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It was a bright, warm April day. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, and Duo had a pretty girl on his arm--who refused to lift her eyes from her feet.
Duo had tried every trick he knew to get her to talk or laugh or for chrissakes smile, but nothing had worked. Relena just walked along beside and slightly behind him, apparently trying to memorize every pebble in the sidewalk. Duo was chafing under the weight of the silence.
He turned to Relena suddenly, meaning to ask her exactly where that Japanese restaurant was. She flinched, glancing up at Duo; her hands came up slightly, as if she were protecting herself from a sudden blow. The scared-rabbit look in her eyes made Duo feel about two inches tall.
He reached out for Relena’s hands; she flinched again, and Duo realized one of the great truths of life: the easiest way for a woman to make a man feel dirty was to jump when he reached for her. He had never laid an angry hand on a woman in his life, unless they were both in mobile suits, but Relena’s distrust of his touch made him want to cry and kill himself and beat the living shit out of Heero Yuy all at once.
Duo took her hands in his and just stood there on the sidewalk holding them gently while swarms of people swerved to avoid them. "Look at me, please, Relena." She wouldn’t, so he released one of her hands and tilted her chin up. Still she averted her eyes. Duo winced; now that he was seeing her face-on in full afternoon sunlight, the fading bruise was even more visible. He tried to make his voice as gentle as possible. "I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you. I just want to take you to lunch. In order to do that, though, I need to know where the restaurant is. Could you tell me?"
Relena finally allowed her eyes to meet his. Duo could still see the hesitation. It hurt his heart to see so much pain in such a beautiful pair of eyes (forgetting for the moment that he had looked in the mirror many a morning to see similar pain staring back at him). "Please, Relena. I’m not going to hurt you in any way. I just want to be your friend. I don’t know what’s happened between you and Heero, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. Just try to trust me, please, and let me be your friend."
Relena only stared in surprise for a long moment, and then her eyes filled with thankful tears. She began to sob and Duo pulled her close and held her, not minding the crowds of people going from non-dysfunctional little cubicles to non-dysfunctional little restaurants and back again. He stroked her hair, making little comforting sounds. After a few minutes, Relena pulled her head back, sniffling, and said, "The restaurant’s right around the next corner. I-I’ll tell you everything." She looked up again, hesitantly, as if waiting for Duo to tell her that was alright. Duo only smiled and motioned for her to lead the way.
~smiling in their faces
while filling up the hole
so many dirty little places
in your filthy little worn out broken down see through soul~
The restaurant was a good one, with a quiet atmosphere and lovely Japanese art on the walls. The couple took a booth in the back. Duo ordered sukiyaki; Relena asked for nothing more than a glass of water, but under Duo’s insistence she finally gave in and ordered tempura. They ate in relative silence, Duo breaking in every now and then with some funny bit of news or a joke to try to loosen Relena up a bit. When they had both finished, Duo sat back in silence, waiting for her to tell her story. For a while she only pushed crumbs around on her plate; when she finally began to speak, Duo had to lean forward to hear her.
~baby’s got a problem
tries so hard to hide
got to keep it on the surface
because everything else is dead on the inside~
"I fell in love with Heero the first time I saw him, there on the beach," she whispered. "He was so helpless, yet so strong; so mysterious, yet I felt as though I knew him. That time you shot him and I tried to protect him, I was so scared...and I’m so ashamed to say it, but I hated you then. I hated you for trying to take him before I’d even gotten to know him."
"Hey, that’s okay. You feel what you feel."
"When he finally let me get close, a few months ago, I thought I was in heaven. He’d held me off for so long, I was afraid he was only going out with me so I'd leave him alone. But the way he would act sometimes, so affectionate and protective, made me sure that he really felt something for me. Once," and she laughed with the memory, "once I was in the kitchen cutting meat for dinner--it was our one-month anniversary and I was making him dinner--and some blood from the meat had gotten on my hands. He walked up behind me, to surprise me, you know, and he saw the blood on my hands, and he absolutely freaked out! He picked me up and carried me to the bathroom, he was so frantic, and I kept trying to tell him it isn’t mine, you know, I’m not hurt, it’s just from the meat. It took him a full ten minutes for it to get through to him. He just stood there with a strange look on his face for a second, and then started to clean me up. He carried me all the way back out to the kitchen and made me sit on the barstool while he made dinner for me! Oh Duo, if you had only seen the look on his face--" By now Duo was laughing too, relishing the thought of Heero being frantic about anything.
Relena laughed for a while, then her face became serious and thoughtful. "That night was the first time we made love." She blushed deep red to the roots of her honey-blonde hair. Duo was utterly spellbound by this simple show of modesty and innocence. Later, when he finally got to bed and tried in vain to sleep, he reflected on that moment and decided that it was the moment he had fallen in love with Relena. He said nothing, however, only reached across the table for her hand, letting her know he was listening.
"It was nice, finally being able to be completely close to him. He was gentle; it didn’t even hurt much. The next day was when I began staying nights at Quatre’s house with you guys. Silly me, I thought it would fix everything, that giving myself to him would make him really love me. But it was only the start of the trouble." Now she looked as if she were near tears again; Duo still didn’t speak, only caressed her hand, showing her he cared.
"That night was also the night he had the first dream. It must have been a bad one; he was tossing and turning, and moaning a word, I don’t know if it was a name or just a word, he’s been awfully funny about teaching me Japanese--it sounded like ‘me’ or ‘mia’ or something. Anyway, he woke up screaming, and I tried to comfort him, I reached out to hold him...and he slapped me right across the face." She was crying now, slow gasping sobs, and Duo moved to her side of the booth so he could hold her.
"As soon as he’d done it, he was sorry; he held me and cried for a while that he’d never let it happen again. At first I didn’t trust him and I wanted to just pack up and go home, but then he looked me in the eyes and said ‘Ai shiteru, Relena’ and I asked him what it meant, and he said ‘I love you’. It was the first time he’d ever said it. I fell all over again. Age-old mistake. I thought it would stop there...but it had only just begun...
Duo still said nothing, only quietly held her, but inside he was fuming. Oh Yuy. Oh when I get hold of you. Oh Shinigami’s comin’ baby, and you better hope you can find a damn good hiding place before I get there.
~teeth in the necks of everyone you know
you can keep on sucking until the blood won’t flow
when it starts to hurt it only helps it grow
taking all you need
(but not this time)
no, you don’t~
"It’s okay, Relena...sshhhh...it’s okay..." he soothed.
"No! It’s not okay! I love him, dammit, that ought to be enough!"
Duo judged by the way she blushed again after the curse that it was the first swear she’d ever said out loud. It just pulled him in deeper; he’d never known a girl as modest and ladylike as Relena, and it was quite a change from the scantily-clad California-beach-babe types he usually dated. A girl like this could make a man want to fight for her. A girl like this could make a man want to settle down. He shook off his reverie, seeing she was about to speak again.
"After that night, everything went to hell." Another blush. "I did everything I knew to do: made him dinner, went to parties and raves and movies and dinners with him, tried to draw him out, but nothing worked. Don’t get me wrong, he never hit me in the daytime. It was always at night, in bed. We’ll be making love, and all of a sudden he’ll look at me--or rather, it’s like he’s looking through me--and his eyes glaze over, and I’ll call his name to try to bring him back to me, and he’ll shake it off, look at me, and get the most awful expression on his face: a combination of hurt, fear, hatred, and something else--a terrible coldness--and he’ll hit me, just once or twice, but hard. Then he’ll be sorry and apologize, and I’ll forgive him, and we’ll finish making love. Only last night, it went differently." She swallowed, and Duo handed her a napkin to dry her eyes. She thanked him and went on.
"Last night...we were making love...and he started to call out that word again, the one he’d said in his dream, ’me’ or ‘mia’ or whatever it was, and I pushed him off and asked him who he was talking to, and--and he hit me in the eye...but instead of being sorry, h-he just became m-m-more--more--he took me really hard then, holding my arms so tight I thought he was going to break them...and when he finally came, he started to bite." She pulled the collar of the dress she was wearing down slightly, to show Duo two very nasty bite-marks. "And when he was finished coming...he just rolled off of me and lay with his back to me, and wouldn’t speak to me, like I’d done something wrong. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just lay there and cried for a while. Then I got angry. So I put on some clothes and left. Early this morning, Heero called my house to see if I was there. We talked for a few minutes and he asked if I was coming back. I said I might, and he said okay, he’d look forward to seeing me, and hung up. And that brings us to the present."
~and just for the record
just so you know
i did not believe
that you could sink so low~
Duo was seething. Oh boy, Heero, you better not be at home when I get there, because if you are, boy will you ever be sorry. I’ll make you sorry you ever laid eyes on me. His grip on Relena’s shoulder began to tighten involuntarily, and Relena squirmed. "Ooops! Relena, I’m sorry. It’s just...I’m so mad at Heero. In my opinion, any man who’d hit a girl like you is the worst kind of scum, and doesn’t deserve to live. I swear to you, the next time I see him--"
"No! Don’t you lay a finger on him!" Relena flared. Then she sagged. "I’m sorry Duo, I didn’t mean to yell. Just promise me you won’t say anything to anyone about this, not even Heero. Maybe everything will work itself out."
"And maybe the bastard will end up killing you! Relena, you have to face reality here! Please, let me get you some help. You don’t need to go back to him! He’ll only hurt you more, and worse this time!"
"Maybe he will...but I don’t think so. Please, just don’t say anything. I’m only going to give him one more chance, and I promise, if it doesn’t work out, then I’ll let you help me get away from him."
Duo was about to protest again, but when he looked into Relena’s eyes, he saw that trademark Peacecraft determination and stubbornness. He’d seen that same determination the day he’d tried to shoot Heero, thinking he was going to kill Relena, and she had stepped in front of him, protecting him. And he knew there was no getting around that determination. "Okay, I promise. But just one more chance, okay? And please, if anything else happens, come and tell me or one of the others. We’re your friends, and we’ll all do our best to help you."
"Okay, Duo." She yawned. "Oh boy, I didn’t get much sleep last night. Please take me home, Duo, I want to take a nap."
"To your home or our home?" Duo asked.
The blonde girl smiled at this. "Our home. I want to talk to Heero too, and I really have to have a talk with Quatre about the drapes in my room. Magenta, can you believe it? My decorator must be crazy. How dreadful..."
Relena chattered, seemingly happily, while Duo paid the bill and escorted her out of the restaurant. Must be feeling better now that she’s gotten it all off her chest--and such a lovely chest it is, too... Duo, however, was still fuming, regardless of Relena’s chest. As their steps turned toward the large beachfront mansion that Quatre was kind enough to share with all of them, Relena talked about nothing and everything all at once and Duo nodded in all the right places, but only one thought was at the forefront of his mind: You better watch out, Yuy, because Shinigami is coming, Death is coming for you, if you so much as lay a finger on her head--you can keep the hands you beat her with, but your ass belongs to me...
~you think that you can beat them
i know that you won’t
you think you have everything
but no, you don’t
no, you don’t
no, you don’t
no, you don’t
no, you don’t~