Birds chirped as they rested serenely on the branch of a dying tree. Students walked across the campus from one building to the next. Their words unheard as the birds sang over them, blanketing them with their beautiful lyrics. Conversation was evident though - as one could see the words float out of their mouths and linger on the chill air.
Three stories above the freezing ground; heat was no problem. The warmth caressed him as he sat back and took a well-deserved break, letting the welcoming heat capture him in her generous arms.
"Hello~ooo?!? Are you listening to me?"
He rolled his eyes and leaned over his laptop. "Yes, but unfortunately you won't shut up." Duo sat cross-legged on his bed, headphones buzzing meaningless tunes from around his neck - totally jarred from his current line of thought.
"Mou...you asked me how my day went, so I told yo-"
"Correction. I never asked you," Heero interjected, resuming his typing. The braided pilot just sat there, flabbergasted, and stared at the back of his comrade's head as he scanned through the last twenty minutes in his mind.
"Yea~aaaaah you did," he put forth slowly. Heero swiveled in his chair to stare stoically at the braided youth. Duo was too lost in reel after reel of crappily edited versions of his memory to notice the cobalt glare that burned into him. It was the coldness emanating from that infamous glare that made him shiver and finally turn his attention to the agitated boy in front of him.
"Nani?" he asked. Heero huffed and turned back to his work. He could feel a dull pain creeping up the base of his neck as he tuned out Duo's feeble attempts at turning the argument towards his victory and kept typing.
/Maybe if I ignore him...he'll go away/ he thought, an evil smirk barely touching the corners of his lips. After a few irritating moments of absolute silence - in which he could actually hear Duo blink - he closed his eyes and stopped his flying fingers.
"Just. Say. Something," he growled through gritted teeth. Duo scoffed, crossed his arms and shut his eyes in an attempt to look defiant; however, the effort only made him look immature. Heero blinked. The American opened an eye and slowly scanned the room before h rested his violet orbs on the rigid back of his partner who sat, unmoving, in front of his laptop. The Japanese boy growled and shut off his computer. "Fine. I can't work this way." He stood abruptly and almost tipped over the wobbly desk he sat at. Duo turned both eyes onto him as a wave of utter confusion washed over his cherubic face.
"Work like what?"
It was a simple question that would have been simply laughed at had it been anyone else in that situation...but it wasn't anyone else. It was Heero. And he already had a pounding headache on top of a pile of other stressful things. Duo's simple-minded question was just a little too innocent for the youth and Heero shut his eyes before proceeding to ram his forehead into the wall several times. This got the American's full attention and he leapt from the bed and pulled the dark-haired pilot away from the abusive piece of plaster.
"What are you doing?" he questioned, sitting Heero down on the corner of the bed. "Look - you already have a bump." Heero stared at the braided boy with belittling cobalt slits. He snorted and shied away from Duo's gentle touch.
"Maybe if I do it enough the damn school board will think you're beating me and I can get transferred away from you," he growled from beneath deep, chocolate bangs. Duo looked more shocked than hurt, but pain was evident in his eyes. Heero waited for a response and got a little antsy when silence echoed back at him.
"Nani?" he grunted towards the pilot. Duo opened his mouth, looked as if he were trying to form an intelligible thought, looked doubtful, and then closed his mouth. Heero snorted.
"I don't think I've ever heard you say that much for as long as I've known you," he said in an astonished voice and moved his palm closer to the youth's lumpy forehead. "Are you feeling all right?" Heero just stared blankly at the boy, too stupefied by the boy's idiocy to speak. Finally, he regained a few of his senses and ripped his face from the tender palm. /Who does he think he is, touching me like that...that's invading my personal space/ Heero thought angrily as he shot a malicious glare towards the oblivious boy and plopped in front of his laptop again.
"Anyway," Duo started up, flopping down on his bed. "So then Mary told me about her fiasco this morning when she accidentally put a green ribbon in her hair, and realized during second period that it wasn't the same shade of green as her nails. She was so humiliated that she ran from the room sobbing and sat in the nurse's office for the rest of her classes..."
TWENTY MINUTES LATER...
"...and he was like 'dude' and I was like 'can I help you' ad he was like 'dude, that's my chick you're talking to' and she was like 'mou Hank, why don'cha like, chill or some junk' and I was like 'yeah' and he was like 'you lookin' for a beatin'' and I was like 'only if you're ready to be beaten' and he got all defensive like and started threatening me and she was like 'Hank - just, chill...k?' and he was like 'whatever ho...my place at ten?' and she thought about it and was like 'k'...do you believe that?!? I mean...man - the crazy world we live in today." Duo looked at the ceiling with glazed eyes while he ran the days events over one more time in his head. His eyes widened when he realized he'd forgotten a useless bit of info.
"Then there was the whole thing with Terry and her -"
Duo blinked wide, bewildered eyes towards his shaking comrade.
"Gomen...nani?" he asked, a gentle blush making its way across his embarrassed cheeks.
"I said," Heero growled deep, down in his throat. "Could you, no - *would* you shut up."
"Well I - I never..." Duo exclaimed, choking back a small sob. His back turned towards the Japanese youth, hiding his grieving eyes from view.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Heero yelled, grasping his hair as if he were going to pull it out at any second. Duo turned.
"Take what?"
Duo gulped and cowered back against the headboard as Heero's eyes started to bug out of their sockets.
"Now, now Heero - you don't want to hurt little `ol me," Duo pleaded, voice shaky as he tried to flatten himself against the wall that ceased his backward movement.
"Oh yes I do," the dark-haired youth growled maniacally, a wicked glint shining off his eyes. "For a year and a half I've had to work with you by my side. Sure it's nice to have a comrade while you're fighting but," Heero trailed off and paused when he closed in on his prey. "When all they do is chat your ear off and distract you from your mission...then, then..." He paused again when his train of thought momentarily failed him.
A slight sparkle of hopeful, dazed knowledge lightly rested in violet eyes.
"I...distract, you?" Duo asked in a small voice, not really expecting an answer.
"Yes! God yes!" Heero shouted mere inches from Duo's scared face. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?! Hm~mmmmm?!" Duo hesitated then shrugged, offering a weak but knowing smile and a giddy chuckle that died on his lips.
"EVERYTHING!" the enraged boy shot out, backing off a little - giving the braided baka room to breathe. "You annoy me, you...you scare me sometimes when you laugh like that *cringe*..."
"Ah, Heero?" Duo interrupted meekly.
"Nani?!"
"Ummmm, well -" he hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck nervously while he eyes rolled to the side - away from his partner's intense gaze. "When we'd have problems with other kids at Maxwell Church...Sister Helen would have us write down everything that bothered us about the kid and stick it in a box. When we were all done, we'd read the pieces of paper and try to fix some of the problems...that way we got along more of the time." Heero looked at him blankly.
"So..."
"So, I was thinking...maybe you could write down everything about me that bothers you and I'll do the same...and we can put them - in...something, and read `em when we're done." Duo waited for the blow to come, but no verbal ammo opened fire on him. He slowly looked up with cautious eyes. Heero sat there in thought and, finally, he seemed to take note to the boy's imploring, stare and offered a 'hn'. Duo's smile came out of hiding and he bounced off the bed to get some paper, a couple pencils and two containers.
A WHILE LATER...
He folded the last piece of paper and dropped it in Duo's black hat at the same time his opposite put his last piece of paper in Heero's pile. The American eyed his receptacle, carefully looking for something as the sun's dying fingertips reached towards his unusually solemn face.
"How many -"
"Twenty-five."
Duo's eyes widened bit by bit as he finished counting. "Yep. That's what I have, too." Heero tried to search the youth's down turned face for any hidden emotion, but the moment was past and forgotten about.
"I guess I'll go first `cause I suggested it," Duo bravely responded to the silent question. He gulped as he dumped out all the bits of paper from his hat and watched a blizzard of white cover a good chunk of his bed. /Mou - I knew I was annoying but...man, if I were Heero, I would've shot myself by now/ he thought, not too merrily as he read through the first few slips. Heero watched as Duo read each and every one of the notes he'd written. He watched as his face kept a cool, calm and collected feel to it, but his eyes betrayed that mask and revealed his true emotions. Finally, the braided youth folded the last note back up and turned wobbling eyes to his comrade, the two encased in the moon's protective glow.
"Your turn," he choked out hoarsely, fighting back the urge to sob. Never in his life had his flaws been pointed out to him A) all at the same time and B) so bluntly. /Wow...I didn't think it would hurt this bad/ he thought and glanced up at Heero.
His fellow pilot was frustrated. He'd already opened about ten out of twenty-five of those stupid, little notes - and each one, so far, had the same message written on it. He roughly grabbed the remainder the papers and tore each one open, throwing it down when the same words appeared on their surfaces. After he'd gone through all of them, he sharply turned his face towards Duo's.
"Is this some kind of joke?" he said harshly. Pure honesty filled Duo's eyes and he shook his head.
"No. It's no joke," he replied quietly. Rage poured into cobalt pools as fists clenched.
"This has to be a joke," Heero hissed. "They all say 'I Love You'."
"Do you really think its such a profound idea that I could love another human being,
like you for instance?" the braided boy shot back. "Or is it that I'm a sniveling, annoying, little baka who can't even self-destruct properly and thus unworthy of the love a 'perfect soldier' could give me?" Heero's glare sharpened.
"Ohhh," Duo sneered, the blackness of night enhancing his every word. "I see I've hit a weak spot, ne? Well excuse me for trampling on your fragile feelings. I guess it hasn't occurred to you that you're not the only one in this room with hurt pride, a painful past and in desperate need of someone to love."
"I don't need anyone to love," Heero hissed, folding his arms and turning slightly, away from Duo's bitter and hurtful, but extremely truthful words.
"Oh, but don't you want somebody to love?" the violet eyed youth asked seriously, but couldn't contain his giggles. The moon peeked around the cloud she was hiding behind as Heero shot the boy an annoyed, yet mildly confused look.
"Oh man, Heero," he huffed between laughs. "You don't listen to Jefferson Airplane do you..."
"Who?"
Duo tilted back and let the laughs roll up from his lower belly and help mend his aching heart.
*BLAM*
Duo picked himself off the floor and glared in the general direction of his comrade. Only now did he realize how late it had gotten since they'd finished the failure of fixing ones faults. /Oh man!/ he thought, glancing over at the clock. It's already 9:15/ He stood and tried to focus his eyes in the dark, but it was no good - the moon had hidden herself once more. He shrugged and started to pick his way to the light switch, leaving the pillow that assaulted him on the floor.
Heero, however, noticed the boy's easy defeat and silently stalked his oblivious prey. A wicked smirk graced his lips and a hunger he'd never felt before fueled the cobalt flames that danced in his eyes.
"Where is that stupid little cunt of a light - ummmphhhffff..." the braided pilot cried as he was tackeled from behind. All breath escaped him as the he when he landed hard on the ground.
Duo tried to wiggle free from his partners clutches, but the uncaring boy's grasp was a little too needy... His breath a little too ragged... His heart, thumping a little too fast...
"Heero?" Duo's voice sounded weak and scared as it echoed around the small cell that served as their dorm room.
"Nani."
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like I'm doing?"
"Uhhhh - well, considering I can't see in the darmmphff..."
Duo's thought was cut off as lips crashed down upon his own and a world of hunger opened to him. Wide, violet eyes slowly closed when realization dawned on them.
Tender hands found their way up his back until they reached their destination - a silky mass of unruly, dark hair.
When they parted for air, Heero could see Duo's eyes glowing like amethysts in the night. He smiled at the boy beneath him - stuck together in this hellhole of a world, surrounded by the extremes. War ruled their lives, but love controlled their fate.
"Ummmm - you know what, Heero?"
"Hmmmm?"
"Ai shiteru..."
"Hn. You talk to much..."
~owari~
Three stories above the freezing ground; heat was no problem. The warmth caressed him as he sat back and took a well-deserved break, letting the welcoming heat capture him in her generous arms.
"Hello~ooo?!? Are you listening to me?"
He rolled his eyes and leaned over his laptop. "Yes, but unfortunately you won't shut up." Duo sat cross-legged on his bed, headphones buzzing meaningless tunes from around his neck - totally jarred from his current line of thought.
"Mou...you asked me how my day went, so I told yo-"
"Correction. I never asked you," Heero interjected, resuming his typing. The braided pilot just sat there, flabbergasted, and stared at the back of his comrade's head as he scanned through the last twenty minutes in his mind.
"Yea~aaaaah you did," he put forth slowly. Heero swiveled in his chair to stare stoically at the braided youth. Duo was too lost in reel after reel of crappily edited versions of his memory to notice the cobalt glare that burned into him. It was the coldness emanating from that infamous glare that made him shiver and finally turn his attention to the agitated boy in front of him.
"Nani?" he asked. Heero huffed and turned back to his work. He could feel a dull pain creeping up the base of his neck as he tuned out Duo's feeble attempts at turning the argument towards his victory and kept typing.
/Maybe if I ignore him...he'll go away/ he thought, an evil smirk barely touching the corners of his lips. After a few irritating moments of absolute silence - in which he could actually hear Duo blink - he closed his eyes and stopped his flying fingers.
"Just. Say. Something," he growled through gritted teeth. Duo scoffed, crossed his arms and shut his eyes in an attempt to look defiant; however, the effort only made him look immature. Heero blinked. The American opened an eye and slowly scanned the room before h rested his violet orbs on the rigid back of his partner who sat, unmoving, in front of his laptop. The Japanese boy growled and shut off his computer. "Fine. I can't work this way." He stood abruptly and almost tipped over the wobbly desk he sat at. Duo turned both eyes onto him as a wave of utter confusion washed over his cherubic face.
"Work like what?"
It was a simple question that would have been simply laughed at had it been anyone else in that situation...but it wasn't anyone else. It was Heero. And he already had a pounding headache on top of a pile of other stressful things. Duo's simple-minded question was just a little too innocent for the youth and Heero shut his eyes before proceeding to ram his forehead into the wall several times. This got the American's full attention and he leapt from the bed and pulled the dark-haired pilot away from the abusive piece of plaster.
"What are you doing?" he questioned, sitting Heero down on the corner of the bed. "Look - you already have a bump." Heero stared at the braided boy with belittling cobalt slits. He snorted and shied away from Duo's gentle touch.
"Maybe if I do it enough the damn school board will think you're beating me and I can get transferred away from you," he growled from beneath deep, chocolate bangs. Duo looked more shocked than hurt, but pain was evident in his eyes. Heero waited for a response and got a little antsy when silence echoed back at him.
"Nani?" he grunted towards the pilot. Duo opened his mouth, looked as if he were trying to form an intelligible thought, looked doubtful, and then closed his mouth. Heero snorted.
"I don't think I've ever heard you say that much for as long as I've known you," he said in an astonished voice and moved his palm closer to the youth's lumpy forehead. "Are you feeling all right?" Heero just stared blankly at the boy, too stupefied by the boy's idiocy to speak. Finally, he regained a few of his senses and ripped his face from the tender palm. /Who does he think he is, touching me like that...that's invading my personal space/ Heero thought angrily as he shot a malicious glare towards the oblivious boy and plopped in front of his laptop again.
"Anyway," Duo started up, flopping down on his bed. "So then Mary told me about her fiasco this morning when she accidentally put a green ribbon in her hair, and realized during second period that it wasn't the same shade of green as her nails. She was so humiliated that she ran from the room sobbing and sat in the nurse's office for the rest of her classes..."
TWENTY MINUTES LATER...
"...and he was like 'dude' and I was like 'can I help you' ad he was like 'dude, that's my chick you're talking to' and she was like 'mou Hank, why don'cha like, chill or some junk' and I was like 'yeah' and he was like 'you lookin' for a beatin'' and I was like 'only if you're ready to be beaten' and he got all defensive like and started threatening me and she was like 'Hank - just, chill...k?' and he was like 'whatever ho...my place at ten?' and she thought about it and was like 'k'...do you believe that?!? I mean...man - the crazy world we live in today." Duo looked at the ceiling with glazed eyes while he ran the days events over one more time in his head. His eyes widened when he realized he'd forgotten a useless bit of info.
"Then there was the whole thing with Terry and her -"
Duo blinked wide, bewildered eyes towards his shaking comrade.
"Gomen...nani?" he asked, a gentle blush making its way across his embarrassed cheeks.
"I said," Heero growled deep, down in his throat. "Could you, no - *would* you shut up."
"Well I - I never..." Duo exclaimed, choking back a small sob. His back turned towards the Japanese youth, hiding his grieving eyes from view.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Heero yelled, grasping his hair as if he were going to pull it out at any second. Duo turned.
"Take what?"
Duo gulped and cowered back against the headboard as Heero's eyes started to bug out of their sockets.
"Now, now Heero - you don't want to hurt little `ol me," Duo pleaded, voice shaky as he tried to flatten himself against the wall that ceased his backward movement.
"Oh yes I do," the dark-haired youth growled maniacally, a wicked glint shining off his eyes. "For a year and a half I've had to work with you by my side. Sure it's nice to have a comrade while you're fighting but," Heero trailed off and paused when he closed in on his prey. "When all they do is chat your ear off and distract you from your mission...then, then..." He paused again when his train of thought momentarily failed him.
A slight sparkle of hopeful, dazed knowledge lightly rested in violet eyes.
"I...distract, you?" Duo asked in a small voice, not really expecting an answer.
"Yes! God yes!" Heero shouted mere inches from Duo's scared face. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?! Hm~mmmmm?!" Duo hesitated then shrugged, offering a weak but knowing smile and a giddy chuckle that died on his lips.
"EVERYTHING!" the enraged boy shot out, backing off a little - giving the braided baka room to breathe. "You annoy me, you...you scare me sometimes when you laugh like that *cringe*..."
"Ah, Heero?" Duo interrupted meekly.
"Nani?!"
"Ummmm, well -" he hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck nervously while he eyes rolled to the side - away from his partner's intense gaze. "When we'd have problems with other kids at Maxwell Church...Sister Helen would have us write down everything that bothered us about the kid and stick it in a box. When we were all done, we'd read the pieces of paper and try to fix some of the problems...that way we got along more of the time." Heero looked at him blankly.
"So..."
"So, I was thinking...maybe you could write down everything about me that bothers you and I'll do the same...and we can put them - in...something, and read `em when we're done." Duo waited for the blow to come, but no verbal ammo opened fire on him. He slowly looked up with cautious eyes. Heero sat there in thought and, finally, he seemed to take note to the boy's imploring, stare and offered a 'hn'. Duo's smile came out of hiding and he bounced off the bed to get some paper, a couple pencils and two containers.
A WHILE LATER...
He folded the last piece of paper and dropped it in Duo's black hat at the same time his opposite put his last piece of paper in Heero's pile. The American eyed his receptacle, carefully looking for something as the sun's dying fingertips reached towards his unusually solemn face.
"How many -"
"Twenty-five."
Duo's eyes widened bit by bit as he finished counting. "Yep. That's what I have, too." Heero tried to search the youth's down turned face for any hidden emotion, but the moment was past and forgotten about.
"I guess I'll go first `cause I suggested it," Duo bravely responded to the silent question. He gulped as he dumped out all the bits of paper from his hat and watched a blizzard of white cover a good chunk of his bed. /Mou - I knew I was annoying but...man, if I were Heero, I would've shot myself by now/ he thought, not too merrily as he read through the first few slips. Heero watched as Duo read each and every one of the notes he'd written. He watched as his face kept a cool, calm and collected feel to it, but his eyes betrayed that mask and revealed his true emotions. Finally, the braided youth folded the last note back up and turned wobbling eyes to his comrade, the two encased in the moon's protective glow.
"Your turn," he choked out hoarsely, fighting back the urge to sob. Never in his life had his flaws been pointed out to him A) all at the same time and B) so bluntly. /Wow...I didn't think it would hurt this bad/ he thought and glanced up at Heero.
His fellow pilot was frustrated. He'd already opened about ten out of twenty-five of those stupid, little notes - and each one, so far, had the same message written on it. He roughly grabbed the remainder the papers and tore each one open, throwing it down when the same words appeared on their surfaces. After he'd gone through all of them, he sharply turned his face towards Duo's.
"Is this some kind of joke?" he said harshly. Pure honesty filled Duo's eyes and he shook his head.
"No. It's no joke," he replied quietly. Rage poured into cobalt pools as fists clenched.
"This has to be a joke," Heero hissed. "They all say 'I Love You'."
"Do you really think its such a profound idea that I could love another human being,
like you for instance?" the braided boy shot back. "Or is it that I'm a sniveling, annoying, little baka who can't even self-destruct properly and thus unworthy of the love a 'perfect soldier' could give me?" Heero's glare sharpened.
"Ohhh," Duo sneered, the blackness of night enhancing his every word. "I see I've hit a weak spot, ne? Well excuse me for trampling on your fragile feelings. I guess it hasn't occurred to you that you're not the only one in this room with hurt pride, a painful past and in desperate need of someone to love."
"I don't need anyone to love," Heero hissed, folding his arms and turning slightly, away from Duo's bitter and hurtful, but extremely truthful words.
"Oh, but don't you want somebody to love?" the violet eyed youth asked seriously, but couldn't contain his giggles. The moon peeked around the cloud she was hiding behind as Heero shot the boy an annoyed, yet mildly confused look.
"Oh man, Heero," he huffed between laughs. "You don't listen to Jefferson Airplane do you..."
"Who?"
Duo tilted back and let the laughs roll up from his lower belly and help mend his aching heart.
*BLAM*
Duo picked himself off the floor and glared in the general direction of his comrade. Only now did he realize how late it had gotten since they'd finished the failure of fixing ones faults. /Oh man!/ he thought, glancing over at the clock. It's already 9:15/ He stood and tried to focus his eyes in the dark, but it was no good - the moon had hidden herself once more. He shrugged and started to pick his way to the light switch, leaving the pillow that assaulted him on the floor.
Heero, however, noticed the boy's easy defeat and silently stalked his oblivious prey. A wicked smirk graced his lips and a hunger he'd never felt before fueled the cobalt flames that danced in his eyes.
"Where is that stupid little cunt of a light - ummmphhhffff..." the braided pilot cried as he was tackeled from behind. All breath escaped him as the he when he landed hard on the ground.
Duo tried to wiggle free from his partners clutches, but the uncaring boy's grasp was a little too needy... His breath a little too ragged... His heart, thumping a little too fast...
"Heero?" Duo's voice sounded weak and scared as it echoed around the small cell that served as their dorm room.
"Nani."
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like I'm doing?"
"Uhhhh - well, considering I can't see in the darmmphff..."
Duo's thought was cut off as lips crashed down upon his own and a world of hunger opened to him. Wide, violet eyes slowly closed when realization dawned on them.
Tender hands found their way up his back until they reached their destination - a silky mass of unruly, dark hair.
When they parted for air, Heero could see Duo's eyes glowing like amethysts in the night. He smiled at the boy beneath him - stuck together in this hellhole of a world, surrounded by the extremes. War ruled their lives, but love controlled their fate.
"Ummmm - you know what, Heero?"
"Hmmmm?"
"Ai shiteru..."
"Hn. You talk to much..."
~owari~