Denying Us Meant To Be

[Jooles]

Summary: ‘He found them kissing in the hallway outside her suite...’ Heero is let down; - badly. He makes a promise of repentance to Relena, and Duo Maxwell’s life is put on the line. Not a Heero/Relena fic.
Rating: PG
Feedback: Yah-yah!
Dedication: To the fandom. Smooches and Happy Holidays!


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Denying Us Meant To Be

by Jooles



‘I must disagree with you, my darling, denying us meant to be.’


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He found them kissing in the hallway outside her suite. He’d arrived to relieve Duo of his guard duty when he’d found them together. She was flush up against him, her arms wound around his back, and her tongue in his mouth. It was disgusting, inhumane. There was no gentleness or beauty about it. It was primitive, and raw; and Relena clearly enjoyed it.

He watched in stark bewilderment as betrayal wielded itself a sword, and he realised that at this moment his hatred for Duo Maxwell and Relena Peacecraft would from this point in time become as much a habit as his desire for Relena has been up to now. Slack jawed, he watched as the other, his compatriot, pulled Relena towards him. He runs his hands, callused as they are, up and down her back, and finally settled at grazing their way through her hair. It should pang Heero: - seeing the roughness of Duo’s hands running through the softness of Relena’s. It’s almost like a disruption, an indication that the two aren’t meant to be one for the other, together as they obviously are.

They’ve pulled away from each other now, and are catching their breaths. Both are breathing heavily, however lean on each other for support. Their foreheads touch. Duo cracks a grin, and Heero watches as Relena smiles shyly at Duo beneath slightly hooded eyes. There’s no pragmatic aspect of her personality to be seen here. Only playfulness, and immense happiness.. Heero doesn’t think that anything else can possibly outdo the shock at having witnessed this scene.

Their hands are now intertwined, and Duo gives her a quick kiss once more; before telling her, “Heero will be here any minute”. She understands why Duo’s voice is all caution and best behaviour, but still mourns the loss of his lips despite all this. She pulls him forward suddenly, and presses her lips to his. Evidently she is orally mapping out the back of Duo’s teeth. As she does, Heero distinguishes an incomprehensible sound that Duo makes. It could be a moan of ardor, a groan of sexual frustration, or even a sound that speaks the words; ‘Nice seeing you, babe. Is that your tongue in my mouth?’

It looks like something comfortable, as though they’ve done this many times before; and so a routine in the way the act is performed is all incredibly natural. Finally she releases him, and Duo flushes red. He looks like he wants to say something, perhaps something important; but decides to drop the line of thinking when Relena gestures to him the time.

“I’ll see you later tonight.” He says, while she nods; and alludes to her being patient in her waiting for him.

“Bye Duo.” She calls to him, a sugary sweet, honey-dripped, strawberry-fields good-bye. Heero winces as he watches Duo’s face soften at her farewell.

Heero takes this as his cue to arrive, and as he passes his compatriot-turned-nemesis he nods blankly at him. A mask falls into place for Duo, just as it has for Heero, and both regard each other in a familiar manner despite the fact that the truth is anything but.

Relena calls to him from her study; “Evening Heero. How was your day?”

He grunts an affirmation, while pretending to look busy and serious checking the security standards of the suite. He realise with a sense of irony that it is himself who is the security threat. It doubly dismays him that he is quite prepared to take a gun to Duo. Duo who was supposed to be someone who he could trust, someone who he had considered a friend. Thus is his betrayal.

“Anything interesting happen in your day?” She tries again, looking patient and holy. He wonders if she is an angel, perhaps an angel of betrayal?

He begins to shake his head, then decides against denying anything. “Perhaps,” he responds.

“And? --What was it?”

He pulled out his gun, and ran his hand up and down it; confident in his handling of it. “What was what I saw?” He returned the question.

She looked wearily at the gun in his hand, the dawning of realisation not quite reaching her, but puzzling her all the same. Finally she nodded at him as realisation slipped away from the realms of discovery and she blankly regarded him. Her mind obviously still recalling the feel of Maxwell’s lips against her own, his tongue in her mouth, and his arms wrapped around her waist, and fingers caressing her hair.

He puts the gun away, and settles on leaning against her desk, folding his arms across his chest.

He tells her; - “I witnessed the curse of your lips.”

She gasped. Realisation a stinging slap back to reality. “No. You couldn’t have! Where were you?”

He shrugs; “Does it really matter?”

Her weight settles against the bookcase as her eyes, now wide, stare at him as though he’s about to do something monstrous. This is truth. He wants to do something calamitous. He wants to be the one to break Duo Maxwell, make his heart swell with pain; like an ax that taking a blow right to the centre of his life-force. Make sure that his centre, his being will no longer hold; and that he himself will be rendered immobile. Instead, he lets out a breath.

She watches him. Waiting for a response. He thinks that she suspects that he will hurt her. Only he would never do such a thing to her. It’s not in his nature to hurt something so precious, and soft and gentle and loving and beyond the descriptive nature of beautiful; as Relena Peacecraft. He reaches instinctively for her. And she as an adverse reactant, presses her weight even closer to the bookcase; as though she is trying to escape from him.

“I’m sorry Heero.” She says this so quietly, he thinks that even he could have missed this apology. This is despite his excellent hearing. “I’m so so sorry,” she continues. “I waited for you. I wanted to wait for you. I waited for you as long as I could. But you never said anything Heero. And I was always waiting to hear something from you Heero, that I now realise you were never prepared to tell me. I don’t even know if you’re capable of telling me what I wanted you to tell me....”

He wants to say something, but is rendered incapable.

“...And Duo was there. And he’s been so good to me, and yes, you are there for me Heero. But I don’t think you can love me the way I want to, need to be loved. Duo loves me for me. He doesn’t love me for what I represent. He loves me for who I really am. –I don’t think you can love me like that Heero.”

He cuts her off. “You don’t know anything about me!”

Her face is a picture of sharp contours; disjointed in its distress. “I know enough!” She continues her rebuking: - “I know that your ideal of me has been contorted; - twisted. I know that you’ll always be there to save me. And I also know that you’re incapable of loving me the way I need to be loved, because you don’t love yourself Heero Yuy. And I know that I can’t wait around for you forever. Not when I have someone who loves me now, in the present, who has promised me a future; and is someone who I love so very much.”

He feels his need to fight, the adrenaline that has been building in his system for this battle, he feels it secede and release. His eagerness to do battle with her or Duo has completely left him, and he doesn’t know what he was on about in the first place. All that he knows is that he has loved her for so long. It doesn’t matter what his reasons for loving her have been; what matters is that he has loved her, and so much longer than Duo Maxwell. He knows that Duo is with her now, that it will be Duo who holds her, and kisses her, talks to her intimately, spends his days with her, goes to bed with her at night, has rights in any decisions she makes, and will most certainly marry her. He knows now that Heero Yuy will never possess her. He will never hold her as a lover holds their beloved. If he ever touches her again, it will be so only to protect her from an incoming bullet, or to save her from peril. It will never be in the stead of great emotion; - it will never be for the sake of his own twisted worship-like love of her. It will not be because he is in love her. It will be for his love of her that he remains. He will not leave her, and he will not let her down. He wants to tear Duo Maxwell to pieces, but he will relent - for the time being, and if he ever hurts Relena in a way that will make her lose complete faith in herself, in her beliefs; if Duo ever hurts her so that her face falls, and her mouth is down turned, her eyes don’t shine, there is no hope in them, than Heero will kill Duo Maxwell. If Duo ever leaves Relena for another woman, or another man, or just because; than Heero Yuy will go after him, and kill him. It doesn’t matter what he does. If he hurts Relena so bad that there is no hope in her, that she loses any of the luster that makes her a precious jewel in her very own existence, if he makes it so that she is no longer worth anything, so that she thinks of herself as trash and junk and all the useless mettle in the world; than Heero Yuy will make sure that Duo Maxwell will never ever ever see the light of day again. And even if Heero Yuy ends up killing his best friend Duo Maxwell for hurting his beloved, Relena Peacecraft; he will not repent, for he will have done what he sees as being right. And despite this, Duo Maxwell will find the mercy, the forgiveness, that Heero Yuy cannot give him in this life, he will find this all in death.

So, Heero Yuy nods at Relena, a signal that he understands perfectly what she’s on about.

“Please, Heero, let’s no discuss this any more. It will only lead us down the path of pain.” Relena begs of him.

What Relena doesn’t realise is that Heero has already travelled down the path of pain. The moment he came across Duo and Relena outside the hallway kissing he began his journey down the path. And since then, he has made it more than halfway.

He finally settles on ending the conversation. He walks over to her, and pulls her towards him. She is boneless. She lets him pull her to him, and he presses his lips to her forehead. An intimate gesture. Also a gesture of regret, and forgiveness, yet a sign that he is pained in all these recent happenings. He pulls away from her, and she stares up at him, eyes wide.

“I understand.” He says. “But what you must realise Relena, is that if Duo Maxwell ever hurts you, I will go after him; and I will kill him.”

She gasps. Shocked at his admission. Although in hindsight, she should not have expected anything less.

“—And Relena, I will not repent his death.”

“But Heero; surely, you would, you must! He’s your best friend.” Relena whispers desperately.

“He was.”

“Nothing’s changed, just because Duo and I are together.”

Heero frowns. “Really, Relena? Don’t kid yourself. I won’t be able to look at you or Duo the same again. He’s no friend of mine, and you, --you aren’t what I thought you were.”

“So I mean nothing to you.”

He frowns, for he feels he has to tell the truth. He already feels as though he’s given away most of what has been left of his soul. Life seems very bleak indeed. He settles on telling her the truth; “I love you.”

“But--”

“No, don’t Relena. I know. It doesn’t matter. I always will, I think.” He says this, for it makes sense. He honestly can’t see himself loving anybody else but her. She’s one of a kind.

“That’s no way to live your life Heero.”

He shrugs, “Maybe so, but it’s the only way I’m capable of living my life. I’m sorry Relena.”

She looks at him, sad, and knowing. She has always seemed wiser than her age would suggest. “Would you ever have told me had it not been for Duo?”

He shakes his head. For it is the truth. In a way Duo has been his liberator.

“Did you mean what you said about killing Duo, Heero?” She asks, sounding grave, wanting to confirm whether or not his admission beforehand had been said in haste, or if it was in fact truth.

“It was the truth Relena. I will kill him if he hurts you. I won’t repent his death.

She looks very pale, at his admission. He feels monstrous. Like the beast that takes shape only in nightmares. Only his nightmare is a reality, and right now even in pain he is reveling in him monstrosity. Yet this is the way that he is. There is nothing that can be done to change him. This is who he is and what his true colours are like. And he has been hurt. So dreadfully hurt.

So, it is with this reckoning that he kisses her once more, this time on the lips; a reminder of what he has missed out on; although he now sees that Relena was never within his reach. And with this knowledge, Heero leaves Relena in her study, silent tears finding their way down her cheeks; and he takes up post for guard duty on the floor.

Heero thinks that maybe he wants to cry, just as he’s seen Relena do so, but is rendered incapable from abstaining his emotions for so long. He’s lost his hope in life, his faith in the goodwill of people, and perhaps this will cut short his will to live. Whichever way he will continue to watch over Relena, protect her, save her; and if Duo Maxwell ever plays at being stupid, and hurts Relena Peacecraft; Heero Yuy will see to it that Duo hits the very bottom of the abyss, that he is thus killed, and that his death though painful, will allow him to find mercy and forgiveness; a promise Heero doesn’t think he can give Duo in this life. And it is at this point that Heero realises that he will be forever stuck between all the things that he would not say and all that Relena could not ask. And it has determined his path in life, and it has made sure that he has damned himself.



~Finis~



Author’s Notes


1.The quote “curse of your lips” is based off a similar quote found in the movie with Jonathan Reese Meyers. The one that I’ve forgotten the name to.

2.The reference to the centre that cannot hold is refernce to the poem ‘The Second Coming’.


Thanks for reading!

Jooles

[Shooting Gundam Star]

Very nice. I like it! You rally are good!

[flipped]