Title: Deep Kick
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairing: 1=2
Stuff: language, braid torture, post EW, but series at the same time (O__o), eventual lemon, experimental POV stuff
Disclaimer: When GW and the RHCP belong to me, I'll let you know. Heero's song is Luna, by the Pumpkins.

This one's for Sunhawk, because she's unfathomably wonderful to me. I blame the story on her, too, since she suggested I use my painful family vacation as fiction fodder. I know she probably meant for me to draw inspiration from the actual vacation and not a song I've listened to a thousand times on my iPod, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

I wrote this in 2006, but I feel bad that my current WIP is taking me a bit longer than I'd hoped to churn out. So here's another freebie from the vault for all of you who are too lazy to go to my site, lol.

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I think I stared for about thirty-eight, whole, entire seconds with my mouth hanging unattractively open when he answered the door. I guess I hadn't anticipated it - hadn't expected the bump in the routine. Not that this was really all that routine. I mean, it sort of was - me showing up at his apartment block to pick him up, that is - but that was just for work in the morning. We definitely weren't going to work this time. We probably weren't going to go to work ever again.

I guess the hair really shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did, then.

Somehow, I managed to push my jaws back together, but I think that was only so I could speak properly enough to ask about it. Not that I could really phrase myself decently anyway. "Heero, seriously, what the fuck...?" I stammered; "I mean, when did you...?" I raised a shaky finger to finish the question for me. Standard and I weren't exactly getting along tonight. I squinted at him like I was trying to make sense of his appearance, but it wasn't because I was having trouble seeing in the lousy glow of the electric light fixed beside his front door.

"Oh, this?" he wondered, tugging on a clump of his spiky fringe as if he wasn't aware of the change. It was now dyed a vibrant, golden-blond hue. "This morning," he answered, running a hand through the messy hair on top of his head, which was still the familiar, dark chocolate brown I was used to. He shrugged inconsequentially as if it wasn't that big of a deal. "I was bored."

"Heero, you don't just up and bleach your hair because you're bored," I said, taking a few steps back to lean on the guardrail behind me in an attempt to look casual. In typical Preventer fashion, the paint was chipped and rusty beneath my palms. Fucking government housing. "That's big!" I said with a wild gesture of one arm. "It won't ever look the same again, even if you try to get the old colour back, you know."

"We won't be the same, either," he replied, shrugging uncaringly again. I should have known he wouldn't have given a shit about my opinion if he didn't want to. But that was Heero Yuy for you - always marching to the beat of his own drum.

I clenched the guardrail tighter with one hand and reached behind me with the other to grab the tail of my braid so I could toy with it nervously. I had this bad habit of pulling hair out of the bottom chunk of it when I was thinking and it was so bad, I wondered why the hell I wasn't bald yet. Heero stood silently in his doorway, regarding me with arched eyebrows, which stood out like two bold swoops of dark brown on his forehead. I guess the blond bangs helped kind of accentuate them, which was nice. I always thought Heero's face was so expressive, though right now he seemed kind of amused with me. I imagined a bit of silver glinting against one of those strong eyebrows and found I was rather pleased with how it looked to my mind's eye.

The sound of him clearing his throat shore my thoughts clean. "Are you ready?" he asked. It was then that I noticed he already had a backpack hanging over one shoulder. It was a bit limp, like there was hardly more than the bare essentials inside. I don't know how he could do that. His clothes didn't look too prepared either: just a pair of jeans and a really baggy, red hoodie. One of his sneakers was untied.

As an answer to his question, I kicked the blue duffel bag sitting by my feet with one steel-toed boot, offering him a crooked grin. The duffel was a small one, but it was fatter than Heero's bag. I guess my idea of bare essentials was a little more robust than his. Not that it mattered. I had a feeling I'd be losing half this shit in a few days anyway.

"Are you sure?" he asked, venturing past the threshold of his door and pulling it closed behind him and letting it slam with a hollow, metallic bang. He still had one hand on the doorknob, but his focus was on me. He nodded at something on my person, but it took me a while to figure out what he meant.

"Aw, come on. It's the only good one I got," I bemoaned, tugging at the navy lapel of my Preventers jacket. "For all anyone knows, I picked it up in a thrift shop."

"That's not the point," said Heero shaking his little. The rustle the motion gave his hair drew my attention to those wild bangs of his again. I still couldn't quite get over that. "I thought you were serious when you said 'cut and run'."

I stared at him, his blond hair and his ramshackle attire. He kind of looked like a grown-up version of the fifteen-year-old terrorist I met back then - still had those same glistening eyes that seemed to yearn for something more. Whatever it was that Heero Yuy would long after was anyone's guess, though. Maybe it had something to do with the way his huge clothes still seemed to swallow him whole or how his Preventers uniform used to cling to him so tightly. The realization didn't come sweetly, either.

I startled when I noticed he was standing next to me, leaning with his forearms on the guardrail as he looked out over the darkened colony block with an indescribable light in his eyes. I turned to face the same direction as him, but my attention was more drawn to the peaceful, yet resolute expression riding his features. The soft breeze from the circulation systems rustled his thick hair, his profile illuminated by the street light fixed to the telephone pole nearby.

"You should ask yourself why you're going," he said at length, arching his neck and straining his gaze up towards the colony's gently curving walls overhead. An observation window cut the harsh metal, offering a glimpse of the starry fields beyond.

I bent over the railing and draped myself over it, my braid dangling precariously over the edge. I could feel the weight of the plaited hair stroking my cheek. "Why are you?" I countered smoothly, staring past my spread fingers at the pair of dumpsters positioned by the stairs leading up to Heero's storey.

He remained still, but he glanced at me as if I should already know the answer. I wasn't sure I got it, but I knew if Heero wanted to be frank with me, he'd do it when he was good and ready. I know this escapade had been my brainchild, but it felt like he was the passion driving it. It was enough to push me, too. Made me remember what I'd been thinking in the first place when I'd said I'd wanted something new.

I straightened up a little, assuming a position similar to his. "We weren't meant to stay like this, were we," I commented, my eyes still downcast and watching the way the end of my braid circle lazily about, its weighted end like an anchor for my memories. "We're restless - heavy with a blues we can't shake." I lifted a hand and folded it under my cheek, leaning my face against my palm.

Out of my peripheral, I could sense Heero moving, shifting on his feet and readjusting the position of his arms. It reiterated what I just said - illustrated how impatient he was to get going, to be moving again. He really wasn't so different from me, even though so many people seemed to think we lived on totally opposite planets. Really, I couldn't ask for anyone who'd understand me better. There were some things I didn't even have to bother trying to explain to him because he already knew.

"I just want to find it - that deep kick, like when we were young," I went on, not realizing how stupid I probably sounded to him. "This isn't it - not here." Without thinking, I shucked off my jacket and folded it over arm, peering over the railing at the dumpsters down below and then glancing back at the jacket. I'd been through a lot with this thing, and sometimes it felt like a sort of comfort blanket - and other times, like a ball and chain. For nostalgia's sake, I stared at it a bit longer, and then finally gave it a little toss, watching it plummet down into the refuse, where it landed with hardly a sound. All the while, I thought how the weather simulation that night really wasn't so bad after all.

"Alright," I said, smacking my hands together like I was wiping them clean; "I think I'm ready now." I turned to face him as I spoke but found my speech slowing when I looked at him.

He stood there, still silent, one hand holding the rail and the other extended towards me, his pocket knife lying genially in his upturned palm. He didn't have to say anything; his solemn face already told me what he was silently entreating me to do. Instinctively, I reeled in my braid and started madly tearing at the end of it as I fretted over the mere suggestion. My uncertainty must have been more than evident, because he closed his fingers around the metal handle and retracted it a bit before reaching out again and grabbing one of my hands, forcing it away from my hair. He pressed the instrument into my hand and folded my fingers around it, an unspoken offer to choose for myself. Then, leaving me with the knife in hand, he readjusted his bag on his shoulder and turned like he meant to leave.

"Hey, wait!" I called after him, taking a few steps in his direction. The knife hung in my limp fingers. "I thought you wanted to do this together."

He stopped and faced me again, one hand gripping his backpack strap tightly, an indication of his tenseness right then. "I do," he said softly, his lips hardly moving as he spoke. "It's why I want to do it at all. I want what you want - to go where you go. To share a new beginning with you."

My mouth opened to reply, but no words came out. I was still running my empty hand up and down the lumpy ridges of my braid as if touching it would make the memories woven there more tangible. My hair had been there from the beginning; every inch was a different stage of my life. It wasn't exactly as easy to toss away as a uniform.

Heero shrugged, raking his fingers through his bangs like he was trying to pull them longer. "It's just hair, Duo - not your heart," he said, tucking a blond shock of his own behind one of his ears. The bleach made a stark contrast against his natural hair colour.

My loose fingers tightened around the handle of Heero's pocketknife, creeping into a position to flick the blade out of its hiding place. The light by Heero's front door glinted eerily against the tempered steel as I offered the knife back to Heero with a wordless offer of my own. That understanding I'd been talking about before sizzled through my entire being as he reached to take the knife from me, his fingertips brushing mine as he pried it free. I had an urge to squint my eyes closed as I presented my braid to him, but I found the dark far less comforting than the unmatchable blue of his concentrated stare. He flicked his gaze away only as he lifted the knife up, holding the blunt end against my cheek as he began to shear the hair stretched between my two hands apart. I liked the feel of his steady breath on my chin. I wallowed in its calming warmth.

He made fast work of it, and to be honest, it didn't even feel as traumatic or unnaturally agonizing as I'd expected it to when twenty years of uncut hair suddenly fell limp in my one hand. "It looks good," he said moments later as he folded the knife and squirreled it back into whatever pocket he kept it in.

I stared down at the braid that now lay detached in one fist, trying to decide if I felt the same. Still standing by the rail, I chanced a look down at the dumpsters again, immediately picking up the vibrant blue and tan of my Preventers jacket amongst the trash bags, and then glanced back at the long rope of hair. He was right, though - as usual. It was just hair; wasn't like I stopped being the person I always was just because it wasn't attached to the back of my head anymore. We had decided to start over - to grow up again... and this time, to do it right. My eyes darted back to the dumpsters again, and, with those things in mind, I abandoned my braid - my pride and joy, my tears and pain - to rot along with the jacket. It hit the side of the metal container with a loud thump that made me wince, but only in the most satisfying way.

"It feels good," I finally said, giving my head an experimental shake. I felt unbridled. Now much lighter, my hair settled raggedly around my face in a shaggy mess that barely dusted my shoulders. Bound by nothing, I could live my life simply as it was.

I could live.

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TBC