Pairings: 1+2+1
Archive: You want it, you got it! Just let me know who you are so I
may praise your many virtues!
Feedback: Craved, adored and needed! Give me some, get me as a
wifey!
Warnings: ... angst. What can I say, it's a mood occasionally.
Disclaimer: I own nothing about these characters, sadly, but maybe
someday! I can always hope right?
It�s strange. Even now I wonder why I didn�t see it coming. He and Quatre kept at us all, always trying to lighten the tension. Even with his kill-them-all-and-let-the-god�s sort-them-out attitude, he was still able to break up the dangerous intensity we all had. He helped make it useful intensity. That takes skill.
The same skill he managed to use against me- he allegedly changed his school records and joked occasionally about being bored and how we didn�t really need to try to do well in schools if we were just going to leave it shortly after our mission finished, and yet he occasionally let some knowledge of chemistry slip that�d been in the back of our textbooks. He apparently read them all and was determined to know all he could, even if he had to half ass the tests to avoid the attention of the teachers. I still don�t know when he did that.
To think, all through the war he piloted well enough to keep up with Trowa and I, and we�d been trained for this practically since birth. To have that kind of skill you have to work at it, even if you�re a natural. But he didn�t have any more missions that the rest of us.
He never seemed to gain or loose weight, ate the same as the rest of us, but food just flew out of the shared kitchens. He must have stayed up all night most of the time, learning what he could about everything. We�d occasionally chide him about being lazy when we found him asleep somewhere.
Anything we asked him to do, he�d do, somehow, and still find time to do his other �things�. When I saw him for the first time after I self-destructed, we talked and he told me that he liked me. I found his offer of making love fit with my need for sexual gratification at the time and took him up on it. It was only after the war, when he kept leaving messages that I started to understand we�d meant something more to him. When I discovered the beginnings of Maiemeia�s coup, I went to him for help and later, for forgiveness, but instead he gave his help, then disappeared before I could ask for the rest.
When we joined the Preventers, he still worked tirelessly, but now it started to actually show sometimes. I finally got to ask for his forgiveness then, and he gave it. But then I made the mistake of thinking the signs of stress were just him dealing with the new peace.
It wasn�t until I found him sitting at the computer yesterday morning, where he�d been last night when I left for bed, with blank eyes that I realized something was really wrong.
He�s just lying there now on that hospital bed, so still. Given his condition, the doctor hypothesizes that he hasn�t gotten more than 2 hours of sleep a night for the past eight years. The doctor says that the amount of stress he�s been under since the start of the war and after is enough to give most people a heart attack twice over. Especially in light of the records I found this morning on his own laptop regarding hours of usage.
He would joke about my laptop taking the place of my lover- Duo successfully managed to learn enough chemistry, physics, higher math to have a PHD. In all of those. I don�t know how I managed to miss the fact that he didn�t sleep. He has text documents about those subjects in at least two dead languages and journals kept in three others. When did he have the time to learn Latin, Gaelic, German, Japanese and French?
I dropped my eyes away from his still form and rubbed them. I can�t find any record of him in any schools with the exception of his short period of Maxwell Church. Howard told me that when he was with the sweepers, they didn�t have any books but plenty of manuals. He tells me Duo read through those, but those wouldn�t have given him this knowledge. Just the starting blocks. He had to have learned it all during the war and after.
I rubbed my eyes and gave up on standing. I walked away from the wall to the chair at his bedside. Duo now looked like the mess he was. His face, pale, and his eyes looked like they sank back into his head somewhat. The eyes that shone when I finally told him I loved him are closed against the harsh hospital lighting. His hair looks almost dusty in this light- nothing like the mercurial strands I�d help him brush out at night. The incessant, and thankfully, unceasing beep from the heart monitor is the only thing that tells me he�s still alive.
The psychiatrist tells me that his mind couldn�t take the pace and shut down. The optometrist tells me his eyes have been damaged from the light overexposure from the laptop screen and from the lack of moisture. They can�t tell me how bad the damage is until he wakes up.
Everyone wonders how I missed the signs, including me. When he finally gets released from the hospital, we�ll both be on a six month suspension from the Preventers- him on medical/vacation leave, me on actual suspension/vacation leave. Right now I�m on medical leave.
He�s been out for two weeks. I just wish he�d come back. I ran his most recent entries- he�s started learning Spanish- through a translator and what I�ve read scares me. He�s so close to the edge of suicide because of everything he�s doing and he�s afraid he can�t stop because he hasn�t been able to stop all the times he�s tried before. Those times have all coincided with our really big fights. He wants to learn because he never wants to feel stupid. He needs to know things so he can have the answers. He needs to feel like he�s worth something to me.
I just want him to return to me so I can tell him it�s ok, that he can still learn, that I�m never going to stop him from learning, but that he needs to take the time to learn one thing at a time. I need to tell him that no matter how bad the fights get, I�m not going to leave him because I love him. He needs to know that he doesn�t have to be the one to do and fix and please everything and everyone all the time.
He needs to know that I love him just the way he is and that I�m not perfect and that he�s closer to perfection than I�ll ever be.
I slowly take his hand in mine- his once soft skin feels dry. I�ll have to find some lotion. I like being able to share things with him. He needs to know that I can�t do that if he knows everything because it doesn�t hold the same kind of magic. I sighed and turned his hand over and started tracing the lines on his palm.
I just want him to return. Return to me. My fingers traced over his heart line. I want to feel his body respond against mine, I want to quiver at the sound of his voice calling my name in breathless passion. I want to feel his fingers trying to find my ticklish spots he insists I have while I manage to find every one of his.
I shiver slightly as I touch his short lifeline and hope to God that palm reading isn�t accurate and that he�ll have the long life he deserves with those he loves that love him back. I need him.
I close my eyes. I need him to return to me.