Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
by Ashura no Miko

Part Two: Ice Cream [Your love is better than ice cream]
It was snowing. The ground in front of the safe-house was covered by a white blanket of ice, the distant sky hazed with grey clouds, heavy with moisture. Rolling into those clouds was a thick plume of smoke, rising from the recently scorched earth, where a few moments ago, a bomb shuddered the ground and the city near by. The silent screams of the dead OZ soldier hung limply in the air, unheard by the voiced screams of the living.

The small safe-house was hidden within the trees, looking down upon the small town, nestled in a valley of the Netherlands. Inside the shack, it was slightly warmer, but not by much. The house was old and rickety, and the precious heat seeped out through the old, cracked walls. The occupant's breath moved hot from his lips, only to freeze in the air, becoming large plumes of white mist coming from his lax mouth, waiting by the window, watching. He didn't notice the cold. He was waiting for something even better than warmth.


[Better than anything else that I've tried]
Heero's loose tank top clung to his skin, warm at first, then chilling as the wind blew against the blood slicked side. He glanced up at the house in front of him, only a few more yards away. The snow bit his skin, the wind driving it on. Even for the perfect soldier, walking back from the blown OZ base had been difficult in this weather. He pressed his hand to his side again in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but again it did nothing. He didn't mind though. He didn't mind the cold, or the blood, or his weariness. There was a promise waiting for him. His face never changed expressions.

He saw the light of the house behind closed eyelids, standing in front of the door. In the door way was the house's inhabitant. Heero waited in the wane light, his ankles deep in the snow, waiting to be let in. Had they been anyone else, his lover would have worried over him, frantically trying to stop the bleeding, fearing for him. But they were just Duo and Heero, Duo and Heero; so Duo just moved out of the way and let him in. Heero walked inside silently. Others would have called it cold, would have questioned their relationship. But anyone who knew them would know differently. Heero would never enter his house without invitation. He did that for no other. And Duo let him in with a gentle smile, saved only for him. And perhaps that silent understanding was better than anything else.

[Your love is better than ice cream]

Duo's gentle fingers cleaned and bandaged the wounds, the braided pilot silent for once. His cobalt eyes were patient, not angry at his partner for letting himself get hurt. Duo was used to it. Duo understood the war more than any other Heero had tried to associate with. To the Japanese boy, Duo was both pleasurable and convenient as a lover. He knew what the girl, Relena, felt for him, and she did stir feelings inside of him, but he knew that she would never be able to understand him. She would always try to stop him from fighting, tell him to be careful, tell him it was too dangerous. He hadn't expected to become this close to the strange American, after all, they had only met a little while ago. A matter of months really. A few months that turned those half-hearted attempts at killing him into a diminishing number, and evenings spent cleaning wounds into evenings spent in a tangle of long limbs and braid. Maybe extracting comfort, maybe extracting an unspoken promise.

Heero pulled Duo into the bed with him, and American followed without resistance. Heero's side hurt too much to do anything, so he just spent the night with Duo's warmth against him. When the sun finally rounded on the horizon, Heero slipped silently from Duo's arms. He felt an odd pull, and turned to glance at the sleeping American. Duo was blissfully unaware, and Heero glared at him, as though this strange feeling were his fault. Heero shook his head and gathered his supplies together. He needed to stop these meetings. He left the house silently, leaving no note.




[Everyone knows how to fight]

Heero waited patiently for the signal from Quatre. The blonde crouched on the other side of the arena peered over the railing, his blue eyes searching for the target. He finally located the general, sitting in the third row, watching the speaker on stage. Quatre sighed silently and pulled out a small light, flashing it a few times. On the other side of the auditorium, Heero's blue eyes reflected the light. He had also located the target. Quatre flashed the tiny light three times. Heero flashed his in response one long time. A positive response. Quatre had located their target. Heero slipped away again as the guards found him once again. He had been leading them on a merry chase to make sure they didn't find Quatre while he completed their mission. Quatre aimed carefully and made a single shot. There was no sounds, as the silencer quieted the gun's retort, but the general's wife let out a sharp scream as her husband slumped over, a bullet hole in the back of his head.

Heero heard the guards behind him stop at the scream, but Heero kept moving away, managing to blend into the crown of running, panicking officers and their wives, dressed up to come see the famous speaker here tonight. In the third row, a man was slumped over, his wife shaking him desperately, blood staining her clothing. Over a hundred yards away, high in the ceiling of the huge auditorium, a young Arabian boy disassembled his gun and climbed down to rejoin his fellow pilot. The blonde boy smiled, then sadly whispered an apology to the man he'd killed. Despite his innocent and polite demeanor, he was a Gundam pilot. Despite the genuine sadness in his eyes, there was no regret. Heero waited for the other pilot to say his apologies, then the two of them left the building. The guards never found them. In the end the reports announced that it had been a major terrorist attack, planned and plotted out months before hand. No one guessed it had been two fifteen year old boys, alone, who had only received the mission plans the night before.



Blood splattered against white skin as a pale shadow lowered his gun. Duo lifted his bony hand to wipe the blood on his face away, instead smearing it across his cheek. Bright violet eyes gazed wearily at the limp body before him. He watched detachedly as the blood slowly drifted from fiber to fiber, each droplet sinking into the cheap cotton the of OZ uniform of the man he had just killed.

A slim Chinese man dropped down onto the level, checking for guards, then nodding towards Duo. Duo returned Wufei's nod, confirming that he had disposed of the guards. The American knelt with uncharacteristic grace, his long fingers pulling the stiff eyelids down over the still stunned dark brown eyes. The boy was almost as young as he. An untrained Earth boy, who had never experienced the war first hand before. Duo's cold hand brushed over the boy's cheek softly. Wufei watched silently. The braided pilot looked up at the Chinese boy standing over him. Despite Duo's tender ministrations a moment ago, there was no regret or remorse in his eyes. He punched a fresh clip into his gun and grinned his usual grin at the Chinese pilot. Wufei snorted and rolled his eyes at the American.


[And it's a long way down]


Heero watched the silent beauty of the Earth, but it was lost on his cold eyes.With the coming of the Gundam's, the war had raged it's way to Earth, and there was no stopping it now. New groups of revolutionaries were appearing everywhere, each one screaming for their own justice, their own solution. People died through the night, the echo of bombs split the once peaceful air of the Earth. Only a month of two ago, in a ratty old hotel, a hide away after a mission, Heero breathed in the warm scent of his partner, curled into a fetal position on the bed. Duo held the other boy close, cradling him. Duo's too thin fingers sweeped through the dark tousled hair, tracing the line of his jaw. Curled safely in Duo's arms, Heero's body trembled slightly at the blast of each bomb. Duo took him away for the first time, forcing him to forget the bombs as their lips press together. Heero's love making was violent in its tension. Or perhaps it was just sex.


[It's a long way down]



Missions flew by with the days, and ever since that night, Duo allowed Heero to his bed. One night, Duo lay on his side, cold in the darkness. The sheets were draped over his hips, blood drying on his thighs. He didn't seem to notice the cold air. The room was shrouded in silence. Behind him, Heero stared blankly at his partner's back. The perfect soldier's cold blue eyes were confused, like splintered glass melting into pools of tears. But the tears never reached his eyes. Instead he traced his fingers down Duo's back. But Duo didn't move.

Heero waited through the night and the dawn. He watched his partner raise from the bed, dressing for the next day, the next mission. Heero watched the normally smiling boy stoically clean himself of the blood, of the violence done to him. Heero's glassy eyes rested on the bruises on his lover's body. Bruises left by him, left by his desperate fingers. Instead of angry words, or silent sad eyes, Duo turned to smile at him. It wasn't fake, nor was it disguised anger. The small boy offered Heero a pale hand. Heero took it slowly, feeling Duo's constantly cold fingers wrap into his warm palm.


[It's a long way down to the place where we started from]



Another night, another mission. This time Heero told himself it was love making. This time something was different. This time Duo clung to him, as though letting out his own distress. Heero found that he was never in control, that Duo was always controlling him before; guiding him through the release of his tension. Duo made him become like this. Duo controlled him, but Heero couldn't control his own emotions - his need to find the American again and again. But every time he did, he did nothing but abuse the American, leaving him with welts and scars on his body. Yet every time he came, Duo opened the door to him and let him in. And when ever Heero tried to control Duo, the American would become angry at him. He couldn't comprehend how Duo thought. The perfect soldier could not think of individuals, he could only think of people, of a cause. Duo had forced him to see him as an individual, as a person. That's why he hated him. That's why he loved him. That's why...

[Your love is better than chocolate]

Duo brushed the backs of his frozen fingers over Heero's warm cheek. The Japanese pilot looked at his lover, caught in the twist of the rumpled sheets. No matter how far he reached, he was always pulling up short. Always so distant. He wondered how Duo closed that distance, how Duo accepted hit after hit and kept smiling. How his lover allowed him to his bed, despite the pain he knew he'd receive, and smile gently at him afterwards.

He reached out, trying again, and Duo happily obliged, scooting into his arms in silence. Heero held tightly to him, waiting for the cold morning to come, his chest warm against Duo's.

[Better than everything else that I've tried]

Fires glow, and from them new fighters rise. Like a phoenix from the ashes, soldiers regroup and find new leaders, each more ignorant than the last. Men who's ideal peace is absolute and total control. From between their tightly fisted fingers, young boys with invincible Mobile Suits emerge, growing like weeds. Each sees the war with more clarity than men twice their age. They are devoted to the war, to nothing else. But time passes and humans return to their emotions. Those who can't fear death hate life. If they couldn't see their true enemy, how could they fight? It was so easy to fight a black and white war before. But when moral decisions are called in, how can a corpse decide it's course of action? Confusion and tension builds, and human's must be humans. We reach for one another. Dark nights find corpses curled together. Days find them awakening to real light, and the light that humans must be with one another. Can a human who has never been human before love another human?

Heero searched for Duo between every mission, finding his need for the other boy growing. He couldn't bring it down to just sex anymore. Cornering his emotions was difficult, holding them down was even more difficult. But he had always believed that there was nothing wrong for a human to follow his emotions, but the following was the easy part, understanding was more of a challenge. And maybe it was that comprehension that brought him to a firmer understanding of himself and his lover. His Duo.

[Your love is better than chocolate]

Heero's glassy eyes were calm and focused. He had found Duo again, this time in a colony in the L-4 sector. No mission yet, no mission save the dozing boy in his arms. The day had confused him at first, but in the end it had brought him more understanding of the situation. He could still see the hesitant boy in his mind...

"Heero?"

He turned around in his seat, and his eyes widened. He wasn't used to being surprised, and wasn't ready for the queasy feeling in his stomach. But that feeling wasn't surprise, he knew. It was the pain that Duo always caused him when he did things like this. The pain of seeing someone trust him.

Before him, Duo stood in his normal priest-like attire, but the only difference was that his customary braid was down, his hair flowing loosely around his shoulders. It seemed like a normal enough gesture, but Heero knew better. Nothing was more prized...more private to Duo than his hair. Despite their relationship, Heero had never touched that braid, nor seen it undone. Duo made it quite clear he didn't want it touched. And now, again, Duo was opening to him. Confusing him even more.

"Braid it for me?" Duo's brash attitude was gone, as it always was when they were alone, and Heero again found that the more ground Duo gave, the more control he had over the perfect soldier. Again Duo was able to jerk his fragile emotions around with a few words. Trust and fear emanated from Heero's hands, and Duo's stiff shoulders, memories blending with pain in a sharp feeling that stabbed at Heero's chest. It was the pain. The pain that brought the realization.

Nothing hurt any more. No physical wounds pained him, nor the actions of others. His emotions were blocked away, tucked away, or crushed. He was the perfect soldier, and nothing hurt him anymore. Except Duo. Duo could make him hurt. Could make him human.

He cradled the boy closer, and Duo willingly curled in his arms, smiling slightly in his sleep. Duo understood him. Duo accepted it when he had hurt him, despite the horrid nature of Heero's actions. Duo didn't say they were right, but he simply understood that Heero could no longer control his own emotions, his own actions. And Heero realized that neither could Duo. Duo searched for the pain that could tell him he was still alive. At first their coupling had been no more than searching for pain, searching for the hurt that could make corpses live again. And now that they were alive...? Now what...?

[Everyone here knows how to cry]

It was nice to know that someone would mourn when he died. He knew Duo wouldn't make him give up the war. Any other lover would demand attention, demand he give up his fight, so that he wouldn't die. But Duo just smiled and nodded. Duo felt the same way. They would die, one or the other or both. But Duo didn't hold him down with strings. Duo didn't make him feel guilty about fighting, about the possibility he might die.

He'd never betray his lover. He had committed himself to him. But before that he was committed to his war. To the fight that someone else had given to him. A committed noncommitment. He wanted his violence to Duo to die out, to be able to reach out to the other boy without injuring him. The tangled emotions in his bones had begun to unknot themselves with the help of Duo's skilled hands. But even now he found he couldn't stay with him too long. He couldn't help it. He was afraid. He glanced against at the dozing boy, settled comfortably in his arms. He owed him. And Heero Yuy paid back every obligation. He roused Duo quietly.

Their war raged on, outside the small colony they were staying at, but no missions came that morning, or that afternoon. And two young boys with the eyes of corpses made love in the true sense of the words. And behind glassy eyes they were breaking with pain, maybe alive for a moment.

[Your love is better than ice cream]

Inside the colony, artificial lighting hung over their heads, two seemingly normal boys walking the streets. The braided boy swayed down the street, and the dead pan boy next to him walked with patience. So much patience that it would surprise those who knew him. Duo smiled at him. But Duo knew him more.

The American twirled through the fake grass of the small park, glancing at Heero every now and again. The Japanese pilot flexed his fingers silently. No mission, no bombs. The war continued around them, but all his cold blue eyes could see was a dancing boy with an unhealthily thin figure and a long braid, standing before him as an artificial wind blew by. Relaxing had never been part of his training, but Duo had changed so much already, why not change more? Heero didn't mind. This was better than anything else he could think of.

[Better than anything else that I've tried]

Heero's arm was firmly settled around Duo's waist as the braided boy ate his ice cream cone, but Duo didn't seem to mind the possessive gesture. Heero didn't know why he did that now. All he knew was that having his lover held stiffly close made him feel more at ease. He closed his eyes and sighed.

For a moment the peace of the regulated day sank into him. The air was slightly stale, despite the motors moving it around. Now that Heero had lived on Earth, the fake wind, light, and stars of the colonies seemed strange to him. But it didn't matter. Soon a new mission would come in. The thought made him clutch Duo even tighter. Duo's response was not what he expected.

"D-Duo?!" Heero clapped a hand to his nose, and faintly registered the other boy's laughter. Duo had shoved an ice cream in his face, literally. The soft, cold ice slid its way down Heero's cheek, and some dripped off the end of his nose. The soldier glared at the laughing boy. Duo, as always, ignored him. After a few seconds, his laughter stopped. Heero glared coldly at him, and thought most would cower under such a stare, Duo just smiled back. Then, suddenly, Duo's face shifted out of focus as it came too close to see properly. Heero automatically closed his eyes as he felt warm lips kiss away the half melted chocolate ice cream, and clean the sticky spots from his skin. Even when he was done, he didn't remove his lips from his face. Heero didn't make a sound. The minutes bled away, Heero's reality focused on the warm breath moving from Duo's mouth over his cheek and neck. The breath puffed out more as Duo chuckled quietly.

"...you taste better." The brash boy kissed him.

[Your love is better than ice cream]

Heero blinked slowly, waking up hours later. He hadn't been conscious that he'd dozed off. He wasn't used to that. When he slept, he decided how long and when, and yet...he sighed and relaxed, registering his partners presence. Duo made him do things like that, things without thinking. His vision cleared more and he realized it was 'night'. Over head, the colony had turned on the fake stars on the ceiling. Unfortunately though, the light only made the ceiling more obvious. The main lights were out, making the circular city dark. Heero's head was nestled on Duo's shoulder, and the usually loud American was silent and still. Heero lifted his head, and Duo shifted slightly. Heero then noticed the arm wrapped around him loosely. He looked up at Duo.

"Why are we still here? New mission orders could be coming in. We need to return to the apartment. Duo...?" Why wasn't the pilot responding. Heero blinked, a slight morsel of worry wedging itself in his ribs. Then Duo looked at him and smiled slightly.

"I know Heero...sorry...but...would it be okay if we just stayed here for awhile?" Heero watched his partner. He knew they had new orders, they were going to be coming in soon. And yet...And yet Duo always made him do these things. The regulated temperature never changed, even at night, and yet that dead warmth made him curl into the figure of his lover more. Duo always made him do these things. Not forcefully, maybe not even purposely, but he did them anyway. The perfect soldier folded in, resting his head back against Duo's bony shoulder.

"Aa, we can."

So they sat there, blind to the world, deaf to the screams, and mute to each other, staring up at the artificial night.

Fin Part 2

Okay, revised kinda. I just wanted to make it flow a bit better, because I wrote this part before I wrote part one, and I noticed they didn't flow together quite right. Yes, there are still some differences, but they were put there purposely, because Heero sees things very differently than how Duo sees them, and each part is written from one of their POV's (i.e. Part One is from Duo's POV, but Part Two is from Heero's POV). That's why things may seem a little different. Generally, Heero sees things more optimistically than Duo.