Notes: Duo POV, what happens when he wakes up.

Someone was holding me. That was my first conscious thought as I struggled to wake up. Someone very warm and nicely muscled was holding me with an odd mixture of gentleness and strength. I frowned, deciding to wait until more information was available before revealing my conscious state to whoever was holding me.

There was a soft knock on the door, I presume, and the sound of it being quietly opened. The body underneath me shifted slightly, arms tightening around me.

“I’m going to sleep, will you be alright?” a whispered voice that I identified as Quatre’s asked.

“I’ll be fine. Go to sleep.”

No fucking way. Heero could not be holding me. It was impossible. Heero Yuy did not hold anybody, and certainly not me.

Once my brain got over the initial shock of that little tidbit of information-and that took a few moments-I realised that if Heero was indeed holding me as he was, he must’ve been doing it for some time, because we appeared to be quite comfortable. I fought to remember what I’d last been doing, and it came to me in an icy wave.

Oh dear Gods. Had I really acted like that? In front of the others? In front of everyone who mattered to me in the whole world? Gods, the shaking, the stammering, the complete breakdown.

And… and Heero… Heero holding me… comforting me… helping me. What the fuck was going on here? Had I entered the Twilight Zone?

The memory of what Heero had done made me focus on myself, and I realised that though the urge was still there, the need to cut was manageable. I could think, I could function, if I’d been handed a blade, yeah, I probably would’ve cut, but… I wasn’t in that fit of ‘have-to-cut-or-I’ll-explode’ that I had been in.

Okay, enough information gathered, time to get some answers. Taking a deep breath, I raised my head to look into Heero’s eyes. But before I could ask a question, he asked, “How do you feel?”

I hesitated, and then said, “Better. What are you doing here?”

“Helping you.”

Well duh. “Why?”

“Because you need help, Duo, and I’m the one who’s doing this to you, so I’m going to help you. Just please let me.”

“Damn fucking straight you’re doing this to me,” I snarled, anger boiling inside me. “You had no fucking right to take my blades, and I want them back, I need them back.”

“Duo, I can’t,” he whispered, and he actually seemed… sorry, about that.

“Yes you can! Please, Heero, I need them so bad.”

“No, no, Duo, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. Just let me help you, and we’ll get you through this. Please.”

I wanted to believe him, I really did. I didn’t like the scars that marred my arms, marking me as different, weird, but… I needed to cut! How else could I find that release, that… I didn’t know what to call it, but it felt so good, dammit, like nothing mattered, like nothing else existed, there was just me, the blade, and the blood. Why was Heero trying to take that away from me? Didn’t he understand how important it was?

“Heero, I need my blades,” I whispered, not having the strength for anything louder. “Please. Give them back.”

He looked… helpless. And that is just not an expression you will see on Heero Yuy’s face everyday. It came to me then that he was… torn. He didn’t want to hurt me like this, but he didn’t-couldn’t?-let me continue cutting. He… could he… was it possible that he…

“Heero, do you… do you care about me?” My voice was the softest of whispers, as I stared down at him in…. shocked amazement, I guess, and he winced.

“…. Yes,” he whispered back. “I tried not to, but I care about you so much, Duo. And this is killing me. But I… I can’t let you keep on cutting. I’m sorry.”

Heero cared about. Heero Yuy cared about me, Duo Maxwell. That didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be possible. Heero didn’t care about anyone. But… he’d said it, and… I’ve never heard him lie to me before, so…

“Swear it,” I whispered harshly. “Swear on pain of death and torture, on your fucking laptop and Gundam and spandex shorts, that you care about me.”

He looked at me and the helplessness washed away to be replaced by a weird sort of solemnity. “I swear.”

It was too much. I couldn’t deal with it. On a better day, maybe, possibly, I could’ve handled it, but in the aftermath of everything that’d happened… I couldn’t deal. And what do I do when I can’t handle something? Why, I run and I hide.

I scrabbled away from him and made it to the door before he called my name. “I’m having a shower,” I told him, rather abruptly, and then walked out, closing the door on his protests.

I guess, it really wasn’t fair, I decided as I stepped into the bathtub, turning on the shower. I mean, the one time Heero decides to actually open up a little and admit that he ca… has emotions, I run away, but dammit, I couldn’t handle it.

Alright, moving on, a topic I can handle: how the fuck am I gonna get back my blades?