Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, and I made the statistics up.
Author's Note: I was making dinner while taking a break from exams when this plot bunny stuck me out of the blue, and I had to write it. Most annoying. But that's over a month gone now, and I passed my papers, which is good.
This is an unbeta'd fic. Thanks, as always to maudlinrose, best friend for helpful comments, and well, everything. And to Thurisaz, just because.
Reviews are always nice.
Myst
We need to talk
Myst
"Heero, we need to talk," my lover says in a very serious tone.
It seems that every major change in a relationship is prefaced by those words or a variety thereof. And so, it was with some trepidation that I heard my lover say those words. I watch people from habit, but also out of a genuine enjoyment of seeing them interact with each other. I may not enjoy those interactions myself, but seeing other people do so is also pleasurable. And in the career I have made of watching other people, nearly every break-up I have seen between a couple have started with those words, on the part of one or the other.
"I thought we were doing all right, Duo," I said to him, turning to stare out the window, one of the few luxuries that we allowed ourselves in this day and age, one of peace, admittedly, with no mecha, but also one that hates people like Duo and myself, soldiers, because we stood for that which they wished to move away from. The window was made of what is called bulletproof glass, but bullets are highly ineffective if you wish to kill a pair of ex-Gundam pilots. They would use a bomb or something like that, if they attacked. I watched his reflection, faint as it was in the glass, until it occurred to me that if I could see his reflection, surely he could see mine.
"Huh?" He looked startled, and I turned. Surely, then, if he was surprised at my comment, he wasn't leaving. "Whatcha mean?"
I gestured awkwardly at us, at our surroundings. "I thought. are you unhappy?"
"Heero, what are you on?"
I raised my eyebrows, but answered anyway. "A carpet made of 100% New Zealand wool, which rests upon concrete, with a layer of underlay between them, on the third floor of this apartment building."
He laughed, and I smiled just because he was. Duo's joy can be infectious - at least, I have always found it so, although I tended not to show it during the wars.
"Oh, come on, Heero, you're not fooling me with that."
"Hn." Sometimes the old responses are the best, concealing what should not be shown so openly. Although, for some reason, Duo never seems to have any trouble interpreting me when I do that.
He grabbed my wrist, and pulled me down on the couch beside him. Our apartment is furnished in a mix-match of styles, representing the combined influences on our lives to this point in time. Duo wrapped his arms around my neck, and I linked mine around his waist, making sure that the hold was mutual and fair. He's taller than me, slightly, although neither of us are precisely tall men, Duo because of his childhood, and me because of genetics. However, sitting, the difference becomes less than negligible.
"I love you," he said calmly. "I just wanted you to know that."
My fingers found the end of his braid, and I started playing with it. He keeps it still, for remembrance of the dead, though I've tried to add happy memories to its length. Duo knows this, and allows it. Besides, it is a comfort to have something of his to hold that is not immediately noticeable, and is usual enough not to be commented on. I have noticed, these past years, a fashion for long hair on men, obviously formed by both Duo's and Milliardo Peacecraft's predilection for it.
"Yes," I said. "And I you."
"So, if you know that, Heero, why did you panic when I said we needed to talk?"
The words still sent a chill shiver up my spine, but one of the agreements that we have is to discuss our problems and troubling thoughts when they come up. We have both seen relationships destroyed through the lack of communication, and despite it being incredibly hard to reveal ourselves totally to each other, we have tried, needing both the talking and each other to cope with the life we have chosen for ourselves.
"You've watched people with me," I said quietly, refusing to bury my face in his neck. We make eye contact with each other when we talk like this, and hold each other, as though the comfort cancels out the vulnerability. "Whenever couples break up, they start the conversation with those words."
Duo's eyes widened, an impossible shade of blue violet. I have tried to work out what artists would call the colour, and failed. And I am hardly about to drag him around to various painters to find out. "Oh, Heero," he sighed. I looked at him curiously. "By the time those couples come to that point, they've generally been feeling tension, and not getting on as well as usual for quite a while then. Haven't you noticed that?"
I nodded. That was my observation also. It is perhaps one reason why 83% of domestic crimes are committed by people who have been involved with each other.
"And have you noticed any more tension between us that might lead to a break-up?"
I shook my head. "So, why think that?"
I shrugged. Duo is bright and quicksilver, and so loving that I live in a state of perpetual wonder over why he loved me. I know he does - he makes sure to tell me so frequently - but why he does remains a mystery. I didn't want to say that I still feared him leaving, that that was the reason I clung to him at night, and kissed him with a desperate intensity every time one of us had to leave temporarily on business.
But he waited for me to speak, and I knew that I would have to tell him something. And it would be the truth, for I couldn't lie to him. There would be no lies, no betrayals or secrets between us. That doesn't mean that we tell each other everything, for our time together is too precious to clutter it up with minutiae, but that we tell each other what is important. We had learned - are still learning - what is important to each other, but truth is one that is important to us both. And so I explained, watching his face for his reactions, knowing that he wouldn't turn away from me, from the insecurities of his lover, but fearing it all the same.
It is something that we both fear - the other leaving in one way or another, and so as he reassures me when I fear this, I reassure him when he thinks I will leave. I am not the only one who clings at night, and nor am I the only participant in the desperate kisses which preface any trips away from each other and starts our reunion. To be the only one would make a mockery of us.
Duo hugged me closely, and then kissed me, pressing me backwards against the couch. It was warm from the sunlight that was streaming in, and I closed my eyes against the glare, kissing him back. He seated himself on my lap, blocking the sun in my eyes, and I waited for what he would say.
"I love you," Duo said firmly, "And I will not leave you. I will keep telling you that, and staying here until you believe me."
It is a pledge that we make to each other when something like this happens, one that we do our best to live up to.
"You're mine, Heero Yuy."
That I believe with all that I am. For as surely as I am his; he is mine, and we belong together. Our fears of being left are foolish, and yet we cannot shake them.
"Show me," I whisper, and lean backwards, so I am flat on the couch, instead of at an awkward angle against the back.
Our lovemaking is slow and sweet, as it often is after one of these conversations. And when we both lie replete on the couch, I do not let go of Duo.
He does not let go of me, either.
A long time later, when the sun is setting, showing brilliant reds and golds and orange-violets through our large window, I wake. Duo is still lying on me. Sometime while I slept, he pulled the blanket that we permanently keep on the back of the couch for occasions like this over us, but other than that he cannot have moved. He is not asleep; his breathing always sounds different when he sleeps, and his fingers are starting to trace lazy patterns over my shoulders.
"Duo," I murmur sleepily, "What did you want to talk about?"
He places a kiss on the middle of my chest. "I just wanted to spend time with you. Talk to you. Find out what's going on in your life. We've been so busy lately that we've hardly been together save at night. Not that that's not good too," he adds hastily, and I give a snort of laughter.
My body relaxes as tension that I did not know that I had sinks out of me. "Next time," I say acerbically, "Just say that, instead of trying to give me a heart attack."
He just laughs, moist breath gusting over my chest. And I know that he will do it again, challenging my insecurities and in the end it will not matter, because he will be there and one day I will be convinced.
The end.
Author's Note: I was making dinner while taking a break from exams when this plot bunny stuck me out of the blue, and I had to write it. Most annoying. But that's over a month gone now, and I passed my papers, which is good.
This is an unbeta'd fic. Thanks, as always to maudlinrose, best friend for helpful comments, and well, everything. And to Thurisaz, just because.
Reviews are always nice.
Myst
We need to talk
Myst
"Heero, we need to talk," my lover says in a very serious tone.
It seems that every major change in a relationship is prefaced by those words or a variety thereof. And so, it was with some trepidation that I heard my lover say those words. I watch people from habit, but also out of a genuine enjoyment of seeing them interact with each other. I may not enjoy those interactions myself, but seeing other people do so is also pleasurable. And in the career I have made of watching other people, nearly every break-up I have seen between a couple have started with those words, on the part of one or the other.
"I thought we were doing all right, Duo," I said to him, turning to stare out the window, one of the few luxuries that we allowed ourselves in this day and age, one of peace, admittedly, with no mecha, but also one that hates people like Duo and myself, soldiers, because we stood for that which they wished to move away from. The window was made of what is called bulletproof glass, but bullets are highly ineffective if you wish to kill a pair of ex-Gundam pilots. They would use a bomb or something like that, if they attacked. I watched his reflection, faint as it was in the glass, until it occurred to me that if I could see his reflection, surely he could see mine.
"Huh?" He looked startled, and I turned. Surely, then, if he was surprised at my comment, he wasn't leaving. "Whatcha mean?"
I gestured awkwardly at us, at our surroundings. "I thought. are you unhappy?"
"Heero, what are you on?"
I raised my eyebrows, but answered anyway. "A carpet made of 100% New Zealand wool, which rests upon concrete, with a layer of underlay between them, on the third floor of this apartment building."
He laughed, and I smiled just because he was. Duo's joy can be infectious - at least, I have always found it so, although I tended not to show it during the wars.
"Oh, come on, Heero, you're not fooling me with that."
"Hn." Sometimes the old responses are the best, concealing what should not be shown so openly. Although, for some reason, Duo never seems to have any trouble interpreting me when I do that.
He grabbed my wrist, and pulled me down on the couch beside him. Our apartment is furnished in a mix-match of styles, representing the combined influences on our lives to this point in time. Duo wrapped his arms around my neck, and I linked mine around his waist, making sure that the hold was mutual and fair. He's taller than me, slightly, although neither of us are precisely tall men, Duo because of his childhood, and me because of genetics. However, sitting, the difference becomes less than negligible.
"I love you," he said calmly. "I just wanted you to know that."
My fingers found the end of his braid, and I started playing with it. He keeps it still, for remembrance of the dead, though I've tried to add happy memories to its length. Duo knows this, and allows it. Besides, it is a comfort to have something of his to hold that is not immediately noticeable, and is usual enough not to be commented on. I have noticed, these past years, a fashion for long hair on men, obviously formed by both Duo's and Milliardo Peacecraft's predilection for it.
"Yes," I said. "And I you."
"So, if you know that, Heero, why did you panic when I said we needed to talk?"
The words still sent a chill shiver up my spine, but one of the agreements that we have is to discuss our problems and troubling thoughts when they come up. We have both seen relationships destroyed through the lack of communication, and despite it being incredibly hard to reveal ourselves totally to each other, we have tried, needing both the talking and each other to cope with the life we have chosen for ourselves.
"You've watched people with me," I said quietly, refusing to bury my face in his neck. We make eye contact with each other when we talk like this, and hold each other, as though the comfort cancels out the vulnerability. "Whenever couples break up, they start the conversation with those words."
Duo's eyes widened, an impossible shade of blue violet. I have tried to work out what artists would call the colour, and failed. And I am hardly about to drag him around to various painters to find out. "Oh, Heero," he sighed. I looked at him curiously. "By the time those couples come to that point, they've generally been feeling tension, and not getting on as well as usual for quite a while then. Haven't you noticed that?"
I nodded. That was my observation also. It is perhaps one reason why 83% of domestic crimes are committed by people who have been involved with each other.
"And have you noticed any more tension between us that might lead to a break-up?"
I shook my head. "So, why think that?"
I shrugged. Duo is bright and quicksilver, and so loving that I live in a state of perpetual wonder over why he loved me. I know he does - he makes sure to tell me so frequently - but why he does remains a mystery. I didn't want to say that I still feared him leaving, that that was the reason I clung to him at night, and kissed him with a desperate intensity every time one of us had to leave temporarily on business.
But he waited for me to speak, and I knew that I would have to tell him something. And it would be the truth, for I couldn't lie to him. There would be no lies, no betrayals or secrets between us. That doesn't mean that we tell each other everything, for our time together is too precious to clutter it up with minutiae, but that we tell each other what is important. We had learned - are still learning - what is important to each other, but truth is one that is important to us both. And so I explained, watching his face for his reactions, knowing that he wouldn't turn away from me, from the insecurities of his lover, but fearing it all the same.
It is something that we both fear - the other leaving in one way or another, and so as he reassures me when I fear this, I reassure him when he thinks I will leave. I am not the only one who clings at night, and nor am I the only participant in the desperate kisses which preface any trips away from each other and starts our reunion. To be the only one would make a mockery of us.
Duo hugged me closely, and then kissed me, pressing me backwards against the couch. It was warm from the sunlight that was streaming in, and I closed my eyes against the glare, kissing him back. He seated himself on my lap, blocking the sun in my eyes, and I waited for what he would say.
"I love you," Duo said firmly, "And I will not leave you. I will keep telling you that, and staying here until you believe me."
It is a pledge that we make to each other when something like this happens, one that we do our best to live up to.
"You're mine, Heero Yuy."
That I believe with all that I am. For as surely as I am his; he is mine, and we belong together. Our fears of being left are foolish, and yet we cannot shake them.
"Show me," I whisper, and lean backwards, so I am flat on the couch, instead of at an awkward angle against the back.
Our lovemaking is slow and sweet, as it often is after one of these conversations. And when we both lie replete on the couch, I do not let go of Duo.
He does not let go of me, either.
A long time later, when the sun is setting, showing brilliant reds and golds and orange-violets through our large window, I wake. Duo is still lying on me. Sometime while I slept, he pulled the blanket that we permanently keep on the back of the couch for occasions like this over us, but other than that he cannot have moved. He is not asleep; his breathing always sounds different when he sleeps, and his fingers are starting to trace lazy patterns over my shoulders.
"Duo," I murmur sleepily, "What did you want to talk about?"
He places a kiss on the middle of my chest. "I just wanted to spend time with you. Talk to you. Find out what's going on in your life. We've been so busy lately that we've hardly been together save at night. Not that that's not good too," he adds hastily, and I give a snort of laughter.
My body relaxes as tension that I did not know that I had sinks out of me. "Next time," I say acerbically, "Just say that, instead of trying to give me a heart attack."
He just laughs, moist breath gusting over my chest. And I know that he will do it again, challenging my insecurities and in the end it will not matter, because he will be there and one day I will be convinced.
The end.