He was watching him.
A rattling sound echoed rhythmically in the dark room, as the deft fingertips of Heero Yuy stroked the computer keys. The spindly youth had his face turned to the unswept floor and his long bangs easily hid the fact that under his half-opened eyelids, his glance was set on the other boy. Heero's white shirt came to life in the darkness, reflecting the green glow of the screen. Its pale glimmer embraced Heero's beautiful face, turning it impeccable, offering him that unworldly beauty of the dim artificial lighting that finds all human faces on lonely nights in buses.
The Japanese pilot had finally found the information he'd been searching for, the data appearing on his screen, and he prepared to record it to diskette. A sudden stabbing pain to his left arm caused him to wince, and his numb fingers loosened their hold, letting the diskette fall to the floor. Trowa got up soundlessly and gathered it, his movements a continuous flow, like the diastole and systole of the mercury inside the glass case of a thermometer. He typed on the keyboard the necessary orders, while the sitting boy still held his own bandaged arm in a protective grip.
"Treat it carefully. Take care of yourself too", he advised and he received a curt nod as answer. He lightly touched his palm to Heero's shoulder and left it there for a while, his fingers slightly opened, soaking up the heat rising from the ropy muscles.
Trowa cared, cared a lot. He respected, valued and protected. He looked forward to the arrival of the night for the few precious moments it brought with it, moments that were used as his anchor, offering him the illusion of a meaning.
Both felt comfortable in the dark, friend and ally of all saboteurs, and silence was an old acquaintance of theirs. Many times, after the night had fallen, they didn't turn on the lights, but they sat close to each other, without touching, without talking. The willowy youth was listening to Heero's heartbeat and his soft rosary of inhaling and exhaling. Some nights he wondered where the Japanese boy's thoughts were centered during those moments, and some nights they made love. Trowa was never sure, afterwards, of which of them had first given the fuel, had extended the hand or had murmured a casual word. An invitation, a signal, that was sinking into the well of silence, leaving behind concentric circles that widened and faded under their wandering lips and their panting breaths.
Trowa had never kissed Heero lower than his firm belly. He liked giving and receiving, though it wasn't customary for them, but not with his mouth. After the first time his wish was refused, the shorter boy didn't ask again. There existed white nights for the pilot of HeavyArms, nights when he would lay on his side and look at Heero, watching for a change in his pattern of sleep, an indication that something was wrong, that the wound on his arm wasn't healing properly or it was doing so causing too much pain. Sometimes his parched fingers would swing inches above Heero's skin, following the awkward curves and the unripe angles of his body, but never touching. He stroked with shadow, and in shadow.
Trowa seemed without a past, he never reflected on it, he never questioned Heero about his experiences, or the people who had brought him up. Once, in a dirty hotel room, the Japanese soldier had broken the chaos of their serenity and mentioned a yellow flower and a dead puppy. Trowa looked at him with undecipherable eyes and then bent close and their lips brushed.
"I don't question pasts", he said quietly and went silent, but his desolate heart divined deeper. 'Because whatever that past consisted of, it's gotten you this far, it's made you who you are and somehow, I'm in love with the present.'
But the black-haired boy kept thinking of redemption. Of the colonies. And of peace.
* * *
In Marseilles, Heero had offered her his gun and she had taken it. She pointed it on him, her hands trembling.
He watched their exchange from where he sat in the truck.
"What he does is always perfect. Something I'll never be", he said aloud to himself and he felt his blood boil.
That night, Trowa took Heero dry. It was wild and brief. Afterwards, he hovered for a moment above him, stare always fixed at the pillow. He rolled on his left side facing the wall, eyes open, his pulse throbbing in his temples, his soul numb. Their heavy breathing was the only sound that broke the silence. Heero's undamaged hand moved and for a while Trowa listened to him as the injured boy tried to release himself.
He turned and kneeled beside him, his harsh fingers encircling Heero's and gently unhooking them away. He still couldn't bear to look at him. The other boy's manhood was burning Trowa's callused palm. After a moment of imperceptible hesitation, he bent forward and lightly licked its side. Heero jolted, but he managed to sit on his elbows and grabbing the chestnut-haired youth by the shoulder, he kept him off.
"Don't!" he said through clenched teeth, his shallow breath shattered, and those were the first words they spoke since he had exited the cemetery.
Trowa could feel Heero's inhuman control over his needy body through the strength of his grip, the other's sinewy fingers digging in his skin. His chest was heavy with shame, and self-loathing was new to him. However, this was a battle he wouldn't lose. In a fluid motion, he straddled the shorter boy.
With the minimum stimulation from the touch of hot flesh on naked flesh, it had been finished. When he moved to get off of the Japanese pilot, Heero wove his arms around his waist and drew him close, their sweated chests touching.
"Why?" he whispered.
Trowa's left ear was above the other soldier's heart. He opened his mouth and inhaled deeply. He found that he couldn't speak, a lump that suddenly appeared in his throat causing him pain.
"Perfection doesn't need anyone."
He wondered, as he listened to the calm voice replying, and then he realized it was his own.
The pilot of Wing Gundam didn't deny his words, neither did he offer false hopes. The honesty of emotions that characterized Heero was one of the most precious things that Trowa loved about him, yet that wasn't any consolation. Trowa slept with his long arms enfolded on his chest and his palms pressed against the wall. He dreamed of the cemetery, himself in the place of Sylvia Noventa, his finger on the trigger of Heero's gun, their eyes locked, the sun from above bathing them in a white light.
'I need you to need me', he said and Heero tilted his head and smiled to him with bright eyes.
'I do. It's my only imperfection', he confessed and as he turned to leave, he beamed at Trowa, offering his hand and waiting.
The pilot of HeavyArms noticed that the gun disappeared, even though he didn't drop it, and his long fingers took Heero's hand, while at the same time his dreaming mind watched the scene from a distance. Only from the clothes and the hair he was able to recognize himself in the smiling youth.
He awoke against the cold wall, surprised to find his cheeks wet. He dried them using the rugged sheet and turned on his right side. Heero was watching him, his face always the same, his lips without a trace of a smile which had never been present. No-one spoke. They kept on looking at each other for some time. It felt surreal, like another dream. At length, Trowa's heavy eyelids closed and he drifted on bad sleep once more.
Heero handed the gun to another ten people after Sylvia Noventa. His thoughts never distracted with the one who escorted him on death's doorstep. He didn't say goodbye not once in all eleven times. He would step out of the truck, without ever turning his face to meet darkened green eyes. He was obsessed with his quest for expiation and atonement, and Trowa's blind heart was thirsty of him, the only pharos in his life, even though his conscious remained always shut down.