Mission Accepted
by Marie Whi Mitshue
Author's Note: My first ever GW fanfic!! (Written way back about November 0f 2000!) 1x2/2x1, takes place in AC 202, five years after Endless Waltz. That's all I'm telling you. (grin!)
Warnings: YAOI! Um… a *nice* Relena? OOC, maybe? (Who's to say how much the boys have changed since peace has been achieved?)
Gundam Wing does not belong to me, sadly. My near empty bank account reminds me of that fact every day! This story, however, is all mine.
//thoughts//
*emphasis*
flashback
~~~
-AFTER COLONY 202-
RELENA PEACECRAFT'S ESTATE
Heero Yuy bent and tugged one last unmarked box from the bottom of the closet. He dragged it out, glaring at it from in under his messy, jagged, dark bangs. A hint of his old "omae wo korosu" look came into his cobalt- blue eyes, turning them cold and hard.
He hadn't realised he had accumulated so much *STUFF*! Moving sucked!
He folded his jean-clad legs beneath him and sat before the box, wondering just what could be in it.
He was in Relena's house – or rather Relena's mansion – and, now that she was marrying an up-and-coming young official from the colonies, Heero no longer felt comfortable living in her home.
He and Relena were no longer lovers. Oh, they had been, after Du – after he... but he and Relena had decided long ago that they were better friends than lovers...not to mention Heero's heart was already taken...
Despite their close friendship, and despite the fact that Relena and her fiancé swore up and down that he was completely welcome to remain, Heero thought it best to go. He'd been in one place too long...almost five years he'd been here...ever since the night he had stumbled into a startled Relena's arms, drunk as a skunk and sobbing, the night that Du-
He couldn't even *think* that name. It hurt too damn much.
Heero shook off those thoughts – too much of that and he'd be sucked down into that all-too-familiar black pit of despair and depression – and turned back to the mysterious box. He opened it – and froze in dumbfounded, pain- filled shock.
He had thrown this stuff out! He *had*!!
He heard the barely-there creak of the loose floorboard by the room's door, behind him, and spun to his feet, all his old barriers and guards snapping up, cobalt eyes frigid and impenetrable, hand itching for a weapon.
Relena Darlian Peacecraft, ex-Queen of the World, stood in the doorway, her blue eyes looking past Heero to the open box beyond.
"I saved them. I thought...you might want it...after some time had passed. After some of the pain went away..." She told him. Her light blue eyes were full of compassion, for not even that frozen, immobile mask he made of his face could hide the stark, overwhelming pain that was bubbling up inside of him.
Heero turned back to the box, sat again, and bowed his head to hide the unshed tears that were stinging his eyes.
Relena stared sympathetically at his stiff back for a minute, then turned to leave.
"Brady and I will be in the office if you...need anything." She said softly as she left.
Heero lifted the first item from the box – a favourite shirt of D...Du...Duo's...black, of course, faded and soft with wear, the picture of the full moon on the front almost completely worn off.
//That boy always did have an obsession with the moon.// Heero sniffed back a tear – paused, and lifted the shirt to his nose. God, it still *SMELT* like Duo, after five years in a box!
Feelings whipsawed through him, dragged out by his lover's scent still clinging to the faded cloth, and Heero didn't want to put it down. He smoothed it over one shoulder, patted it once, and looked back down at the box.
The second item he lifted out was a thick bundle of papers, Duo's handwriting visible on it, bound with a silky black ribbon with an embroidered-gold cross on the end of it. The ribbon was relic from Duo's past at the Maxwell Church, one of his few treasured possessions. (It was a measure of how distraught Duo had been when he had left, that he hadn't taken it with him.)
He untied the ribbon delicately, smoothing it over his thigh, and unfolded the papers with trembling hands.
They were love poems, little letters, heartfelt thoughts and feelings - things Duo had written to Heero, for Heero, in the predawn hours, one for every day that they had been together. He had used to leave them on Heero's pillow, with chocolate kisses, and act all surprised and innocent when Heero found them.
Heero brushed fingertips over the top letter, the last one Duo had ever written him, slowly reading the loving words:
Heero, my itooshi,
you are the sun of my universe - no the *moon* - and we all know how I love the moon!
You are my soul, my light, and my passion.
I get drunk from the sweet, heady taste of your lips –
Oh, your mouth! Firm, yet soft with feeling, sometimes tender, sometimes wild, full of sensual promise – others may call it a cold or impassive mouth, but *I* see the passion in it, the fire, the utter tenderness - oh, I can just hear you say, as you read this – OMAE WO KOROSU! TENDERNESS! BAKA! - but I know you don't mean it.
I could worship your mouth with my own forever...
Heero had to stop reading when the word went blurry from the tears gathering in his eyes. He ruthlessly sniffed them back.
He folded the love notes again, lovingly, carefully, and retied the silky ribbon, oh, so, carefully, around it. He laid the bundle beside his leg, and reached back into the box.
He lifted out a scrapbook, trailed his fingertips over the decorated cover - Duo's handiwork, his name and Duo's name, in a circle of red and gold, interlocking hearts.
He slowly opened it at a random page - the book was filled with photos of all five gundam pilots, but with Heero and Duo pictures predominating :
There was one of Trowa and Quatre, soon after the Sandrock pilot and the Heavyarms pilot had became a couple, the smaller, golden-haired Arabian leaning against the taller boy, Trowa's long bangs obscuring one emerald eye – but not his tender expression – Quatre's arm around Trowa's waist, Trowa's hand covering Quatre's at his hip;
One of Wufei scowling at the camera, but his dark, almond-shaped eyes glittering with amusement;
One of Duo and Heero playing basketball, Duo in shorts and a t-shirt of his customary black, Heero in the green tank top and black spandex shorts he had favoured back then. Duo had been in mid-jump, high in the air and his braid and little golden cross floated up;
One of all five together, drunk on sake, on Duo's sixteenth birthday, only the back of Quatre's golden head in the corner of the picture, timer having gone off before he could scramble back into Trowa's lap. Duo was upside down on the sofa, legs up the back, head hanging over the cushion-edge, braid coiled on the floor, face flushed eyes bright, shirt untucked and falling down to his chin to reveal his flat belly and slimly-muscled chest. Heero sat beside him, doing his usual marble-statue imitation in response to Duo's antics. Trowa was cross-legged on the floor, listing badly to the side, and Wufei was leaning against the arm of the sofa, scowling down at the empty sake bottle in his hands...
Heero turned the page, revealing a whole collage of photos devoted to Heero and Duo:
The two boy's sprawled beneath a tree, Duo's head on Heero's lap, looking up at him, a broad, silly grin on the Deathscythe pilot's face, violet eyes soft with emotion, a slight smile – Heero's equivalent of a broad, silly grin – on the Japanese boy's face;
Heero and Duo slow-dancing on a balcony at Quatre's, both more than a little drunk, and minus shirts, socks and boots;
Heero brushing out Duo's long, chestnut hair, Duo propped up against Heero's shoulder, eyes closed in pleasure, almost falling into Heero's lap;
Duo alone on the balcony, leaning against the railing, staring up at the moon with a rapt expression on his face, silvery moonlight gilding his face and hair, braid tossed over his shoulder to trail down his chest;
Heero asleep in Duo's bed, naked but covered to the waist with a black (what other colour sheet would be on Duo's bed?) silk sheet, half-cuddling Duo's pillow in his sleep;
Duo and Heero kissing tenderly, Heero holding Duo's face in his hands, Duo's arms wrapped around Heero's slender waist;
Heero reaching to take Duo's hand, their fingers just brushing;
Duo cuddled on Heero's lap, head resting against Heero's shoulder, eyes half-closed in exhaustion, shirt open, the white gleam of bandages around ribs and on his forehead, Heero's arm around Duo protectively, free hand gently stroking Duo's partially-unbraided hair...
Heero could look at it no more, the pain in his heart a physical thing. He closed it and laid it beside the ribbon-tied love notes. He reached into the still-half-full box, and pulled out a small, gilt-edged box. He opened it slowly and his breath caught on a sob when he saw what was inside :
Two silver rings lay on black velvet, each identically engraved with a pattern of intertwined figure-eights - the symbol for infinity, eternity, forever - on the outside.
Engraved on the inside of the ring Duo had given Heero were the words : **Ai shiteru, forever and always - Duo.**
But the inside of the ring Heero had given Duo bore only one word : **Heero.**
When Duo had returned his ring to Heero, Heero had torn his off and thrown both away, in a fit of rage and grief. He had no idea how Relena had found them, but she must have spent considerable time and effort to do it...
"It was all my fault." Heero whispered to the rings and the bittersweet memories of his lover. "I drove you away. I couldn't even say it to you..." //I love you, Duo.// "...couldn't get it out. Why did I shut you out, why did I pull away from you...?"
In hindsight, it was easy to figure out. At the end of the war, he'd been confused, and unsettled, swamped with feelings he found hard to understand. What was he if he was no longer a soldier? Did he love Duo? He knew he liked him, enjoyed his body...but love? And what about his protective feelings towards Relena?
Confused, afraid, upset, overwhelmed, he had pulled back from Duo, and shut the American out, gathering the cold, thick barriers around him so tightly that no matter how hard he had tried, Duo had been unable to break through...and he *had* tried, so damn hard...
"Heero, man, let me in! What's wrong? Why won't you listen?"
"Nothing is wrong. Leave me alone."
"Nothing wrong?!?! You've turned back into that cold, stone faced boy I shot the first time we met! This is me, Heero! I know you, you're...a part of me!"
"Hn...a part of you?! The lover you feel guilty over, the lover your church says is wrong? Please! Duo no baka, bound for hell!"
"...How can you say this...these things –"
"That's nothing. How about, you'll burn in hell because you're a good lay, but that's *all* you are! Stop trying to get beneath my guard and find the real me! This is the real me, and that's that!"
"...Heero...you...can't mean...all...all I am...to you is...is…*sex*...you...how can you do this to me, Heero? How can you hurt me like this?! HOW?!"
And so Heero had driven Duo away, hurting him cruelly in an effort to protect his own suddenly vulnerable and exposed heart. (He still cringed and hated himself every time he remembered those terrible things he had flung at Duo out of panic and pain.) He had driven away the only person he had ever loved, the only person who had ever truly loved *him*...The only one who had ever made him feel alive, feel WHOLE.
Heero stared at the rings gleaming on their bed of black velvet, and then his eyes became determined, his jaw set. He lifted the ring Duo had given him from the box, kissed it and slipped it on his left hand – on his ring finger.
He carefully packed the scrapbook, bundle of love notes, and Duo's shirt – after one last, lingering sniff – back in the box, atop the things he hadn't taken out. He put the box with it's lone ring in his pocket, lifted the bigger box and strode out. For the first time in five years there was bounce in his step, purpose in his stride, and determination in the set of the muscled shoulders beneath the faded t-shirt.
-AFTER COLONY 202-
L2 COLONY, NEAR DUO MAXWELL'S HOME
Duo Maxwell walked slowly home in the artificially created night of the colony. His stride lacked the careless buoyancy that it had in the past, but was still full of lithe grace.
He reached his home – and froze at the oh-so-familiar figure sitting patiently on his porch steps, a battered black duffel bag at his feet.
Heero looked up at him.
The black priest-like outfit he had favoured was long gone – he wore a pair of tan cargo pants, boots, and a peat-brown button-down shirt. His long, thick, chestnut braid was now halfway down his thighs, and jagged, long bangs still dripped into his face and violet eyes, shaded now by a faded black baseball-style cap – a cap Heero recognised instantly; that damn hat was years old. Heero had first seen Duo wearing it when he had first met him – when Duo had shot him in Relena's defence, oh, so long ago.
Duo was taller and thinner now than Heero remembered, but still, oh, so achingly familiar – but it *had* been five years, Heero himself was taller as well. Duo's rounded features had matured, the handsome, heart-shaped- faced boy he remembered was now a gorgeous, heart-shaped-faced young man.
There were other changes – that smiling, sweet mouth was grave, now, far more sombre than it had been, as if it rarely smiled these days. There were shadows in those deep violet eyes, echoes of old pain and sorrow, and his face was paler, faint, dark smudges beneath those violet eyes.
"H...HEERO?!?" Duo said in astonished disbelief.
Heero rose gracefully, brushing at the seat of his dark-grey trousers, one corner of that sensuous mouth tilting up tentatively, "Konnichiwa, Duo."
"I...uh...w...won't you come in?" Duo stammered, moving past his lover – former lover, he corrected himself fiercely – to open the door.
God, Heero looked *good*, dressed in dark-grey trousers, and a long-sleeved scarlet shirt that clung as tightly to his torso as...well, as Duo once had.
"Have, ah, you been, uh, waiting long?"
Heero shrugged and lifted his duffel's strap to his shoulder. "A little while. No big deal, ne?"
Duo stepped back to let him in. As Heero walked past him, Duo's eyes travelled over his former lover – his messy brown bangs still fell over his cobalt-blue eyes and the finely-carved features that had only gotten more beautiful in the five years they'd been apart. He was taller, body more muscled, but still trim, hips narrow, shoulders slightly broader than they had been five years ago – then Duo's breath caught painfully in his throat as he got a brief glimpse of a ring on Heero's wedding finger. //He must be married to Relena.//
Duo had tried not to. But hope had risen at the sight of Heero on his porch with a bag, and now his heart threatened to crumble all over again. //I never stopped loving him,// Duo thought. Of course, he had known that, but to have Heero right in front of him was pure torture.
He followed Heero in and flipped on lights, offering tea.
Heero nodded, followed him into the kitchen and sat with his duffel at his feet, watching Duo make tea. "So...what brings you here?" Duo asked casually, but it was a struggle to remain casual and cheery.
He turned to hand Heero a cup of tea – and dropped the cup, barely aware of it smashing at his feet, for his eyes were locked on the ring on Heero's outstretched left hand. A silver ring, engraved with delicate, intertwined figure-eights. *HIS* ring, the one he had given to Heero all those years ago.
"Duo, are you alright?" Heero asked sharply, then realized why Duo had dropped the cup, that the American was staring at the ring.
Duo's face was white. "Why ...why are you wearing *MY* ring...when you're Relena's...?" Duo whispered.
"I'm *NOT* Relena's! She's just a friend." Heero said crossly. "She's marrying Brady Lorne. I'm wearing your ring...because...because...I... " Heero struggled and tried, but he couldn't say it. He cursed, exasperated, and hauled a little, gilt-edged box from the duffel. "Here." He held it out to Duo.
Duo took it in shaking fingers, ruthlessly crushing the hope that was trying to rise within him. What could this mean? Heero...wasn't Relena's...?
He opened the box and inhaled sharply. Heero's ring was nestled on the black velvet, Duo's treasured, black, silky, cross-embroidered ribbon tied loosely around it.
"Read it, Duo." Heero said in an intense voice.
Why?! Duo knew exactly what the ring Heero had given him had said – **Heero**, that's all. But he lifted the ring by the ribbon (eyes stinging at the return of the ribbon that had once belonged to Father Maxwell) to read the inscription - and felt his knees buckle as the altered inscription leapt out at him : **Ai shiteru, To death and beyond - Heero.**
Heero caught him with a yelp, cradling him in the circle of his arms to keep him upright.
"K'so, Duo, you're as white as snow! You're shaking!"
Duo looked up into those intense cobalt-blue eyes, so close to his, and saw that all those cold, impenetrable barriers he was used to seeing, were gone.
"Do...do...you mean it...Heero...?" He whispered through trembling lips.
"With all my heart.." Heero told him gravely.
"Oh, Heero!" Duo threw his arms around Heero so forcefully they toppled over – fortunately not on the spilled tea or broken cup – Heero beneath Duo.
Duo rained ecstatic kisses over Heero's face and hair, neck and clothed- chest. Heero reached up, chuckling, to either stop or encourage this mad rain of kisses - he wasn't sure which – and took Duo's face in his hands. Duo dropped his mouth to Heero's, kissing him thoroughly, passionately, urgently.
Heero kissed him back enthusiastically, but broke away when he felt hot tears touch his skin.
"Duo, what's wrong?" Heero asked, alarmed.
"These are happy-tears, Heero!" Duo smiled.
"Baka..." Heero snorted, feeling his heart tug at the familiar word.
"But I'm your baka..." Duo replied with the equally-familiar answer, smile breathtaking, the joy in those violet eyes something to behold.
Heero sat up, Duo held firmly in his lap. He took his ring from Duo's closed fist, untied the ribbon and tucked it into Duo's pocket, and slid the ring onto his left ring finger.
Heero slid his fingers into Duo's hair, something he'd been dreaming of doing for five long years. "Duo..."
"Heero...kiss me..." Duo whispered. "...love me..."
Heero grinned, kissed him hard, then lifted Duo in his arms.
"Bedroom?" He asked, face bowed to breath in the light scent of Duo's hair.
"Thattaway...itooshi..." Duo pointed at the end of a dim-lit hall, with that broad grin Heero loved so much.
Heero chuckled when he saw Duo's bed – typically, it was black : black silk sheets and pillow cases, black blankets.
Duo shrugged in Heero's arms, sheepishly. Some things didn't change.
Then Heero's eyes caught on a framed, creased and worn photo on the night stand – the only decoration in the entire room. It was a photo he had seen many days ago in the scrapbook collage – the one with them under a tree, Duo's head on Heero's lap, grinned up at him, love clear in his eyes , Heero smiling down at him.
"Oh, Duo..." He sighed, heart aching at the thought that Duo had carried that photo around for five years, as the only remnant he had of their love.
"Shhh, Heero." Duo's fingers caressed his cheek. "The past is past and you're here now...that's all that matters..."
"Here for always..." Heero whispered as he lowered him to the bed and kissed him softly. "A...ai...a..ai...s...shiteru, Duo..." Finally, finally, he was able to say it!
"Oh, Heero!" Duo whispered from beneath him. "Ai shiteru, until the universe dies..." Duo dragged him down, wrapping arms and legs around him, pulling him as close as he possible could. "Love me, Heero...love me, forever..." He begged, face hidden against Heero's hair.
And he did, with a wicked grin and a murmured, "...Ninmu ryuokai..."
~OWARI~
Author's Note:
Okay, pure unadulterated sap, my first fanfic of GW, and I'm a tragic romantic. For those that liked it, hey THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH!!! If you didn't...your loss, not mine!
Comments? – Email me! Demo onegai, no flames, I'll just ignore them. kumiko_chan@gundamwing.net
(The first, unrevised copy of this is at www.geocities.com/tearsofstars/ a friend'ss GW Shrine.)
Original material ( Marie Whi Mitshue, November 2000
by Marie Whi Mitshue
Author's Note: My first ever GW fanfic!! (Written way back about November 0f 2000!) 1x2/2x1, takes place in AC 202, five years after Endless Waltz. That's all I'm telling you. (grin!)
Warnings: YAOI! Um… a *nice* Relena? OOC, maybe? (Who's to say how much the boys have changed since peace has been achieved?)
Gundam Wing does not belong to me, sadly. My near empty bank account reminds me of that fact every day! This story, however, is all mine.
//thoughts//
*emphasis*
flashback
~~~
-AFTER COLONY 202-
RELENA PEACECRAFT'S ESTATE
Heero Yuy bent and tugged one last unmarked box from the bottom of the closet. He dragged it out, glaring at it from in under his messy, jagged, dark bangs. A hint of his old "omae wo korosu" look came into his cobalt- blue eyes, turning them cold and hard.
He hadn't realised he had accumulated so much *STUFF*! Moving sucked!
He folded his jean-clad legs beneath him and sat before the box, wondering just what could be in it.
He was in Relena's house – or rather Relena's mansion – and, now that she was marrying an up-and-coming young official from the colonies, Heero no longer felt comfortable living in her home.
He and Relena were no longer lovers. Oh, they had been, after Du – after he... but he and Relena had decided long ago that they were better friends than lovers...not to mention Heero's heart was already taken...
Despite their close friendship, and despite the fact that Relena and her fiancé swore up and down that he was completely welcome to remain, Heero thought it best to go. He'd been in one place too long...almost five years he'd been here...ever since the night he had stumbled into a startled Relena's arms, drunk as a skunk and sobbing, the night that Du-
He couldn't even *think* that name. It hurt too damn much.
Heero shook off those thoughts – too much of that and he'd be sucked down into that all-too-familiar black pit of despair and depression – and turned back to the mysterious box. He opened it – and froze in dumbfounded, pain- filled shock.
He had thrown this stuff out! He *had*!!
He heard the barely-there creak of the loose floorboard by the room's door, behind him, and spun to his feet, all his old barriers and guards snapping up, cobalt eyes frigid and impenetrable, hand itching for a weapon.
Relena Darlian Peacecraft, ex-Queen of the World, stood in the doorway, her blue eyes looking past Heero to the open box beyond.
"I saved them. I thought...you might want it...after some time had passed. After some of the pain went away..." She told him. Her light blue eyes were full of compassion, for not even that frozen, immobile mask he made of his face could hide the stark, overwhelming pain that was bubbling up inside of him.
Heero turned back to the box, sat again, and bowed his head to hide the unshed tears that were stinging his eyes.
Relena stared sympathetically at his stiff back for a minute, then turned to leave.
"Brady and I will be in the office if you...need anything." She said softly as she left.
Heero lifted the first item from the box – a favourite shirt of D...Du...Duo's...black, of course, faded and soft with wear, the picture of the full moon on the front almost completely worn off.
//That boy always did have an obsession with the moon.// Heero sniffed back a tear – paused, and lifted the shirt to his nose. God, it still *SMELT* like Duo, after five years in a box!
Feelings whipsawed through him, dragged out by his lover's scent still clinging to the faded cloth, and Heero didn't want to put it down. He smoothed it over one shoulder, patted it once, and looked back down at the box.
The second item he lifted out was a thick bundle of papers, Duo's handwriting visible on it, bound with a silky black ribbon with an embroidered-gold cross on the end of it. The ribbon was relic from Duo's past at the Maxwell Church, one of his few treasured possessions. (It was a measure of how distraught Duo had been when he had left, that he hadn't taken it with him.)
He untied the ribbon delicately, smoothing it over his thigh, and unfolded the papers with trembling hands.
They were love poems, little letters, heartfelt thoughts and feelings - things Duo had written to Heero, for Heero, in the predawn hours, one for every day that they had been together. He had used to leave them on Heero's pillow, with chocolate kisses, and act all surprised and innocent when Heero found them.
Heero brushed fingertips over the top letter, the last one Duo had ever written him, slowly reading the loving words:
Heero, my itooshi,
you are the sun of my universe - no the *moon* - and we all know how I love the moon!
You are my soul, my light, and my passion.
I get drunk from the sweet, heady taste of your lips –
Oh, your mouth! Firm, yet soft with feeling, sometimes tender, sometimes wild, full of sensual promise – others may call it a cold or impassive mouth, but *I* see the passion in it, the fire, the utter tenderness - oh, I can just hear you say, as you read this – OMAE WO KOROSU! TENDERNESS! BAKA! - but I know you don't mean it.
I could worship your mouth with my own forever...
Heero had to stop reading when the word went blurry from the tears gathering in his eyes. He ruthlessly sniffed them back.
He folded the love notes again, lovingly, carefully, and retied the silky ribbon, oh, so, carefully, around it. He laid the bundle beside his leg, and reached back into the box.
He lifted out a scrapbook, trailed his fingertips over the decorated cover - Duo's handiwork, his name and Duo's name, in a circle of red and gold, interlocking hearts.
He slowly opened it at a random page - the book was filled with photos of all five gundam pilots, but with Heero and Duo pictures predominating :
There was one of Trowa and Quatre, soon after the Sandrock pilot and the Heavyarms pilot had became a couple, the smaller, golden-haired Arabian leaning against the taller boy, Trowa's long bangs obscuring one emerald eye – but not his tender expression – Quatre's arm around Trowa's waist, Trowa's hand covering Quatre's at his hip;
One of Wufei scowling at the camera, but his dark, almond-shaped eyes glittering with amusement;
One of Duo and Heero playing basketball, Duo in shorts and a t-shirt of his customary black, Heero in the green tank top and black spandex shorts he had favoured back then. Duo had been in mid-jump, high in the air and his braid and little golden cross floated up;
One of all five together, drunk on sake, on Duo's sixteenth birthday, only the back of Quatre's golden head in the corner of the picture, timer having gone off before he could scramble back into Trowa's lap. Duo was upside down on the sofa, legs up the back, head hanging over the cushion-edge, braid coiled on the floor, face flushed eyes bright, shirt untucked and falling down to his chin to reveal his flat belly and slimly-muscled chest. Heero sat beside him, doing his usual marble-statue imitation in response to Duo's antics. Trowa was cross-legged on the floor, listing badly to the side, and Wufei was leaning against the arm of the sofa, scowling down at the empty sake bottle in his hands...
Heero turned the page, revealing a whole collage of photos devoted to Heero and Duo:
The two boy's sprawled beneath a tree, Duo's head on Heero's lap, looking up at him, a broad, silly grin on the Deathscythe pilot's face, violet eyes soft with emotion, a slight smile – Heero's equivalent of a broad, silly grin – on the Japanese boy's face;
Heero and Duo slow-dancing on a balcony at Quatre's, both more than a little drunk, and minus shirts, socks and boots;
Heero brushing out Duo's long, chestnut hair, Duo propped up against Heero's shoulder, eyes closed in pleasure, almost falling into Heero's lap;
Duo alone on the balcony, leaning against the railing, staring up at the moon with a rapt expression on his face, silvery moonlight gilding his face and hair, braid tossed over his shoulder to trail down his chest;
Heero asleep in Duo's bed, naked but covered to the waist with a black (what other colour sheet would be on Duo's bed?) silk sheet, half-cuddling Duo's pillow in his sleep;
Duo and Heero kissing tenderly, Heero holding Duo's face in his hands, Duo's arms wrapped around Heero's slender waist;
Heero reaching to take Duo's hand, their fingers just brushing;
Duo cuddled on Heero's lap, head resting against Heero's shoulder, eyes half-closed in exhaustion, shirt open, the white gleam of bandages around ribs and on his forehead, Heero's arm around Duo protectively, free hand gently stroking Duo's partially-unbraided hair...
Heero could look at it no more, the pain in his heart a physical thing. He closed it and laid it beside the ribbon-tied love notes. He reached into the still-half-full box, and pulled out a small, gilt-edged box. He opened it slowly and his breath caught on a sob when he saw what was inside :
Two silver rings lay on black velvet, each identically engraved with a pattern of intertwined figure-eights - the symbol for infinity, eternity, forever - on the outside.
Engraved on the inside of the ring Duo had given Heero were the words : **Ai shiteru, forever and always - Duo.**
But the inside of the ring Heero had given Duo bore only one word : **Heero.**
When Duo had returned his ring to Heero, Heero had torn his off and thrown both away, in a fit of rage and grief. He had no idea how Relena had found them, but she must have spent considerable time and effort to do it...
"It was all my fault." Heero whispered to the rings and the bittersweet memories of his lover. "I drove you away. I couldn't even say it to you..." //I love you, Duo.// "...couldn't get it out. Why did I shut you out, why did I pull away from you...?"
In hindsight, it was easy to figure out. At the end of the war, he'd been confused, and unsettled, swamped with feelings he found hard to understand. What was he if he was no longer a soldier? Did he love Duo? He knew he liked him, enjoyed his body...but love? And what about his protective feelings towards Relena?
Confused, afraid, upset, overwhelmed, he had pulled back from Duo, and shut the American out, gathering the cold, thick barriers around him so tightly that no matter how hard he had tried, Duo had been unable to break through...and he *had* tried, so damn hard...
"Heero, man, let me in! What's wrong? Why won't you listen?"
"Nothing is wrong. Leave me alone."
"Nothing wrong?!?! You've turned back into that cold, stone faced boy I shot the first time we met! This is me, Heero! I know you, you're...a part of me!"
"Hn...a part of you?! The lover you feel guilty over, the lover your church says is wrong? Please! Duo no baka, bound for hell!"
"...How can you say this...these things –"
"That's nothing. How about, you'll burn in hell because you're a good lay, but that's *all* you are! Stop trying to get beneath my guard and find the real me! This is the real me, and that's that!"
"...Heero...you...can't mean...all...all I am...to you is...is…*sex*...you...how can you do this to me, Heero? How can you hurt me like this?! HOW?!"
And so Heero had driven Duo away, hurting him cruelly in an effort to protect his own suddenly vulnerable and exposed heart. (He still cringed and hated himself every time he remembered those terrible things he had flung at Duo out of panic and pain.) He had driven away the only person he had ever loved, the only person who had ever truly loved *him*...The only one who had ever made him feel alive, feel WHOLE.
Heero stared at the rings gleaming on their bed of black velvet, and then his eyes became determined, his jaw set. He lifted the ring Duo had given him from the box, kissed it and slipped it on his left hand – on his ring finger.
He carefully packed the scrapbook, bundle of love notes, and Duo's shirt – after one last, lingering sniff – back in the box, atop the things he hadn't taken out. He put the box with it's lone ring in his pocket, lifted the bigger box and strode out. For the first time in five years there was bounce in his step, purpose in his stride, and determination in the set of the muscled shoulders beneath the faded t-shirt.
-AFTER COLONY 202-
L2 COLONY, NEAR DUO MAXWELL'S HOME
Duo Maxwell walked slowly home in the artificially created night of the colony. His stride lacked the careless buoyancy that it had in the past, but was still full of lithe grace.
He reached his home – and froze at the oh-so-familiar figure sitting patiently on his porch steps, a battered black duffel bag at his feet.
Heero looked up at him.
The black priest-like outfit he had favoured was long gone – he wore a pair of tan cargo pants, boots, and a peat-brown button-down shirt. His long, thick, chestnut braid was now halfway down his thighs, and jagged, long bangs still dripped into his face and violet eyes, shaded now by a faded black baseball-style cap – a cap Heero recognised instantly; that damn hat was years old. Heero had first seen Duo wearing it when he had first met him – when Duo had shot him in Relena's defence, oh, so long ago.
Duo was taller and thinner now than Heero remembered, but still, oh, so achingly familiar – but it *had* been five years, Heero himself was taller as well. Duo's rounded features had matured, the handsome, heart-shaped- faced boy he remembered was now a gorgeous, heart-shaped-faced young man.
There were other changes – that smiling, sweet mouth was grave, now, far more sombre than it had been, as if it rarely smiled these days. There were shadows in those deep violet eyes, echoes of old pain and sorrow, and his face was paler, faint, dark smudges beneath those violet eyes.
"H...HEERO?!?" Duo said in astonished disbelief.
Heero rose gracefully, brushing at the seat of his dark-grey trousers, one corner of that sensuous mouth tilting up tentatively, "Konnichiwa, Duo."
"I...uh...w...won't you come in?" Duo stammered, moving past his lover – former lover, he corrected himself fiercely – to open the door.
God, Heero looked *good*, dressed in dark-grey trousers, and a long-sleeved scarlet shirt that clung as tightly to his torso as...well, as Duo once had.
"Have, ah, you been, uh, waiting long?"
Heero shrugged and lifted his duffel's strap to his shoulder. "A little while. No big deal, ne?"
Duo stepped back to let him in. As Heero walked past him, Duo's eyes travelled over his former lover – his messy brown bangs still fell over his cobalt-blue eyes and the finely-carved features that had only gotten more beautiful in the five years they'd been apart. He was taller, body more muscled, but still trim, hips narrow, shoulders slightly broader than they had been five years ago – then Duo's breath caught painfully in his throat as he got a brief glimpse of a ring on Heero's wedding finger. //He must be married to Relena.//
Duo had tried not to. But hope had risen at the sight of Heero on his porch with a bag, and now his heart threatened to crumble all over again. //I never stopped loving him,// Duo thought. Of course, he had known that, but to have Heero right in front of him was pure torture.
He followed Heero in and flipped on lights, offering tea.
Heero nodded, followed him into the kitchen and sat with his duffel at his feet, watching Duo make tea. "So...what brings you here?" Duo asked casually, but it was a struggle to remain casual and cheery.
He turned to hand Heero a cup of tea – and dropped the cup, barely aware of it smashing at his feet, for his eyes were locked on the ring on Heero's outstretched left hand. A silver ring, engraved with delicate, intertwined figure-eights. *HIS* ring, the one he had given to Heero all those years ago.
"Duo, are you alright?" Heero asked sharply, then realized why Duo had dropped the cup, that the American was staring at the ring.
Duo's face was white. "Why ...why are you wearing *MY* ring...when you're Relena's...?" Duo whispered.
"I'm *NOT* Relena's! She's just a friend." Heero said crossly. "She's marrying Brady Lorne. I'm wearing your ring...because...because...I... " Heero struggled and tried, but he couldn't say it. He cursed, exasperated, and hauled a little, gilt-edged box from the duffel. "Here." He held it out to Duo.
Duo took it in shaking fingers, ruthlessly crushing the hope that was trying to rise within him. What could this mean? Heero...wasn't Relena's...?
He opened the box and inhaled sharply. Heero's ring was nestled on the black velvet, Duo's treasured, black, silky, cross-embroidered ribbon tied loosely around it.
"Read it, Duo." Heero said in an intense voice.
Why?! Duo knew exactly what the ring Heero had given him had said – **Heero**, that's all. But he lifted the ring by the ribbon (eyes stinging at the return of the ribbon that had once belonged to Father Maxwell) to read the inscription - and felt his knees buckle as the altered inscription leapt out at him : **Ai shiteru, To death and beyond - Heero.**
Heero caught him with a yelp, cradling him in the circle of his arms to keep him upright.
"K'so, Duo, you're as white as snow! You're shaking!"
Duo looked up into those intense cobalt-blue eyes, so close to his, and saw that all those cold, impenetrable barriers he was used to seeing, were gone.
"Do...do...you mean it...Heero...?" He whispered through trembling lips.
"With all my heart.." Heero told him gravely.
"Oh, Heero!" Duo threw his arms around Heero so forcefully they toppled over – fortunately not on the spilled tea or broken cup – Heero beneath Duo.
Duo rained ecstatic kisses over Heero's face and hair, neck and clothed- chest. Heero reached up, chuckling, to either stop or encourage this mad rain of kisses - he wasn't sure which – and took Duo's face in his hands. Duo dropped his mouth to Heero's, kissing him thoroughly, passionately, urgently.
Heero kissed him back enthusiastically, but broke away when he felt hot tears touch his skin.
"Duo, what's wrong?" Heero asked, alarmed.
"These are happy-tears, Heero!" Duo smiled.
"Baka..." Heero snorted, feeling his heart tug at the familiar word.
"But I'm your baka..." Duo replied with the equally-familiar answer, smile breathtaking, the joy in those violet eyes something to behold.
Heero sat up, Duo held firmly in his lap. He took his ring from Duo's closed fist, untied the ribbon and tucked it into Duo's pocket, and slid the ring onto his left ring finger.
Heero slid his fingers into Duo's hair, something he'd been dreaming of doing for five long years. "Duo..."
"Heero...kiss me..." Duo whispered. "...love me..."
Heero grinned, kissed him hard, then lifted Duo in his arms.
"Bedroom?" He asked, face bowed to breath in the light scent of Duo's hair.
"Thattaway...itooshi..." Duo pointed at the end of a dim-lit hall, with that broad grin Heero loved so much.
Heero chuckled when he saw Duo's bed – typically, it was black : black silk sheets and pillow cases, black blankets.
Duo shrugged in Heero's arms, sheepishly. Some things didn't change.
Then Heero's eyes caught on a framed, creased and worn photo on the night stand – the only decoration in the entire room. It was a photo he had seen many days ago in the scrapbook collage – the one with them under a tree, Duo's head on Heero's lap, grinned up at him, love clear in his eyes , Heero smiling down at him.
"Oh, Duo..." He sighed, heart aching at the thought that Duo had carried that photo around for five years, as the only remnant he had of their love.
"Shhh, Heero." Duo's fingers caressed his cheek. "The past is past and you're here now...that's all that matters..."
"Here for always..." Heero whispered as he lowered him to the bed and kissed him softly. "A...ai...a..ai...s...shiteru, Duo..." Finally, finally, he was able to say it!
"Oh, Heero!" Duo whispered from beneath him. "Ai shiteru, until the universe dies..." Duo dragged him down, wrapping arms and legs around him, pulling him as close as he possible could. "Love me, Heero...love me, forever..." He begged, face hidden against Heero's hair.
And he did, with a wicked grin and a murmured, "...Ninmu ryuokai..."
~OWARI~
Author's Note:
Okay, pure unadulterated sap, my first fanfic of GW, and I'm a tragic romantic. For those that liked it, hey THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH!!! If you didn't...your loss, not mine!
Comments? – Email me! Demo onegai, no flames, I'll just ignore them. kumiko_chan@gundamwing.net
(The first, unrevised copy of this is at www.geocities.com/tearsofstars/ a friend'ss GW Shrine.)
Original material ( Marie Whi Mitshue, November 2000