The Most Bittersweet Gift - Chapter 7	Home - Review - Previous - Next
Duo leaned his head back a little, hands coming up to rub at the throat, sweeping along to the back where small tendrils of hair inevitably escaped the braid, rubbing in a soothing manner. It did little to ease the tense muscles and suddenly Duo’s body temperature seemed to plummet, leaving him chilled in the room which he had been previously comfortable in. His eyes strayed over to Heero, who was sitting rigid, straight-backed in the somewhat comfortable chair, watching Duo’s doctor’s face, expression almost unreadable. Suddenly Duo wished that they had opted to sit on the couch again, so Duo could lean into the warm, comforting body, for more reasons than physical chill. Dr. Wright began to speak in his soft voice, the one normally reserved to soften the blow bad news brought with it, and that’s all the answer Duo needed. “I’m sorry, Duo. It does seem, unfortunately, that you do seem to be losing your hair. It’s actually more normal than most think, since it’s not a disease that’s causing it, which is rare, and a combination of medicines. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, if the medicine is doing what it’s supposed to do. Eyesight may fail a bit, memory may get a bit fuzzy, in your case, hair loss. It’s not the worst thing in the world, I suppose. It may not be entirely either, I think that the fact you have so much hair may be pulling down a bit more than needed and that’s helping the rate at which it goes. My advice, to keep your hair for a bit longer, if it’s planning on falling out on you at all, is to cut it. It’ll last longer. Good news though.” “How’s that?” Duo managed, fighting successfully to keep back the tears he had not allowed to fall for himself in so long. “Well, it shows that you have actually been taking your medication. Only a long time on the medication would lead to such a build up like this, enough to cause the hair to weaken and the chemicals to differ slightly. Probably not good advice as far as you care, but there’s nothing really that can be done as far as reversing the process.” Doctor Wright paused, letting it sink in slowly and easily, then broke through the silence again, rising slightly in his chair, arms extended over his tabletop to Heero. “Pleasure seeing you again, sir, even though it had to be like this. I have another appointment, I had to squeeze this in, but that’s really no bother, and don’t hesitate to call if you need to see me about something, alright Duo?” Duo nodded, not really hearing the blurred words as they fell on his deaf ears, mind numb from the shock of what was happening. He vaguely had the sensation of Heero pulling him up against his warm body, throwing an arm tightly around the waist, leading him away from the office and down the hall. He was blind to the others waiting to be seen as they looked on as the two young men passed, some with pity and sympathy for the obviously distraught pair, some with unease at seeing the two so close. He wasn’t even sure how he made it to the car except to know he was there, the seatbelt pressing against his chest, staring out the windshield through narrow eyes. They weren’t moving. “Duo,” Heero whispered from beside him, drawing Duo’s attention outward, away from himself and towards the sound, and Duo looked over to see Heero settled beside him in the drivers seat, one arm thrown over the steering wheel, cheek resting against that arm, deep, burning, Prussian blue eyes focused solely and entirely upon him, Duo Maxwell. “Yes?” “I…I’m sorry.” Two little words that released the flood from behind a broken dam and Duo broke down into sobs, drawing his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees, forehead resting against the knees. Heero moved closer and pulled Duo close, knowing without words being spoken the angst this caused him. Once the sobs had subsided and the breathing had evened out Duo lifted his head to look at Heero through blurred eyes. His hand came up, wiped absently with the back of his hand against his face. “What do you think I should do?” he whispered. Heero smoothed the hair back away from Duo’s face where they were coming loose (and not off, thank god, Heero thought), knowing he owed Duo the truth. “I think…I think you should cut it. He may be right, and besides, that much hair has to…it has to weigh you down, right? Especially when wet.” A moment’s thought, then Duo nodded, and Heero wasn’t sure if he was agreeing or answering the question posed. Another nod, then Duo lifted Heero’s hand and pressed it against his flushed, tear-streaked cheek, tilting his head into the touch. “Alright,” he breathed, voice breaking slightly. “Alright, if you think that’s best…” “I do.” “Now…before I lose my nerve…” Heero reluctantly pulled his hand away, but caught Duo’s hand and squeezed, settling their joined hands against his own cheek momentarily before letting go. Starting the car he glanced over at Duo, then back to the road. * * * * * The position was alien to him, but he accepted whole-heartedly and without thought as he chattered on and on about nothing in particular. Not his style, this was Duo’s thing, but Duo was silent and Heero didn’t want Duo to back out or draw into himself. He had to respect the American though, after trying to talk for five minutes about nothing and finding his already struggling monologue was collapsing in on it’s self, and this was something Duo could do for hours upon hours at a time. “That’s an awful lot of hair, there,” the barber remarked, looking at the braided chestnut rope snaking it’s way down the back of the chair. “And you want me to cut it all off, hmmm…where do you want it cut at?” Those heartbroken violet eyes jumped over to Heero without a second thought and Heero cursed the fact he would have to make this decision. Moving from where he was in front of Duo, blocking Duo’s view of the mirror and of the barber’s hands, to where the older man stood, and studied the braid. The braid, which had become as much of a part of Duo as the cross around his neck, or the maniac grin on his lips, or the ever-present chatter. It took a full minute for Heero to decide, and then he slowly touched a place on the braid, several inches below the shoulders, feeling Duo wince at that light contact. He hissed under his breath he wanted the braid intact, unable to part with it even if it had to part from its owner. Duo’s eyes were shut tightly, humming lightly under his breath, but he still knew the exact moment the braid was cut, as the ever-present weight, the ever-present reminder it had served all these years, was suddenly no longer there. Followed closely was the thought that Heero loved his hair, would Heero love him now that it was gone? There was no time to ponder that as Heero petted the back of Duo’s hand gently, silent, the barber not as silent as he trimmed the now shorter hair, it reaching to some point one fourth down his back, where before it had dangled teasingly against his thighs, brushing his knees when he wore shorts, getting caught up in doors and being sat on. Never again, a little voice whispered in his mind. “Heero,” Duo whispered. “Take me home.” Heero looked up, and then nodded, feeling a smile touch his lips. Yes, he would take Duo home. * * * * * “Not likely, he’s been sitting on the couch like that ever since I brought him home at two-thirty and it’s near about six,” Heero answered, glancing over at Relena, who was peeking out of the open kitchen door watching where Duo sat, glass of water by his side, writing in one of the notebooks Heero had bought him on the way back from their appointment and the impromptu murder of the braid. “Do you think he’ll eat dinner, even if he doesn’t come to the table?” “Doesn’t matter,” Heero answered, looking over his shoulder with a frown at Duo, who’s hair had promptly been pulled back into a ponytail and left there, not touched once since then. Heero had to admit he liked the new look, it was different, and while the other look made Duo into a fey creature, this gave him back the masculinity that was lost in the trailing feet of hair. It framed his face, making him appear more delicate, but stronger at the same time. “I’m going to make him eat, even if I have to feed him myself,” Heero explained. “So the hair had to go to slow the process of him losing it all very fast, so now he looses only bits very slow,” Relena asked. Heero nodded. “I imagine he’s feeling very insecure right about now, then,” Relena stated. The obvious was left unsaid, Duo had been feeling very insecure for a long time, and the bulk of the insecurity started when Relena had appeared on the doorstep. “I love him,” Heero told her, looking back. “Did you know that?” “Yes. Does he know that?” “I don’t know,” Heero admitted. Just then Duo looked up at them, eyes on Heero first, then moving to Relena, tracing a path down the waist length hair. Relena glanced over at Heero. “I’m going to talk to him,” she said. “Don’t interrupt.” Closing the kitchen door behind her she settled next to Duo on the couch and stared ahead at the blank television screen a moment. “Yes Relena,” Duo urged, seeing she had no intentions of getting up and moving away anytime soon. “Are you alright?” “What do you care?” “I do, I have no choice. I adore Heero and you make Heero happy, so I have to care, even if I don’t want to. Don’t worry, I do. I wronged you, I’m sorry.” “What’s that?” Duo looked up. “You heard me, I wronged you, and I’m sorry. You were right, what you said yesterday. I’m older now, and if this me was looking back on the younger, more spoiled me, I would tell her to face the facts and see that Heero can never be mine, his heart belongs somewhere else, and to make sure it returns to it’s home. He’s found a home in you, Duo. I don’t know if he realized it or not.” Duo pressed the pencil against the paper again but it didn’t move. “What are you writing?” “I’m just writing. I like to write; it helps me release my feelings. I used to be a cutter, but that’s dangerous, so instead I take my aggression out on paper with a pencil, not on my skin with a razor.” “Does Heero know?” Relena asked, faintly surprised, looking over at Duo. Duo nodded, “Hai, he knows. It wasn’t a new thing, and he came back to the safe house early from a mission to find me on the bathroom floor, razor in one hand, the blood seeping from a shallow cut I had made in my arm onto the floor, watching it with dull, disinterested eyes. He freaked out, as much as he could freak out, ripping it out of my hand and threatening to kill me if I ever did it again. I think it scared him, or it was something he couldn’t understand. Self-mutilation, only those who practice it can understand what release it brings. If I hadn’t made that promise, that’s probably where I would be right now, under the hot spray of the shower, razor in hand, but something tells me I wouldn’t have stopped until I had made enough cuts to stop the pain forever.” Duo lifted haunted eyes to Relena’s then back down to the paper where the pencil was still poised to write. “I hate you,” he whispered. “I hate you because I can’t hate him, and there’s no more room for self-hatred left, it’s already all taken up space for other matters. And that’s not the half of it. I hate you because you don’t hate me, because you even seem to care, like now, you seem on the verge of something nice, liking pulling me into a hug, but you know me well enough to know that will only make me hate you more. Doesn’t that just suck, you’re being punished for a crime you know nothing of?” “Is that how you felt?” Relena asked in a whisper. “Yes, among things. What do you think that said to me, that the person I had loved more than life itself, who I would have done anything for, leaves me when I needed him the most, simply because I needed him. Maybe if he had run to someone else it would have hurt less, I wouldn’t have been so upset over the loss. But no, it was you, the peace-endorsing, perfect, rich, spoiled, faultless Miss Relena Peacecraft. What do you think that said to me, the street rat from L2, the orphan who had no family, no friends, no home to return to after the war, the plague that brought death with him everywhere he went. Heero was innocent, he just didn’t know it.” “I know why the doctor’s can’t understand why I’m dying, why they think it’s a mutated version of the engineered plague which swept my home, and that only because there’s no better explanation. Would you like to know why, Relena? It’s because they’ve never before seen what’s killing me, what’s eating me alive from the inside out, and yes, that’s what it feels like. The reason they can’t find anything is because I’ve poisoned myself. I’ve poisoned myself with my bitterness and now it’s killing me. And you know what, I must deserve it, or else why would it have happened?” “Oh Duo,” Relena breathed. “You don’t honestly believe that, do you?” Duo was silent, shading the lines of his paper along the margins, almost like she wasn’t there, and then he spoke softly. “Leave me alone, Relena.” Relena got up slowly and went into the kitchen, before retreating to the guest bedroom with a plate
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