Gundam Wing fanfiction. My standard disclaimers apply. For Missy May.

Fool’s Game

By Lady Aria (bukiminatenshi@mailcity.com)

<Why do you always do this to me?>

Duo looked at the battered Heero sleeping on the small bed in the corner. His eyes darkened as he watched his partner take one labored breath after another, his usually emotionless face scrunched up in pain now that he had relinquished conscious control. The two of them had just completed another successful mission. Unfortunately, the latter part had required a fifty-foot dive into the ocean after an OZ soldier managed to successfully sound the alarm… just before Heero’d put a bullet through his head. Duo had been lucky enough to dive perfectly into deep water, but Heero slammed into some rocks and coral ten feet beneath the surface, fracturing several ribs. Duo couldn’t believe that Heero’d actually made it back into the safehouse on his own before collapsing on the floor. The long-haired pilot then spent the next two hours getting him cleaned up and into bed. It was a vicious cycle, one that he’d kept playing into ever since he’d met the ‘perfect’ soldier.

They’d go into a mission.

They’d finish their job.

Heero’d manage to almost get himself killed.

Duo’d drag them both back and nurse him back to health…

… Only to have everything repeat itself once a new mission was given.

Yup, it’s a cycle alright. One wherein someone was likely to get killed.

<…And that someone is him.>

An exhausted sigh came out of Duo as he padded over to Heero and glared at him. “Why are you so eager to die?” That question had been more for his benefit than for the sleeping boy. He had always found that thinking out loud helped him a lot, although it caused much irritation to his fellow pilots, especially Wufei. Lips stretched into a half-smile, he unrolled his sleeping bag and placed it beside the bed. There was no way he’d lose sleep over a question that he’d asked himself so many times.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Ninmu kanryou.

An explosion.

Couldn’t stop….

Crying….

Silence….

Heero’s breath caught and he clutched his sides as his broken ribs protested at the sudden movement. He was in the safehouse, clean, bandaged, alive.

Alive.

“I’m glad to see that you’re finally amongst the living,” Duo called out from the kitchen. “Dr. J sent us a communiqué while you were asleep. We’re to lay low until you’ve healed properly.”

“I’m fine,” Heero replied as he sat up and winced.

“No, you’re not,” Duo said as he strode out of the kitchen to his bedside with a tray of food. He placed the tray on a table, fluffed up some pillows and propped Heero against them. “You’ve got fractured ribs from that high dive we took and from the way you’ve been moaning in your sleep, I’d say that they must hurt a lot.” Duo ignored the dark stare that was being leveled his way and, instead, handed him a bowl of stew. “Have some. I cooked it myself. After four days of sleep, I’ll bet you’re awfully hungry.”

Heero ate in silence as Duo went about the safe house doing various chores. To see someone who could deal death with a maniacal grin on his face doing housework was more than a little unsettling. What was worse, Duo doted upon his patient, refusing to let him do anything on his own and it was taking all of Heero’s his self-control just to resist the urge to shoot him.

“If you don’t mind my asking, there’s something I want to know….”

The two of them had settled in for the night and Heero turned his head to look at Duo on the floor. “What about?”

“Why are you so reckless?”

Heero’s eyes clouded over at the question. “None of your business,” he muttered. “It’s part of the job.”

“At least I don’t go about missions with a death wish,” Duo shot back as he turned to look in Heero’s direction. “I care about coming out with my hide intact, but you… you don’t seem to care at all. I’m getting a little tired of playing nurse every time we have a tandem mission, you know.”

“Then stop,” Heero replied coldly as he settled under his blanket. “I never asked you to do anything for me… why don’t you just let me die next time.”

“Well, excuse me for being concerned,” Duo huffed as he turned away from the bed, “I just wanted to help.”

“Then shut up and let me sleep.”

Duo’s face flushed hotly at that comment. <What’s his problem?> He thought in annoyance as he wrapped himself inside his sleeping bag. <Maybe next time I won’t be there to help him out. Maybe he’d die even….> A stray tear rolled down Duo’s cheek as images flashed through his head.

Returning to Maxwell Church to find it reduced to rubble.

All those he loved were either dead or dying.

He hadn’t been there for them.

Sure, he knew now that his presence at that time wouldn’t have amounted to anything, but it still grated at him that he hadn’t been there. He’d watched Sister Helen die and he hadn’t been able to do anything for her. Duo turned and saw Heero’s silhouette rising and falling with each breath. He couldn’t let Heero die no matter how annoyed he becomes of him. His guilt would just be worse because this time he wasn’t quite so powerless.

<A conscience is a curious thing,> he thought with a yawn. <It makes you do stuff a sane person wouldn’t, only because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do.>

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo pretty much gave up trying to get Heero to open up, contenting himself with making sure that Heero’s bandages were clean and he was eating properly. He was back on his feet soon enough, and a new mission came in, much to Duo’s dismay.

“We’re to meet up with Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei at a boarding school a thousand miles east of here,” Heero said as he hoisted his pack over his shoulder. “We will….”

“… Receive further orders from there. Yeah, yeah, I know the routine. Could we just get this over with and leave?”

Duo’s irritation was evident and it made Heero smile inwardly. He was starting to get a sick of his perkiness.

The two of them went through the entire welcome-to-our-school routine as soon as they got to the boarding school. It wasn’t until late afternoon when the classes had been dismissed that they’d caught their first glimpse of their room.

“Finally, a room with some ROOM!” Duo laughed gleefully as he plopped down on one of the beds, enjoying the warm, soft covers. “I was afraid that they’d try to stuff us into another broom closet! My, this bed’s soooo niiiicccceee….”

Heero ignored Duo’s happy ramblings and started to unpack his stuff. Duo had a point, though. The last boarding school they’d holed up in had rooms so small that it could barely fit a single person in, let alone, two. This one was different. The room itself could fit three people comfortably. A pair of twin beds were set against either end of the room. A large curtained window was set into the back wall and two reasonably sized desks in front of it each with an adjustable florescent lamp fixed to its side, leaving the upper surface free for the occupants. On either side of the door were two closets with a built-in set of bureaus, a dresser, and a full-length mirror fixed into the left door of the closet. A pair of padded chairs had been placed against the wall, between the closet and the bed. The room was a comfortable shade of cream on a textured wall with incandescent pin lights at each corner of the room and two 32-watt florescent lights on the ceiling. Duo’s glee was further heightened when he found that there were switches controlling the two pin lights and the florescent light on his side of the room set into the wall between his desk and the bed, not just on the wall beside the door. All in all, one half of the room is the mirror image of the other… with the exception of the fact that the door leading into the bathroom was on Heero’s side of the room.

“It’s about time you two arrived.”

Both of them looked up and saw the other three pilots standing in the doorway of their room, dressed in the school’s dark green suit uniforms. Duo immediately scooted over to make room for Quatre while Trowa sat on his chair. Wufei remained standing, if only to add effect to his irritated ranting.

“We’ve already been here three days,” he started, “and I know that you must have gotten the communiqué the same time we did….”

“At least all of us are already here,” Quatre interjected boldly. After three days of Wufei’s diatribe, even the patient Arabian’s had enough. He turned to Duo and smiled. “Nice to see that the both of you are still alive.”

Duo rolled his eyes and collapsed back onto the bed. “Don’t even go there….”

Quatre and Trowa looked at each other knowingly and smiled as they shook their heads in amusement. Wufei… just looked on in confusion at the smiling pair and the long-haired pilot with the pillow over his head. Heero typically chose to ignore the lot of them.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo lay awake in bed that night, sleep proving to be pretty elusive. He was thankful that they’d finally arrived at the school and that Quatre was there. At least he had someone to talk to. He hadn’t missed the doting glances Trowa ‘pretended’ not to throw Quatre’s way during dinner. It’s nice to know that those two seemed to be getting along just fine. Wufei seemed to be perfectly happy being with his lonesome, and Duo was more than willing to let sleeping dogs lie. No sense in stirring up trouble there. Duo turned to his right and looked beyond the moonlight streaming into the room to the person on the bed opposite his. The source of his insomnia.

Heero had given up tossing and turning on his bed and had turned to mumbling and moaning. Unfortunately though, Duo couldn’t hear the exact words, if there were even any, but he could make out the sound of distress just beyond his consciousness, thus making sleep impossible.

<This is stupid,> he thought as he got up to wake Heero. Right now, it seemed to be the only way to get some sleep. He was about to shake Heero awake when he noticed something that made him start.

Heero was crying.

<What the…?> Duo asked himself as he knelt beside the bed. The very thought of Heero manifesting any outward signs of emotion already seemed incongruous in itself, but tears? It just seemed impossible. The perfect soldier looked like a frightened child. Taking a deep breath, Duo raised his hand to wipe the tears from Heero’s face….

The next thing he knew, he was on the floor with a wide-awake Heero holding a knife to his throat, a thin trickle of blood staining the shining metal as its keen edge bit lightly into Duo’s skin.

“That’s a sure way to get yourself killed,” Heero said as he got off Duo and went into the bathroom to rinse the blood off his knife.

It took Duo a couple of minutes to get over his shock and was ready with his retort by the time Heero returned to the room. “WELL, EXCUSE ME! I just wanted to wake you up so I could sleep! And just what do I find? The perfect soldier crying like a baby!”

Heero’s hand came up to his face and found that what Duo said was true. His face was moist with newly dried tears. “So?” Heero said as he slid the knife back into the sheath beneath his pillow.

“Would it kill you to tell me what’s wrong?” Duo said in a calmer voice. “I mean, this isn’t the first time I heard you moaning in your sleep, the times you were injured aside. This is just the first time I hadn’t been able to sleep because of them.”

“Here,” Heero replied as he tossed a small package Duo’s way.

“What’s this?”

“Earplugs. Now go to sleep.” Heero pulled the covers over his head muffling Duo’s exasperated reply and effectively ending the exchange.

Seething, Duo tossed the earplugs onto his desk and sat on the bed, glaring at the cocooned Heero. <‘Earplugs. Now go to sleep’ he says,> Duo thought as he too laid on his bed for sleep. <Some people just have no consideration….>

Sleep eventually came to Duo, bringing with it dreams of a Heero-less existence.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo checked the pack slung over his shoulder and took a deep breath. A mission had come in a couple of days after they’d arrived. Duo and Heero were to infiltrate an OZ base and steal the data of an MS prototype and destroy the plant. Wufei was tasked to deactivate the many alarm systems scattered within the base, while Quatre and Trowa were to cover their escape with their Gundams. A standard mission.

Heero and Duo stood waiting in the shadows of an OZ residential building while they waited for Wufei’s signal. The long-haired pilot watched his partner out of the corner of his eye. Silent and brooding. Typical Heero. Duo was about to say something when he saw Wufei’s signal – a small, red flash in the darkness. There’d be time to dig into Heero’s head later. Right now, they had work to do.

The two of them ran for the main building and, once inside, they split up, Heero going for the plant and Duo going for the main control center. Duo opened his pack and took out a descrambler to disable any and all possible codes OZ had placed into the computer. In less than a minute, he was inside the mainframe. A smile came to his lips as the data he needed transferred itself from the CPU to his disk. Once the data was safe and secure, he placed several bombs in the room for good measure. Heero was already waiting for him at the bottom of the stairwell with two guards lying dead in a dark corner.

“Looks like I’ve been having better luck than you,” Duo said in amusement.

“Let’s go,” Heero replied, cutting off the rest of Duo’s remark.

They were barely out of the building when the first explosions rocked the compound’s foundation. Soldiers streamed out of their quarters, all scrambling for their MS’s and shouts of higher-ranking officials echoed into the night. The confusion was so great that the two scampering teenagers blended perfectly into the chaos. Gundams Heavyarms and Sandrock were in the thick of the fight, creating even more pandemonium. Duo was almost out of the compound when he noticed that he was alone. He looked frantically left and right until he found Heero standing like a statue, frozen by something he saw. Duo muttered a curse under his breath as he made his way back to him to pull him back into reality and out of danger.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Duo practically screamed at Heero until he saw what he was looking at.

A little girl crying softly as she held her barking puppy in her arms.

“Heero…,” Duo started to say when an official picked the little girl up into his arms and rushed into the residential building where she could be safe.

Heero seemed to get a hold of his senses then and, finally acknowledging Duo’s presence, ran with him out of the base and into their Gundams.

<What was that all about?> Duo thought as they entered the fray. Heero’d looked like he’d seen a ghost. There was very little that could scare the perfect soldier and the sight of the girl had unnerved him to the point of being almost human.

Trowa’s Gundam let loose a missile barrage hitting several unmanned MS and sent them tumbling. A shout came from Duo as one of them began collapsing in the direction of the residential building where the official had taken the little girl. To his surprise, the MS was thrown back several meters as a shot from Heero’s laser cannons kept it from crushing the structure.

<Damn it, just what is going on?> Duo thought as they dispatched the last of the MS and they made their escape.

The only place that suffered practically no damage was the residential building.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Back in the dormitory, Duo grabbed Heero’s shirt and slammed him against the door as soon as it closed. He knew that Heero could break his arms if he chose, but at this point he didn’t really care. He was too angry at his partner’s constant silence and he would get some answers out of Heero before the first rays of dawn.

“What is wrong with you?!” Duo shouted at Heero. It irritated him that he seemed to keep asking that same question without ever getting a response. “Did you know that you could have gotten yourself killed – again, I must add – when you stood like a total idiot out in the open?! I thought nothing could faze you! Just what exactly happened to the ‘perfect soldier’?!”

The words had come out in an angry rush, dripping with sarcasm. Duo let his anger ebb as he let go of Heero and watched as the boy slid down the door into a sitting position on the floor. Heero wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look at him, preferring to keep his head down, face concealed by the unruly hair hanging in front of his face. Almost immediately, Duo wanted to give himself a good solid kick in the rear as well as take back what he’d said. Seeing Heero violent was one thing. Seeing him stunned was another. He’d obviously been upset by something he’d seen and all Duo did was batter him emotionally, if not physically.

He crouched down beside Heero and, in a much calmer voice, asked, “what happened back there? You were white as a sheet and, obviously, you saw something that upset you. I know that you think I’m nothing but a nosy guy you have to bear with, but please, Heero.” Duo placed his hands on Heero’s shoulder hoping that the gesture would be sincere enough. “Please, please, let me help you.”

“Duo,” Heero whispered as his right hand grasped Duo’s right wrist. He felt Duo stiffen at the gesture, obviously afraid that he was going to crush the delicate bones… but that was the least of his intentions. “You… you once asked me why… why I wanted to die… so badly….”

The expression on Duo’s face was of shock as the crushing grip he’d expected never came. He continued to stare at Heero as, for the first time, he began to speak to him in more than his usual mission-oriented tone.

“That little girl,” he began, “and her puppy…. They reminded me of one of my very first missions in L1. I was to do reconnaissance on a Federation base there. I met a girl who was walking her puppy outside the base. She… gave me a flower… and told me to cheer up…. That night, I blew up the base… and an unmanned MS toppled onto a residential building….”

“The girl’s home…,” Duo whispered in horror as understanding finally came to him.

“I… I couldn’t stop it… I’d let her die… her and her puppy.” Heero’s voice became little more than a whisper as he curled into a ball against the door. “She didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t deserve to die… and no matter what I do, no matter how many missions I complete, I could never bring her back.” A small sigh escaped his lips as he continued, “Sometimes I wonder… how many people like her I’ve unwittingly killed. How many… lives I’ve taken…. Do you understand now? Are you satisfied?”

In the moonlight, Duo saw tears rolling down Heero’s cheeks and, like glass, shattering on the floor. He’d wanted to know why Heero held so little value to his life, but not like this. Not to the point of him becoming a soul, lost and afraid.

Heero felt Duo’s hand lifting his chin as he didn’t fight it. He was so tired. The warmth of Duo’s lips on his was something he didn’t expect altogether. Oddly enough, he felt his eyes grow heavy as he let this new warmth wash over him. The few seconds seemed to last an eternity and he opened his eyes to look at a very flushed face and two very guilty violet orbs.

“Uh, Heero,” Duo stammered as he got up and backed away from him, “I’m sorry!” He then made a beeline for the bathroom and locked the door.

The boy just looked at the bathroom door mutely as his hand came up absently to his lips, the taste of Duo’s mouth and his warmth lingering on them still.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“You want to talk?”

Duo turned around and saw Quatre standing in front of the door of the stairwell leading from the roof of the school. He gave the Arabian pilot a welcoming smile and the two of the leaned on the railing as they watched the sunset.

“You’ve been awfully quiet the past few days,” Quatre said as he pulled out two cans of juice from his knapsack and handed one over to Duo. “Is something bothering you?”

Duo stared at the can he was holding and sighed. “A lot of things are bothering me, but most of all….”

“Heero, right?”

“How’d you…?” Duo began in disbelief and Quatre just laughed.

“A person would have to be blind not to notice it,” he replied, popping open the can. “For some reason, Heero was the one thing that could make you lose your cool and make you clam up.”

“I don’t know,” Duo sighed as he opened the juice and took a sip. “The last few days… they made me think of what has happened since we all met but most of my thoughts do concern Heero.”

“Thoughts of things beyond our missions?”

That remark made Duo flush and look at Quatre. “I hope you don’t mean something like… well, you and Trowa….” A similar flush came to Quatre’s face and Duo blushed even more profusely as he stammered out an apology. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, um…, you know….”

“It’s okay,” Quatre reassured him. “I knew that you must’ve guessed it by now anyway.”

“Oh.” Duo never expected Quatre to practically admit that he and Trowa were a couple. There were just some days when the unexpected just happens. “How’d it… happen anyway?”

“I don’t remember, really,” Quatre admitted, “it’s just seemed… right, somehow. We kept running into each other during missions… we eventually started talking and things just went from there.”

“I see,” Duo said, desperately wanting to drop the subject. “Actually, what’s been bothering me is that I now know where Heero’s suicidal tendencies are coming from….” Quatre listened intently as Duo told him of the odd ‘conversation’ they’d had the night of the mission, omitting the fact that he’d kissed Heero, of course. “I just don’t know what I have to do to stop him from trying to make a martyr out of himself.”

“Give him a reason to live.”

Duo had been surprised at that simple statement. A reason to live?

“Find a way to get all of that guilt out of him, Duo,” Quatre reasoned as he finished his juice and tossed it into a nearby trash bin. “If there’s something you’re good at besides flying Deathscythe, it’s getting people to open up.” Quatre smiled earnestly. “Not even Heero could put up a good enough defense against you for very long.”

“I’ll try,” Duo promised. “I just hope my efforts don’t get me a bullet in the head… or my throat slit.” His hand came up to his neck, remembering the knife incident with a shiver.

“That’s good enough,” the blonde remarked as they both made their way to the stairwell. “You might even surprise yourself. Sometimes we tend to overlook the obvious in our search for complex answers to simple problems. ”

A perplexed look came onto Duo’s face as an expression of pure content washed over Quatre the way the sunset’s light washed over the entire horizon.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

On a nearby beach, Heero stared blindly at the same sunset that Duo and Quatre had been admiring. Now, more than ever, he needed to be alone. It didn’t help at all that he and Duo shared the same room. Seeing the long-haired pilot only reminded him of THAT incident. Somehow, Duo’s simple kiss had broken down a dam in his mind and the memories of the events that had followed the little girl’s accidental murder rushed into his mind like a tsunami. Dr. J had taken him off the next few missions, partly because of Dekim Barton’s suggestion, partly because he wanted to have a serious talk with the boy….

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“I don’t blame you for feeling bad about that child’s death,” Dr. J said as he paced in Heero’s small room, the boy sitting on his bed curled up in a ball. “Odin Lowe raised you like his son… at least, a son he was planning to go into battle with. Obviously, his influence lingers in your mind still….”

“Her death was not part of my mission,” Heero said quietly. “She shouldn’t have died.”

“Heero,” Dr. J sighed in exasperation as he sat on the bed to look the boy in the eye, “we are fighting a war. The innocent die with the guilty just as easily as a person breathes air.”

“But it’s not right….”

“The lines between right and wrong are blurred,” the old man explained. “Each side believes that what they are fighting for is what’s right. There are wars when both sides could be fighting for a just cause and there are wars when both sides’ perception of the truth are skewed. That is a fact of life, not just in war.”

“If that’s true, then why do I feel so guilty for having killed the little girl?”

Dr. J patted his head reassuringly as he answered. “Just as I’d said earlier, it’s obviously because of the influence of Odin Lowe. Let me tell you this, Heero: there are only six basic emotions: love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness, and fear. The first three are regarded as positive and their counterparts, negative. These six will manifest themselves in anyone regardless of who or how they have been raised. Guilt is something that is learned and I am telling you now to unlearn your guilt or I will have to kill you myself.”

Heero looked up in horror at the old man, knowing full well that he could make good on his threat if he so wished.

“I see your fear,” Dr. J said as he turned his back on Heero, “that’s good. It is only natural for a person’s survival instincts to take control over him when backed into a corner. Remember that the Barton Foundation has no use for soldiers who could not perform their duties to the letter.” He walked over to the door and looked at Heero once more before leaving. “I’ll give you enough time to think about what I said. When I come back, you should be ready with your answer.”

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

<Did I ever unlearn my guilt?> Heero though as the crashing waves rushed to his feet. Memories of Odin and the times when his life seemed simpler flashed through his head. Odin had been a good person, he knew, and he didn’t want to let go of any of the memories he’d had with the man. In that instant, he knew that he’d never let go of any of the things that Odin had taught him. He had just been able to shut it out of his consciousness so that it wouldn’t interfere with what he’d had to do… something he hadn’t realized until Duo pointed it out to him the night he’d almost slit the other pilot’s throat.

Duo.

The way that name seemed to pop into his head in the most inopportune moments was almost enough to make him want to hate him. Duo had brought back the memories that he’d tried so hard to forget. Duo had always brought him back from the brink of death. Duo, with his bright smile and sickeningly brighter personality….

Duo with his kiss….

That particular memory only served to confuse him even more as he lay on the damp sand, unmindful of the water that soaked his clothes. He recalled everything that he knew about Duo – an orphan, the sole survivor of the Maxwell Church massacre, the pilot of L2’s Deathscythe Gundam…. Duo’s life was hardly a secret. He couldn’t begin to understand how Duo had turned out the way he did despite all of the trials his life had obviously thrown his way.

Carpe Diem.

<Seize the day,> Heero remembered from one of their earliest conversations. That was Duo’s motto. <‘A person is given only one life to live. He could choose to live life to its fullest or let the chains of life’s trials hold him down. I choose to live….’> Those had been Duo’s exact words.

I choose to live.

Suddenly, it seemed like he was the antithesis to Duo’s existence. Duo would choose life and he would choose death. To face the trials or to escape them. It was as though they’d been destined to meet in order to balance each other’s existence. Once again, Heero felt his fingers come to his lips, a gesture he’d kept repeating since that night. He found the image of Duo kissing him practically burned into his head. He’d found a haven in that moment – a place where, even stripped of his defenses, he felt safe.

Something he hadn’t felt since Odin Lowe died.

A dull ache came from within his chest as the image of Odin was replaced by Duo’s. He had loved Odin like a father… with Duo….

Love – one of the basic emotions Dr. J talked about.

It had been easy to love Odin Lowe. He’d given him everything he’d needed and taught him everything he knew. If he’d managed to get out of the war alive, he would have raised him like his true son.

But Odin was dead.

He was still alive.

All thanks to Duo.

<Maybe I should kill that baka first, THEN let myself get killed,> Heero thought in irritation. Duo had been a major inconvenience since day one. He was flamboyant, impulsive, arrogant… everything that could compromise a mission… yet, oddly enough, he’s managed to survive this long.

Hope.

<‘Hoping is something that only the living could do. Only in death can you be truly resigned to your fate.’>

<Kisama, get out of my head, Duo!> Heero thought as he clutched his head in his hands. The way Duo managed to sneak into almost every single one of his thoughts bothered him more than he cared to admit. He took a deep breath just before an exceptionally large wave blanketed him with salty water and he shook the foam off his face as it retreated back to the sea.

Duo… Duo… Duo…

Feeling the first breezes of the coming night, Heero rose and hugged himself as his wet clothes clung to him like a second skin. It was a Friday night and Duo would make his usual rounds of the town’s party places and whatever club he could sneak or con his way into. He didn’t expect him to be back until well past midnight. Right at that moment, he was grateful.

He made his way back to the dormitory in a sprint, his footsteps washed away by the tide.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo climbed through the first floor window that he’d asked Quatre to leave unlocked and smiled when he was sure that no one noticed his presence. He was feeling exceptionally perky since he’d managed to get into the exclusive club he’d been dying to crash after meeting the daughter of one of the club’s owners. He’d had his fill of drinks and dancing but somehow his conversation with Quatre earlier kept nudging in the back of his head. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, he’d said his good-byes and made his way back.

<Just like Heero to ruin a perfectly good time,> he thought as he started loosening his clothes while padding up to his room. The sudden rise in temperature signaled the coming of summer, making all of the school’s students hate their uniforms when they leave the confines of the air conditioned school buildings. Duo had made his way back to the room without incident and was congratulating himself when a voice made him jump.

“You’re back pretty early.”

“Give me a heart attack, why don’t cha?!” Duo hissed. He couldn’t make out Heero’s form since he was sitting at the far corner of his bed. In a huff, Duo chose to ignore him and, grabbing a towel from his closet, he proceeded to the bathroom to take a much-needed shower.

Heero regarded the closed bathroom door and the sounds Duo was making inside. He had intentionally waited up for him, though to do what, he didn’t exactly know. The sound of water running stopped and was replaced by the hum of the hair dryer and the occasional curse from Duo as apparently he tried to comb out the tangles from his hair. A few minutes later, Duo emerged, wearing only a T-shirt and his boxers, and plopped onto his bed, his hair a sea of gold and brown blanketing him. After less than a minute, he started to complain.

“Damn, it’s hot in here,” he mumbled as he stood and threw his blankets to the floor to get to the cooler mattress below. “I wish they’d get this place air conditioned as well…. Then at least we’ll be better rested.”

“Duo.”

“Eh?” Duo muttered as he turned and saw Heero standing in the pool of moonlight provided by their open window. He gulped down the lump in his throat as he started backing away as Heero advanced, his efforts only to be undone when he tripped over his discarded pile of linens and fell onto his bed. If Heero had his knife tucked somewhere nearby, he would really be done for. “Geez, Heero, what’s with you?” Duo managed to stutter nervously. It wouldn’t do to agitate him at the moment.

“I’ve been thinking,” Heero said as he stopped just short of falling over Duo on the bed. “And I just wanted to say thanks… for keeping me alive.” He bent over him and planted a kiss on Duo’s lips before moving away. “That’s for the one you gave me earlier this week.”

Poor Duo, stunned into silence, could only watch as Heero moved back to his side of the room and turned in for the night. After what seemed to be an eternity, he moved a semi-numb hand to his lips and took in a very shaky breath. <I must have drunk too much, again,> he thought, <there’s just no way what just happened could have really happened.>

Unfortunately, his mind could not find any other reason to explain the mild, familiar taste of Heero’s lips on his.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Heero threw his book bag on his bed as he closed the door to the room. The weather had been mild the past few days, spring still trying to hold summer at bay, giving the students a pleasant respite as they planned for their summer vacations. Heero and the others would be going their separate ways again after the vacation is official declared to pursue whatever missions the colony scientists had in store for them. He sat before his desk and pushed the window open, allowing the fresh air in, as he crossed his arms on the desk and rested his head on them.

Trowa and Quatre had gone out to catch a movie.

Wufei had decided to take on the Aikido Club’s open challenge.

Duo had disappeared into thin air… again.

<Peace and quiet,> Heero thought as he breathed in and felt a slow, comfortable lethargy seeping into him courtesy of the breeze. He couldn’t ask for anything more. His perpetual nightmares have begun to recede since the night he’d scared the living daylights out of Duo and he was sleeping a bit better too. It was funny the way Duo would sneak glances at him during class and even more amusing was the way he’d blush when Heero actually turned to look at him. He traced Duo’s name on the table with his finger as he contemplated his ‘situation.’ He found that he was actually starting to like having Duo around, something he never ever thought would happen.

“I’M BACK!!!”

Heero turned around in his seat sleepily to see Duo standing with several grocery bags in his arms. He poured them out over his bed and they contained potato chips, corn chips, banana chips, apple chips, fish crackers, prawn crackers, chocolate bars, candy bars, and other high sugar and lipid content foods. Typical Duo fare.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to eat all of that,” Heero said as he watched Duo sorting through them on his bed. He’d seen Duo do something similar before, which resulted in a hellish sugar rush… of course, Duo did eventually run out of steam, but only after a good four hours.

“Nope,” he said as he finished and started putting them back into the bags. “Don’t want to waste this beautiful weather and all….” Duo’s voice trailed off as he just realized something.

Heero had spoken to him.

Heero had initiated an actual conversation.

Duo’s eyes narrowed at him and he spoke in a solemn voice. “Who are you and what have you done to my partner?”

“Baka,” Heero sighed as he rolled his eyes and stood.

“Oh, my mistake,” Duo laughed lightly as he stuffed the bags under his desk. “You’re you.” He watched Heero walk towards his closet and take out a pair of shorts and a white shirt. “You going somewhere?”

“Just the beach,” Heero said from the bathroom. “I think I’ll do some jogging before it gets too hot to do so.”

Duo had perked up at the mention of the word ‘beach.’ “Count me in!” He then proceeded to rummage through his closet and dug out a pair of swim trunks with a wide grin on his face.

“It’s a secluded beach…,” Heero began as Duo pushed past him into the bathroom.

“So?”

“It’s a pretty long walk from here…”

“So?”

“There won’t be any girls there…”

“So—… oh.”

Heero’s satisfaction at discouraging Duo from tagging along didn’t last long, though. Almost as soon as the edges of Duo’s lips turned down, they turned up again into a wider grin.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said as he grabbed a knapsack and stuffed some of his snacks into it. “It would’ve been a lot more fun if there WERE girls around, but I guess you’ll have to do… for company.”

Heero just shook his head in exasperation and rushed out of the room as soon as he had his sneakers on, hoping to leave Duo behind.

Thirty minutes later, Duo was still desperately trying to keep up with Heero as they jogged from one dirt path to another until they emerged into a secluded white sand beach about half a mile long. Heero continued on jogging while Duo, exhausted, fell on his rump onto the fine sand.

“Heero, have mercy,” he whined as he lay down and watched the clouds gliding lazily above. “Your pace could kill a horse.”

“I never asked you to go with me,” Heero called back as he took off his shoes and jogged barefoot along the waterline.

“I still say that you were going way too fast,” Duo grumbled as he sat up and took out a water bottle from his bulging pack. He took a swig and looked around.

The beach formed a perfect crescent of white sand protected by sheer, limestone cliffs at either end, and most of its outer curve. The only ways in or out of the place would be either through the snaking route they had taken or from the water. Wildflowers grew out of patches of loam that somehow defied the dominant sand, lending a sweet perfume and some color to the place.

“Just how’d you ever find this place?” Duo called to Heero. “You couldn’t have just stumbled upon it….”

“I saw it while we were flying in,” Heero said as he plopped down beside Duo and grabbed the water bottle from him, eliciting a frown. “You should be more observant.”

“Thanks a lot,” Duo muttered as he made a half-hearted attempt at retrieving the water bottle. Overhead, the sky was starting to dim as the sun began to set into the horizon. An idea came to Duo then.

“I challenge you to a race,” he said as he stripped off his shirt and dropped it on his pack.

“Fine,” Heero said as he stood. “What kind?”

“Swimming,” Duo said with a grin as he pointed towards the ocean. “See that pole sticking out of the water? The first one to get there and back wins.”

“Fine.”

“Some conversationalist you are,” Duo retorted.

They counted off and sprinted towards the surf at zero. Heero had immediately taken the lead and his strong arms had gotten him to the pole in no time. He passed Duo on his way back and the long-haired boy was still a good three meters away from the pole. Heero was already doing cooling down stretches by the time an exhausted Duo returned to the beach. By then, the sun had almost completely disappeared into the water.

“Damn, I’m in worse shape than I’d thought,” Duo moaned as he put on his shirt and laid down on the sand as he watched Heero stretching. “Hey, Heero, do you do this everyday?”

“No,” he replied simply as he grabbed his shirt and put it on.

“Oh,” Duo muttered. It certainly looked like they were back to one word sentences. A whistling sound caught Duo’s ear and he looked up to the sky in time to see it come alive as fireworks began surging up and exploding into a shower of colorful sparks.

“Hanabi,” Heero said as he also laid down on the sand and watched the spectacle.

“What did you say?”

“Hanabi,” Heero repeated. “Fireworks.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Duo said as an explosion heralded the release of purple sparks in the night sky. “I mean, I’ve heard of it, but since I grew up on a colony, I guess people there always thought fireworks would be just a waste of oxygen….”

The two of them stayed quiet for a while, content to let the seemingly endless display of fireworks run its course. Duo couldn’t help but stare at Heero and at the only memory that stayed vivid in his mind the night he’d come back drunk from a night of merrymaking.

Heero had kissed him.

He could hear his heart beating loudly in his ears as he watched Heero out of the corner of his eye. Beside him lay not a soldier but a boy not much older than he was. Heero’s eyes were closed as he took in deep, rhythmic breaths, almost like those in sleep, but Duo knew him well enough to know that he was wide awake.

“Uh… Heero?” Duo said hesitantly, unsure if he even wanted to ask.

“Nani?”

“Did you by any chance… um, kiss… me? Uh, uh, not that it matters or anything! Oh, just forget it! I must’ve been so drunk that time that I was starting to see things. That always happens, you know? Furthermore….” Duo’s sudden rush of words was cut short by Heero’s answer.

“Yes.”

<Oh, my…,> Duo thought in shock as they stared at each other. Heero wasn’t kidding. <What the hell am I thinking! Heero doesn’t even know the meaning of the word ‘joke!’> He was further agitated when Heero pulled himself up to a sitting position and looked down on him, his silhouette lined by the fireworks.

“If I may remind you, you were the one who kissed me first,” he said matter-of-factly.

“B-but it-it was a spur of the moment thing,” Duo stuttered. <Why do I get myself into these messes?> “I didn’t mean anything by it! Honest!”

“Really?” Heero grabbed Duo’s shirt and, pulling him up, kissed him full on the lips.

Small explosions started going off in Duo’s head as soon as their lips met. For one brief moment, it seemed perfect somehow and it seemed to be worth wishing for time to stop. But as suddenly as the kiss began, it was over and Heero was on his feet.

“You were right, it was nothing,” Heero said as he started walking towards the path. “Let’s go. We could just make it back before curfew.”

Duo nodded dumbly as he absently reached for his pack and followed Heero, all thoughts of junk food pushed out of his mind.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

<Darn! How the hell did these wires ever get this tangled!>

Duo pulled himself to his feet and stepped out of Deathscythe’s cockpit to get some air. It was already full-blown summer and the heat was starting to make him see double – especially since he’s been working non-stop in checking the Gundam’s wiring. Not too far away, to his right, he could almost make out Heero doing the same through a densely packed stand of trees.

The five pilots had gone their separate ways four days earlier after receiving their missions. He and Heero had been tasked to spy on a Federation military base in the Mediterranean region. Intelligence reports have stated that someone from their side is dealing with OZ. Their task was to confirm that report and take the necessary action needed to eliminate the threat.

In other words… kill the traitor.

He and Heero had kept close watch on the base, noting the comings and goings of vehicles and aircraft as well as listening in on all of their communiqués. Two days into their vigil, they had confirmed that the intelligence reports had been true. In light of this information, and due to the traitor’s being a high-profile personage, the scientists had deemed it best that his death be carried out with the utmost discretion. The pair’s new mission was to eliminate the target soon after his arrival at the base. As much as possible, no one else must die. His death is to serve as a lesson for those would even dare to think of betraying the colonies and to show just how efficient the Gundam pilots could be.

The ambassador of L1 colony had arrived earlier that day.

He would be dead before sunrise.

Duo started to pack up the toolbox he’d been using and sighed. He’d never expected things to get this bad. <It’s a good thing the scientists had kept all of our identities secret,> he though as he grabbed the cockpit’s wire lift and let himself down. <The ambassador would be so busy looking over his shoulder, he’d take a bullet up front.>

Children with hands ineffaceably stained with blood.

That’s what they were.

Later that evening, Duo and Heero entered the base, initially under the cover of night. They changed into formal clothing and blended in perfectly with the crowd, posing as the children of the OZ officials who had gathered to welcome the ambassador. Duo’s long hair allowed him to pass off as a girl and his gun was hidden under his skirt, strapped to his thigh. Heero was dressed in a black tux with his gun tucked into the small of his back, further concealed by his jacket. They limited their communications to subtle changes in their glances and body language. So used are they to working with each other that each change in movement could be read with such precision as though one had shouted his intent to the other.

They spotted the ambassador off to the side talking to an official and laughing.

Unwary prey.

Heero gave Duo the signal and the two of the closed in.

“… And I said, ‘That can’t be right! There’s no way Treize Kushrenada could have ordered that!’ Nonetheless, I took the warning seriously while those fools chose to listen to me. Now look!” He gestured grandly, spilling champagne from his glass, onto his bulging frame. “I’m still alive while the lot of them are pushing up pansies!”

“You are a lucky man indeed,” the officer agreed, “to think that you’ve managed to play both sides and still remain alive….”

“Yes, that is remarkable!”

The two men turned to look at Duo who had come within hearing range of the two. He gave the ambassador a shy smile and a nervous giggle as the older man kissed his hand.

“You seem to show a good deal of interest in politics, my dear,” the ambassador said as he continued to eye Duo with more than passing interest.

“I must say that I’ve heard so much about you and your, shall we say, ‘luck.’ I was wondering if I could steal you away for just a moment so we can… talk with more candor.” Duo didn’t like the way the ambassador was looking at him. <So this is what it feels like when someone is undressing you with their eyes.>

“Of course, my dear,” he replied, still unwilling to release his hand. “Let it not be known that I refused to entertain the wishes of a fan.”

The two of them excused themselves from the official and left the gathered guests with Heero following in the shadows. After navigating several corridors, they entered an empty room. Almost immediately, the man tried to force himself on Duo and, to his surprise, the girl he held managed to squirm out of his grasp with a strength uncharacteristic of her delicate features.

“Spirited,” he muttered as he closed the distance between them. “I like that.”

“More spirited than you think,” Duo replied as he reached under his dress and pulled out his gun, stopping the man dead in his tracks.

“Who the hell are you?!”

“Looks like your luck’s finally run out, ambassador,” Duo whispered sardonically, remembering too well the disgust he felt at the mere touch of the man’s hands. “Let’s just say that justice has finally caught up with you.”

The change in Duo’s tone of voice was not lost on him. “A boy,” he whispered and a more disturbing smile came to his lips. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve had little boys like you before….”

Horror washed over Duo, momentarily freezing his limbs as the man lunged at him and tackled him to the floor. Right there, he knew that he was in big trouble. He began thrashing like a wild animal caught in a trap, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to get out from under him once his limbs were pinned. The man’s full weight suddenly pressed down upon him and Duo was just about ready to scream when he noted that the man was making no further movement. Seeing Heero creeping out of the shadows with a smoking gun in his hands made things clear as Duo pushed the corpse off him.

“You sure took your time,” he grumbled as he got up.

“You should have shot him when you had the chance,” Heero countered. “Clean yourself up.”

The two of them were just emerging into the ballroom when they heard the first peals of the alarms. They hadn’t counted on their handiwork getting found so fast. Heero immediately took advantage of the ensuing chaos and dragged Duo against the flow of people and out of the building. Both pilots broke into a run when they saw that MS units were being assembled.

“I found them!”

Duo cursed just as Heero shot the unfortunate private behind the head. The soldier’s death bought them a few precious seconds to get farther away before two MS units found them just fifty meters away from the nearby forest. The sound of air being cut came to their ears milliseconds before the two boys were thrown into the air by the impact of a missile onto the ground.

“Kuso,” Heero muttered as he did his best to get the ringing out of his head and get his bearings. The first thing he did was look for Duo amidst the cloud of dust and he found him about ten meters away.

Duo had been thrown clear by the blast and was deposited back onto the earth beside a barracks.

He wasn’t moving and he also didn’t appear to be breathing.

Heero, mind raging from what had just happened, slung him over his shoulder and cleared the last few meters into the forest, to their Gundams, and finally, to safety.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

A bone-weary Heero wrung out the excess water from a washcloth and placed it onto Duo’s burning forehead. He had opted to use a safehouse as far away from the base as possible so that they wouldn’t be found. Duo had passed out after hitting the side of a building when the missile exploded. Heero had removed almost two dozen shrapnel of varying sizes from Duo’s body and he was grateful that none of them had managed to puncture any vital organs. The general anesthetic he’d used would keep Duo asleep until the next day and hopefully, the pain wouldn’t be quite so great by then.

Heero pushed away several damp strands of hair from Duo’s forehead as he looked at him. He remembered wanting to rip the ambassador apart with his bare hands when he saw him attack Duo and it was the same with the MS units when he found Duo lying motionless on the ground. The rage he’d felt at that time had been so alien to him that he was beginning to wonder why he was showing so much concern towards Duo’s well-being.

The adrenaline rush of that night was already wearing off and Heero sat on the floor beside the bed as he continued to watch over Duo. He laid his head on the mattress and he held onto Duo’s right hand as sleep finally overcame him.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

<Where am I?>

That was the first thing that came to Duo’s mind as he opened bleary eyes to a late, sunny morning. The next thing he noticed was that his limbs were still a bit numb and that his body hurt in more than a few places. The biggest surprise of all came when he noticed Heero curled up in sleep beside the bed, his hand enmeshed in between Heero’s with the quiet boy’s head resting on them.

Duo shifted his head on the pillow and took in a deep breath, careful not to waken Heero by moving his hand. A million and one thoughts whirled through his mind, the loudest being ‘Heero had saved him’ with ‘Heero had taken care of him’ coming a close second. <Funny,> he mused as he looked at the mussed up head of brown hair, <I’d always thought that he’d leave me behind in the event that I ever became a liability…. Maybe Heero isn’t as predictable as I pegged him to be.> The pins-and-needles feeling came to him, which could only mean that the anesthetic was starting to wear off. Dull pain radiated from all over his body and the initial, acute awareness of the pain made him involuntarily jerk his hand, waking Heero in the process.

“Here, drink this,” Heero said as he helped him sit up and handed him a glass with a greenish-brown liquid. He watched Duo down the mixture and held a towel to his face as he nearly coughed it all back out.

“Damn, what was that stuff?” Duo said in a half-choke.

“It’s an herbal tea with anesthetic properties,” he replied, helping Duo lie back down. “I can’t risk using morphine on you. You know the dangers of getting addicted to it.”

“Right about now, I wish you had,” Duo muttered. “That thing tastes like bat barf.” He shook his head to clear his vision and quickly took note of his surroundings. “Where are we?”

“Ireland.”

Duo winced as he propped himself up on his elbows to look at Heero incredulously. “That is a LONG way off from where we started.” Annoyance was starting to creep into him as he watched Heero going about doing chores. “Heero, will you stop whatever it is you’re doing and…!” He’d tried to get on his feet, but ended up in a pile on the floor instead.

“Baka.” Heero was by his side and guided him back onto the bed. “If you’re going to keep trying to get up, I’m going to tie you to that bed.”

“I didn’t know you were into that,” Duo offered sarcastically. “What next? A whip and blindfolds?”

“Urusai,” Heero growled menacingly, but Duo chose to ignore him.

“Damn it, I need to know what’s happening and you just ignore me!” Duo shouted at him.

“What does it take to get you to shut up?”

“You can try to gag me, but I still won’t shut up.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Duo’s succeeding comments were brought to a grinding halt as Heero kissed him. In fact, all of his conscious neurological functioning came to a halt. He felt the calming effects of the tea coursing through him, but it was Heero’s kiss that ultimately stole away his steam. Almost automatically, Duo began to return his kisses, feeling the softness of those lips against his, soothing him.

Heero pulled away as soon as he was sure that all the fight was gone from Duo. “You want to know what’s happened since you passed out? I took you as far away from our mission site to take care of you. No orders have come in for us since I reported your injury. The colonies are mobilizing their other agents to fill in for us. You have nothing to worry about. Just concentrate on getting better, okay?” He saw Duo nod his acknowledgement and got up.

“Heero.”

“What?”

“Thanks,” Duo whispered.

Heero gave him a small nod in acknowledgement and went back to what he was doing, yet he continued to watch him until Duo’s eyes fluttered shut from the tea. He walked back up to the battered boy and straightened him out onto the bed, pausing only to wipe away several strands of hair that had fallen over his face. It was easy to mistake Duo for a girl, given his expressive, delicate features, large violet eyes, and his long gold-and-brown hair. Looking at him the way he was now, Heero was finding it hard to imagine this little waif of a boy dragging him to a safehouse and tending his wounds, let alone handling a gigantic Gundam with frightening ease.

“Shinigami,” Heero whispered. That was the name Duo called himself in the battlefield. The God of Death with the face of an angel.

Much later, Duo woke up to the smell of something cooking. The sleep was gone from him, replaced by a rumble in his stomach as he saw Heero coming towards him with food.

“You saved me the trouble of waking you,” Heero said as he helped Duo prop himself up.

“It was the least I could do,” Duo quipped. The sleep had restored some of his usual good humor. “Whatever you made, it sure smells good.”

Heero watched Duo wolf down the food with mild amusement. Sick or well, Duo would still be Duo. Leaving the hungry teenager in the room, be proceeded back to the kitchen to check on the water he was heating.

Duo shoved the last bits of his dinner into his mouth in time to see Heero return to the room with a bucket of steaming water and a basin. “What’s that for?”

“Your bath.”

He nearly choked when he heard the remark so seriously delivered. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Heero deposited the bucket on the floor with the basin and the washcloth and leveled a gaze at Duo that silenced any further comments. “Until you can walk on your own without falling over and almost getting yourself killed, you are going to have to content yourself with this.” Heero dragged two chairs by the bed and placed the basin filled with water on one of them along with the washcloth. He sat on the other chair and helped Duo peel off his clothes, revealing several bloodstained bandages. “I have to change these anyway.”

Duo heaved a sigh as he resigned himself to Heero’s inflicted sponge bath. The only thing covering him at this point was the thin blanket he’d been using. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, the sponge bath did a world of good to his sore body. He suppressed a cat’s sigh of contentment as he felt Heero rubbing him vigorously with the washcloth, the warm water feeling good on his skin. Heero also massaged his arms, shoulders, back, and legs to compensate for his not getting any exercise. Duo tried not to laugh as Heero’s fingers pressed his palms and the soles of his feet, feeling the sensations shoot up his body. Overall, it was like being given a spa treatment. But Duo was brought back down to earth when he felt Heero tugging away the blanket.

“What?” Heero muttered in annoyance as a blush came to Duo, who had managed to snatch the blanket back from him.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Duo asked in a huff.

“Giving you a bath, now please give me the blanket.”

“Wrong,” Duo countered as he stretched out his hand. “YOU give me the washcloth. This is just about as far as you’re gonna get.”

Heero blinked in surprise as Duo flushed an even deeper red. “Suit yourself,” Heero said as he rinsed out the washcloth and tossed it to Duo. The longhaired boy leveled another look at him as he clutched the washcloth. “Now, what?”

“Leave the room, or at least turn around,” Duo said meekly.

Heero, instead, closed the distance between them and pinned Duo to the bed with his hands. “I’ve just about had it, now tell me what’s with the prudishness?”

“It’s a cultural thing, okay?!” Duo replied. “I can’t help it!”

Heero heaved a resigned sigh and shook his head. “Fine.” He walked towards the kitchen saying, “call me when you’re done.”

Duo sighed with relief as he finished his ‘bath.’ Normally, Heero would’ve probably given him a bop on the head, at least. <I can’t help it if I’m a little sensitive about this,> he thought glumly. <Then again, most people would be. Heero could be so dense at times.>

At Duo’s signal, Heero returned with a bunch of bandages, a clean set of clothes, and a towel with which he patted Duo dry… except at the place of earlier debate. For most of the time, Heero worked in silence, answering only those questions of Duo that he deemed needed to be answered. He finished up and stood, when he noticed Duo’s braid hanging over the edge of the bed. Duo watched in mild curiosity as Heero picked up the end and release it from its braid by tugging the small elastic band that held it in place, spilling the mass into his hands like a river of silk.

“I take it you’d like it a lot if I were to wash your hair too?” Heero said aloud, receiving an annoyingly cute look from Duo. He sighed as he grabbed the bucket and walked out of the room to get more water. A few minutes later, Duo’s head was hanging just off the edge of the bed with a towel around his neck and Heero had the basin on the floor to catch the spill of hair as he massaged the shampoo into his scalp with Duo practically purring in contentment.

“Why don’t you just cut your hair short?” Heero said in mild annoyance as he dumped his sixth basin of water into the soiled-water-bucket he’d brought with him.

“You know, she said the same thing,” Duo whispered absentmindedly, getting a look from Heero.

“Who?”

“Sister Helen.” Duo heaved a sigh as he continued to look up to the ceiling. “When Maxwell Church took me in, she’d wanted to cut my hair because it was so hard to maintain and we didn’t have that much water to spare.” He smiled at the memory and continued, “she was the one who taught me to braid it so it wouldn’t get into my face.”

“I see.”

“Heero, did you also have someone you cared for a lot who died because of this war?” Duo wondered aloud. “I don’t mean to pry, but I don’t think you could’ve become this cold on your own.”

Heero rinsed the last of the suds from Duo’s hair and began drying it. Though he pretended not to hear his question, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. A loved one who became a war casualty. He stood up quietly and changed the bed sheets, gesturing for Duo to scoot over when necessary. He’d sat back down and was braiding Duo’s hair when he gave him his answer.

“Odin Lowe.”

“Come again?”

“Odin Lowe,” Heero repeated. “The closest person I’d ever had in my life. The man I’d once considered a father.” Duo looked up at him as Heero retrieved the pillow and placed it under his head. “Go back to sleep. You need to get back on your feet as soon as you can.”

Duo nodded in agreement as he watched Heero unfold his sleeping bag on the floor and prepare for sleep.

“Heero…?”

“Nani?”

“There’s enough space on the bed for the both of us, you know,” Duo began hesitantly. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

“Fine.”

The response surprised Duo, who was used to people needing to be coaxed into accepting an offer. <Who am I kidding, this is Heero. He’s never been one to go about anything in a roundabout manner.>

He moved over to make room for Heero. It took a while before he fell asleep, so unused was he to having anyone beside him. When he finally did, there was a gap almost big enough for another person to fit into between them.

Sometime that night, Heero’s eyes opened when he felt something warm bump against him. He turned over and saw that it was Duo, still fast asleep, snuggling close to him like a kitten. Gingerly, he wrapped his arm around him and was surprised when Duo sighed deeply and snuggled closer. He could still smell the shampoo in his hair. For all Duo’s bravado and his own indifference in the field, the two of them were both just children hoping for the war to end.

Someone who was worth living for.

Heero buried his face into Duo’s hair as he held him close. Duo had once asked him why he’d been so willing to die. Now, he wasn’t quite sure he still wanted to.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

BRRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!

Duo opened his eyes sleepily and slammed his hand down on the alarm’s shut button. This time, he was determined NOT to be late for his classes. His hand stifled a yawn as he stretched and looked out into the rapidly brightening skyline beyond the university’s towering structures.

AC 199 saw the fall of the last few resistances against the union of the Earth and colony forces.

The Preventers disbanded on AC 200 and a new global defense force was formed to protect the Earth and the colonies from outside invading forces with the newly returned Milliard Peacecraft at the helm. He and Lucrezia Noin had gotten married the following year. Sally Poe and Chang Wufei joined the new defense force the day it was created.

Relena Peacecraft remained the undisputed Queen of the World.

Trowa Barton had returned to the circus and to his sister, Catherine Bloom.

Quatre Raberba Winner had returned to his family in L4 and had begun talks with other colonies to rebuild what the war had destroyed, including L3 and L5.

No one has seen Heero Yuy since AC 198.

The present, autumn, AC 202. Duo Maxwell had managed to obtain a scholarship to one of the Earth’s premier universities and was pursuing a career in law. He shrugged on his coat and rushed out of his apartment into the crisp morning air. This time, he was going to get to his contemporary political history class before Professor Phillips.

“Good morning, Duo!”

“Uh, ‘morning!” Duo waved back at the group of girls gathered at the fountain as he sprinted up the steps leading to the social sciences building. His height had shot up to 5’11” in the two years he’d been with the Preventers and his work there had helped him keep his body strong, yet he still remained slender. He’d given up trying to buff up, resigned that his build had been pre-determined by his genes. The one thing he refused to give up, though, was his braid. Sure, everyone at the university had initially given him flack about it, but after getting nothing but A’s in his first year there, their disparaging witticisms ceased. His cheerful nature made him one of the most popular students on and off campus amongst both the male and female population.

<Made it!> Duo thought with relief as he walked to his seat and plopped down, winded from the run. The exertion had been worth it when he saw the look of total shock on the face of his professor as he entered the room and saw Duo giving him a wave from his usually vacant seat.

“Well, I’ll be,” the old man muttered. “It seems as though you’ve decided to turn over a new leaf, Mr. Maxwell.”

“Yes, sir,” Duo replied. “From now on, I plan to make it here before you do, sir.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Professor Phillips said, putting his things on his desk. “At long last, my star pupil will finally be setting a good example.”

Laughter erupted from the class and a slight flush came to Duo at that remark.

“… As you all know, the war between the colonies and Earth is likely the last great battle that will ever be raged upon the soils of this planet. It was a war the ensued mostly out of greed and the desire for dominance by a more than a few, though powerful parties….”

Duo listened half-heartedly to the lecture, images of the war flashing through his mind. Most of the memories he had were those spent on the streets of L2, at Maxwell Church, with the Sweepers… memories of people who’d suffered and given up their lives in order to be free. He remembered a single point in time when he’d been willing to die – floating defenseless in Deathscythe as OZ Mobile Suits surrounded him in outer space.

“Mr. Maxwell, in your own words, how would you describe the Earth-Colonies War?”

“It was a war where people were guided by their convictions,” Duo replied solemnly. “I see the last year of the war as being divided into two parts – the earlier part where the political and military forces struggled for dominance, and the latter part where people were guided by their desire to protect. In both cases, people believed that what they were fighting for were just. There is no clear-cut right and wrong because when one takes time to listen to both sides, they each have their points.”

Silence. Duo was acutely aware of the eyes of his classmates all resting on him. He had weighed his words carefully, yet he couldn’t keep out of his voice how much of a waste he felt the war had been – a waste of resources, a waste of time, a waste of life.

“Thank you for that very concise yet… profound analysis, Mr. Maxwell.” It was obvious that the silence was unnerving the man. “Moving on, let us compare the events of this particular war to that of….”

Duo heaved a sigh and looked out of the window beside him, beyond the old university buildings towards the mountains. There was no way he’d be able to express in mere words how he felt about the war. No mere words could tell of the deaths in L2, the destruction of Maxwell Church, the deaths of Odin Lowe, Wufei’s wife, Quatre’s father…. Ghosts that will forever be in the hearts and minds of the Gundam pilots.

He shifted his gaze downwards and he lazily noted a lone figure standing in the empty courtyard. There was something about the stance that seemed oddly familiar to Duo, though he didn’t remember ever meeting him. A brisk wind whipped the trench coat around the figure’s legs and ruffled his hair. Duo watched as he looked up and the blood drained from his face as he recognized him. He was taller, and carried himself differently, but there was no mistaking the intense stare even behind the tinted lenses that he wore. The head of unruly brown hair, the slender, yet muscular build….

Heero Yuy.

Duo tried to keep his hands steady as he shoved his books and his note tablet into his knapsack. He stammered out a hasty apology to Professor Phillips and he ran out of the room as though he had the devil himself at his heels.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” the old professor thought aloud as he watched Duo’s receding back from the doorway.

<He’s here,> Duo’s mind repeated over and over again as he dodged students and professors alike and almost fell down the stairs. He somehow managed to make it down in one piece and he ran out of the entrance hall, sending the pigeons in the courtyard into startled flight. Ten meters away, he saw him standing beside the fountain, his back turned to him.

Duo took in a deep breath as he jogged the remaining distance, all the while wondering how to initiate their first conversation after four years. He stopped a few paces behind him and cleared his throat.

“H-hi,” he stammered. “Long time, no see.”

“Eh?”

A blush came to Duo’s face as the figure turned and he realized his mistake.

“What are you talking about, Duo? I just saw you this morning as you ran out of the grad apartments.” The young man walked towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Duo muttered, trying to hide his embarrassment and disappointment. “It’s just that you looked a lot like an old friend when I saw you from the window of Professor Phillips’s class.”

The young man smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder as a girl, obviously the one he’d been waiting for, called out his name. “Sorry to disappoint you. From your greeting, it seemed as though you haven’t seen this guy in a really long time.”

Duo gave him a wry smile. “I haven’t. Anyway, you’d better go before your friend gets impatient.” Duo waved at the girl as the young man left his side. He watched them for a while and he sat down on the fountain’s edge. Now, he felt foolish for running out of his class. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the small gold crucifix he always wore. A souvenir of the war. Laden with beautiful and painful memories.

“Hisashiburi da na.”

If the crucifix hadn’t been on a chain, it’d have fallen into the water. Duo felt his entire body numb as he recognized the voice. It was deeper than he remembered. A man’s voice. <Oh great,> he thought as he started to turn around. <If this is another mistaken identity thing, I’m checking myself into the psychiatric ward.> He shielded his eyes from the sun’s glaring light and noted the figure standing behind him.

“…Or in a language you’d understand: It’s been a while.”

“Heero?”

A cooperative wind blew some clouds over the sun and Duo saw that it was indeed Heero. Only this time, he was all grown up. Just like him.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

“So where’ve you been all this time?”

Duo had decided to skip all of his classes that day and the two of them were now sitting in an open-air café enjoying cappuccino and the warm sunshine. He watched Heero sipping from his cup and the easy smile that now came his face. Somehow, he just couldn’t get over it. It was as though the person sitting across the table from him was a twin he’d never known about. The one that had been spared the hardships of the war.

“Thinking,” he replied simply, almost absently.

A whistle escaped from Duo’s lips. “Four years is a lot of time to be spent on just thinking.”

“Let’s just say that I had a lot of things on my mind.”

Silence.

<I feel like I’m trying to get to know you all over again,> Duo thought as he watched Heero flash a genuine smile to the waitress. <It’s like the old Heero never even existed.>

“And you?” Heero said, setting down the cup. “I’d thought you’d have married Hilde or some other girl by now… I mean, with your reputation and all.”

The sentiment was not lost on Duo and it made him smile at the memory. Of all the five pilots, he was the most notorious ladies’ man. He could get any woman to open up to him and eating out of his hand almost as fast as he could pilot Deathscythe. “Things with Hilde didn’t turn out so well. She was content with making a living at the scrap yard, having children, growing old and dying. I wanted to make something of myself. To be someone my parents, Father Maxwell, Sister Helen… and everyone else could be proud of.”

“And I take it you told that to Hilde’s face…?” The look Duo gave Heero was answer enough. “Ouch.”

“Well, it was either that or run off without even telling her anything!” Duo protested. “Besides, you were the one who ran out, not me.”

Duo watched with increasing interest as he picked out traces of the old Heero in this person. It was obvious that he was trying to control the coldness that would’ve crept into either his eyes or his voice. His old habit of clenching his teeth together while he thought was still there, not to mention the eerie silence that still habitually fell between them.

“If you are referring to Relena, there wasn’t anything to leave in the first place,” Heero began.

“But I thought…,” Duo interjected but Heero cut him off.

“I wasn’t in love with her. She made up that illusion all by herself,” he said in mild annoyance. “But, at that time, it was my duty to protect her. I left as soon as I deemed it safe to do so. Relena could easily find someone else to love. She could think me dead for all I care.”

“And you said I was tactless,” Duo said shaking his head. He was beginning to sound familiar and that made Duo more secure in the conversation. “Hey, wanna go for a tour? I can show you around….”

The two of them spent the rest of the day walking around the campus with Duo proving the very knowledgeable guide. Every now and then, someone would stop to greet Duo and he’d wave back if the person was far away, or stop to chat a while. This, Heero took in, leaving no detail unseen.

Heero couldn’t help but feel like an intruder in Duo’s new life. Sure, he’d been ecstatic to see him, but he didn’t even know why he’d bothered to track him down and show himself. In AC 198, all he’d wanted was to disappear off the face of the Earth. To go and live someplace where no one would even know who he was. That part hadn’t been easy. He’d lived the life of a hermit in the middle of a forest, living off the land. Life had been hard, but it provided him with the extended period of solitude he needed to silence the voices of those he’d killed that continued to rage in his mind. He also used the time to think about what he’d want to do with his life now that he actually had one to live, without needing to worry if he’d survive to see another day.

“And this, is my place.”

The door closed behind Heero as he regarded the modestly furnished apartment. It more than amused him to see that it was clean. Definitely, NOT Duo. “Do you live alone here, or do you have a roommate?”

Duo shrugged his shoulders and replied, “no roommate. Just me. That’s the nice thing about these apartments.” He walked over to a high oak bookcase and propped his elbow on a shelf. “Not bad for a reckless ex-Gundam pilot, huh?”

“I’d say you did pretty good,” Heero breathed as he fingered a black leather-bound notebook with Duo’s name embossed in gold leaf on its cover sitting on a nearby desk. “Look, I gotta go. I just wanted to see how you were….”

“Might as well spit it out while you’ve still got the chance.”

Heero looked up in surprise at Duo but before he could get anything out, Duo was talking again.

“You’ve been dying to tell me something all day but each time I though you’d get to it, you retreat back into your shell and change the subject.” Duo closed the distance between them and looked him eye to eye. “Might as well get it over with while you’re still here.”

Guilty at being found out, Heero broke the gaze and looked to the floor, further emphasizing his hesitation. He looked at the expectant expression on Duo’s face….

… And kissed him.

It had been a long time since he’d last kissed Duo. A lot longer than the four years that they’ve been apart. The two of them had hardly been together since that brief respite at the safehouse while Duo had been recovering. When they were together, however, it was usually in a group and in a place where people took note of their actions, primarily because back then, Heero was still Relena’s official bodyguard. Heero couldn’t begin to understand what passes between him and Duo during moments like this. Love? He wasn’t sure, which was why he’d always chalked it up to be a bizarre camaraderie that only the two of them shared.

The kiss lasted only a few seconds and Heero smiled wistfully as he chucked an astonished Duo’s chin. “Take care of yourself, okay?” He turned his back to Duo and towards the door. “I hope you do get whatever it is you’re aiming for.”

“Damn you.”

Heero’s hand froze just before he touched the doorknob and he turned slowly to look at Duo, whose voice was trembling with suppressed bitterness and anger.

“Damn you, Heero,” Duo muttered. “And now you’re going to walk out again… on me.” He was beyond angry with Heero. He was furious. “Did you honestly think that you could just waltz back into my life and walk right out again like some kind of ghost? Remember the time at the beach? When you kissed me to see if there was anything, any feeling, behind it? You said that there was nothing. But then again, that was just you talking.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“What I’m trying to say is that…,” Duo’s voice caught in his throat. Something akin to having cold water thrown at you came to him and just stole the next part of his sentence. <I just nearly made a fool of myself again,> he thought as he looked at Heero. He shook his head in mild amusement at himself. “I’m sorry for that outburst,” he said more calmly. “You’ve probably got someplace to be and I’m keeping you….”

“Keeping me from walking out on you again?” Heero finished for him as he walked away from the door and towards Duo. “Keeping me from disappearing?”

He watched Duo’s breathing become heavier and less even as Duo took one step after another backwards, backing away from him as though he was a dangerous animal. Eventually, Duo made contact with the wall and, helpless, could do nothing more but watch as he closed in on him. He pinned Duo’s shoulders to the wall as he kissed him once more, this time deeper, coaxing him into it until he eventually felt Duo returning his kisses with an urgency he’d never felt before. Heero pulled away for air as he continued to hold Duo against the wall. It came to him as a surprise when Duo nudged his face close to his and kissed him. This time, it was no longer desperate, but gentle, sweet – the type of kiss that made you feel heady and at the same time safe and warm.

Duo felt him release his shoulders from the wall and Heero’s arms came up to take him into an embrace. He laid his head on Heero’s shoulder and sighed. <Heero,> Duo thought, <what are you doing to me? Why am I acting like this? Why…?>

Almost in a daze, Duo felt Heero lift his face and kiss him. This time, though, Heero’s lips moved past his mouth and down his neck, Heero’s hands loosening his tie and unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. He closed his eyes and bit his lip as Heero’s hand started to work on the rest of the buttons, his mouth kissing Duo’s now-exposed shoulder. Duo’s senses were now so heightened that he felt as though he could melt in Heero’s arms. By this time, Heero had managed to undo the last of Duo’s shirt buttons but Duo pulled away as he felt Heero’s hands touch his naked waist, his breath catching in his throat.

Heero looked at the expression of absolute fright in Duo’s eyes and berated himself in his mind. “Look, I’m not going to force you…!”

The rest of his reassurances were cut off as Duo planted a kiss solidly on his lips as he pulled him further into the apartment, past a door, and into the bedroom. Heero ran his hands under Duo’s shirt, on his shoulders, sending the unbuttoned shirt sliding down the his back to rest in a crumpled heap on the floor. He held the him loosely as they continued to kiss, feeling the gooseflesh rise on Duo’s skin as he ran his hand lightly up and down his spine. Heero stepped behind Duo and began kissing the back of his neck, hearing Duo moan as he reached upwards and back to run his hands through Heero’s hair. Heero’s own hands explored the contours of Duo’s belly until they rested on the belt of his pants. With his right hand, he began to undo the belt and unclasp the pants as he held Duo up with his left arm, lest his knees suddenly decide to give. The moment the belt and pants were undone, they immediately slid to the floor, like a puddle at their feet. Duo stepped out of them and his shoes, managing to slide his feet out of his socks by stepping on the toes and pulling his feet out. From behind, Heero ran his hands down the sides of Duo’s body, hooking the briefs with his thumbs as he pulled them down and tossed them in the direction the discarded shirt. Heero came back around to claim his lips as he felt Duo’s arms come to embrace him tightly. He felt Duo’s braid eventually rest above his hand and he tugged the elastic binding it. Duo shook his hair loose from the braid and now it was Heero’s turn to take several steps back at the sight of Duo.

Behind him, the rays of the dying sun made his hair glow, making him look as though he was limned in light.

“Is something wrong?” Duo asked in concern, closing the distance between them. His ears caught the single word that Heero muttered before he came back to his senses, making him stop in his tracks.

Beautiful.

“Heero…,” Duo breathed, and a blush came to his face as he suddenly became aware of his nakedness. Duo angled his head in such a way that his hair fell forwards, giving him a measure of cover.

“I’m glad you kept it long.”

Duo sucked in a breath, startled. He hadn’t even realized that Heero had moved and now he was behind him again. He felt Heero gathering his hair and, twisting it, lifted it above them. Heero once again embraced Duo from behind and, letting go of his hair, the both of them were covered under a mass of brown and gold. Heero’s hands ran down the sides of his body, slowly, and he bit his lip as he felt Heero nibbling on his ear to keep himself from moaning. Duo felt him move away and he yelped in surprise as Heero swept him off his feet and carried him to the bed.

Heero deposited him onto the bed and planted a kiss on his mouth to silence any wisecracks that Duo might think of. He kicked off his shoes as he, too, settled on the bed and held Duo close. Amusement came to him as Duo nudged his head and began to kiss his neck as his fingers tugged the edges of Heero’s shirt from his pants. Heero tipped Duo’s face up to kiss him, rolling them both over so that Duo was pinned beneath him. He pulled away, straddling him, and he settled lightly on Duo’s stomach as he began to slowly unbutton his shirt, watching with fascination as Duo seemed to turn a deeper shade of red as each button came undone, yet his eyes hungrily feasted on the sight. Heero welcomed Duo’s hands as they came up and tugged the shirt off his shoulders and tossed it to the floor. He then leaned over to him and started to kiss Duo’s lips, making him sigh, as he moved his kisses beyond the young man’s lips, to his neck, his shoulders. He felt Duo’s hand moving over his back, pressing him close as he began to kiss his chest. Duo’s fingers wove through his hair as he took a nipple in his mouth and nibbled on it.

Duo sucked in his breath at the explosion of pain, mixed with the realization that Heero was the one who was doing all of this to him. The sensations radiated throughout his body and he couldn’t keep down a low moan as Heero’s lips moved to his other nipple as one of his hands continued to work on the other. He was practically digging his fingers into Heero’s back, pressing him even closer. Duo bit his lower lip as his lover’s hands began to stroke the inside of his thighs as Heero’s mouth abandoned his nipples and moved to his belly, kissing what seemed to be every square inch of his skin. He nearly screamed when he felt Heero’s hands stroke their way to the center and take hold of him. It took every bit of his strength to keep from squirming, yet not one of Heero’s ministrations could prepare for the sensory overload he felt when Heero’s lips enclose him.

“Heero…,” Duo breathed as he felt his passions building. What exactly was he feeling? Pain? Pleasure? He couldn’t tell. All he was aware of was Heero. Making him feel weak. Helplessly weak.

Heero had opened his eyes when he heard Duo say his name. Duo’s hands were practically white from clutching the sheets in his fists. He was trying to bear his agony in silence, his breathing coming in whispery gasps. The sight only served to fan Heero’s desires, making his ministrations become more urgent, almost savage. He heard a sharp cry escape Duo’s lips and his body stiffened as he came. Sitting up, he watched in the growing darkness as the dark flush of spent passion darkened Duo’s face. Heero moved to his side and, holding him close, stroked and kissed his hair until Duo opened those dizzying violet orbs and look up to him. Duo looked simply irresistible and Heero began to kiss him again, his eyelids, his cheeks, his lips, most of all, the already battered neck that elicited the deepest moans from Duo.

With his last bits of strength, Duo reached up to hold Heero close as he kissed him again. Moving his hands down his back, his fingers touched the top of his pants. With an almost unconscious thought, he slipped his hand in and squeezed his buttocks, making Heero moan against his chest. He felt his body sigh almost longingly as Heero pulled away and sat on the bed, looking down on him. The sun had completely set and the full glory of the moonlight filled the room, making Heero’s skin shimmer. He watched transfixed as Heero stepped off the bed and slowly strip off the rest of his clothing until, naked, he stood under a pool of moonlight. Duo sat up slowly, pulling the sheets to him as he continued to watch Heero just standing there.

The sight of Duo rising from the tangle of sheets like a wild nymph transfixed him to the spot. There were just no words that could express how positively, sinfully beautiful Duo looked. Heero walked slowly over to him as Duo’s entire being seemed to reach out the moment Duo extended his hand. As soon as he was close enough, Duo pulled him down, kissing his neck as his fingers worked on Heero’s nipples. Heero closed his eyes as he continued to sit on the bed while Duo’s lips moved lower and lower until he felt the lips he so coveted close over him. He gritted his teeth as his passions were stoked, but he pushed Duo gently away just before he came. He looked at the distress in Duo’s eyes and kissed him reassuringly. He then pressed Duo face down on the bed and he swept his hair to the side as he began to kiss his back, his hands, exploring lower until they found what they were looking for and he pressed his fingers inside, making Duo moan.

“Heero,” Duo pleaded into the pillows, “please, please….” His sobs and gasps were muffled by the pillows as Heero entered him, pushing impossibly deeper into his being and touching a hidden core within that brought with it the same feeling of delicious weakness he’d felt earlier. Eventually, he felt Heero’s body come into full contact with his – his own body becoming the sheath that bound them together. Heero’s hand reached around him to stroke him as they began to move, each thrust seemed to push Heero deeper into him. In a haze, he felt Heero pull out totally and he was turned over. Heero pushed into Duo again and he kissed him, the urgency of their kisses building with their passions until the both of them came and they collapsed, exhausted onto the bed.

Heero pulled out of Duo and laid down on the bed. Duo moved beside him and snuggled close. Within minutes, he was asleep. Never in his wildest imaginations did Heero ever thought that making love with Duo would have been so intense. He pulled him close to him as sleep also tugged at the edges of his consciousness, loving the warmth of his body against his.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Duo turned over languidly in bed, his body aching in more than a few places. His arm reached out beside him, but found nothing but sheets. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was alone. Beyond the bed, he was that his clothes have been neatly folded and placed on a chair.

Heero was gone.

<Damn it,> Duo thought as he felt angry tears coming to his eyes. <Damn!> He reached up beside him and took Heero’s pillow into his arms. It was still warm and he could smell Heero’s cologne on the linen. Clutching it to his face, he let the tears come. <How could I’ve been so stupid?> Duo thought as he muffled his sobs into the pillow. <How could I’ve let myself believe that I could convince you to stay?>

An instant later, he felt a hands come in contact with his face and a pair of thumbs wiping his tears away. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into a pair of cobalt blue eyes, concern showing clearly in their depths.

“Heero?” Duo said in disbelief. Maybe his mind was playing another cruel joke on him.

“Why are you crying…?” Heero managed to get out before Duo pulled him into an embrace.

“I thought you’d left,” Duo said between sobs of pure happiness. “I’d thought….”

“Shh,” Heero whispered as he stroked his hair. “I’m here and I don’t plan to leave you any time soon.” Heero clutched Duo’s shoulders to look him in the eye. “Was that why you were crying?” He saw Duo nod in acknowledgement and sighed. “I’m making you a promise right now, okay? Unless we both agree to go our separate ways, I will never leave you.” He could almost feel tears coming to his eyes as he said the next words. “I love you. If I have to, I’d die for you.”

“Don’t,” Duo said, placing a finger on his lips. “If you love me, live for me instead.”

Heero smiled as he kissed Duo.

“Ninmu ryoukai.”

********** The End **********

original © April 2001 by Lady Aria