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"Second Chance Salvage"Written By: t-shirt Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters are
copyright to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency, and associated parties.
I make no money with this fic. Rating: R Warnings: Post War Cannon, Angst,
sap Pairings: 1x2, mention of 1xR, Hx2
(unrequited) Summary: Hiiro returns two years after a volatile love confession from Duo to find it’s not always so easy to face ones desires. "Second Chance Salvage"
Salvage wasn’t the most exciting industry in the cosmos but it fed my need to tinker and paid the bills so I couldn’t complain. If there was anything I would’ve done differently after the war it would have been to search out a spot of my own instead of throwing in at Second Chance Salvage with Hilde. I love the girl, don’t get me wrong but she was hearing wedding bells six months after I moved in and I was more in the market for some good natured, sibling rivalry. She got over it for the most part but I was forced to confess secrets I wasn’t ready too in order to make her understand. Things hadn’t really been the same between us since which had my feet itching. It’s a wonder I wasn’t already gone the day Hiiro showed up and quite frankly I wished I had been when I saw him standing in our living room with my roommate. For a moment I had the most surreal urge to punch him dead in the face then I noticed the sheepish expression in Hilde’s eyes and realized I was coming in on the tail end of the conversation. “Hello, Duo.” “Queen Peacetrap let you off the run?” I snipped moving purposefully through the room. Two years, two damn years without a word. “Duo… please.” “You set this up didn’t you?” I growled rounding on my skittish partner. “No,” she squeaked uncertainly. “I wanted to see you,” Hiiro cut in laying open a wound inside me that I suddenly realized had never even started to heal. “Tough shit,” I snapped turning back to act on my first inclination. “Duo…” “I’m moving out,” I said over my shoulder forcing the shocked gasp that escaped Hilde’s lips out of my mind. I hadn’t planned on it coming about like that but she’d forced the issue when she’d let him in the house without even telling me. I still couldn’t believe it. Hilde of all people! She was the one person in creation that actually knew the truth! I couldn’t believe it. “What’re you talking about?” she exclaimed chasing me into my room but the sight of my already packed bags robbed her of any further comment. “Look,” I sighed jerking my duffle onto my shoulder. “I was going to tell you later. I found an apartment in town.” “You can’t just…” “Like hell!” I shouted feeling bad for it when she jumped half out of her skin. I’d known Hilde a long time but that was the first time I’d ever yelled at her so angrily. “I can do anything I damn well please,” I told her gracing Hiiro with an icy glance when he appeared in the door. “Just like you can have anyone in your house that you choose.” I saw her mouth work and her eyes go indignant but it was the pain that laced Hiiro’s eyes that cut deep. I pushed past him regardless and stormed out wishing I’d have had the sense to just come clean about the move before hand. If I hadn’t been trying to spare her feelings I wouldn’t have been there when Hiiro showed up and there’s no way in hell I’d have let him in my place. Not that he’d have gone that far, I never really meant that much to him anyway. That still hurt… a lot. I had thought we’d built something sort of special during the war, something worth keeping but he hadn’t felt the same. I didn’t understand until the day I finally broke and told him how I really feel about him. I was so sure he’d understand, maybe even reciprocate given time. We had a connection, or so I thought until I kissed him in a moment of weakness during my fool hearty confession and got a cracked rib for my trouble. He walked out while I lay on the floor like a flounder on the dock gasping for air and wondering if he’d actually jerked my heart out of my chest. He never looked back, refused to answer my calls and finally ended up moving into the Peacecraft manor. Still, I couldn’t give up on him. Like an idiot I sent him letters, email, even sent him flowers on the anniversary of the end of the war then one day I woke up and caught the wedding announcement on the local news. He and Relena were to be married and I finally understood. I’d never had a chance at his heart but I could live with that, it was his willingness to trash our friendship that tore me up and I just could not deal with the idea that he could just waltz back into my life and rip my heart out again anytime he liked. “Damn it!” I growled tossing my bag into the far wall of my mostly empty apartment. The couch had been left by the previous tenants but my stuff wouldn’t be delivered until the weekend which was when I’d actually planned on moving but that was shot to shit. It hurt to see him again. After all that time and then suddenly bam, he’s just standing there looking… “Damn, he looked good,” I told my bare walls as I sank into my slightly used sofa. “Why can’t he just get fat and slovenly?” I groaned beating back a beast I’d been fighting since the first day I’d laid eyes on him. “”Cause he’s first cousin’s with fucking Adonis,” I answered myself with a deep sigh and wry chuckle. I wished I had my vid or audio or something to distract my mind but all I could do was sit there and wonder why he’d shown up. ’I wanted to see you.’ His words just kept running through my head, around and around until I felt dizzy and frustrated and angry and all the things I’d worked so hard to get past since that day long ago but it all came crashing back down the moment I’d seen his face. When the doorbell rang I was sort of glad because whoever it was would give me something else to think about. Who it was was a mystery though, since I didn’t know my neighbors yet so I figured Hilde must’ve ransacked my room and found the address in my stuff somewhere. I didn’t really want to see her but figured I owed her an apology for how I’d behaved so I pulled my ass out of the couch but when I opened the door it wasn’t Hilde’s face on the other side. Instinct kicked in and I slammed it in Hiiro’s face before he could say anything and trudged back to my couch. It took a long minute before the handle turned in which I felt the universe shift this way and that. I had to be stepping over the time lines or something because Hiiro was not about to enter my apartment uninvited. It just couldn’t be happening. “Duo?” “You’ve got some of nerve.” “I’m sorry,” he apologized coming fully into my new home. “But I needed to see you.” “You’ve seen me,” I sighed scrubbing at tired eyes. “Now, go away.” “Please,” he entreated sounding so uncertain, a tone I was not familiar with coming from him, that I turned a curious eye towards him. “I just want to talk.” “So talk,” I snorted unable to hold the resentment at bay. I’d called him every night for over eleven months and he never once picked up the phone. Now he wanted to talk. “Um,” he began nervously further stroking my curiosity. “I…wondered how you were…” “Good talk,” I cut in sharply following it up with a stern, “Good night.” “Damn it, Duo!” he rasped making the mistake of stepping forward and I was suddenly off the couch, spitting mad and jacking his jaw. It hurt in so many different ways when I saw him hit the floor, his eyes round and shocked while all the little demons and angels inside me jerked me this way and that. Help him, hit him again, he’s hurt, he deserves it, he hurt you so much for so long… “I’m sorry.” His words stunned me though I suppose it was more because I had just cleaned his clock so I was the one that probably should have been saying it rather than the fact that he had. I really didn’t know what to do. “Get out.” “I can’t.” “Well, I can help you but I doubt you’d enjoy it very much,” I grumbled plopping back into the couch. “I love you.” I wanted to cry, truly I did. “What?” I laughed feeling utterly idiotic for even having this conversation. “It’s true,” he insisted moving to kneel in front of me in that weird, Japanese style that makes everyone look regal or something. “You’re bonnie bride isn’t going to be very happy with that little tid bit,” I chuckled. “No,” he agreed. “She wasn’t.” A bell resounded in my head. “You told her that?” I half whispered disbelievingly. “The moment I understood,” he confessed. “What about the ‘Wedding of the Century’?” I asked quoting the tabloid headlines. “It will be formally cancelled.” “You better crawl back and warm her sheets real quick,” I advised. “Because there’s nothing left for you here.” I said the words, I wanted to believe but he was sitting there on his knees before me, his eyes open and determined but his words were so foreign I just couldn’t comprehend. “We have never been together,” he said throwing me completely off balance again. They didn’t sleep together? “You were going to marry a woman you’ve never slept with?” I asked rather numbly. “I was,” he replied. “Until I discovered that I can’t.” “Can’t…what?” None of this was making any sense. “Sleep with her.” “What?” I chuckled still hanging around the edge of the ludicrousness of it all. “She didn’t turn your knob?” “No.” Well… hell. “I’m not… attracted to her,” he explained rather awkwardly and I decided I didn’t want to know how he found that out. “So you figured you’d just bounce back to me?” That hurt even to say, facing the possibility that it might be true wasn’t something I was ready to deal with. “No…Duo,” he said moving close enough he could have put his hands on my knees but a dark glare stopped that little impulse real quick. “I’ve always loved you,” he confessed looking so hopeful and unsure he put me in mind of a little boy. “I just didn’t know it. I didn’t understand what I was feeling back then and it… frightened me.” “Well,” I ginned unable to stop myself in the face of his awkward determination. “That had to hurt.” He chuckled and for a moment all was right with the world until all the resentment, loneliness and pain washed it away. “You scared the shit out of me that day.” “Felt more like I dug my own grave,” I replied solemnly. His eyes did something strange then, something that almost looked like crystals turning in the light then he lurched forward and dug his face into my lap and what was left of my splintered heart shattered when he began to cry. “I’m so sorry,” he said again as my hands automatically reached out to comfort but my anger refused to let them complete their mission. “I didn’t know what to do and I felt so bad about hurting you. Trowa said I cracked your ribs, I thought for sure you wanted to get back at me but then you just kept calling. After a while I started to believe you’d never give up. I listened,” he said suddenly raising his head to stare at me with his heart in his eyes and it just about broke me in half. “I swear, I listened every night when you called. I don’t know,” he went on as his eyes and head dropped to my chest and I suddenly found myself holding him. “Somewhere along the line I think I started to believe there was no way you’d ever stop caring.” I hadn’t. “But then, after the wedding was announced you stopped calling and everything started falling apart. I couldn’t sleep or eat, Relena began to question me relentlessly about things I didn’t understand myself and then…” I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear this part. He must have noticed me tense because he amended with, “I tried so hard but…” Nope, I didn’t even want to hear that much. He paused to lift his head and moved closer putting him slightly over top of me which was sort of a long time fantasy of mine and I was getting pissed at myself for liking it. My weird, carnal lusts were not the issue however, something poignantly demonstrated as he took my face in his hand, gazed intently into my eyes and confessed, “All I could think about was you.” I’d like to say I let him kiss me but the truth is the moment he’d committed himself to the action I was lost to it. For so long I’d dreamed of tasting those sweet lips, just to feel the velvet tip of his tongue on mine and breath the same air. It was more than my imagination could ever have conjured up and left me panting like a winded mule when he finally pulled away. “I love you,” he rasped on a broken thread that screamed unprecedented truth and devotion. But my heart wasn’t whole anymore. “I… can’t,” I choked wishing for all the world he’d just stayed in his pretty palace and left me to my fate. “No,” he whispered in desperate denial. “You didn’t honestly think you could walk in here, kiss me and everything would be fine?” I chuckled gently pushing him away to a comfortable distance. “I won’t give up,” he promised showing me a bit of that old determination. “Prove it.” “I will!” he exclaimed frightening me a little with his suddenly, sparkling jubilation. “I’ll show you,” he promised latching onto my chest again and as much as I wanted to stay angry with him I couldn’t’ stop the laugh but it wavered when he softly breathed, “Thank you.” “I haven’t accepted anything yet,” I reminded him wondering if maybe in time the past couple of years would prove worth it. “I know,” he nodded pulling back to peer up at me. “But there’s hope,” he smiled. “And I’ll never knowingly let you down again.” I realized as he kissed me that he’d never really let me down to begin with and made it my mission to learn about everything he’d gone through while we were apart. I’d tossed a monkey wrench in the works when I’d lost my senses and forced him to face feelings he wasn’t ready to deal with but I finally understood why I couldn’t let it go. He did love me, just as I’d always felt he had and I was starting to believe that maybe we could put it back together again. Salvage is all about putting bits and pieces together after all, and I had a feeling we were both going to enjoy tinkering with this for a good, long time. owari :)
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