They sat across the table from each other. In each of their hands was a cup of coffee, now cold from neglect. They couldn't look at each other. They couldn't say anything, but that was a reason as to why they were there. They needed to get this out in the open and play this terrible game that they have created.

It was now or never.

"I hate you," Duo whispered, trying not to hear his words as he began their little game.

"I hate you as well," Heero spat out, his hurt too clear in his voice.

Duo heard it and bowed his head. Heero was not acting, but Duo needed to continue with the dialogue.

"I'm leaving you," Duo said softly. Was it just his imagination, but was his guilt obvious in his voice?

"Then I'll find peace with Relena," Heero said, his voice steady and cold now. He slowly rose from the chair, glaring at Duo with heartache, malice.

"Then I'll find peace with myself," Duo replied, rising from the table as well. He did not raise his eyes to see the tinge of shock cross Heero's blue eyes. That was not part of their script. That was not part of this dreadful game.

Despite the slight ab-lib, Duo continued playing his part. Without another word, another heart-wrenching sentence, Duo reached for the door. In a matter of seconds, he was gone, driving away from Heero and the safe house in a beat-up pick-up truck.

Heero glared at the chair Duo had occupied only moments before, hating him so much for making him do that, hating himself for falling in love.

months later

"Miss Relena, how are you?" Quatre said cheerfully as he greeted his host for the next few days.

"Very well, thank you Master Quatre," she replied. "Or should I call you Mr. Winner?"

Quatre, dressed sharply in a blue-gray suit, entered Relena Darlain's suite with some apprehension, but that fear was not necessary. This is his friend's home, and Relena did her best to make her guest feel at ease.

It was a plush apartment in the center of town, filled with articles of expensive taste. On the walls, beautifully framed photographs and paintings hung with gusto. The carpet underneath his feet was soft, almost thick enough to swim in. Standing on the balcony, garbed in the simplest of outfits, was perhaps Relena's most precious possession: Heero Yuy. Detached from his surroundings, he did not pay attention to Quatre's presence as he and Relena greeted each other. He instead focused on the street scene below.

Quatre noticed his friend's quiet look, but did not make light of it to his hostess.

"You don't have to call me 'Mr. Winner', Miss Relena," he instead replied to Relena's comment in his naturally soft voice. "Quatre will be fine."

"Would you like something to drink?" Relena offered as she made her way to the small bar in the room.

"No, thank you." Quatre looked around the room once more before he turned his attention back to Relena. "Will you be at the banquet tonight, Miss Relena?"

"Yes," she said with some enthusiasm. "Heero and I are going."

Heero did not turn at the sound of his name.

"And you?" Relena continued. "Will you be going?"

"Yes. It is the sole reason as to why I am in town."

"Oh?" Relena raised an eyebrow. "And will someone be accompanying you?"

"Just a friend."

Heero turned his head slightly, as if trying to catch some more from the conversation, but for only a moment. Just as quickly as he titled his head towards the apartment, he turned it back to watch the street.

"Well, I hope whoever he or she is will be interesting. This government functions tend to be somewhat pale without entertaining people around."

"You don't have to worry about that, Miss Relena."

Duo sat in the building's lobby, waiting for the blond to hurry up with whatever he was doing so that they can get going. Quatre said he was only going to be upstairs for a few minutes, but, according to his watch, it's has been over a half-hour since they entered the posh complex.

He looked at his shoes as they rested on one of the coffee tables the management had set up. They were pretty dingy, he thought quietly, noticing the dirt around the sides. Maybe he'll clean 'em tonight…

Tonight was that banquet Quatre was invited to, the banquet that Quatre invited him to. He got the invite when Duo was chilling at Quatre's place, so, like the nice guy Quatre was, he invited his friend to it.

Duo almost forgot about it, too. It was a good three months between the time the invitation came in and the actual date of the function, so, by the time Quatre shows up to remind him (and snatch him away), he was living with Wufei.

That's my life, he grinned. Out of one's person's hair and into another.

He placed his hands behind his back and shut his eyes. If Quatre doesn't show up soon, he'll be asleep. Not that anyone would notice through the dark shades he was wearing.

He felt a poke on his arm. He looked up and saw his pally-boy looking down upon him. "Duo?"

"Ya done?"

Quatre nodded, an easy smile on his lips.

"Cool," Duo said as he bounced out of the velvety chair and onto his feet. "Let's go, this place is giving me hives."

Quatre gave his friend a kind smirk. "I thought it was making you sleepy instead."

"Eh, whichever. Let's go." He walked to the door, his black trench coat catching a slight wind as it trembled around him.

As they climbed into the limousine Quatre had hired for the trip, someone watched from above.

Relaxing violins played as the pair entered the grand hall. All around them, many of the rich and powerful gossiped and talked shop with pale smiles on their faces and glasses of alcohol in their hands. All of them were dressed in the latest fashions of Paris, New York, Rome, Tokyo and gave their half-truthful appraisals of each other with seeming ease.

Duo looked around him, his standard grin in place, as Quatre led them through the crowd and greeted those who caught his attention. Those that didn't greet the petit and his braided companion still caught sight of the two and commented among themselves. The boy behind the Winner Corporation looked so young, but was so gifted in what he does.

"And who is this handsome friend of yours?" one person, a middle-aged woman with quick green eyes that matched the drapes she had clasped closed underneath her navel and nowhere else, said as she took notice of Duo.

"This is Duo Maxwell," Quatre politely introduced his companion to the full-bodied, but severely under-dressed woman. "Duo, this is Madam Dalna L'ignaro. She runs one of the world's largest technology-based corporations."

"But, of course, we are no match for the Winners," she joked gently, patting Quatre on the shoulder. "This boy's family has been in the game years before I came along."

"Madam…" Quatre blushed a bit from the flattery. Duo laughed heartily at his friend's reaction.

Relena, glass at hand and Heero by her side, was also making small talk with one of the local government officials when she heard loud laughter from somewhere nearby. Heero also heard it and turned to see who was making it. It was then that Relena saw the blond she had spoken to only that morning.

"Quatre!" Relena cried out from the crowd as she and Heero approached the other two. She noticed very quickly that both Quatre and Duo were dressed handsomely in rather stylish tuxedos. She had picked a similar style for her Heero to wear tonight.

"So," she said with a slight smile as she eyed Duo, "this is the friend you wouldn't name earlier."

"Nice to see you too, Queen Re," Duo joked with a smile.

"Would you be sitting next to us?" Relena offered.

"Of course," Quatre replied. Together, Relena and Quatre continued the discussion they began only that morning. Without thinking, the two left behind their companions.

Heero looked at Duo with his standard glower. He, too, noticed Duo and how he looked in his tux. It wasn't like he didn't look handsome in everything he wore, but it was so long since he had seen or heard anything about his estranged lover.

Duo gave him a smile. "So, how's it been Heero?"

"Fine, and you?"

"Just daffy, as always. And may I say that hanging with Relena has done wonders for your conversational skills." Duo kept his smile intact. The game that he started long ago has to continue.

"So, are you with Quatre, now?" Heero commented coolly, stealing a glance at Relena and Quatre as the two blondes talked over some important deal or another.

"According to the rules, no," Duo said, the chirpy tone still in his voice. "But you can think whatever you want about the arraignment." He took a glass of champagne from one of the passing trays and took a sip. "Either way, it's none of your business anymore, is it?"

Madam L'ignaro returned and took Duo's arm with a tinge of possessiveness. "Come, Mr. Maxwell, shall we go sit down and get acquainted?"

Duo gave her a bright smile. "You lead the way, beautiful." Together, the braided youth and his green-clad escort walked to one of the large dining tables.

Quatre immediately noticed that others were doing to exact same thing. "Shall we go and sit down, Miss Relena?"

"Yes, let's." Taking Heero's arm, Relena lead both her dark-haired lover and her blond friend to the same table Duo and Madam L'ignaro had claimed. Quatre sat to one side of Duo, while Madam L'ignaro took the other. Relena sat beside Quatre, and Heero took the final seat between L'ignaro's other guest, a thin, middle-aged man she introduced as her husband, and Relena. He was (Unfortunately? Fortunately?) sitting right in front of Duo Maxwell.

The waiters quickly went about serving the first course. Duo quickly started to entertain Madam L'ignaro and her husband with some rather lowbrow, but rather fascinating, anecdotes.

"You should have seen the look on poor Wufei's face when he saw that life-size blowup of himself. The guy was so mad, he couldn't even scream," Duo joked in his loud voice, very pleased that he had something to do other than look at Heero the whole night. He could get distracted if he looked into those beautiful eyes. He didn't want that to happen.

It has been a long time, he thought grimly despite the wide grin on his face as he told some very naughty stories to the L'ignaros. The two were laughing and joining in on the bad stories with plenty of enthusiasm, making it easier to ignore Heero's glare, the occasional 'hn', and anything else that his handsome friend threw at him.

No. He wasn't his friend anymore, not after what he did to him, to himself. He willingly destroyed what they had together just because of strange convictions. Somehow, someway, he felt Heero would be better of with Relena. Relena can love him, show him things he had never seen, feel anything and everything a person should feel.

He couldn't do those things for Heero, no matter how much he loved him. It was that strange conviction once more.

So what has he done with himself after that? What would he answer if Heero decides to ask more questions about those last months in which they have become strangers?

He's been living with whomever he could find. A few weeks at Hilde's, a few more with Howard's… Trowa, Wufei, Quatre, and even good ol' Rashid let him stay with them. Never a permanent roommate, housemate, workmate… He was constantly packing, unpacking, and packing once more for something new, as if he was searching for something he has lost, something primal he needed to continue living with a sense of peace and self-satisfaction.

They always ask him to stay a bit longer, or to find something permanent, but he couldn't. Whatever it was that he searched for was eluding him, as if it was wrapped in a cool fog, always out of reach.

He was half-afraid that it was sitting only an arm's length away.

Instead of thinking of that possibility, he continued joking and playfully flirting with Madam L'ignaro and her husband, not in that particular order, but who would have cared in the light mood that Duo helped bring to the dinner.

Unfortunately, Heero cared. He was barely able to eat his dinner, watching Duo tease him with his light attitude concerning the whole situation. Duo ignored him, and not even his staring and glowering could make him turn and look at him. Nothing he did was able of making Duo turn and see the pain and anger he was feeling.

He truly wanted to reach over and claim Duo as his own once more. That's all he wanted to do, but Duo wanted Heero to be Relena. Duo was the one that told him each and every night that Relena needed him, and that he needed Relena as well. Each night, he wouldn't listen, telling his lover that he would not leave him, that Duo would just have to live with the thought of having him forever, and that no one and nothing would convince Heero of the opposite.

Duo convinced him, and each moment that he has played this game had brought more and more suffering. His nights were now cold and he spent them alone, wandering the streets as he tried to understand, because, despite of Duo's ramblings, being with Relena did not make him happy. Why would Duo do this to them?

He loved Duo. He would have done anything for him. That conviction obviously included the betrayal of feelings and the abandonment of the one thing he shouldn't have given up in the first place.

Now, he was with someone else. Perhaps it was Quatre, or Trowa or Wufei, both of whom said Duo stayed at their respective places at some time. Or was it someone who he never met before, a stranger that dared taste his estranged lover's sweet body.

The cold food on Heero's plate was left mostly untouched as he continued his dark thoughts, as Duo began another risqué joke that will quickly have the L'ignaros laughing once more and as the two blondes ignored both parties and talked about all sorts of nonsense.

When the L'ignaros decided it was time to go, it was Duo who was gentlemanly enough to walk them outside. Quatre and Relena were discussing something rather important, and Heero wasn't anyone Duo really should talk to right now. It was only option he had, so as they waited outside for the L'ignaros' driver to appear with the car.

"Sorry about all that foolishness," Duo courteously apologized as he kissed Madam L'ignaro's hand.

"Oh, you shouldn't worry about that, young man," Signor L'ignaro said, dismissing the comment with a wave of his hand. "Both my wife and I had a wonderful time."

"Thanks to you," Madam L'ignaro quickly added. As if on cue, the limo drove up.

With quick good lucks and goodbyes, the couple climbed into the limousine and drove off to their hotel suite.

After waving to the limousine as it disappeared into the dark night, Duo quickly found a shadow or two to hide in by the entrance to light a cigarette. It was the stress. He took a long drag and let the smoke out languidly as he leaned against the wall.

"I didn't know you smoked."

Duo turned and saw Heero at the entrance, some good distance away from his shadowy enclave. /All-concealing shadows, my ass./

Duo brushed his bangs back lazily with one hand as the other dangled, cigarette poised between his fingers. "Didn't know you cared."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I haven't done anything. You're the one going out of the lines." He took another drag.

Heero walked towards Duo with cold determination. "You don't understand what you began."

"And you don't understand how much of a game this isn't. It's already real life, and the only way you can end real life is…" Duo lifted two fingers to his temple and mimicked a pistol-induced suicide with calm eyes.

Heero looked at him, unable to see any of the good cheer and almost-maniacal smile that so much a part of Duo. In their place were a cold indifference and a faint frown that would not be there under normal circumstances.

"Why are you showing this to me?" he said, more to himself than to this shadow of Duo Maxwell.

"What, I can't serious every once in a while?" Duo took another drag with lethargic ease, making rings with the gray smoke. The shadows that engulfed both of them were cool, discomforting.

Heero took Duo's free hand and wrapped it in the warmth of his fingers. Duo, unable to understand what was going on, blinked and with wide, frightened eyes looked at Heero.

"End this game," he demanded with a harsh whisper.

"I can't do that," Duo whispered back, shaking his head a bit. "It's no longer a game. Not anymore. Relena's involved now."

"Heero… Duo, are you two out here?" Relena called out from the entrance. She stood in the electric light, seemingly much warmer than the shadows they hid in.

"Go to her," Duo whispered, pulling out of Heero's grasp and, still obscure in the shadows, he walked away from Heero once more.

Part of Heero screamed at him to go to Duo, wrapped his arms around him, and to swear he won't leave again, that Duo couldn't make him leave, that nothing meant anything without Duo by his side again. Another part muttered and ranted at him to let him leave, to forget him, to hate him with all his heart. Yet, it was neither who won the argument, but the faint voice, unsure of what it said itself, that whispered to Heero over and over again that this is what Duo wanted, that Duo wanted Heero to be with Relena…

"I'm here," Heero said in a clear voice as he stepped out of the shadows towards the entrance.

"Where's Duo?" Quatre asked, appearing beside Relena.

Heero did not answer.

A light rain began to fall as Duo walked towards the hotel he was staying at with Quatre. All he needed as a good night's sleep, or perhaps a drink. After quite some time, and plenty of walking, he found a small, out of the way bar. Only the bartender and the woman he was talking to notice the young man, tuxedo wet on the shoulders, hair dark from the rain. He took a seat at the bar.

The woman, first aid kit nearby and a fanatical gleam in her eyes, was busy pulling shards of glass out of her bleeding palm to say anything to the young man that sat a few stools away from him. The bartender, who finished cleaning up the mess the woman made only a few moments before, walked towards the young man with a wary look in his eyes.

"Vodka," was his only request. The bartender quickly filled the order and quickly went back the bleeding woman in order to assist her with a bandage.

"You really shook them up this time, Valerie," the bartender said to the woman, eyeing the men at a nearby table, whispering and pointing at the woman. "And I hope you know you'll have to pay for that shot glass you crushed."

"Don't I always pay?" she said calmly, despite the hysterical smile on her lips. Once he the bartender was done with her hand, she turned slightly and looked at Duo. Without another word to the barkeep, she moved and sat right beside the braided youth.

"I'm not looking for company," he said matter-of-factly.

"Neither am I. I only want to admire your braid." She looked at him, her orchid eyes soft from curiosity, moist from vodka. "Have you lost your prince as well?"

Duo sat upright, his own blue-lavender eyes going wide for a moment, before he composed himself and stared at the now empty shot glass.

"Oh, of course not," the woman said, catching the youth's sudden change in posture. "Silly me. It would be princess for you, wouldn't it?" The bartender appeared with another glass of vodka, the alcohol muted with ice and cranberry juice. The woman already had three double shots of the stuff pure and already she decided to get rid of a possible suitor by crushing one of the shots with her bare hand. It's about time for her to get something milder.

"I lost my prince recently. My prince on a white horse, that is. He looked nothing like you, but he was so handsome." Her voice turned a tad dark. "A bit too handsome. He left me for another and every night, I find myself here." She took a sip of her new drink. "Bruno here always tries to take care of me, but I just don't see why. He's always afraid that I'll kill myself, or kill him. Not Bruno. My Prince. You see those guys there?" She pointed with a drink stirrer to an indefinite area behind her. "They think just because I'm always here means that I'm looking for some one to take me home. The problem is that I don't want any of their lazy asses. I want my Prince to do this, but he hasn't come yet. Sometimes, I'm afraid he'll never come."

She took a long drink from her glass and lowered the half-empty container of the counter before addressing Duo again. "So, what about you? Why are you here?"

Duo traced the edge of the glass with his finger. "I'm that Prince." The bartender came by, placed another glass of vodka in front of Duo and disappeared once more. I left my lover for some one else, but that someone else is Solitude. I abandoned love and allowed someone else to take it away from me, and now, all I do is wander, trying to find it again. In friends. In myself. In the wind. But I can't find it, and I doubt I will ever be able to get back again." He drank the entire shot quickly before slamming the empty container on the counter.

He pulled out a few bills to pay for the drinks and placed them on the counter, underneath the glass. "Thanks for your company, lady, but I don't think any tainted prince should be among others. Goodnight."

The woman and the barkeep watched the young man leave.

"And no tainted prince should be all alone," the woman whispered at his back, a softening sadness in her orchid eyes.

Quatre was packing his things when the hotel phone rang. With a calm, yet jovial tone, he picked it up. "Winner."

"Quatre," said Heero on the other end. "Is Duo there?"

"Oh no, Heero," Quatre said, some concern slipping into his voice. "Duo left last night. All his stuff is gone and he left a note saying he was heading back to Wufei's."

"Wufei?"

"Heero," Quatre asked. "What's wrong? What's going on between you and Duo? I didn't want to ask you, but I noticed how you two were acting around each other last night at the banquet."

He paused, not knowing if he should continue. He wanted to ask more. He wanted to know why Duo and Heero no longer see each other, why Duo grows suddenly quiet at the mention of Heero's name, why Heero asks about Duo whenever he speaks to any of them, but refuses to speak to Duo himself. "What happened to the two of you?"

Heero was silent. Quatre was half-afraid Heero hung up on him.

"Heero?"

"Is Duo with Wufei?"

"He's living with him, yes. But he has lived with all of us, at some point or another. Heero, what happened?"

Heero did not hear the question asked once more. He hung up too quickly to hear it.

Wufei rushed out of the shower, angered because someone would be so rude as to call on him and pull him out in the first place, and because his baka guest couldn't do it. Duo was spending too much time in his room. He has been in a dispirited mood since returning from the banquet Quatre had invited him to attend a few days ago.

Duo seemed fine before the trip. He was actually trying to get Wufei to go to a strip show (he wanted to see if it was true that Wufei was indeed just another victim of the terrible nosebleed syndrome) when Quatre called about the banquet. That, to Wufei, was typical behavior on the part of the American.

Wufei had tried to get him out of the funk he returned with by doing anything he could. He even went as low as making Duo his favorite meal, but the American hasn't eaten anything and generally hadn't responded to anything Wufei has done.

So now Wufei, seeing no easy solution, had let him sulk in the guest room and lurk in his home, as if he wasn't even there.

It wasn't like he didn't know why Duo was acting that way, however. Quatre had called him a few hours ago, trying his best to relay what had happen between Duo and Heero to the best of his knowledge, from their behaviors last night to the call he had received from Heero. Together, they were able to piece out some sort of understanding from it all.

It was already declared fact that the two loved each other some time ago, before Duo took up his new lust of wandering anywhere and everywhere, before Heero took up residence with Relena. What had made their friends rather suspicious of the situation was that the change from intimate lovers to indifferent friends was so sudden and unforeseen.

Each of them, when Duo had moved at some point, would ask questions, about Heero, about why, about how. Each time a question comes flying towards him, he sidestepped it with some sort of ease, but if one was paying attention, it was easy to see how the questions slowly wore Duo down.

Heero was worse. He held such animosity towards everyone since the time he moved in with Relena. Yes, he would be difficult at times, but never this way. He was so unreceptive, Relena had complained to Quatre last night, one of the many complaints about her lover she had told his visiting friend. He was always out at night, he murmured a certain braided ex-pilot's name when he dreamed, and when they made love it was Duo's name on his lips, not hers. Everything she tried to do for him meant nothing, but she continued with the façade, with this cruel game that they seemed to be playing.

Quatre was afraid that Heero was going to try something, mostly because of the call and how Heero sounded over the phone.

Wufei had assured him that Heero wouldn't hurt Duo. He was a man of his word, and if his word was that he was going to hurt Heero himself, he would.

Dressed in only a cotton bathrobe, Wufei opened the door, only to have a bad shock.

Travel-weary, but still with that cold glare in his eyes, was Heero Yuy, most likely here to beat the crap of out Wufei, and perhaps Duo as well.

Quickly getting out of his initial reaction, Wufei glared right back.

"Where's Duo?" Heero asked, getting right to the point.

"What do you want?" Wufei spat back.

"Where is he?"

"Wufei, it's alright." Wufei turned and saw a bleary-eyed Duo emerge from his shadowy retreat. He looked as bad as he did when he came back. He was no longer in the wrinkled tuxedo, but instead wore a gray t-shirt and black pants. His chestnut hair was a tangled mass that tumbled its way down his back. On his face was a bright smile that looked out of place beside the red tear tracks still on his cheeks.

"Duo…"

"It's okay." His smile stated in place. "Let me talk to Heero."

Wufei moved from the door warily, letting the somewhat frightening Duo take his place before he retreated to the kitchen.

Heero took a sharp breath of air. He too noticed the strange look on Duo face, the battered look in his eyes despite the lively smile. He bit his lip, trying not to instinctively take him in his arms.

Duo went outside and closed the door behind him. "Heero," he said with a false delight, "where's Relena? Is she with you?"

"This game is over, Duo," Heero said bluntly.

"What happened?" Duo's eyes grew wide a bit. "Between you and Relena?"

"Duo, forget about her."

"But you and she looked so happy at the banquet. Please don't tell me that you left her because I was there. Please tell me that you…"

"Idiot!"

Duo blinked, losing his words underneath Heero's glare.

"I told you over and over again that I doubt I would be happy with Relena. And I was right. I was miserable, she was miserable, and I can see perfectly well that you were miserable as well. You are the only one that can make me happy, and I hope you realize that only I can do the same for you."

"But why?" Duo croaked out, losing his voice underneath the weight of ready-to-use tears that were clogging his throat instead of flowing down his cheek. "Why did you go along with it?"

"Because you ask me to."

Duo's mouth lost whatever strength it had and slackened out of its smile. A lone tear traced a course down his cheek.

"I'm sorry."

"So am I."

Without another word, Duo collapsed in Heero's arms and held him tight, whispering over and over again a mantra, begging forgiveness for all the things he had done.

Heero wrapped his arms around Duo possessively.

~~~~~End

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