A/N: This fic is an AU that has the boys playing professional League of Legends. I'm going to try my best to not get bogged down too much in game terminology or things like that, but, well, I WILL reference the game and try to explain as much as I can, as I go. I'm also way too lazy to make up "new" teams for the league, so I will be using existing teams and players, with the exceptions of Team Gundam Wing, Zodiac Gaming, and the Valkyries. So… I will be referencing real people and real teams.

Warnings: Angst, language, violence, sex.

Pairings: PM me if you need to know. But I think it might be fairly obvious early on.

Going the Distance

Chapter One

"You shouldn't read that shit," Hilde said.

Duo shrugged and continued to scroll through the Reddit comments.

"Not like I haven't heard it all before."

Hilde sighed and sat down beside him on the floor, leaning her forehead against the laptop screen.

"If you've heard it all before, then why waste your time on it now?" She asked.

He looked at her.

"Because it's stuff I need to hear."

"Really?"

Hilde rolled over so that she was laying beside him and looked at the screen.

"You need to hear that you're a bad investment and the worst Jungler in the North American league."

"Yeah," Duo said. "I need the motivation to get better."

"Duo, you aren't the worst Jungler in the NA - hell, I am."

"You don't even have any stats yet, Hil."

"Neither do you -"

"I subbed those two games last year and gave up nine deaths and had zero kills. I am the worst Jungler in the league."

Hilde groaned.

"Fine. You suck. You're a loser and I have no idea why Gundam Wing would want you on their team."

"Exactly my point."

Hilde punched him in the arm and Duo winced.

"Fine. You want to hear that you suck so you can get better. But how does reading that garbage help you?" She tapped one of her acid green nails on the screen, indicating a particularly vicious comment.

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"

"That you're a homo faggot? What does that even - can you be a hetero faggot?"

Duo felt his lips twitch and he tried to keep from smiling.

"Maybe you can be a homo non-faggot if you're really butch?"

He had to laugh at that and she smiled triumphantly.

"Anyway. Like I said, this is all garbage - you've never let your love for cock distract you from playing before. Why would you start now?"

"Um, maybe because my teammates are fucking gorgeous?" Duo offered.

"And straight," Hilde muttered.

Duo sighed.

"Yeah. There's that. But I can dream, can't I?"

"Of course you can, but, Duo - you're kind of a big deal."

He arched an eyebrow at her in question.

"You're the first openly gay League of Legends player… ever. You shouldn't have to fantasize about your straight teammates - you should find yourself a hot fanboy to date."

"And when am I going to have time to do that? I'm going to be sharing a house with these straight teammates of mine. I'm going to spend all of my time gaming and researching and doing promo shit for Mobile Suit Gaming - I'm never going to have time to meet a gay guy. The closest I'm going to get to a date is reading NoName333's comment about my sexy ass and Perfect Soldier01's comment about my killer smile."

"Ohhhh. A threesome," Hilde purred. "Look at you picking up guys on Reddit."

"They could be girls," Duo had to point out. "Or old dudes. Or serial killers. Seriously - even the other pro gamers have commented on me and said I'm going to be a disappointment."

Hilde frowned.

"Who said that?"

"Treize Khushrenada. Oh, and Zechs Merquise called me an over-hyped bronze tier player."

Hilde winced.

"Did… Solo say anything?"

Duo sighed and shook his head.

"No. Not on Reddit."

Hilde arched an eyebrow.

"Has he called you?"

Duo snorted.

"No. We haven't spoken since… you know."

"Yeah."

Not since the night Solo had walked in on Duo's boyfriend Alex fucking him and assumed Duo was being raped and beat the living shit out of the guy. Alex had called the cops and Solo had been charged with assault. It hadn't been the ideal way to come out to his brother, or the world, but a week after the incident it seemed the entire League of Legends community had heard about it. Even though Duo was nothing, an amateur hero who had subbed for pro teams a few times over the last year, Solo Maxwell was the Mid Laner for Zodiac Gaming. His arrest and subsequent three week suspension had ended Zodiac's push for first place in the Summer split. Solo - and the entire team - had not forgiven Duo.

"Well. Fuck them. All of them."

"Ew. Hilde. Even if I wanted to fuck Treize and Zechs - I'd never fuck my brother. That's incest."

Hilde rolled her eyes and then looked at the time.

"Come on, loser. Your car will be here soon."

Duo sighed and was about to shut down his computer when he saw a new comment posted to the 'Waiting for Duo Maxwell to Fail' thread.

"Huh."

"What?" Hilde glanced back at the screen and then grinned. "Well, well, well. Looks like someone is excited for you to join the team!"

Quatre Winner, Gundam Wing's team captain and Mid Laner, had just posted a comment.

"' The rest of you might be waiting for Duo Maxwell to fail, but Team Gundam Wing is waiting for him to join us on the mainstage when we win at Worlds this year.'" Hilde quoted.

"That guy is way too optimistic," Duo muttered and packed away his computer.

"Maybe," Hilde allowed.

Duo gave her a look.

"Hilde. No North American team has ever won the World Championships. Ever."

"Sure. And before this season there was never an all-girl team in the League - and now there is. Before this season there was never an openly gay League player. Maybe this is the season to break records."

"Right. I'll keep that in mind when I die fifty times to my brother in one game."

Hilde sighed and then hugged him.

"He's going to forgive you eventually.

Duo hugged her back.

"I doubt it. Solo has always been the best at holding grudges. And I did almost get him kicked off his team. I almost ended his career."

"No. His anger management issues almost ended his career."

"He thought Alex was raping me, Hilde."

"Then he needs to work on his observational skills - you two didn't make out in front of him but anyone could look at you two and tell you were mentally undressing each other all of the time."

Duo shrugged.

"Doesn't matter now."

The doorbell rang and Duo reluctantly pulled away from Hilde.

"Well. My chariot awaits."

Duo gathered the dufflebag with his clothes, the rolling suitcase with his computer set-up, and the backpack with his laptop in it. It was weird to think that all of his possessions could be compressed into three bags, but when Solo had kicked him out six months ago, that was all Duo had taken with him when he went to live with Hilde.

And now it was all Duo would take with him when he moved into the Mobile Suit Gaming house with his new team.

At the apartment door he hesitated and turned back to her.

"Don't give me that look," she warned. "We're going to be fine. I move into the Valkyrie house next week anyway so it's not like I'm going to have time to read Reddit garbage with you all afternoon anyway."

"I know." Duo was happy for her - thrilled that the Valkyries existed and had picked her up to join their roster. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he had already lost his brother, his boyfriend and was now going to lose his best friend.

"Skype me tonight when you settle in and tell me how cute Wufei Chang is in person."

Duo rolled his eyes but he had to laugh.

They hugged one last time.

"I promise not to counter-Jungle you too hard when we play against each other," Hilde whispered.

"And I promise not to counter-gank you too many times," he whispered back.

She kissed his cheek and then pulled away.

"Go on, get out of here."

-o-

Team Gundam Wing was still new on the pro scene. They had qualified to play in the LCS during the Spring Promotional Tournament last year and while they had played well, they had placed fifth in the end of season playoffs and been forced to watch the world tournament from their home instead of sharing the stage with the top four teams in each region.

Mobile Suit Gaming was one of the biggest names in the gaming industry, and when they had purchased TGW after the end of last season they had promised to turn the team into a World Championship contender. The roster had remained largely unchanged, but MSG had decided to drop the Jungler, Ralph Kurt. Kurt had immediately been picked up by Zodiac Gaming. The ZG spokesperson, Une, had even laughed about the transaction. She had thanked MSG for giving up a top player and suggested that the acquisition of a relative unknown like Duo Maxwell was an indication of just how poorly managed TGW would be this next season.

Duo was determined to prove Une, Zodiac, and everyone else wrong. It was good to know that Quatre Winner, the TGW captain, was on his side, but Duo didn't hold out much hope for his teammates.

He had played matches against them before in Solo Queue, where many pro players faced top amateur talent and where Duo had made a name for himself over the last year. Duo had been impressed by his future teammates gameplay, but he doubted the feeling was mutual. He remembered one game he had played against the top laner, Wufei Chang. Duo had decided to camp his lane heavily, constantly jumping out of the fog of war to secure kills for his own Top Laner. Wufei had bitched about it over the All-Chat all game - but, because of Duo's camping, his team had won. Something similar had occurred in a game against Heero Yuy and Trowa Barton. The duo was famous on the LCS circuit for being almost unstoppable if they got an early lead. Heero Yuy had finished last season with the highest kill-to-death ratio of any marksman in the league, and Trowa Barton had finished with the most assists and the fewest deaths of any support. When Duo had been matched up against them he had made sure to give his own bottom lane an early lead by ganking the duo every time they strayed too far from safety. Unlike Wufei, neither Heero or Trowa had sent him angry messages, but, after the game ended, Trowa had waited in the post-game lobby long enough to suggest that Duo needed to learn how to share his focus across the map instead of only focusing on one lane.

So now, as Duo rang the doorbell at the MSG house, he took in a deep breath and steeled himself for a less than warm reception.

Relena Peacecraft, the team's PR person, opened the door and greeted him with a wide smile.

"Duo!" She hugged him and Duo awkwardly hugged her back.

Relena was cute, and if Duo was into girls, he would definitely have been into her. Her blonde hair had bright pink streaks through it that matched her nail polish and her fashion sense seemed to be a kind of little-girl meets princess meets gamer nerd that Duo had to appreciate.

"The guys had the day off, so not everyone is here to greet you - but they will all be here for dinner tonight!"

Duo nodded.

He looked around the house and was overwhelmed. It was huge - which only made sense considering that the entire team, their analyst Sally Po and Relena, lived there.

"Let me give you the grand tour," Relena said. "You can put your stuff here for now."

Duo followed her through the house. The kitchen was huge and spotless.

"We have a housekeeper who cooks, but you're welcome to use anything you want," Relena confided. "Oh - and don't ever let Quatre cook if you can help it."

"Why not?" Duo frowned.

"He's the worst. Seriously - he gave the guys food poisoning one time. Now, if Heero volunteers to cook - which hardly ever happens - definitely take him up on that. Anyway, moving on, here's the back yard."

The yard itself was small, but there was a large deck, a grill, a sitting area, and even a hot tub.

Back inside, Relena showed him the two gaming rooms - each with five computers set up in a rough semicircle.

The equipment was top of the line, and Duo suppressed his urge to whistle.

"Why two rooms?"

Relena shrugged.

"MSG thought it would be nice if we ever wanted to do LANs."

"Right."

Duo was used to everyone providing their own gear - it was one of the reasons he was still hauling around his refurbished set up - and he found it hard to wrap his head around the idea of MSG spending all of that extra money because it would be nice.

"Okay, my room is down here on the left, and Sally's room is across from mine. Quatre is also downstairs with us."

Duo nodded, glancing into the rooms as she pointed them out. He wasn't surprised to see that Relena's room was pink and covered with Sailor Moon and Rainbow Brite posters. Sally's room had several television monitors set up on one wall and was completely clean and organized.

Quatre appeared to be one of the few guys at home - when Relena knocked on his door he opened it and greeted Duo with a hug.

"Hey! I'm so glad you're here!"

"Ah, thanks. Me too." Duo eased away from him.

The blonde Mid Laner was his own height and, as Duo had already told Hilde, gorgeous. The entire team was. Duo and Hilde had joking called Team Gundam Wing Team Wet Dream more than a few times.

"I'm just giving him the tour, so don't even think about talking strategy yet. Give him a few hours to settle in," Relena said when Quatre opened his mouth.

Quatre blushed and shrugged.

"Yeah, okay. But I'm hoping we can all jump into a game or two tonight after dinner - just to play around and have fun," Quatre said.

Relena rolled her eyes.

"Fun. Because this team is so good at having fun."

Quatre sighed.

"You've got a point there."

Duo wasn't sure what they were talking about and it must have shown on his face.

"The other guys… take this game really seriously," Quatre said.

"You always seem to take it seriously too," Duo had to say. He had watched their gameplay from last season, and Quatre Winner definitely took the game seriously.

"Well, yeah - when it matters. But if it's not a scrimmage or a match - it's just a game. It's supposed to be fun."

Duo nodded in agreement. He was beginning to think that he and Quatre were on the same wavelength.

When he spotted the Star Wars posters on the walls above Quatre's bed he was convinced.

Relena dragged him away just as they started to talk about how terrible the prequels were.

"Here's the living room," she said. The room was relatively empty, but there was a huge flat screen television on one wall and three large, comfortable looking couches angled around it.

"Now, let's go upstairs and I can show you your room and where the rest of the guys are."

Duo grabbed his bags and followed Relena up the stairs.

"This is Wufei's room," she indicated the first room at the top of the stairs. The door was closed and she made no move to knock on it. "This is your room," she said and gestured to an open door.

Duo stepped inside and had to sigh. It was awesome.

There was a double bed against the wall under the large, high window on one wall. There was a closet, a desk and a dresser. He flopped down on the bed.

"This is so much better than the futon I've spent the last six months on," he said.

Relena smiled and was about to say something when two half-naked men stopped in the doorway.

Two gorgeous, sweaty half naked men wearing only basketball shorts and sneakers.

Duo recognized them easily - Heero Yuy and Trowa Barton were impossible not to recognize. Duo had spent plenty of time over the last year watching their gameplay and interviews to have committed their faces to memory.

However, this was the first time he was seeing their bodies and damn. It was unfair that gamers - dorks of the first order - should be that fit, that toned.

Duo forced himself to look away from their abs and into their eyes.

"Hi," he managed.

Trowa smirked slightly and Heero nodded in greeting.

"Sorry that you got the small room," Heero said. "Wufei took my old room."

Duo arched an eyebrow.

"Wufei and Ralph used to share the master bedroom," Relena explained. "But when we released Ralph…"

"Wufei refused to room with you," Trowa helpfully jumped in. "So Heero and I moved into the other room."

Duo frowned.

"He didn't want to room with me. Because I'm gay?"

Relena bit her lip.

"To be fair," Trowa crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway, his lean body impossible to look away from, "he said he refused to room with you because he hated you."

"Because I'm gay."

Heero shrugged.

"Not just because you're gay." Heero and Trowa exchanged smirks. "He suggested we should just put up a tent for you in the back yard. Since you enjoyed camping so much."

Duo rolled his eyes.

"He's never going to let that go, is he?"

Trowa shook his head.

"Probably not."

Duo sighed.

"Fine. Whatever."

"You realize we have dinner in thirty minutes," Relena told them after looking at her phone.

"We're here," Heero pointed out.

"You're half naked and covered in sweat." She wrinkled her nose. "And you smell."

Duo strongly disagreed with that statement - maybe they did smell, but it wasn't a bad smell to be sure.

"We'll shower and dress," Trowa assured her. He looked at Duo again. "Good to meet you."

"You too," Duo said and waved as they left.

He then realized how lame he must have looked - waving at them? What the hell was wrong with him?

-o-

"I didn't know what kind of setup you wanted, so right now you've just got the standard gear. But we can go to Fry's tomorrow if you want and get you a new keyboard, mouse and pad."

Relena groaned and angrily stabbed her pasta.

"We agreed. No strategy. This is just a nice, relaxing meal where we all get to know each other."

"I wasn't talking strategy," Quatre defended himself and gave Duo a wide-eyed, apologetic look. "I just didn't want Duo to think we didn't care about him."

"We don't," Wufei muttered into his own plate, flicking his dark eyes up to briefly glare at Duo.

When Duo skyped Hilde later to tell her that Wufei Chang was definitely very hot in person, he would also tell her that he was a complete dick.

The meal had been pleasant - Quatre and Relena kept up a steady stream of chatter and tried to involve Duo in their conversation. Trowa occasionally added a mild, sarcastic comment but otherwise he and Heero ate in silence, side by side, the very picture of a well-honed partnership. Wufei, on the other hand, wasted no opportunities to make his loathing for Duo well-known.

Duo rolled his eyes and forced himself to eat another piece of pasta instead of respond to Wufei. It was damned hard.

"Yes we do," Sally Po entered the dining room and gave Wufei a steady look. She sat down at the table and smiled at Duo. "Sorry I'm late. It's great to finally meet you in person."

Duo returned her smile. Sally was a few years older than everyone else, and had been one of the first female pro-gamers to make it big. She had been a Starcraft player, but retired after a few seasons and reportedly gone to Korea to try to make it in the pro-scene there. TGW had picked her up as an analyst during the middle of the season last year, and Duo - among others - had noticed an amazing improvement in their gameplay. Well, most of their gameplay.

Wufei had been quite vocal on Reddit and in interviews about his distaste for Sally, for her love of Korean tactics and her ability to coach and serve as an analyst. Not surprisingly to Duo, Wufei's gameplay had been the most unchanged by Sally's arrival - and it wasn't a good thing.

"Great to meet you, too. I'm looking forward to getting one of your legendary pep talks."

Sally rolled her eyes.

Wufei, and Ralph, the former Jungler, had both complained about Sally's habit of sitting down each individual player and giving a rather lengthy report on their strengths and weaknesses. Now that Duo thought about it, he remembered that Ralph had been just as vocal in his opposition to Sally as Wufei was. He wondered if that had something to do with the dismissal of the former team member?

"Well, you'll have to wait. Relena made me promise to hold off until after you've played with us during a scrimmage."

Duo nodded, honestly a little relieved. He didn't necessarily need Sally telling him on day one that he was useless and needed to step up his game - he already knew that much.

"So…" Quatre finished eating and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "I thought we could play a few games tonight. Just for fun, before we start real practices tomorrow."

"Just for fun?" Wufei echoed, his lips twisted into a sneer.

"I know it's an alien concept, Wufei," Trowa murmured, a slight smirk on his face. "But maybe we can give it a try. What's the worst that could happen?"

Duo turned his startled laughter into a cough, but the way Heero smirked at him made it obvious that he hadn't been that smooth.

Damn. He had not anticipated Trowa Barton being so funny.

Whenever TGW had won games in the past, they usually sent Quatre, Wufei or Heero to do the post-game interviews. Quatre was always polite and upbeat, Wufei cocky and annoying as hell, and Heero dull as dirt as he talked about the areas TGW could improve upon next game. Duo had always wondered why Trowa didn't do the interviews - he had assumed it was because he was quiet and shy. Duo really hoped he could convince Trowa to do one of the interviews - hell, he'd even do it with him - just to have the chance to hear him be sarcastic on an international stage.

Duo caught himself, realizing the assumptions he was making - assuming that they could win, assuming that Trowa would listen to him or care about his opinion.

"Sounds good," Heero decided. He pushed away from the table. "The sooner we can adjust to a new Jungler, the better."

Duo rolled his eyes and saw Quatre doing the same. Apparently Wufei wasn't the only one unfamiliar with the concept of having fun.

They worked together to clean up after the meal, putting the dishes into the dishwasher while Pagan, the housekeeper/cook, tidied up the kitchen and stored the leftovers in the fridge.

As Duo booted up the Origin Chronos in front of him for the first time, he couldn't help but mutter.

"We are not in Kansas anymore."

The high end PC, the beautiful Samsung monitor, the Razer keyboard, the Corsair mouse and the Tritton headset - all of it was worth so much money. He seriously just hoped that he didn't embarrass himself.

"Corsair, Razer and Tritton are team sponsors," Quatre said as he sat down on Duo's left. "But if you don't like those models, we can get you near gear."

Duo nodded. He was pretty sure he'd get laughed out of the room if he asked to plug in his trusty old Logitech mouse, so he rested his hand over the Corsair and tried to look nonchalant.

Wufei, with a glare, sat down on Duo's right and Duo suppressed a groan. He hadn't thought about that - about the traditional seating arrangements on the pro stage. Wufei would always be on Duo's right and Quatre would always be on his left, with Heero and Trowa on Quatre's other side.

Duo sighed. Hopefully he would be sitting beside Wufei for a long time - maybe he should try to bury the hatchet.

He turned, but Wufei glared at him.

Okay. Maybe hatchet burying could wait until later.

Everyone logged into their accounts and Duo waited for a game invite.

"Oh!" Quatre chuckled. "I don't even have you on my friend's list yet!"

Duo smirked at that and leaned over to help Quatre spell his gamer tag, Deathscythe.

"You'll have to change that," Heero said, his voice low and way too damn sexy over the headset.

"True," Quatre agreed. "TGW Deathscythe has a good ring to it, though!"

It did, actually, and as Duo changed his tag he felt a thrill of anticipation.

This was really happening. He was really, officially, a professional gamer.

-o-

"I want him off the team."

Duo groaned and shoved his headset down.

"What did I do wrong this time?"

Wufei glared at him and pointed at Duo's monitor.

"You went Fizz jungle!"

"Yeah? And?"

Wufei's glare turned nuclear.

"You can't Fizz jungle!"

"Clearly I can," Duo snapped back and pointed at the same monitor. "Or does the word Victory not resonate with you?"

Wufei looked past Duo to Quatre.

"It's a gimmick. That's all he is - gimmicks and camping and he's not good enough to play with us."

Quatre sighed.

"Wufei. Calm down. We agreed to just have fun. Duo isn't really going to Fizz jungle, not in real games." Quatre arched an eyebrow at Duo.

"Of course not," Duo muttered, not being entirely honest. He had done it in Solo Queue a few times and had watched Twitch streams of a few Korean players try it out. He wanted to try it in real games - but not until he had more practice first.

"It was better than your Ziggs Jungle," Heero said.

Duo looked over at him.

His Ziggs Jungle… he had completely forgotten about that. Last year, for a charity event, he and Solo had played League on a live stream for twenty four hours and they had both agreed to play only random champions, clicking on the question mark until time ran out and they were stuck with whatever champion luck gave them. Duo had gotten Ziggs three painful games in a row. The first two had been utter disasters, but his third game had actually had some success. He was shocked that Heero had seen it.

"Didn't Bengi play Fizz Jungle a few times in Solo Queue?" Trowa added.

Duo really hadn't expected to have support from these two in this and it left him momentarily stunned.

"Oh - he did!" Quatre quickly agreed. "I watched one of those games. It's a risky pick."

"Yeah, I know," Duo pulled himself together. "If you don't get early pressure then he's not very useful except for split pushing. I'd only ever pick him if we needed to add an assassin to the team composition or if the opposing team picked a jungler I could take advantage of." Duo sighed. "Look, this game is constantly changing, and you four already have really solid play-styles that work for you. We'll be playing against teams who know your strengths and weaknesses and that's fine - but I'm unknown. The other teams don't know what I can do and that's something we should take advantage of." He turned to Wufei. "But I'm not here to just fuck around. I'm here to win. You hate me - well, you hate me for a lot of reasons, but one of those is because I stomped all over you in that game on Solo Queue. Well, guess what, I'm the guy that stomped all over you by getting my Top Laner eight kills on you. But now you are my Top Laner and I'm going to work my ass off to get you eight kills." He turned to Heero and Trowa. "And I remember my game with you two - I remember what you said to me afterwards, Trowa, about learning to split my focus. You're right. It's a weakness of mine. I tend to focus on getting one lane really, really fed on kills and sometimes that backfires. So, I'm willing to work on that. I'm willing to try new tactics and new champions." He turned back to Wufei. "But I'm not willing to be treated like garbage from day one just because you've still got your panties in a twist because I beat you and because I like cock."

Duo removed his headset entirely and set it down on the desk with his computer rig.

"So… just… I don't know. Talk it through or whatever. I'll see you for practice tomorrow."

And with that, Duo left the room, making the long climb up the stairs and to his room, trying to ignore the murmur of voices from downstairs.

As he lay down in bed, the first real bed he had slept in in six months, he tried to keep himself from freaking out.

One of his teammates hated him. His brother's team had publicly derided him on Reddit. The entire pro-scene seemed stacked against him and ready to laugh him out of the league. The League of Legends community was not well known for being nice, and Duo had been dealing with Reddit threads and Youtube videos trashing him for being gay for the last six months. He knew it was only going to get worse.

And of course, he now shared a house with four ridiculously sexy straight men. And it wasn't as if Duo need to add anything to his mental fantasy masturbation rotation, but now he had the sight of Heero Yuy and Trowa Barton, half naked, covered in sweat, smirking at him branded in his mind, and it was hard not to think of them, of their too perfect bodies in the room next to his.

How the hell was he supposed to survive this season?