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"Sleeptalk"Written By: Miss Murdered Disclaimer: I don't own the GW characters - am
just borrowing to torment for my amusement Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Drunk Driving, Implied Sexual Content,
relationships are hard, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms Pairings: 3x2 Summary: His co-pilot was an empty bottle of cheap
whisky. Trowa snorted. It sounded like the name of a band. The sort
of band that Duo would like. That thought stung and he instinctively
reached towards the bottle, one hand on the wheel of the stolen car
even though he knew he had glugged down the last drop. "Sleeptalk"
Anything to help me let go, let go You feel the pain, I feel the same But we cannot repeat this cycle - Sleeptalk - Dayseeker
His co-pilot was an empty bottle of cheap whisky. Trowa snorted. It sounded like the name of a band. The sort of band that Duo would like. That thought stung and he instinctively reached towards the bottle, one hand on the wheel of the stolen car even though he knew he had glugged down the last drop. Trowa wasn’t drunk. Or maybe he was. He was very aware he shouldn’t be driving but getting in the car had been the only thing he could do. He needed to feel something that wasn’t self-loathing, something that made him feel alive, something that gave him a thrill of adrenaline. Drunk driving was neither big nor clever but it was the nearest he could get to the edge in a so-called peacetime world. There was no mobile suit to pilot, no absolute power under his fingertips and speeding down a dark road with the window open was the nearest he could feel to flying. He could go back to circus, feel the blade whistle passed his face but then Cathy was too good, the act completely artificial that it barely made him blink. It never had. He looked down, glanced at his fingers, the blood still under his fingernails and his stomach dropped. Blood. Always came down to blood. He’d washed his hands, of course he had, washed them until they were raw and the water was no longer that sickening shade of pink. Duo told him to stop. Told him they were clean, told him that it was fucked up and not really his fault… But it was his fault. Duo had only been trying. Trowa knew that. It was comfort. But Trowa had thrown that in his face - almost literally. He’d not hit Duo. No, he’d not do that even though he’d been too close, even though he’d been touching him when Trowa did not want to be touched. But instead of a punch, Trowa had pushed him against the wall of that tiny bathroom and kissed him with a hunger and aggression that Duo had reciprocated with needy hands and teeth. Trowa knew he had been rough, that Duo had grunted in pain and pleasure, but he could also still feel the scratch marks on his back and the bite on his shoulder now through the thin material of his blood spattered t-shirt. It wasn’t as though Duo had not been into it. It just didn’t make Trowa feel any better. In fact, the animalistic fucking in a tiny mouldy bathroom made him feel less human than nearly killing a man with his bare hands. It wasn’t that the guy didn’t deserve it. He was the worst kind of scum that existed in the post-war cesspools of the Earth Sphere - he worked for Crypt, an organisation that had come to prominence in recent years and he had enough of a position in the vast criminal empire to know some of the head honchos. Yet Trowa shouldn’t have kept hitting him. It probably had blown their cover. It had probably put them both in danger. It had probably fucked everything up. But worst of all - he had lost everything of himself in that moment and maybe he still was that nameless boy willing to kill whoever he needed to. He wasn’t that kid, he wasn’t nameless and lost. And he wasn’t a monster. Yet for that moment he felt like one. If Duo hadn’t pulled him back… Trowa shook his head, a slight haze over his senses and he knew he had to stop, his stomach rolling again as he remembered the feel of bone breaking underneath his fist, the feel of sticky blood. He had lost it - he had thought about those kids, about them being traded like they were nothing more than toys and Trowa had lost it and if Duo hadn’t been there… He slowed, pulled up at the side of the road and took a deep breath before he made a not entirely successful attempt at getting out of the car. As he opened the door, Trowa fell onto the dusty group in an inelegant sprawl, the cool air hitting his heated skin. He was going to be sick and he was - on the side of the road in some part of America he barely knew and he was sick like a damn teenager on their first bottle of vodka, stolen from their parents liquor cabinet. That thought seemed funny too. He’d not been a conventional teen when it had come to alcohol. He’d drunk vodka with mercs by the fire at the age of nine. Alcohol had never really been forbidden or a great mystery. Once there was nothing left in his stomach, Trowa shakily got to his feet, leaning against the car as he regulated his breathing and looked up to the sky. It was damn beautiful despite it all and he moved deliberately and sat on the hood of the car, the headlights illuminating the empty world around him and he thought about how far he had come. Even if for a moment he was lost. Even if for a moment he was still lost and angry and scared. Still No Name. Yet as he caught his breath, his mouth parched and his body cooling, he realised that the world around him wasn’t quite as empty as it seemed. As within the beams of the harsh light of his stolen cars headlights stood a shadow. “Hey.” Trowa knew straight away that it wasn’t a shadow and he had known it wasn’t his drunk mind playing tricks on him. He knew who it was - that it was the only person who could catch him up. The only person who’d want to. Someone who was as stubborn as he was. Duo stood there, black clothes, a relaxed posture and an unreadable expression. He didn’t approach. Not yet. Maybe he knew his error in the bathroom in the crash pad - that he had been too close, that Duo hadn’t given Trowa the requisite space he required to figure out what he had done. To find himself again. “You want company?” Trowa nodded slowly and Duo stepped forward, hopping on the hood next to him and handing him a bottle. For a second he thought it was another bottle of alcohol and Trowa’s stomach roiled yet it was water. “Drink, man.” The words were almost an order, a gentle one but an order nonetheless and Trowa took the bottle, taking one large glug and swilling out his mouth before spitting on the floor. “Well, ain’t you pleasant?” Duo said sarcastically. He side-eyed Duo before glugging down the rest of the water, equilibrium beginning to return and the chill of the night beginning to raise goosebumps on his flesh. He had felt on fire since those punches landed, since the raw sex, since the bottle of whisky and now he felt… hollow. He wasn’t sure if that was a better feeling or not. “You want to talk?” Duo asked, his gaze on the stars above. Trowa looked down at his hand as it gripped onto the water bottle, at the way his fingernails were red and how he was holding it a little too tight, the plastic squeezing in. Did he want to talk? It was an almost ironic question. Trowa Barton. Internationally renowned talker. “It’s been three years.” “Huh?” “Since Marrakesh.” Duo laughed softly. “It’s been a long one night stand.” It had been after a harsh op, the euphoria of extraction and the heat of the Preventer accommodation making them wear very little clothing and it had not taken long for that little clothing to hit the floor. It had been hot and sweaty, clumsy, and Trowa had found himself knelt on the floor in a pile of blankets with Duo in front of him on his hands and knees, his thrusts fast and the sound of flesh smacking against flesh loud in the tiny room. They’d not discussed it in the morning. Trowa had waited for Duo to say something - for him to say something flippant and funny and that be it. But there was nothing - even when they went their separate ways at the Preventer air strip. There was only a salute and a wink. Trowa had wondered if he’d dreamed it at times. That he had been harbouring a fantasy since he’d met Duo - that maybe it was some kind of teenage yearning from the Peacemillion era. They were quite the unlikely pair - too different, barely meeting during the war. It would’ve remained as something half-real if not for it happening again. And again. And again... It seemed they ended up partnered regularly since Marrakesh as it had been such a successful operation. They were experts at stealth and subterfuge - their attributes complimenting each other and partnership flawless. And on each of those ops they ended up in bed together at some point. Or against a wall. Or in the shower. Trowa bit at his lip as he remembered all those times. All those ops. And it brought him back to Marcus and his face and the blood underneath his fingernails and splatters on the grey t-shirt. “I could’ve killed him,” Trowa said. “You didn’t.” “I fucked up the op.” “A little,” Duo said with a shrug, “we get extracted someone else comes in to sort the mess out. It probably was a bit ambitious for them to think two fucked up guys could take down Crypt. We’re good, we ain’t that good.” He teased at the dried blood underneath his thumbnail until fingers slid loosely into his so that they were holding hands. It felt comforting - simple touch and connection. It felt weird. Trowa couldn’t remember anyone holding his hand. “I spoke to Zechsy baby, they want us to go in to the local field office for debrief and lay low. Probably want to have some fun psych evals as well.” Trowa grimaced, his stomach feeling tight again but not due to the alcohol as all that was on the side of the road with the rest of his recent meals. He hated the debriefs but he hated psych evals more. “Or you know… we get back in this stolen car and we go. Have a vacation. Naw.. not a vacation. An adventure. Travel, see dolphins, climb mountains… have slow lazy morning sex. Drink good liquor and bad liquor and really good coffee. Eat pasta in Italy and ramen in Tokyo and see the tourist places, you know?” Trowa had been looking at where their hands were joined as Duo spoke, at how Trowa’s hands were scarred and rough and how Duo’s were the same but with added black line swirling, marks symbolising all the things they’d done. Wars written in ink. He looked up then, to see Duo was gazing up at the sky, that the starlight almost seemed reflected in his eyes and he looked younger again as he thought of another life. “Or we go back and do this again. Another mission...another fuck and it repeats until…” Duo’s voice faded as he didn’t need to say what he meant. The ops they took on were dangerous and they were not stupid. They’d worn their Preventer formal uniforms for too many funerals. “I can’t do it again,” Trowa said, his voice hoarse. He wanted to say more - that he couldn’t go back but that Duo should. He wanted to say so many things - that Trowa wasn’t someone that Duo should bet on, that Trowa didn’t deserve someone like Duo on anything more than a fuck buddy basis. Yet Duo brushed his lips lightly against Trowa’s mouth and held his hand. “Get in the car, you’re freezing, man.” Trowa was - the sweat from his sickness now drying in the chill night air. He shivered as he lumbered to the passenger seat, his body still feeling off-kilter, a heavy exhaustion over him. Duo slid into the driver's seat and put the heat up, starting to drive as soon as Trowa was settled. It felt warm, safe, and he felt a sleepiness begin to over-take him. With the heat on high, Duo turned on a classic rock radio station and hummed along, his soft tone making him feel relaxed - safe. “So let’s go an adventure, huh?” “Yeah,” he replied softly, his eyes heavy as the dark world passed by from his window. And he slept. In sleep, he dreamed of blood on his hands, of knives whistling past him and of a shadow who found him on the side of the road. And in sleep, he murmured the name of the one person who could make him feel hope, who could make him feel something even in the haze of alcohol and regret. Duo. It was only him.
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