Title: In the Shadow of Love
Author: Shinigamis Little Silencer (shinigamis_little_silencer@hotmail.com)
Warnings: It's my first POV fic, so it's probably not that good, but it only took me 45 minutes to write...so...I didn't really expect it to be that good. OH yeah, um...death and angst (the usual from me).
Pairings: None
Disclaimers: I do not own GW, that's Bandai/Sunrise/Sotsu Agency jurisdiction, aight? good. Oh, and a special thanks to Steve Perry cause he is a god and I adore him and he's a wonderful lyric writer and inspiration. Hehe. Just FYI, I dunt own 'Patiently', he and Neal Schon wrote it. ENJOY!


In the Shadow of Love


It was dark outside. Dusk had long since sparkled in my eyes and vanished in a black, starlit splendor. I stared at the sky until those little white specks of light played tricks on me. I stared until I saw his eyes in the ever growing blackness.

The ground seemed a little too light beneath my grown body as my eyes finally drifted closed, then opened upon another world long gone, a world that we could have shaped together; a world that, now that i think of it, shaped our lives instead.

I somehow think that he and I were meant to be friends, whether we liked it or not. The rest was left up to the two of us.

Even those missions we never expected to be sent off on had an effect on our lives together. They brought us closer than the two of us had ever anticipated.

I can see him now against the black background of my dreams. His hair is unkempt, as usual, his eyes focused on his work, his hands nimbly patching a hole in his machine. I always watched him from a safe distance and most days he didn't know I was there. I say most, because the first couple of days he would casually sigh, look up from his work and say "Duo, I don't need your observation." I stayed anyway and I think he might have even known I was there, just that he had gotten used to me being there, watching him work.

It was strange at first, knowing I loved him, but just as he got used to the idea that I would constantly be around to watch him work, I got used to the feeling he would aways be around for me to love, even though I would never say it.

Oh, but I did say it, eventually. I only said it when it was safe, when he was dying. What I would give for a moment to truly love him.

It has been twelve years since Heero Yuy disappeared from my lonely life. His friendship was never taken for granted. I will never forget him.

We walked in the park once, just the two of us. We were silent, listening to the crunching of gravel beneath our shoes, our hands brushing against each other as we walked side by side (it took everything in me not to hold that hand I had seen working so diligently over the past few weeks); sharing a moment of stillness that resonated in my heart like evening churchbells.

The day was a sunny one, one of the few I had seen that year, but still almost bitterly cold, and the birds were squawking loudly in the newly budding trees. We were both wearing jackets and jeans, protecting ourselves mostly from the chill. I had just opened my mouth to comment on the weather when a woman just up the trail cried out abruptly. Her two year old son had crawled underneath the wrought iron fence surrounding the park and wandered onto the busy highway.

The two of us stopped and stared in shock for a moment, then Heero's eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed. In a brief second he was over the fence and rolling across traffic, narrowly escaping the right rear wheel of a green Chevrolet pickup truck, whose driver leaned out the window, raised a fist and shouted at him in a foreign language. Heero was two feet away from the child when it happened.

The zipper on his jacket got caught in the manhole in the middle of the street and stuck there. He tried to get up, but there was no time. I turned away as the '86 station wagon attempted to stop, skidded and rolled over both Heero and the child. The silence which immediately followed was shattered by the wailing of the little boy's mother as she clawed desperately at the fence. I turned and, without a glance towards the accident, heaved her over the fence, following shortly. I looked up as I ran, and suddenly I couldn't feel the ground beneath me anymore. I didn't even bother to watch for traffic.

I knelt by his side, turned him over and cradled his head in my lap. His eyes were bloodshot, but they were open and fixed on mine. His breath was slowing. The world spun and I closed my eyes to regain control. It was distant, far away, but I felt warm blood leak through my denim jeans and trickle down my legs. His hands clawed at mine frantically until I opened my eyes and grasped them firmly, trying my damndest not to cry.

I wake up every night from that vision. It seems the shock still hasn't worn off, even after twelve long years of reliving it. Just before I wake up, drenched in a cold weat, I mutter those three words, and somehow attach his name to them...make him understand. I see the acceptance in his eyes...and then I can't feel him anymore. His warm blood adhering my jeans to the pavement is replaced by the feeling of 500 count thread cotton sheets smothering me.

Sometimes I think I see him mutter those words back to me before his eyes close, his hands loose their grip on mine, and his song forever flies out of me.


In the shadow of love
Time goes by leaving me helpless
Just to reach and try
To live my life
These are my reasons


( Perry,Schon; 1978 )