It is not just a bad day, it is just another bad day.
The morning coffee is in its cup and the television is on. As usual, Relena Peacecraft's sweet, determined face headlines the news. This time it is about the relief-providing, diplomacy-encouraging, altogether brave trip to the L2 colony cluster and the immense good she has done there.
Duo is staring blankly. His thoughts are long gone to places no one but he can remember. His dead pals are exchange hollow glances, silently pleading with a garbage can to hold dinner. There is a crate with a piece of tarp pulled over the top called home where they bring the spoils of begging and dumpster diving. There are pinched mouths, confused at inequality. Everything is covered in grime, grease and filth, again.
In the far corner of his apartment Sister Helen looks up at him with sad, invisible eyes but she has nothing to Offer.
At the vice-foreign minister's patient words on screen a brief but potent surge of despair and the familiar feeling of injustice are boiling up and giving him vertigo. He puts his head down on the table and closes his eyes. When he picks it up again there is a soft smile on his lips.
"Did you mean it?" Wufei asks bluntly. "Mean what?" Duo has a vision of all his secrets spilling into empty liquor glasses. "Last night," Wufei clarifies. "You said peacetime is harder than any other time in your life. Did you mean that?"
My notes: Duo and Wufei work for the Preventers, doing black-ops to clean up the leftover weapons and terrorist groups after the wars. When Heero joins, it upsets Duo's precarious equilibrium even further. CW for self-harm, severe PTSD, possibly suicidal ideation, and bad medical practices there at the end. Duo is a MESS in this, post-war, hallucinations and everything. But I like it. He's doing what he does best - run and hide from the things he doesn't want to know, until there's no way not to look at them.