Disclaimer: I own nothin'

Pairings/Warnings: 1x2x1, AU, m/m sexual content of not too explicit variety, sap, bad language, and ANGST – I am putting this in capitals as I can't put the additional warning I need to as I don't want to spoil the entire fic. Basically, if you are of a sensitive nature don't read.

A/N: *appears again and leaves heavy angst fic* Based on the song Saved by Deaf Havana - which I'd highly recommend people listening to...

You Won't Be Saved

The night I took you away you didn't expect me. Didn't expect me to come at closing time, see you mopping up and scrubbing the bar, disinfecting surfaces as you were working overtime. You were always working then and as I walked in, you waved your arm to dismiss me. It was dark, all the lights out so that people figured you were closed so you were grumpy as you spoke.

"We're closed, buddy…" you said.

"I was counting on it," I answered as you turned to see me.

"Heero?"

You didn't know why I came, something past 2.00am, and I had my mother's car and saved wages, a full tank of gas. I explained, told you I was taking you away on a trip and you thought briefly about your job, the weekend crowd and the planned overtime but you just dropped the rag on the bar, kissed me and smiled. That damn smile. I ran my fingers down the side of your face, brushing aside those long bits of hair that framed your face, and you said "fuck it" to work like you did to so many jobs.

That was you. Charming. Gorgeous. Fun. Nothing like I was. You had a string of jobs –barista, record store clerk, waiter and bartender and you went through them quickly. And this was another you didn't give a shit about, locking up behind us and me starting my mother's old piece of shit car, driving out of town like we'd done so many times during our teens.

You didn't care where we went. You never did - following my plans. Your head lolled onto my shoulder as I drove us out of town and to the coast, you sleeping, softly snoring, as I did. At times, I lifted my hand to your leg or your arm or your face, wanting to feel you as you slept, your hair brushing my jaw. I felt you against my skin, watched how the sunrise caught all the colours of your hair, and I would look back towards the road and think, fuck, I didn't know what I did to have you in my life.

When we got to the coast it was dawn, the sun already having risen and the morning mist hung over the sea and we parked up, got out of the car, walked along the beach, cold as it was.

There were a few early morning dog walkers but apart from that it was deserted, cold and too damn early as we walked, stopping to skim stones across the surface as you challenged me to it, that look in your blue eyes. The challenge led to us running up the beach, me tackling you to the sand and you using a hand on my groin to reverse our positions, flipping me over and straddling me. In that moment, I reached up, running my fingers up your sides reverently, feeling the damp material of your hoodie, sand on my fingers. I wanted to reach up to kiss you but the sound of a nearby dog stopped that inclination and instead we walked back along the damn sand, our hands brushing each other as the waves rolled and the sound of distant seagulls were heard through the gloom of a dull day.

We went back to the car in its deserted lot and made out in the back seat like we'd done when we were teenagers. Yet unlike when we were teenagers we stripped each other, you tugging at my shirt until we were naked as we needed to be, fucking on the back seat. I closed my eyes, one hand trying to keep a grip on the door or the seat or something as you rode me, your hands on my chest for leverage, my fingers on your hips, helping you, encouraging you, you leaning over at times to nip and kiss and lick, me grabbing you, holding onto that braid, you breathing out my name as you came.

It was that weekend I remember – always do, when we checked into a cheap chain hotel, the bland furnishings not mattering as we went for walks along the beach, fucked in rough sheets, and in the tiny shower stall, ate shitty pre-packaged processed food naked and you were happy then. Happy with me. That was the last time I made you happy before I left.

You didn't come to the leaving party. I didn't blame you. Didn't want you to stand at the side and seethe and hate me. I deserved it. I'd tried since I made the decision to create distance, the months since I knew I'd be leaving at some point to go train to kill, to then go to the battlefields in the Middle East, and I knew I was making it easier on me as much as I was you. As a part of me didn't want to leave you in dead end minimum wage jobs, didn't want to leave you in the town you hated, the one that you would never get out of so I made you do those things that hurt.

I didn't tell you about the party, didn't want to hurt you, but then I fucked that up as I always did. Made it damn worse as you came later, texting me, telling me to come outside and you were there, drunk leaning against the side of the building, smoking a cigarette in skinny jeans and tight tee. You looked like I always wanted to remember you. But instead of a sweet reunion, you punched me, making me touch my aching jaw.

"You coulda damn told me!"

I knew I should've – knew I should've at the very beginning, but we were drifting, me letting it happen as I knew this would hurt you.

"I have to get out."

It was those words that made you slam your hands into my chest, me grabbing you by your thin wrists, stopping you as you told me all the things I deserved. That I was an asshole, that I should've said something, anything to you. I let you tell me all the things you needed to until your anger subsided, until you ended up limp in my arms, my smoothing my hand down your back, me kissing your neck and your pulse and finally your mouth.

"I don't want you to fuckin' die," you told me after our lips separated, our foreheads leaning together, our breaths mingling.

"I won't," I told you.

"Fuckin' Afghanistan."

I had nothing to say to that, only left my own damn leaving party for you, taking you back to my parent's house one last time, kissing every inch of you underneath me, skimming my lips down the column of your throat, down to your abs, mouthing at all the parts of you I wanted to remember. And smirking as you swore at me, cursed me, telling me to fuck you, and I did, that last night, silently, my hands wrapped around yours, feeling you wrap your arms and legs tight around me, coming inside you, sleeping next to you, you waking me up in the early hours to fuck me too, as though we knew it would be our last time together. And it was. I regret that now. As I went off to the desert, to fight, the things I saw changing me, the men I saw killed as Humvee's exploded and I came back, damaged, only to find you changed too.

I knew I'd seen too much, that I'd seen body parts and men I'd fought and lived beside ending up as bits of a person on the bloody sand and when I came back I wasn't right. So I didn't return to you – didn't for a while as I needed my own time, my time to work out who I was after I'd seen too damn much. But I had to see you, dreamt about you too much, thought about you on lonely nights when I brought myself to completion imagining you – you as I always wanted to, riding me, your fingers stroking my face, your body perfect on top of mine. And maybe I was scared of the reality – of what years did to people as I was not ready to see you like you were.

That first time I came back, I saw you at the old bar that since leaving had become a trendy fucking place rather than the homey dive I remembered you seemed like you belonged in. You were sat there, the empty bottles of beer in front of you, saw you knock back whiskey, cheap shit, as you sat at the bar, eyes glazed and empty. It didn't take much to discover that you probably didn't want to see me, living then in a cheap place with some girl but it didn't take me long to find out that there was some girl or some guy, some temporary job, some bullshit and I knew then, knew that I didn't deserve to come back into your life as I leaving you had so fucked you up.

It didn't stop me thinking about you, flipping through phone images, seeing you as I remembered you – fifteen, sixteen… up until we were twenty-one, you giving me that cocky ass grin, and then one I never remembered taking. You asleep in my mother's car and it took my breath away as I realised it was that fucking weekend and it stopped my heart. It was years then, year since I gave up on having you in my life, and I came back, came back to find you, see what had happened since that last time.

So I started to follow you. I knew you still hated me after all these years – as I abandoned you there, left you in that town when I went off to fight. Maybe I just didn't expect you to have her – to have the little three year old and for her to look like you, brown hair and blue eyes, holding your hand as you walked along the beach. You stopped to skim stones, showing her how to do it as you had once shown me and I smiled, walking far enough away for you not to see me. You turned a few times, your braid whipping with your body as it always did, and our eyes didn't meet, you didn't wave me over, we didn't reconnect.

I wanted your forgiveness, I guess, as I came back as I watched you walk with your daughter, but then I didn't deserve it. If I went to your home what would I see? That you'd moved on – children's toys and pictures of you holding a baby and we'd been friends and we'd fucked each other during for a few years but you had a different life. Different goals and I had no right to fit back in. But I followed you as you walked, talking to the little girl who held your hand, walking from the beach, back to your car and I thought then, then if I followed you more I would have become a stalker. Observing you too much but I remembered you as you were, instincts making me drive my mother's car as I had done all those years ago.

It surprised me when you arrived, you helping her out of the car seat and I wanted to know her name, ask you what you'd called her and I wanted to approach you, talk to you, my hands in fists on the steering wheel.

Instead I followed you as you walked and I was puzzled at our location, at the breeze through trees, at the grass around us and you had stopped at a stone, you kneeling down with your daughter.

I was too close then, curious, far too curious, as you spoke to her, desperate to hear your voice again, the way you spoke as I hadn't heard it in so fucking long.

"What is it, daddy?" she asked.

"This, sweetheart, is where one of my friends is."

I edged closer and saw the stone, fully comprehending the image in front of me.

"Your friend?"

"Yeah… my best friend," you said softly, your fingers touching the stone and I knew, knew then. "He died miles away from here, he got in an accident and he didn't survive."

"Do you think it hurt?"

You smiled, chuckled low, shook your head. "Naw, I think he didn't feel anything." You spoke with good humour but I saw the wistful look in your eyes, the far away glance. "I hope he didn't."

It was with that you got to your feet, holding your daughter, clutching her tight and I saw you look right past me as I knew then.

The Humvee that exploded, the one that I saw men die in… I was in there too. And I knew then too. I saw it behind my eyes, seeing it then that comrade's funeral was mine, and I saw you there, stony faced, your hands in your lap. As I understood, you drank too much, you slept around, you did those things not because I wasn't there – but because I'd died.

And as I walked to the stone, I felt the sickening dread of seeing the dates, seeing that I'd died at damn twenty one, the words "a brave son" etched into the stone. As I looked, I slid my fingers down it, feeling the cold and my head bowed, my body ached as I saw those words and I remembered you telling me that you didn't want me to go. That you didn't want me to die and me promising you that, foolishly, that I wouldn't.

I swallowed, raising my head to see you go, that little girl in your arms and I hoped you'd look back, once, so I could see your blue eyes, your damn face, anything but you continued to walk away leaving me with nothing but the memories of you.