Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine, which is probably best given what I did to them in this story.
Warning: Total deathfic. If you can't handle it, don't read and whine to me.
Silver Swinging Doors
His heart was aching and the pain only increased with every beat, with every step he took towards those swinging silver doors. He really did not want to be there, but Wufei had called him and he had come. He was no coward.
With a deep breath he pushed the doors open and stepped in, pausing just inside to survey the scene. A brief glance was all he needed to know everything.
Wufei stood beside him, leaning against the wall beside the doors. His eyes were cast downwards at the floor, full of pain and shock and guilt, seeing nothing. He did not bother to look up at the new arrival.
Lightly he rested a hand on Wufei's shoulder in an effort to share strength, but there was no response. They had no strength left between them to share. He moved on.
There was no question of who was beneath the blood spattered sheet Heero stood beside. In one fist he clenched a tattered braid that had almost been blown entirely off. Strands were blackened and twisted and his grip was very careful. Obviously he did not want to accidentally pull it off, preferring to leave it with his partner, his backup, his best friend- his… something more? Well, now they could never find out what they may have meant to each other. The grief radiating from Heero was too much to be withstood. He moved on.
It was some little while before he found who he was looking for- the explosion had killed a great many Preventers, as had the sniper fire that followed and had prevented the removal of the bodies for so many hours- but he had never dared to hope. He knew the other would be here. Were he alive, he would be standing in this room, mourning, as the others were.
Finally he stood beside the stretcher, gazing down on the face of the man he had loved for so many years.
Trowa looked peaceful in death. The curled position of his body and the way that the sheet covered the fatal wound made the resemblance uncanny. Only the pallor of his skin, the blue touch to his lips, gave hint to the truth.
He case about and found an extra stretcher, which he pulled up alongside Trowa's. Pushing them together he made an approximation of a bed and climbed up on his side, lying to face the man that was never quite his lover.
This was how it should have been, he knew, between them. Waking up side by side every morning, watching each other sleep. It had just never manifested, for one reason or another.
A rather morbid urge to kiss those blue lips surged through him, but he restrained himself. It wouldn't wake Trowa, and it would be his last memory of kissing those lips. Better not to do so. Better to keep their only kiss pristine and warm and alive.
It had been a wonderful day. All five of them had gone to a carnival, an idea he and Duo had come up with to try to forge a bond between them that had nothing to do with war. He had been thrumming with sugar and laughter and giddy from the rides and he had thrown caution to the winds and kissed Trowa. He had never known Trowa to be surprised, but the baffled look on his face as they had parted had been priceless- though not nearly as precious as the smile that had followed.
Part of him wanted to regret that he had not followed that moment with more, but there was no use in regret now. The past could not be changed, no matter how he wished.
Feeling tears welling in his eyes at last, he carefully turned around on his little bed, putting his back to Trowa, to those blue lips. It was very cold in the room. In a perfect world, he would have only needed to scoot back into Trowa's arms to warm up, but this was not a perfect world and all those arms offered was more unyielding cold.
He was not entirely sure that he would ever be really warm again.