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"So Say Goodbye"Written By: Miss Murdered Disclaimer: As always, I don't own GW and I make
no claim to it… Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Angst alert! deathfic, yaoi with references
to m/m sexual relations, my usual smattering of swearing, older pilots
(28) Pairings: 3x2x3, a hinted 1+2 and 4+3 Summary: After Trowa puts himself in the line of fire on a Preventer mission, he is forced into seeking professional help from a psychologist – who happens to be a certain Dr. Chang. Through four sessions, Trowa explores his feelings towards the other pilots and the one he loved and lost… A/N: This fic is four parts – four psychologist's
appointments. Inspired by the song Waiting… by City and Colour
which is a beautiful and amazing song. I highly recommend listening
to it as it shows where the whole fic came from and because Dallas
Green's voice is spine tingly good. Big thanks to Elle for her beta job on this one
- sorry for all the angst! "So Say Goodbye" ~ Session Three ~ All Your Friends Seem like Enemies The restaurant choice was more upmarket than Trowa would've picked for what was meant to be a casual lunch. He had a feeling Quatre hadn't selected it either - probably one of the army of people who organised his life that had made the reservation. Trowa always remembered Quatre in the past, always conscious of how awkward he felt with extravagance and usually wouldn't pick somewhere so imposing. He pushed the door and entered the bistro and tugged self-consciously at the button down shirt. It was black and he'd left a few buttons undone at the top, some of his skin showing as well as the chemical burn. He rolled up the sleeves to the elbow, making his appearance more casual, more comfortable, more him even though it was a nice place in the business district. He still couldn't get himself to act appropriately - a rebellious streak cultivated by being raised by mercs who were unanswerable to anyone and only encouraged by the time spent in Duo's company. He supposed he was late as it surprised him to see Quatre already at the table - the secluded booth to the rear of the restaurant was out of the way of observers and two glasses of ice water were already poured. The maître de looked at him as expected, he may have acquiesced to a shirt as a gesture of good will and friendship towards Quatre but he was in jeans - ones without holes forming at the knees and fraying bottoms where he stood on them but they were still jeans. "I'm here to meet Mr. Winner." The maître de looked ready to say something snarky and be a general dick but Quatre had risen to his feet in greeting and while the slimy bastard looked shocked, he hid it well and inclined his head in the direction of the table. "Follow me." Fancy places never ceased to amaze Trowa - stupid food and arrogant staff and pretentious menus full of provenance. Finest L1-X11278 hydroponic grown tomatoes. Wine imported from organic vineyards in the Bordeaux region of France. Freshly made bread served with pats of butter infused with truffles and imported chilli oil. And all so well presented. They'd all done their time being taken to restaurants like this - Duo usually behaved, tried to be nice to Quatre's feelings and not bitch too much about the wastefulness of fancy places. Usually was being polite and contained though Trowa remembered a place like this and a hand on his thigh, early on in whatever the hell they were doing, when they were still five Gundam pilots who saw each other, and offered something in deep low words to his ear. And Duo was walking towards the men's room, that stupid extra movement of his hips that he did in an attempt to be sensual that made his braid move just so against the curve of his ass and Trowa followed as that's what he was meant to do. Meant to be sucked off in a toilet stall, meant to have his hands in Duo's hair and have his cock in that mouth and quietly come into a willing throat. The memory was sharp, cloying, and it brought the taste of sweat and his own cum to his lips - remembering the press of the kiss afterwards, the way Duo just wiped the sleeve of his shirt against his mouth and kissed him hard and while Trowa didn't return the favour, he put hands into black tailored suit pants and jerked him off, a little roughly and a little quickly knowing that they were expected back and letting cum splash against the side of the stall rather than on either of their clothing. Trowa had grabbed for tissue, wiping stickiness off his hands and then exited the stall allowing Duo a few moments to adjust himself and come down from orgasm. He'd washed his hands and was splashing water on his face when Duo emerged looking pretty much as he always did. His face didn't betray the encounter. "You should go back first," he'd said, calmly, green eyes meeting blue. "Heero knows. Wufei's smart and might figure it out and Quat -" "I don't want Quatre to know." Their eyes met through the reflection of mirrors and Duo just shrugged. "Fine." He'd realised even then - incompetent, barely twenty, that he'd hurt Duo's feelings as the clipped response was very un-Duo-like. "I don't know what this is," Trowa said. Duo was nearly out of the bathroom but paused at the door. "Neither do I." Never did know. Not then. Not now. Never knew why he'd not wanted to tell Quatre - maybe as it always felt like he'd make something of it. Try to make something more of them than they could be. It had taken years for Quatre to find out and that did make him feel a small amount of guilt. They had arrived at the table and the maître de departed with a small flourish of hand and Quatre stood, offering his hand in friendship like he always did. Always had. "Trowa." He nodded in response. The positives about the long friendship he had with Quatre were that there were never any expectations from him to begin any discussions - Quatre would quite happily lead them. Always wanted to be friends with Trowa, always tried so goddamn hard with him, even since that first day and that stupid move of surrendering and coming out from his Gundam cockpit. Duo always said that Quatre's MO was feeling guilty and always would be. That Quatre always had issues with guilt and that he told Heero, once, many years ago that Quatre would blame himself for the lack of air in space if he could. "Famous Winner guilt complex," Duo said. And Trowa was always going to be the one he felt most guilty about - leaving him floating in space - cold and vulnerable and a shell. It was always going to be why he tried so hard. Why he wanted to give him jobs and why he was so forceful with his friendship. It was why there never was anything between them. No, that wasn't quite true, there were a few fumbling moments, a few illicit fleeting kisses and gropes but Trowa couldn't spend his life trying to make Quatre Raberba Winner feel less guilty. Trowa had laid his own ghosts to rest and didn't think about the things that he did - the bodies he'd created and still did to this day. "You look good," Quatre said as Trowa slid into the booth opposite him. "The wounds are healing." Blue eyes sparkled in curiosity. "Do they hurt?" No one had really asked him that - not Wufei, he'd only asked why he hid them. The doctor just asked about how the skin felt when stretched and looked at them closely as they continued to weep. No one had asked if they hurt. But that was Quatre. Always bringing it to the root of everything right off the bat - maybe the question was loaded. It would be typically Quatre to mean more - to mean the emotional wounds as well as the physical and even after the gulf of years and the distance that Trowa had tried to create between them - Quatre still knew him. "They hurt. The synthetic skin seems to stretch my own skin. Hurts to sleep." "You look like you're not sleeping. I can always tell with you." "It's difficult." It was difficult to sleep when sheets stuck to barely healed wounds and when he still thought he smelt Duo on the sheets, even though that was impossible. He'd washed them weeks ago. There was always something that lingered. He decided to look at the menu for a moment, reading the French names and attempting to avoid Quatre's eyes a little. It seemed Quatre did not want this to be another conversation of avoidance - Trowa's MO as much as guilt and blame was Quatre's. Trowa had always been a pattern of push away, suppress, avoid and bury it. He supposed that was why Wufei enjoyed their sessions. Probably liked the challenge of his stubbornness. "It was beautiful." Trowa swallowed thickly and didn't need to ask what "it" was. Always knew what Quatre wanted to say to him, always shook him to the core, reminded him why he'd built the wall between them. "Howard did the eulogy. It was funny. Lots of stories." It made sense - Howard would be the least morose and probably had the most ammunition. Heero would've been bleak - his steady monotones depressing but he would've been the only other one that could do it. But Howard had that affection that bordered on family bonds and Duo had spent so much time aboard Sweeper vessels. Trowa remembered in those early years, before the Helen was bought and patched up and working, staying on Sweeper ships when he visited. He knew Howard liked to tell one particular story but he was sure that one would've been omitted in a eulogy - he'd loved trying to embarrass Duo with it but Duo never had the decency to blush or give a shit that the old man had seen them in the middle of fucking. Usually Duo had turned it round on Howard, made some comments about age and virility and Viagra and getting it up. Then it descended into dick jokes - inappropriate for a funeral but really would've been more suited to Duo than anything sombre. "I said a few words." Trowa looked up to see Quatre expression somewhat distant. His hand was holding his chin up and Trowa observed the signs of age and what the slight wear of reaching their late twenties had done. The slight hint of stubble. The darker blond of his hair - darkened from his teenage brightness whether through vanity or nature. Quatre always used to look the youngest of them, the blond and blue eyed boy, but now he didn't. They'd all grown into men. Duo without a braid looked older. He supposed he did without the bang of hair. "I told a few war stories. I talked about how much he wanted and fought for the Helen... but I wanted to talk about you." It was tempting to reply that there was nothing to tell. There were no great stories. It wasn't a great romance that spanned earth and the colonies. It was weekends of sex and drinking, an aborted vacation, years of playing pretend and pretending that they didn't want more. Two people too stubborn and immature to stop acting like dicks to each other. "Why Trowa? After everything... why?" There was a tone of accusation but also of hurt. Yes, he didn't know Quatre as well as he used to but he knew that tone and it was definitely hurt. "I was on a mission." "Don't evade with me. You could've declined one mission. You could've applied for exceptional circumstances. You chose not to. It was a choice, Trowa." He didn't know how to answer. From the corner of his eye, he saw the waitress trying to decide whether to interrupt and try to take a food order but decided it against it once Quatre began to speak again. Another reliable Winner trait - had to talk, always had to get his point across and let Trowa know how much of a prick he was. He waited for it but the words that came weren't harsh truths about his deficiencies. "I just wish... I just wish he was still here. That I'd be able to knock your heads together and make you realise..." he stopped, unsure, took a moment. Trowa wondered if he wanted to use the "love" word but they'd both been skittish around that subject. "You just were both too stubborn for your own goods. Never admitted you needed anyone because it's all some big weakness. Too damn independent. Both of you." He should respond, Trowa knew he probably should but words faltered on his lips. He didn't have to defend himself - relieved for once that he wasn't the one taking all the blame. It always seemed like he usually did, that everybody interpreted Duo as open and warm and friendly and that it was Trowa who didn't want more and who didn't make what they had into something. Into something with permanence. Nobody knew Duo like he did - nobody saw how he pushed away as much if not more, that when things got too heavy, when words were murmured in the heat of the moment, whispered over slick skin as bodies slid together, that he blocked it out and ran back to the Helen and the comfort of space and isolation. Trowa's barriers and walls were hard to break but then Duo's were just as bad. They really had been entirely wrong for each other. Only looking back did it become more obvious. Quatre continued, his voice low and words carefully chosen. "When I realised what was happening between you... I was happy. I only ever wanted you to be happy, Trowa, and I knew that we could never..." His words faded into the gap between them that was both literal and metaphorical. "I thought Duo would make you happy. I thought he'd force you out of that - armour - you have around you. But it never happened. You still have it and now it's only going to get worse." There was a jolt that went through his body as a hand touched his own. Quatre's hands had always been so much smaller than Trowa's - less calloused due to years of being behind a desk and making speeches and shaking hands. His skin tone was all colony induced just as Duo's was - never tanned like Trowa did from his own origins on earth. Nothing like Duo's hands that were all cuts and scrapes and grease residue under his finger nails. Quatre's finger nails looked manicured - Duo wouldn't have suffered such an indignity - bit them down in fits of nervous energy while he smoked. "Let us back in. Complete your therapy with Wufei but let us back in, Trowa. We all lost a part of ourselves too. You don't have to be alone." The pleading words were making him uncomfortable but he nodded, a short slow nod, and knew it would be what Duo would've wanted. Make his peace with Quatre. And the other's... "You should see Heero. He'll be through this colony in the next few weeks. He has a rally." "Something I never thought I'd see. Yuy kissing babies." Quatre gave a smile - one of those small ones that just curved his lips and it made him looked fifteen again. He'd never been a fan of Trowa's blatant cynicism - Duo's cynicism was usually wrapped up in a funny phrase or complimented by a wide grin whereas he deadpanned. "He'll make a good senator," Quatre said. "His numbers good?" "Very. War hero. Symbolic name. L1 native." "Your money." "Of course... the divorce may hinder him since Ryland is a family man but then I think the other factors will sway voters." Trowa nodded, remembered seeing the campaign vidfeeds and seeing a few speeches. Heero had lost none of his intensity but then the style consultants had given him an air of casualness in his clothing to try and combat that. Found the whole concept of Heero Yuy as a politician weird at times. Mentioned it to Duo once that it seemed like teasing death - running for senate with the name of an assassinated politician but Duo just elbowed him in the ribs and told him he was just sometimes "too fucking cynical". "I think we should order - the waitress has been waiting to approach for the past half an hour," Quatre said, returning his gaze to the menu. "Yeah." "You met with Winner?" The office felt overly bright today. He'd not slept last night, the conversations with Quatre rattling through his brain, and then he'd just given up and wandered the apartment until he couldn't do that anymore and walked out to try and find somewhere still serving alcohol. He didn't succeed but found a twenty four hour mini mart and bought a six pack and a bottle of Jack Daniels. He felt hung over. He'd not done that since Quatre's three thirty-four a.m call. The call that said The Helen had exploded - faulty engine part or something - and Duo was dead. "Yeah." "Just because you're hung over does not mean I am going to go on easy on you, Barton." Trowa grunted in response. It was the best Wufei was going to get. "What did you discuss?" "Duo." He could see Wufei straighten in his chair and his eyes had narrowed. It was the first time he'd volunteered anything and it looked like Wufei was citing this as progress. It didn't feel like progress to Trowa - his head was thumping hard and his breath was rancid and he was in desperate need of sleep so he had little energy to fight back. He looked towards the clock on the wall and despaired when only ten minutes had gone by since he walked in this morning. "Specifically?" "The funeral." "Do you regret not attending?" "There was no body. He wasn't religious. It seemed pointless." "It provides closure. A moment to remember. To discuss. It wasn't about the body or lack of it - it was about remembering a life." "I can remember in my own way." He could remember in his own way, his patchwork of memories that he could trace by remembering whether Duo had the braid or not and whether he'd started making those stupid holes in his ears - ear stretching or something. Seen it somewhere and decided he'd do it - had no fucking idea where Duo got his ideas from. Spacers tended to be a breed apart. All that time alone or with small crews. "Is that why you got drunk?" Trowa thought about it. He'd just been unable to sleep, those few choice words echoing in his head - all those words about armour and the funeral and it just got him thinking. Quatre - that was Quatre, always getting into his skull more than anyone could apart from Duo. "Quatre said I have armour. That I never let anyone in." "What do you think of that statement?" "I think I let people in enough." "Enough." "Enough," he repeated back. "Define enough." "I let people know what they need to know." "What did Duo know?" He wanted to say the word enough again but he imagined it would test Wufei's patience. He could tell he was irritating the psychologist today with his reticence and his foul mood and his stupid, stupid hangover. Trowa had told him most things - those stories of him being No Name and alone from as early as he could remember, how he'd taken the name of a dead condescending rich boy who deserved the bullet he got and how he felt that killing was the only thing he'd ever really known how to do. He omitted bits - some of the merc groups he'd drifted through, some of the atrocities he'd seen with some of those men and some of his own beatings and hardships. That mark on his back had never gone - the harsh slap of heavy leather belt on skin but Duo never asked. Sure as hell saw it, years of being physically intimate, sharing and taking from each other's bodies equally and having tongue and hands explore every inch meant Duo knew his old scars but he hadn't needed to know that. Just as he never asked what every scar on Duo's body was from. The love affair of two ex-soldier orphans was not candy and roses. "More than anyone." Really he had. Quatre had always felt he knew everything about Trowa - thought he could read him but really it was only Duo who understood. Quatre never had the visceral terror of not wanting to close his eyes at night as a child for fear of the men in a mercenary camp. He knew about death and violence only once he piloted Sandrock, not before that - not since childhood. There was always going to be that barrier between them - that great divide and he could never tell Quatre so many things. Could never tell him how cold he felt in space alone - could never sleep beside the man if he had those nightmare about explosions and choking to death and the coldness of a void seeping through his spacesuit. He could tell Duo, a man who lived in constant fear of that, in the risky salvage game when one faulty part and one large piece of titanium could obliterate his existence. The ever-present knowledge that Spacers lived with that one single moment could bring with it immediate death. And it had. That risky occupation had brought with it the usual outcome - Spacers didn't live into retirement. "Why Duo?" Trowa blinked and looked up - staring straight into those eyes. The question seemed odd. "What I mean to say... is why did you tell Duo?" "He had his shit. Understood better. Didn't need the sugar coating." "And you feel Quatre always did?" "Quatre..." he started but didn't know how to say what he needed to say. Quatre - what? He wanted someone less fucked up, he wanted someone who didn't hide and conceal, he wanted an idea of him - not the real version. It was always so damn complicated with Quatre. "He wanted something I could never give him." "And what did Duo want from you?" "He never..." Trowa paused and rubbed at his temples. The hangover was a bitch. "He never said. Never demanded anything." It was true - never said, never asked or seemed to want anything more than what they had. Made it easy for him. And he'd let him in, past some of that armour, never fully, but they'd had something. Maybe it was love. Fuck if he knew. "Why did you think the two of you ended up in this... relationship? On the surface, I would consider you entirely unsuited." "On the surface... yeah," Trowa answered admitting perhaps what everyone thought. It didn't make sense in so many ways, they barely knew each other in the wars, Duo was, well, Duo, funny and charismatic and likeable and everything Trowa wasn't. They sure as hell didn't look like they belonged together, never looked quite right together, Trowa much taller and Duo all that laid back, languid way of holding himself and they never acted like a couple anywhere other than in private. Shit, it had always looked like Heero and Duo were more compatible in public - the way that Duo would lean against him, throw an arm around his shoulder and they would talk and just look like they could be more than friends. They never did that - Trowa never let it happen, he supposed, maybe he did have that stupid damn armour. They only truly worked together in private, in sheets, in the movement of mouth and lips over heated skin and in the moments of sweat drying and cigarettes shared and falling asleep with ankles entwined and a hand against chests. In conversations had in semi-darkness. That was where they worked and nowhere else. "We had a lot in common." "Like what?" "Childhood shit." Trowa wanted to groan as he could almost hear the cogs whirling in Wufei's head - it was like a jackpot for a psychologist - childhood shit. He couldn't have mommy or daddy issues as that would require him having had parents but then he still could have childhood issues. "Explain." "Look, I'm hung over... can we cut this session short?" "No. You are required to complete four hours. You have fifteen minutes left. Explain childhood shit." Trowa leaned forward in the chair, holding his head a little in his hands and could feel the steely glare of black eyes without looking up. Wufei was always such a hard ass. Always had been. Right now he really didn't appreciate it. "We both don't remember parents. We found our own version of families. Lost them. Went out on our own way. Didn't have real names. You want more?" "Is there anything else?" "We both knew violence when we were kids. Both seen more dead bodies by six than most people ever see... we had nightmares." "He understood you." It wasn't a question - it was a statement. Trowa looked up to see Wufei had removed those glasses and was looking thoughtful - less judgemental, less harsh. "Yeah." "And now you feel no one does." He shrugged. Quatre had wanted to prove he understood, had tried with a soft hand and those manicured nails and soft words and that entreaty about them all becoming buddies again but no... Quatre never quite understood. No, no one understood him like Duo did, he realised that as he answered the rest of Wufei's questions and promised to meet Yuy when he arrived on L1 for the damn political rally. His head pounded as they finished the session and he felt the burn of stomach acid as he left thinking - damn, Duo understood him but he wasn't sure he'd ever understood Duo Maxwell.
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