot calling - you told them what to do and they listened, didn't they?" She nodded. "It's taken until literally today for Dorothy not to bitch when I tell everyone what to do - but it worked." She looked happier and more excited than Duo had seen her before or since Rio, and he was thrilled for her. Proud and happy and excited as well. "Well..." he drawled and stretched his hands out. Hilde rolled her eyes. "You were right," she muttered. Duo hugged her again. "I know. I always am." Hilde snorted derisively. "Duo, babe, you're right about fifty percent of the time - on a good day." He winced. "Ouch. I'm right more often than that." "In League, sure. You've got great instincts. Outside of the game?" She shook her head sadly. Duo shrugged. "Good thing I only have time to focus on the game then, isn't it?" She looked about to say something, but the rest of Duo's team walked towards them, each carrying their gear, and it was clear that it was time for them to take the stage. Trowa passed Duo his backpack. "Thanks," Duo said. "Not a problem." Trowa nodded at Hilde. "Good game." Quatre, Meilin and Heero also congratulated her. Hilde was blushing by the time the team had walked past her, but Duo got in one last hug. "I can't wait to play against your team now that it's your team," Duo told her. "And I'll be happy to play against your team once your winning streak is over," she muttered in return. Duo smirked. It was only the third week of the season, but after eight games, TGW was still undefeated. They had played against every other team in the league and won. Except for ZG, who they would face today, for the first time. "Hopefully today isn't the day that happens." "Hopefully," she agreed and they finally stepped away from each other. "Go kick some ass," she said and punched him on the shoulder. "Go celebrate with a lesbian orgy." She rolled her eyes, shook her head and gave him the finger. There had been comments about the Valkyries being full of angry lesbians since the beginning of the Spring Split, but this split, as the Valkyries continued to improve and got closer and closer to winning games, the antagonism towards them had increased. Hilde, completely in character, had jumped onto Reddit and Twitter and posted photos of her and the other Valkyrie girls hugging or lounging together and suggested that the only thing the Valkyries ever did was have lesbian orgies. It had made Hilde one of the most followed League players on Twitter almost overnight, and had made the Valkyries one of the most popular teams. The fact that some people didn't get the joke only made Hilde laugh about it more. "Quit stalling." Hilde shoved him towards the stage and Duo sighed and finally walked away. He had known that facing ZG for the first time was going to be rough, after Rio, after his confrontation with Solo, after Wufei's trade, after Meilin joining the team, after Trowa switching positions - after all of that, Duo knew that the toughest thing about the match today was going to be the same thing it always was: seeing his brother's name in game and knowing that his brother was the enemy, knowing that his brother wanted him to lose, wanted to embarrass him and wanted to smirk and look through Duo and pretend he didn't exist. And there was simply no way to prepare for that, no way for Duo to be ready for it except to use the same tactics he had used all season so far. He sat down at his computer, plastered a smirk on his face, and turned to Trowa. "Ready to win?" Trowa nodded, but he looked serious, clearly a little anxious at facing their nemesis. "Good, because I'm ready for you to carry this game. I'm thinking I might take a little nap - you can just... win the game yourself, right?" Trowa rolled his eyes. "Not a problem." "Thanks, buddy. 'Preciate it." Further down the row, Meilin and Heero were getting set up and talking through their early game strategy, their voices low even over the headset, and Duo saw Trowa glance their way as well. "They're going to do great," Duo reminded Trowa. Every single game so far this season, Meilin and Heero had played together almost flawlessly. Meilin constantly pushed Heero to play aggressively - far more aggressively than Trowa had ever wanted him to play in the early game - and it seemed to be Heero's natural style. He had always been a great marksman, but with Meilin as his support he had become absolutely terrifying to play against. Last weekend during the three games that TGW had played, every single ban from their opposing teams had been focused on Heero as their opponents tried anything they could think of to shut him down. It was incredible to see, and Duo knew that Meilin and Heero were both happy, both satisfied that the hours and hours of work they put in playing Solo Queue together every night after practice were paying off. "I know they are," Trowa said and he turned away. Duo glanced at him and saw that Trowa was scowling. "What?" But Trowa shook his head. Duo muted his mic and shoved his headset off. "Trowa. What is it?" Trowa muted his mic as well. "He's incredible. He's better than he's ever been and she's the reason. I want him to win. I want him to be the best. That's all there is to it." Duo tried to figure out what Trowa wasn't saying - because there was clearly a lot that he wasn't saying. Trowa turned his mic back on and turned away. Duo sighed and put his own headset back on and unmuted himself. If Trowa could put aside whatever was bothering him and focus on the game, then so could Duo. -o- The game started off well enough. The bans were once again focused on Heero, so as a result every other player on TGW was able to play their best champions and even Heero, forced to play Twitch, once of his least favorite marksmen, was stilling playing a champion he had a great record on. Duo was able to invade the enemy jungle early, to kill Ralph two minutes into the game and everything was going perfectly, with Heero and Meilin getting an early gold lead on Zechs and Otto and Quatre able to hold his own against Zechs and Trowa matching up well against Wufei. Until, five minutes into the game, four members of ZG appeared in the top lane and killed Trowa. It wasn't the worst thing that could have happened - Duo had been on the opposite side of the map and so he, Quatre, Meilin and Heero killed the dragon and earned their team a lot of extra gold. But then, seven minutes in, it happened again. And again at ten minutes. And again at thirteen minutes. And every time it happened, Duo was on the other side of the map. Every time it happened, Heero and Meilin tried to edge out their lead just a little more and by the fourth time Quatre had enough items that he and Duo tried to save Trowa, but they weren't able to. After twenty minutes, Trowa had almost no gold, had accrued eight deaths, and completely lost his lane. Heero and Meilin, meanwhile, had demolished their lane, killed Zechs three times, and rotated mid-lane to help Quatre take his lane. Trowa was more or less useless in teamfights, forced to stay top lane and try to keep the other team from doing any damage to the base, and at thirty-minutes Quatre, Duo, Heero and Meilin were able to push together and win the game. It was a victory, and it continued their undefeated streak, but when Trowa pulled off his headset and sat still, glaring at his computer, his face downcast and his hands clenched together, Duo knew exactly how awful he felt - and he felt almost as bad. They had won, but it had meant sacrificing Trowa's lane and letting him die alone every time the other team attacked him, and it had sucked. It had been frustrating and Duo had felt ineffective and torn, every time he saw Trowa get attacked, between wanting to help him and knowing it was a lost cause. When ZG came over to shake hands, Duo tugged on Trowa's shoulder until he shrugged him off and stood up. Wufei was the first, and he congratulated Heero, Meilin and Quatre warmly, but he approached both Duo and Trowa with trepidation in his eyes. He knew. He knew they had used the kind of asshole tactics designed to get into a player's mind and mess with his confidence and it could have won the game for them, could have ensured that Trowa was so far behind he could have never been relevant in the game and if ZG had left him alone after five deaths and started to teamfight they probably could have won. But they hadn't. They had punished Trowa over and over again and it had cost them the victory. But it had also cost TGW, and Wufei clearly knew that. He shook hands with Duo and then Trowa without saying anything. Ralph didn't bother to hide his smirk as he came through, and he even clapped Trowa on the shoulder and muttered something about better luck next time. Solo, as usual, looked through Duo and made no attempt to shake his hand. Trowa glared at him and turned away from the hand that was offered to him. It was the first time Duo had seen him do that, and he was sure that Reddit was going to have a field day over this. Trowa had a reputation of being so calm and collected and polite - to turn away from a handshake after what had happened to him in that game was not going to go over well. "Tro," Duo turned to him. "You gotta -" Trowa glared at him, his green eyes cold and narrow, and Duo stopped talking. He had never seen Trowa look like that before. Had never seen Trowa so clearly ready to ignore everyone and everything and it did something weird to Duo, made him feel almost ill. He turned away, just in time to trade sneers with Zechs and then shook Otto's hand. And then it was over. The team packed up their gear and left the stage, though Heero and Meilin got roped into doing a post-game interview, and so the team returned to the waiting room and the silence between Quatre, Trowa, Duo and Relena was deafening. After twenty minutes, Relena looked ready to lose it, and excused herself from the room. Quatre sighed and looked between Duo and Trowa. "We won," Quatre said. Trowa nodded, just a short, sharp incline of his head. "And we -" "We aren't going to talk about it," Trowa interrupted him. Quatre stared, and so did Duo. Trowa never interrupted Quatre. Never showed even the slightest hint of frustration towards him ever. Quatre blinked, frowned and turned away and Duo could see that he was hurt, that Trowa's words and tone had cut into him as deeply as Trowa's glare had cut into Duo. Duo resisted the urge to put an arm around Quatre's shoulders - it would probably make Trowa even angrier. Finally, after another ten minutes of agonizing silence, Meilin, Relena and Heero came into the room and got them. They left the building and stood outside to sign autographs for the requisite thirty minutes and Duo was glad that most of the fans flocked to Meilin and Heero, because it gave him the chance to keep an eye on Trowa, to see his faint scowl every time a fan asked for his autograph, every time they tried to console him and assure him that he was still great. Despite the fact that it didn't feel like much of a victory, Sally and Relena insisted on continuing their tradition of going out and getting pizza after the game, and it was almost eleven by the time they made it back to the TGW house. Duo felt exhausted, irritable and depressed as hell and wanted nothing more than to throw himself onto his bed and punch his pillow for the next twenty minutes, but when he saw Trowa toe off his shoes and then head straight towards the gaming room and the computers, he sighed. He sure as hell wasn't going to let Trowa practice by himself. So he followed him into the room and sat down beside him. "Wait for me," he said when he saw Trowa start searching for a game. Trowa frowned, but he sat back and waited for Duo to log in. Heero came into the room, frowning slightly. "You don't need to practice tonight," he said to Trowa. "Not after -" "Yes, I do." Heero's eyes narrowed at the cold tone and Duo wished he could shrink into his seat, wished he could become invisible or be anywhere else in the entire world than between the two of them. Hearing Trowa interrupt Quatre had been one thing. Hearing Trowa speak to Heero in that tone of voice - Duo didn't think it was possible, didn't think Trowa was even capable of sounding that cold and angry when addressing Heero. Heero glanced towards Duo. It looked as though he wanted to ask him to leave, to give them a moment, and Duo started to get out of his chair. "I'll be up later," Trowa said. Heero swallowed hard and then turned on his heel and left. "Trowa, we don't -" "Did you want to play or not?" Duo looked at Trowa's profile, at the tense set of his shoulders, at the firm, compressed line of his lips, and he sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, let's play." -o- Duo had hoped that sleep would help things. Even the five hours Trowa had gotten, he hoped, would have made a difference. But when he met Trowa and Heero downstairs the next morning for their run, both men looked tense and angry and it was clear that nothing was better, nothing had been helped. If anything, as they started running, as Heero positioned himself so that Duo was between him and Trowa, it was clear that things were worse. The normal comfortable silence of their mornings runs was now oppressive, every thud of Trowa's feet on the pavement making Duo want to wince. It wasn't until they had completed half of their run and were on their way back towards the house that Duo had had enough. "Wait. Wait, stop." Trowa and Heero came to a halt and turned to look at him, Heero confused and, Trowa concerned. That did strange things to Duo - to see Trowa actually look concerned about him when, for the past eighteen hours, the only expression on his face had been one of simmering rage and self-loathing. "I'm fine," Duo felt he needed to say. "I just - well, I'm not fine. This is killing me." "We still have another mile to go - we do five miles every day and you've never complained," Heero pointed out. "I'm not talking about the run. I'm talking about you two - I'm talking about Trowa. Jesus, man, we have to talk about -" "No, we don't," Trowa said and he turned and started to run again, leaving Heero and Duo behind. Duo stared after him in shock. "He's never been like this before." Heero looked miserable. "Yeah, well..." "He wouldn't talk to me last night. He didn't - he slept in the other bed." Duo winced. "Do you two always sleep in the same bed? Or just when you... have sex?" "Always." Ouch. "Heero, yesterday was really hard on him. Maybe he -" "This isn't about yesterday. Not entirely. This has been building for weeks." Heero sighed and sat down on the curb. Duo joined him. "What do you mean?" "I mean, things have been... off between us ever since Rio. No - yes. I wanted to blame it on Meilin, on the fact that she and I spend so much time practicing and you and Trowa are always together but - but I think this goes back farther. Hell. Maybe even farther than Rio." Duo sighed. "Back to that night? In your room, with me?" Heero frowned. "I... I don't know. All I know is that things aren't the same between Trowa and I. And I have no idea how to fix any of it." Neither did Duo, especially since it seemed like he was part of the problem. Hell, if he really thought about it, he knew he was part of the problem. Heero and Trowa had been perfectly content with each other before he came along. Before they had their stupid fantasy and before they had that stupid Disaster Sex Night and before Rio and - and before Duo. But they couldn't go back, and maybe Duo could see if it was possible for him to be traded to another team, but he really, really didn't want to leave. Still, Duo had to accept the fact that he had driven a wedge between Heero and Trowa. He was responsible. So, short of running away - which still might have to be plan B, what could he do to fix things? "You two need to spend some time together. Away from this shit. Away from the house and the game and me and - you two need to go on a date." Heero arched an eyebrow at him. "I'm serious. Dinner and a movie or something. Tomorrow, on our day off, you two should just... go to the mall and spend the day doing whatever the fuck people our age do when they don't play video games for fourteen hours a day." Heero smirked. "I think people our age do play video games for fourteen hours a day on their days off." Duo rolled his eyes. "Sure, probably. But I'm serious. Go. Take him out. Please." Heero didn't look convinced. "Don't you want time with him? Some quality Heero-Trowa time like you haven't had in forever?" Heero nodded. "Yes." "Then just do it." "And when he spends the entire day glaring and refusing to talk?" Duo snorted and stood up. He offered Heero a hand up. "That's easy. Shove him into a dark corner and kiss him until he forgets everything except how fucking amazing it is to kiss you." Heero accepted the help up and held onto Duo's hand longer than was really necessary. "That easy?" He asked, looking at Duo. Looking at Duo's mouth. "Yeah," Duo assured him. He stepped away. "That easy." ~ * ~ |
