Birdcage
GW Fanfic
By Yukishiro Megumi
Disclaimer: Don't own Gundam Wing, wish I did, but I must face reality and move on with my life. Wait…I'm a fangirl…scratch the reality part and let's keep going.
Warning: shounen ai, 1+2; if you are against boy-boy love, don't read. If you do and flame me afterwards, you won't even be graced with a response, unless I am feeling rather cranky and smack an acerbic remark on an e-mail that happens to be addressed to you.
Review?: Please feel free to! I try not to nurse my ego, so *someone* will have to do it. Of course, constructive criticism or tactful expressions of dislike are equally welcome!
Author's notes: Mou...I'm so upset, fanfiction.net wiped out Bloodied Hallelujah when I wasn't looking. Have no fear, though! I shall recover and repost it on an upcoming manga site of mine, as well as other NC-17 fics. All others will remain on fanfiction.net, despite every right I have to hold a grudge against them. This little gem was written during a 2 hour long crying fit triggered by the Wallflowers' "Birdcage". Guess who's narrating, it isn't so hard to figure it out. Enjoy…
* * * * *
I know you don't cry.
I know that your tears have stopped so many years ago.
But do you know?
Do you know how I watch you? I can't help it, though everything that's been beaten into me, forced into me tells me to stop. I watch you sit in the chill of an open window. I see just how alone you are, just how small. Your smile never leaves, but its life drains through your eyes to dribble down in non-existent rivulets to your chin. That is the form of your tears. You cry no-tears. And it hurts to see the invisible pool of sorrow you drown in each night.
You tremble.
I have not once heard you sob, heard you cry…but I know those narrow shoulders shake with the ferocity of an earthquake under the force of your tortured rage. They shudder more violently than you fight.
Lies have no home in your heart, you did not need to seduce us—me—into believing you were resilient as you were lively. It was true, that was why. I heard your promise, the vow to remain tearless. You did not betray your word, and to this day I have yet to see the wet trails upon your cheeks.
Do you know I cry?
I don't leave my post; I don't dare move, though the urge the erase the glassiness from my eyes threatens. After the tremors leave your frame, do you ever see the shining splotches upon your floor? I don't think you will, really. You walk with pride when you are through with it all, violet gaze fixed with determination on something I could never see.
They forgot to teach my heart not to bleed because it's leaking out from my eyes instead of yours. Why?
Why?
I watch you braid your hair too. You don't like to do so in the company of others. I noticed that too. That's another way you cry, isn't it. You don't turn the light on when you do. So I watch from the shadows. Those long, thin, strong fingers weave through the thick curtain of it. Sometimes the light from the moonlight catches a strand. It sparks reddish-gold in moonlight, but chestnut in sunlight.
Do you know about that as well?
Inside you, the exchange is made. You trick your soul. It mistakes the soft slide of hair on skin for the moist glide of sadness. Does the ruse last very long? The times you braid and re-braid grow frequent just before your head hits the pillow.
I wonder how your guard never lets up through those nights.
Not a tear gets by, even in restless slumber.
But do you know?
Do you know about me watching?
Maybe you do. When the sun rises on the torn world again, I catch you standing silent in the middle of the room. You don't take the comforter from where you slept, but you wrap the cotton sheets around you. For an instant, that wide-eyed gaze rests on where I stood unmoving, where I stood watching.
I can never tell if you smile then, it comes and goes so fast.
I don't want to watch anymore.
Did you know that?
How I want to stop your silent shaking at the window by holding you? Maybe then, if I hold you tight enough, I can shiver for you. I already cry on your behalf.
I will watch, and I will wait.
Until one day. Until the one day where your soul refuses your substitutes. The day when you can't fend yourself off any longer.
The day when the tears fall.
*Owari*
Mou…absolute sap! I'll make up for it later, I swear it ;_; Review? Onegai shimasu? There are so very few yaoi fans at my college, I could cry. Oh, and look in other anime categories, I may *dramatic pause* diversify my writing! O.o