Coming Through the Rye

by Link Worshiper

A lonely and depressed Heero has found his way back to school, unsure of what point life has for him anymore now that Duo has vanished into thin air. But then an odd Preventers agent who knows way more than she should about Duo crashes into his life. 1x2

8. The Spy Who Loved Me

Coming Through the Rye

By Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

~ Part VIII ~

The Spy Who Loved Me

October 31, AC 195

Whoever the hell you are, you who's reading this, you have to forgive how I ramble, but I write how I think, and it would be stupid to fancy my thoughts up with frilly words and shit when all I want to do is get my head cleared up. Well, now that I'm through with that, I need to ask; you know what's best about art? Not that you care or anything, but this is where my mind is now. Heh, yeah sure it looks all good and well when you hang it up on your wall and I'm sure it sounds just great when you play it over your speakers or whatever the hell you do, but that's not why I like it. Well, let's leave it at, that's not the only reason I like it anyway, 'cause I do think art is very pretty on walls and stuff. In any case, what makes art such a damn wonderful gift is its ability to free your imagination and unleash your soul. Goddamn, now I've gotten all corny and shit, but it's true, I swear it on my life! I mean, whenever I get really involved in a drawing or something, I just totally lose myself in it. I usually bend real low over my work, with my nose almost to the page when I'm really into it, you know? I mean, I know you really shouldn't get real close to your art when you're doing it (paintings and stuff look best from far away and that's the perspective you have to keep in mind) but by no accounts am I real artist or anything. I don't really know a thing about it, so leave it me to do it all wrong. All I can say is that it makes me forget where I am and what I'm doing. I guess you could call it an escape or something. Yeah, I suppose that's what it is, an escape. I mean, don't you ever notice how a picture can spirit you away to another world? Paintings, drawings, photographs, even music, the whole lot, all of them bring you to another time and place; a place where all that matters is just that one moment captured in time. That one look in an old man's eye or that one kiss of new lovers, the patterns swirling upon a butterfly's wing or the way the morning rain falls in glass orbs upon a leaf. That's all there is and nothing more. The world can be as big or small as you want it to be. You don't have to think about morals or ideals or whatever, just that one second right there in front of you, frozen into infinity forever.

[And it's been a while since I could hold my head up high.
And it's been a while since I first saw you.]

Actors have it good, you know? Art like their kind lets them be whoever the hell they want to be. They get to throw their identities away and just transform into a completely new person. And all that counts is the stage, you know? They only have to think about being that one person, that one moment being played out in the theatre at that one very moment, and that's all that matters. I mean, with a world riddled with as much shit as this one, as mine, who wouldn't give a freaking arm and a leg to become someone else? That in itself is the sad part as far as I'm concerned though. 'Cause I'll always go back to being Duo Maxwell, and no one will care who the fuck I was or where I let my mind escape. I'll still run, still hide, but you know I'll never lie. I mean, if you want to know the truth, I just want to find myself some peace. I can't keep running forever, you know. There's only so far you can go without reaching a dead end. Pretty soon you'll just end up running in circles, and that never got anybody jack shit.

So what's there to do about it? Not much. Here it is, Halloween, and Shinigami is all alone on his day of glory. Howard thinks I'm getting sick or something. I've not eaten anything in a few days, and he thinks I'm getting too thin and a nasty kind of pale colouring. I guess he's sort of right. I've been taking a much keener interest in my artwork lately, and I haven't had much time for anything other than that and my old pal, Deathscythe. See, it started to get worse when I found a few unused rolls of film in the ship's cargo hold while I was cleaning up the disaster zone mess back there. I had always had this rotten old camera that I had snitched off some street-vendor in the projects before I got involved with that stupid old scientist, Professor G. It's not just the fact that the thing still needed film to work that really made it seem so outdated. I mean, there are still pros out there that use those things, but man, this thing was the real deal, with manual speeds, f-stops and focus and everything! You even had to wind the film after you snapped a shot 'cause it didn't have an automatic mechanism to do it for you. But I liked it anyway. The sound it made when you clicked the shutter just gave me this weird sort of thrill, like I had caught something special on film forever. I felt like I had control over what I got pictures of since I got to play with the aperture and all. I'm telling you, this thing is old; they just didn't have stuff that did everything on its own way back then and you know, sometimes I think they just did it better then! Newer ain't always better, I say. And even though I had to work kind of hard to come up with film, since not so many cameras use it anymore, it was always well worth it. I liked it almost as much as drawing, which I liked almost as much as singing, and that sure says a lot in my book. Well anyway, I had this new obsession with my camera now that I could actually use it, and I started to forgo even meals, a sure sign of the apocalypse in many people's opinion, including mine.

[And it's been a while since I could stand on my own two feet again.
And it's been a while since I could call you.]

But here's what's twisting it into a manifesting obsession for me. There's this guy I met a few days ago who has more mystery about him than God in heaven. Then again, I've been up past the clouds, and I know for a fact that there is not god up there, never has been and never will be. Funny that Shinigami gets to fly though heaven, don't you think? In any case, this guy hasn't even told me his name. He's been sleeping on my bed for the past three hours and he's barely twitched an eyebrow since I fished him out of the whole crap-load of trouble he was in. I know, I know, it was a little drastic of me to have shot him and even more so to pull that whole great escape thing just for his sake, but you know, I didn't kill him, so there! When I fired the gun, I was a bit far off, which makes my misinterpreting that whole interaction between mystery boy and that towheaded girl a bit more understandable. He got all weird about it and ended up unconscious in the water, and me being the nice little God of Death that I am, I saved his ass and next thing you know, I brought him home to Howard and the boys to fix him up. Don't ask me why I did it; I'm a sucker for a pretty face. Alright, alright, so I think he's one of the sexiest things I've ever laid my stupid eyes on in my entire damned life, so sue me, Jesus! I secretly kind of hoped I could photograph him so I could keep him near me all the time, so I could always remember those moments when he was around. I mean, here I am getting all worked out about a guy who I just met, who's name I don't even know, sets his own broken bones, splints them with a bit of tape and a wrench, and hasn't even spoken three consecutive words to me directly yet, and I'm worrying about whether or not he'll let me take a picture of him because I thought he had amazing eyes and a good body. Talk about superficial on my part. I really don't think he'll be waking up any time soon, and writing all this has only killed so much time. Maybe I'll just sketch him real quick while he's still sleeping, just so I can keep a fresh memory of how cute he looks when he's asleep, forgetting that that the world is a pissy place and that he's a soldier doomed to fight for it.

November 1, AC 195

Shinigami's back! I guess it felt kind of good to get all that out on paper yesterday and maybe this journal habit just might catch on, you know? I mean, I don't exactly have anyone to talk to about the shit that plagues my nasty little mind and keeping it all underneath a cheerful mask and a mess of brown hair isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world. You can see me start to physically break down whenever I do. I'm not exactly the most lusty of creatures; stealth and sneaking around is a bit more my thing, if you know what I mean. Oh, believe me, I've tried to talk to loads of different people about my problems, but no one really seems to get it but me. Either I'm just deranged or they're all just stupid. I bet it's a schmere of both if you ask me. I'm a pretty sick kid.

You know, I even tried talking to that pretty boy who had been sleeping in my room yesterday. Turns out he hadn't really been sleeping all that time, though he thinks I don't know that. He was all acting like he could have cared less if I'd dropped dead right there on the spot, but something tells me he kind of understands what I mean, at least better than anyone else I've ever talked to before. At six or so last night, I found him out sitting on top of his mobile suit, typing like mad on that laptop of his. I guess he kept it in his Gundam 'cause I sure don't remember him having that when I brought him down to my room. Then again, where else would he have kept it? I think it's a wonder enough he manages to keep a handgun stuffed in those tight shorts of his, which, I might add, is not exactly good for me, being as he has such a cute ass and all. Yeah, so shoot me, I'm a dirty old faggot. I don't care what the hell you feel about guys like me. It's not my problem if you really do think I'm a sick kid or not now. I could really care less about that. Why don't you all just fade away?

[And everything I can't remember,
As fucked up as it all may seem,]

Actually, today I had a very interesting go with him. I'd just finished reading one of my favourite books, 'The Catcher in the Rye,' for the six hundredth time and I decided it was time that Superman got a little bit more than just numbers between his ears. I walked in on him while he was working incessantly on his Gundam and threw the book at him. He didn't turn around to catch it and let it nail him squarely on the back. Honestly, I don't think he even saw it coming. He looked down at it lying there innocently by his sneaker-clad feet and then back at me with an admittedly cute confused look in his eye. I told him it would do him good to give the book a read if he could fit it into his oh-so-busy life before snapping around on my heel and walking off with rigid steps before I rethought my decision and took the book back. It was my own special copy with all my commentary and such written inside. I had used the margins of the thing as a sort of coded diary for a while until I ran out of room. Now, as you can see, I've upgraded to notebook paper and a pen. Fancy that.

Well in any case, he still hasn't told me jack shit about himself and he's not exactly easy to extract information out of. Well fine then, I do like a good challenge. He'll just be my latest conquest. Perhaps I'll even tack a photograph of him tied to the bedpost to my wall as a sort of trophy that I got him to be mine.

November 2, AC 195

So no photograph for my wall, but damn the triumph most certainly is mine! Well, let me rephrase that. I suppose it was more of a mutual stalemate. He got me back into the old whoring business again and I got him wrapped around my cute little finger. I could tell he was curious about me, perhaps even almost as curious as was about him. We both have our secrets and barriers and I could bet everything my skinny ass is worth that we're both formulating schemes to blow each other's defenses to smithereens. Well count me in; this game should be fun. He had been trying to drop the callous uncaring hero shit ever since he woke up again but I could see he was trying to cover something up. Didn't take observant little old me very long to notice that he was checking me out every moment he thought I had my back turned. I first saw it in the reflection cast in the side mirror of a motorcycle Howard keeps on board to soup up for fun whenever we get spare parts. I'd been tinkering around with the engine when I saw him standing there in the door, quiet and unmoving, just watching me as I sat stooped over the mechanical spread beside the bike. I don't think he realized that I could see him in the mirror's reflection because he just stayed there without saying a word. In fact, his breathing was so quiet, I bet I wouldn't have even noticed he was there if I hadn't seen him in the mirror. He didn't say anything for the whole forty-five minutes I slaved over that bike, managing to slink off when he figured I was started to finish up, and I bet he thinks that I'll never know he was there. Hell, I got one up on his game, let me tell you.

[The consequences that are rendered,
I've stretched myself beyond my means.]

But that all just kind of opened up the pathway. After that, I really began to notice him watching me whenever it looked like I wasn't paying attention. Heh, and me, being the perfect devil that I am, tried my damndest to make it look that way as often as possible, 'cause to tell the honest truth, I liked feeling his eyes on my back. It made me feel wanted, even if it only was in the yearning way that the guys used to want me back up on L2 when I made servicing my main source of income. Yeah, so I bet I just lost about a zillion points in your opinion of me, now that you know that gritty little detail about my past there. But what am I supposed to do, lie about it? Well cut of my fingers while you're at it then! This is my goddamned story, and if you don't fucking like it, then why the hell are you reading, bitch? Whoo sure felt good to let that out. Maybe I should rant like this more often…?

So there it is. Last night, when he escorted me down to my cabin, I pretty much found myself lost in our bitter game of seduction. He told me he wanted a slut like me and I was desperate enough to be more than willing to get on my back for him. I wanted him that badly, and it seemed at least that feeling was a common one. Guess I really am just a load of gutter trash at heart. I mean, I had sworn the instance I crawled into G's care that I would never whore myself again, that I didn't need to and I never would. Well I guess it's not like I was doing it because I needed cash or anything; Howard and G kept me pretty much covered in that department nowadays. Hell, I didn't even ask him for money. In fact I right up and told him that I'd fuck him because I liked his eyes, which isn't a lie at all; it's as true as anything, petty as it might be. The comfort that cuddling with someone else offered was compensation enough, I thought. Well, if you must know, I do suppose it would have been nice to have found someone who I felt something more than lust for to find condolence in, but he was there and he would have to do, though with a little bit of time and maybe a heart-to-heart conversation or two, something a little more than desire would come. But you know, at that exact point in time, what mattered most was that I wanted him and he wanted me, and I don't think I could deal with having to spend another night alone a moment longer, so there you have it, thank you very much, end of story. I mean, maybe he would tell me his name one day at least, and that would make it all the better. Ha, it's not like I care. Once he takes off, I bet I'll never see him again anyway.

November 3, AC195

Howard pulled me over today, saying he wanted to talk to me or some shit. I was a little confused to say the least. I mean, Howard's cool and all, but I've never really seen him act serious about anything. I knew that something was definitely up though, when he sat me down on the deck and pocketed his sunglasses so I could see the look in his eyes. The second I saw how grave his face looked, I knew that this was no punk joke of his.

"Duo," he started off, his tone a little strange. I don't think he's used to these little heart-to-heart type discussions. I feel bad for any kids he might end up having if he ever gets married one day. Seeing the look on my face must have done something though, because after a brief pause, he took in a deep breath and tried again. "Duo, I think we need to talk."

"Well duh," I said, smacking my forehead deftly. I hadn't quite gotten the point yet, and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. "What'd you want to say? Make it quick. My old buddy needs me."

"Which one? Deathscythe or that homicidal boyfriend of yours?" The sun glinted oddly in his eyes as he cocked his head to look at me sideways.

"Well now, aren't we a little nosy," I said haughtily, crossing my arms and throwing my chin up into the air as I rocked back on my haunches. "What business is it of yours what I do on my off hours? You're not even my boss."

"Duo, this has nothing to do with Sweepers," he said, that serious tone back in his voice. I opened my eyes and rolled them back to stare at him, my nose still facing towards the sky. "I've—well, not just me to be honest—everybody on board has noticed the way you two stare at each other."

"Yeah, and what's it to you?" I snapped, suddenly defensive. I did not like the way this conversation was going.

"Everyone knows he sleeps with you too," he went on. I stared at him expectantly, my upper lip curled in some odd expression that doesn't even have a name. I could hear the wind whistling over the ocean, waiting for one of us to say something. He broke the silence. "Not that I really care about that specifically, but Duo…." He trailed off, staring at something over my shoulder. I spun my head around to see Mister Self Destruct himself casually walk by and lean on the starboard banister nearby, pretending as if he were staring out at the sea. I could tell he was watching my every move though, the cheap bastard. Howard jarred me from my musings with his suddenly hushed voice. "Duo, don't you think he's just a little possessive of you? Doesn't that frighten you a little? I mean, you really don't know much about him. You don't even know his name!"

"Hey, it's my life to fuck up as I please," was my bloody retort. "And maybe you don't understand this 'cause you've got a ship full of comrades to waste your life away with, but I don't have many people who love me. And that 'homicidal boy' over there just happens to be the only person I've ever met who made me feel good about myself. He likes the way I look and the way I am, for a change. Don't try and put me down. I'm going to die before I get old; I want to enjoy what little of my crappy life I have left."

"Duo, he nearly murdered one of the deckhands for greeting you when you walked by. If a bunch of guys hadn't been around to physically pry him off—and he's a strong mother fucker—that deckhand would have been dead meat. I mean, he won't let anyone even breathe on you funny." Howard said. "You honestly don't think he's using you at all?"

"So what if he is? I don't give a flying fuck! I'm not trying to cause a big sensation or anything! You don't have to dig what I'm saying here, Howard!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands over my head irately. "I don't care what he wants with me. What matters is what I want with him, and that's someone I can go to when I'm feeling lonely."

"So you're using him?"

"If that's what you want to call it."

"Duo…."

"What?"

Howard stood as I stood, about to put a hand on each of my shoulders when he noticed the angry glare Heero was sending him. He settled for jamming his hands into his pockets and saying, "Well you just take care of yourself, Duo. You may not think so, but you're a good kid, okay, and none of us Sweepers want to see you hurt. You've been hurt enough in one lifetime."

"Thanks for caring," I said maybe a little too callously, sarcasm ringing in my voice as I sauntered across the deck towards my boy. The moment I came to lean on the banister beside him, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close to his hip. I threw my head over my shoulder and stuck my tongue out at Howard before attacking my mystery lover with a very passionate throat-licking kiss, just for Howard's benefit.

"I don't like it when other people look at you," he growled into my ear softly. His voice was always that deep dangerous sensual tone around me. "You're mine. Only I should be allowed to touch you." He kissed my neck, gnawing gently at the soft skin beneath my jaw. "Mine," he whispered between kisses as he claimed me with the mark of his lips. "Mine, mine."

I knew I was digging myself a grave that I soon wouldn't be able to climb out of. And the frightening thing was, I wasn't quite sure if I really wanted to. I was obsessed with how dangerous he was.

[And it's been a while since I could say that I wasn't addicted.
And it's been a while since I could say I love myself as well.]

? AC 197

Nevermind the date; I've lost track of it anyway. The best I can say is that it's cold as shit outside and I don't even have a scarf to wear, end of discussion. It's been a while since I last wrote and that's because I haven't really had a need to up 'til now. You see, Heero and I—that's right I've found out what the pretty boy's name is; it's Heero—have this really weird relationship going on. I mean, it's weird in that there is little to no emotion involved in it and yet, it is the most comfort I've felt in years. Even though talking to him is like talking to a wall, he a somebody who breathes and most definitely understands the way I operate better than anyone I've ever met in my whole life. Okay, so I suppose that's an emotion, but that most certainly is not a mutual thing at all! This guy really has some personal issues he needs to work out and quick. I'm sorry, but a pretty face, a body to die for and one hell of a tight ass isn't going to cover for the fact that he has trouble dealing with his inner angst. I mean, man does this guy have anger! God, then again, I'm not really the person who 'ought to complain. Hell, I'm no better than he is, but at least I can admit it to myself, unlike the robot sleeping next to me, who can barely even tell if I have any other use aside from sex. I bet that's why he busted my ass out of prison too, 'cause he'd miss having his fuck-buddy around when he was bored. Okay, okay, so perhaps it's a little unfair of me to judge him and say how he may or may not feel, but I can't change how I feel, and no matter what he's got tumbling around inside, that's the signal I'm getting from everyone's favourite perfect soldier.

But no matter what the hell his reasons were for saving my ass, whether it's sex or silence or whatever the hell it was, he's got me on the mend, hiding out in some ritzy boarding school in the heart of Austria until I can get around without limping anymore. I'm getting on pretty well in any case, despite a few little technical problems that might be slowing my weak body down. I mean, though I've still got a few bruises and such here and there, I can walk okay enough to play sports again and I can hold a pencil and a camera properly again, so all's well for now. I've got a neat little single room on the second floor of the dormitory building and three art classes plus a literature course and a history class to keep me entertained while I'm here. Mister Yuy resides on the floor above, slaving away over extra sciences and math to keep his systematic brain cranking like a godforsaken well-oiled machine, stopping only long enough to drag my ass to bed for a quick screw whenever he's in the mood. Ha, I bet he is half machine underneath that tanned skin. He's all routine; up, class, lunch, more class, homework, basketball, fuck, homework, bed, with the occasional whip OZ's ass into the ground every once in a while, though he's trying hard to lie low for the most part. He's pretty damn lucky that he's far too good looking to flay alive to find out what makes him tick in there, even to satisfy my curiosity.

[And it's been a while since I've gone and fucked things up just like I always do.
And it's been a while, but all that shit seems to disappear when I'm with you.]

Oh God, but he's been driving me mad lately! Wait, I take that back. It's actually me who's been driving me mad. Because you see, this little problem had to decide and present itself to me in the middle of the night a few days ago when I was staying up extra late to utilize the dark room when no one was around. Well there I had been, bent over those chemicals, bathed in that creepy red safe-light you use when you're working, pushing a piece of photography paper around in the developer, my eyes jumping from the black timing clock sitting on a shelf by the radio to the slowly emerging image of Heero drowned in that smelly developer chemical. As the black-and-white image of the exotic Japanese boy started to become clearer, I found myself looking at the picture strangely. It wasn't in a lust-barbed, 'Oh Christ, he's a sex god' sort of way, but more an 'Oh Heero, what a mystery you are' kind of thing. It was like I had found this sort of calling from him that he and I were somehow alike, and that somehow we called for each other, even if we were both too retarded to catch on to it. It was about then that it hit me that my feelings about him had started to change. I mean, wasn't just sex anymore, not for me anyway. Oh I'm sure it still is just physical pleasure for him, but me…. Goddamn…. I've never felt this way for anyone in the entire world for a single second of my whole stupid existence. And to tell the perfectly honest frank truth, I'm damn scared and confused by it. It was one thing up on L2 when you got paid to do a job, but this whole thing with Heero is totally different, even if it's under that whole whoring pretense. Sometimes I think that there might be something more complex than just having me around for a convenient lay once and a while by the way he treated me sometimes. Sometimes when he looked at me in this certain way, or sometimes when he spoke to me and said my name in this certain tone or said certain things that made me wonder what really made the gears in his head turn, I wondered if my perception of him was just totally wrong. Ah, but then he'd realize that he'd slipped up again and it was back to the norm, leaving me to turn back to the notion that he really was just an efficient opportunist soldier on a mission.

And that got me thinking, you know, about whether or not he really did just see it as a necessary escape from the world or not. With Heero, it's sometimes really hard to tell what actually goes on behind those glassy blue eyes of his. I mean, wearing the hard mask is one thing, but that's as good as cracked white porcelain because it's so damn easy to see beyond that, it's almost ridiculous. No, see what the kicker is, is that he might seem easy to read, but just when you think you've got everything about him under control, he lets something slip, some new element to the puzzle, and you realize you've put the whole thing together wrong and you've got to take it all apart and start building up from the beginning again. Very confusing man, that.

So what did I choose to do about it? Being as I have a tad of trouble keeping my feelings contained, unlike dear Mister Yuy, I, of course, decided that right then and there I had to go and sort out my head. And how might I do that, you ask? Well I marched right out of the dark room, leaving that photograph to curl and darken to blackness in the developer, and headed straight for the dormitories, taking the stairs two at a time, past the second floor and up to the third, made my way down the hall and knocked hard on Heero's door, pasting what I thought to be a neutral look on my face while I waited for him to open the door. Now granted that it was about two in the morning and that students were usually kept under tight curfew regulations (not that curfew meant shit to the God of Death, master of stealth and shadow), I started to figure that even the perfect soldier needed sleep and that the five minutes I ended up waiting there at the door began to lend themselves to a sudden falter of confidence. I had actually been about to turn tail and make a mad retreat to the safety of my own dorm when the door suddenly swung open to reveal a very bed tussled Heero Yuy. I stood there like a deer in the headlights, clapping my mouth open and shut a few times like a complete idiot, taken completely by surprise with the ferocity with which he had opened the door. And the moment he had registered just who was standing in the hall before him, he got that feral look in his eye again, and I knew that there was no escape for me anymore.

[And everything I can't remember,
As fucked up as it all may seem,]

I think it was just then that I realized just how obsessed and possessive he was with me. He grabbed me fiercely by the uniform necktie that still hung around my neck and yanked me towards him so he could place a wild kiss on my lips as he dragged me into the room, throwing the door closed behind me as he did so. Then he slammed me coarsely up against the door, still violently kissing me and lifting me slightly up off the floor, making the wood crash against the frame as my back made violent contact with the flat surface. I kissed him back, naturally, even putting my arms around his neck too, while crazy thoughts raced through my head, concerned with what sorts of feelings this kind of treatment instilled and just what I wanted out of this whole twisted game, a game I was sure I would be bound to lose.

"My little devil," he purred into my ear, pressing his body against mine and pinning me against the door. "My pretty little devil."

My breathing became ragged as he attacked my neck with his moist exploring lips. "Oh, Hee-chan," I gasped when his one hand started to wander. I wondered aloud as I felt said hand creep down and around my thigh, "Why me? Why do I deserve your attention? You could have anyone you wanted, and yet you chose me. Why not Relena or…."

"Why you?" he repeated, cutting me off in mid sentence, his breath still hot against my slender neck. "Isn't it obvious? Because I don't want her the way I want you, Duo Maxwell. She offers me her feelings on a silver platter but you; I have to work for your affection. I like being able to tame such a wild devil. She doesn't have that same fire, that same passion. She's an innocent naïve little girl who is lost in a world of war and fighting. She doesn't understand me, not the way you do."

"But she would do anything for you," I blurted out. I wasn't advocating her—not by any means—but she was the first person that I could think to compare myself to and I wanted to hear what he thought. I wanted to know why he desired (I hesitate to write the word 'love' here) me, a street brat, above her, the ruler of the universe. "I can't give you anything."

"Oh you give me more than you could ever understand," he answered his voice deep and husky. I wondered what sort of things he meant. I hardly had time to think about it, for in a moment, he was speaking again. "She lives in a world full of flowers and ideals. She doesn't see the real world, with all its grit and misery. But you, oh you, Duo, you are real. You have secrets and mysteries hidden away from the world behind that jesters mask you wear. You have real breath in you and you see with real eyes. You know what suffering is and you know what it's like to feel hate and pain. She's been bruised and cut, but you've been scarred and bloodied. You, Duo, are a real man." He finished his little soliloquy with a ferocious kiss that bled and fattened my lower lip a little bit with his hard sucking.

At last he let me go and I fell to the floor in a lapse of breath, heaving against the wall and thinking how much I needed a smoke. Not that I disliked the taste of him on my lips or anything. Oh no, far from it. I just needed to unwind. He sometimes had a way of sapping me of what little strength I have. Not that I'm really that weak by any account, but compared to him, I'm just a rag doll that gets thrown around and abused. He had turned away and was making his way over to the small writing table underneath the room's long diamond-paned window. His laptop was sitting there, the screen glowing ominously, casting the whole shadowy room in a surreal white light, much more heavenly and cold than the warm hellish red of the dark room's safe light.

"Hee-chan," I addressed his back with the epithet I had coined him with soon after I had learned his name, as he settled back down in the chair I was sure he had just been roused from when I'd knocked. Getting no reaction, I said his name again. Still nothing, and I got a little upset. He had never ignored me like this before, especially whenever he wanted some. "Heero!" I said a third time from my spot on the floor, my voice a little huffy.

He looked a little irritable as he looked over his shoulder, not even needed to say a word since the look on his face dictated all he meant to say.

"Hee-chan, I still want to talk to you," I said, calming my voice again as I stood up and leaned casually against the door, folding my arms over my chest.

"Well I don't want to talk to you. I've finished all I need to say for now," he snapped bitterly before turning back to whatever he was working on. He must have been going over mission reports or something, because the clacking tap of his fingers playing over the keyboard was strangely absent.

"Heero, this is important!" I protested, taking large strides over to the desk. I looked over his shoulder, shocked to find that he was absorbed in the book I had given him so long ago.

"Hn, whatever it is, it can wait," he answered, not even looking up this time.

"Hey, I'm tired of living at your convenience here, pal!" I barked, my impatience breaking loose at him as I opened my mouth. I had meant to talk about the new feelings I had found inside, to ask him if he knew what it meant or if I was the only one who felt that way, but all that came out were the pent up frustrations towards him that had always been there. Well, I guess he needed to hear those too, but not like that, not then. It did nothing to help the confusion of my heart, nor the confusion of his, for that matter. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, a mistake if anything, because I could see the anger flaring up in his eyes when I did so. I figured I was on a roll though, so I just kept my mouth going. "I got something to say, and I think you'd owe me the common courtesy of at least hearing me out here."

"Maybe another time," was the tart reply. I knew he couldn't be that into the book. He really didn't strike me as the rabid reader sort. I heard him grumble, "I'm busy right now."

"Why do you always ignore me like that?" I could feel myself getting further and further from my true objective the angrier I got. I gave a childish irate stomp of the foot as the sight of his back became more offensive with each second. "What will it take 'till you believe in me the way I believe in you, Heero! You only notice me when you want something. God dammit, I'm tired of only being worth your time whenever you're horny!"

This earned me no reply. Ha, bet he had known that I had him beat there. Point for Maxwell. Damn, I'm good. So the mission was taking a… detour route. I figured I would get around to my initial point eventually.

"Well what do you say to that, Mister Perfect Soldier?" I grabbed the chair back as I leant over to whisper harshly into his ear. I could feel him tensing up with every word I spoke, though the look he wore on his face betrayed nothing. When you were as good at observing and reading body language as I was though, it didn't matter how hard he tried to hide whatever it was he was trying to hide. I could read him like a mother fucking book.

His reply was surprisingly even-toned and quiet as he laid the book over his lap, pushing me away with the back of his hand. "I'm reading now, Maxwell."

I gave an indignant snort. "Reading? You? Since when did you care about books? Since when did you care about anything? Oh God Heero, don't you get it at all? Don't you realize that maybe I'm your freaking love slave for more than just your mere convenience? That maybe there's just more to it than surfaces?"

He stared at me blankly, as if he were not sure what to make of this accusation. At length, he gathered his wits and came together with a plain reply. "Is this not working for you any more then, Maxwell? Didn't you want me for your benefit too?"

"Well yeah," I threw my arms over my head, exasperated that someone so insanely brilliant could be so stupid at the exact same time, "but it doesn't seem that way so much anymore. Sure, we had a good thing going for a while. But it was more of a shared thing before. We had our good times and an excellent way to relieve both our tensions and fears. Hell, I think we had something really good going on a while ago. I really did! But now it's just a good fuck for you whenever you're 'in the mood,' nevermind what I want or what I need. And dammit Heero, I'm sick of it!"

The slight twitching of his eyebrow disclosed his discomfort with the direction the conversation was taking. He was either extremely hurt by this or pissed at this blatant indictment of an abused agreement.

"Admit it, you know I'm right," I egged him on.

"So what is this?" he said finally, standing up and laying the book aside. He gave me a hearty shove, sending me tumbling back onto the bed. "You're here for sex? You're, how did you put it, 'in the mood'?"

"I'm not here for sex," I found myself shouting, not even really paying attention to the foolery coming from my mouth anymore. I never knew what the hell I was talking whenever I really got into something. All I knew was that my head was swimming, my vision was blurred and red and my throat killed like a bitch. "I'm here for you!" I suddenly realized what I had just said and covered my mouth in horror. I was frightened by the statement as much as he was.

He was looming over me, the whites of his eyes shining like specters in the odd illumination that bathed the room in that ethereal light, making him look like some kind of fallen angel of death. "And just what do you mean by that?" he asked in a dangerous voice. I knew that what my future held would depend on what I said next, and God knew how he would take it.

"I mean that…." I trailed off, lost in the dark blue of his eyes. They were shimmering, ghostly and bright in the dimly lit room, and I found myself, for once in my life, lost for words as I stared into those haunting irises. I stumbled again over my sentence, trying to choke out the words. I realized that I was really afraid to admit to him what I had figured out for myself in the dark room earlier. "I mean that there's… more to it than just escape… for me…. I don't want to run away from you anymore…. That I want to know about you as a person, not just a thing. I want to know what you do when you're bored, what scares you most, how you stand to wear those stupid spandex shorts all the time or what your favourite colour is! Do you even know what a colour is, Heero? Did you know that there's more to the world than just your generic black and white spectrem? I was looking over a calendar in the library the other day, Heero, because I was keeping track of much time we spent together, even if you've never strung four words together for me. It's quite a good deal, you know."

"So what? I never noticed before."

"The point is that I noticed," I cried. "I want to be so much more to you than just a… a conquest…."

His face tightened, like he was trying to keep something stomached and hidden away from the world. With a forced swallow, he told me, "And why… should I care about how you… feel?"

"I would have you ask yourself if you care about how you feel before you start worrying about me, since that seems to be so much more of a problem for you," I barked suddenly at him, my previous gloom gone in a heartbeat.

"Don't you… understand, Duo?" he asked, his voice suddenly soft and tinted with this almost sad connotation. Even his angry expression seemed to have melted away for just a moment. I think he realized that I had noticed his slip, for he was quick to readjust his porcelain mask over his real face.

"Have you fallen in love with her? You know, Relena?" I guess I had sort of misread his expression, because his face seemed to contort even more as I said this.

I had actually asked him this question once before when Relena had barged into the dormitory Heero and I had shared at some other nameless boarding school near when we had first met. She had mistaken me lying on the bed with the pillow obscuring my face for Heero and it wasn't until he had come storming back into the room, wrapped in a towel from an early morning shower that she realized her mistake. I will admit it was a rather classic moment when she asked Heero what I was doing naked in his bed and he had plainly told her that we had been fucking the night before and that I was waiting for my turn with the bathroom like the lazy bastard I was. But in any case, when she had run out of there almost crying, leaving a darkly smirking Heero standing in the middle of the room, I just had to know. So I asked and I got the same answer then that he gave me now. This time it was far more a definite and firm answer than I had expected, final and absolute. I guess that was heartwarming in a strange sort of way.

"No."

"Then you love me?" I had also asked him this before, and I was willing to bet that if his answer to the former question had not changed, neither had this. But then again, I just had to make sure. His reply was a little more tentative than the last, but still the same flat out refusal. He sounded almost a little choked in the throat, as if he were having trouble spitting out the word. Any other time I would have thought it cute, but not tonight.

"No."

"Then what am I to you?" I suddenly exclaimed, growing impatient and a little angry. " Am I really just your whore? I'm just a pet to play with? Is that it?"

"I don't know," he seemed unsure of himself, his mask falling free for just a brief moment as he faltered over the words. "Maybe…."

That did it. I just started to cry, sitting there on his bed. Through teary eyes, I could see him still standing there looking shocked and flummoxed in that dull flickering light, while I broke down before his eyes. I'm sure he had no idea how to handle it, and I could see those cranks beginning to work behind his mask, evaluating what to do. I had never cried like this before, and certainly not in front of him. Seems that his ever-so systematic mind wasn't quick enough to beat his emotions to the tee though. I could actually see it in his eyes, as he snapped as well, but not in a river of tears like stupid old me. Instead he wheeled his fist back, yelling at me for crying, and slammed me hard across the cheek. That sure as hell shut me up for a second. Heero can hit like nobody's business. I cradled my stinging, slightly bleeding and bruised cheek, too shocked for words.

"You want a good fuck?" he grabbed me violently by the shoulders and forced me onto my back, nearly cracking my head against the wall as he pushed me downwards. "God dammit, I'll show you a good fuck, Duo." The anger evaporated as that primal grin flashed across his face as he descended upon me again. "After all, I learned from the best, didn't I?"

Ah ha, ah ha. Oh the laughable, laughable irony.

He was straddling me, a crazy look lighting his eyes as he stared hungrily down at me, hands ripping brutally at my clothes. I could hear nothing but the deafening sound of tearing cloth as he literally tore my shirt and tie off my body, exposing my pale scar covered body in the white computer glow. In another time and place, you could have placed this with all the kinky games we used to play. I will give him this: though we usually did end up in bed according to his desires, he had never really mistreated me or harmed me while we were going at it. Sure, he was usually pretty rough, and he always gave it to me fast and hard, but to tell the truth, I kind of had a taste for that, and he was never brutally violent, never meaning to hurt me really.

But there was something in his eye that most certainly did not denote this as a playful romp. Not this time. Hell, this time his kisses were more like carnal bites at my flesh, and I could feel his fingers leaving bruise marks on my shoulders where he held me down fast to the mattress. I tried really hard to suck it up and deal with it like I usually did whenever he just wanted to have his way, but it was kind of hard to do so when he was making me bleed with his love bites and such. He dragged his calloused hands over my chest, leaving dull red trails upon my skin as he pressed his fingers painfully into my skin and hit me whenever I let out a whimper. I thought I had been doing pretty well until the those damned tears started to crystallize in the corners of my squinted eyes and I felt the repercussions of his hand smashing back across my face, condemning me for crying once again. "Stop crying, Duo!" I heard him yell out frantically. I think the tears really frightened him, to be honest. I heard him order me to dry up again, his voice starting to quaver a little bit. "Why are you crying, Duo? Stop it!" He beat me again across the other cheek. "Stop it, dammit!" With ever entreaty for me to cease my tears, his fist fell over my body again, which only resulted in forcing me into outright sobs. "STOP IT NOW!"

[The consequences that I've rendered,
I've gone and fucked things up again!]

"H-Heero, please, it hurts," was all I could muster myself to choke out between snivels. He didn't stop though, despite my begging, and I could feel him only growing more brutal with his ministrations. "Please Heero, stop; you're hurting me. It hurts, it hurts so much." I was actually whimpering now.

Next thing I knew, my pants were torn and hanging over the foot of the bed, his hands violently exploring a body he had come to be quite familiar with over the past months. "You like it, don't you, little slut," he growled heatedly, pushing his freshly shed tank top and faded blue jeans to the floor. He didn't wait too long before he grabbed me by the hips and went on to fuck me rougher than I could ever remember him doing. My moans seemed to satisfy his remark. Hey, what could I do; he might have been beating me senseless and what he was doing to me could probably be best categorized as rape, but I couldn't deny that it felt good to have him inside of me. He leaned over and snarled again into my ear, his voice breathy and hoarse from screaming, "Admit it, you enjoy it, don't you, you stupid American whore!"

"Ah, ah, Heero," I heaved, feeling weak and defeated. I was bent and crippled again, covered with new bruises and cuts from his savage scratches and punching. It felt like he had re-broken my arm, or at least twisted it around again in a way it really 'ought not to be bent. I couldn't move; I could scarcely bring myself to breath.

When he was finished, he slid off the bed and had the nerve to return calmly to his chair as if nothing had happened, eyes back to the pages of his book—my book! I almost felt a rage boiling inside that I had ever let him have my favourite story for his own and I felt the almost insuppressible urge to rip it out of his hands and use it to bash him around the ears a couple of times. I doubt anything like that I could have done would have hurt him much, but it would have been the joy of hitting him that would have felt good. Right then, I had nothing but a sheer dislike for him, any affable feelings I might have been favouring for a while nowhere to be found. I wanted him, I needed him, and I desperately longed to love him, but I suddenly felt that it was something I could never do. Not anymore, at least.

[Why must I feel this way?]

I still haven't figured out the date. If I didn't know it the day before, there's no way I'd know it now, so just forget that it even matters. Doesn't to me. Life has lost any bearing and I could care less if it was Christmas or the Fourth of July. The day after all that ensued between Heero and I in his dormitory, we found ourselves on almost non-speaking terms and avoiding each other as much as possible. This was somewhat bad for us being as it made us far more noticeable to the rest of the student body, which was most certainly not good for our cover. You might think that a bit odd (and believe me, it is), but my refusal to say anything, plus the added fact that my counterpart was nowhere to be found, was definitely something that got the other kids wondering what was amiss. I don't have any doubt that some of them suspected what kind of relationship Heero and I had, and I'll bet you my soul (if my soul is still mine to bet) that my lack of words, particularly towards him, was quite a bit of a shocker.

But no one dared to bring anything up about it to either of us about it. It's pretty obvious they were all afraid that Heero would kill them and that I would have some rash reaction to whatever they had to say. In fact, we were pretty much left blissfully alone, that is, until it came around to the basketball game we were to play in that afternoon. We were in the locker room, changing into our uniforms with the rest of the team. Heero was sitting a little more removed from the group as usual, stealing furtive glances my direction ever so often. I wondered now and again if he wanted to apologize. He had odd ways of doing so, like holding me for once when we slept together and he thought I was out, or a gentle kiss or something like that, but this was different. He never realized that I knew he liked to touch me and hold me soft when he thought I was sleeping, and I let it stay that way, because those tender moments were just as precious to me as they were to him, I'm sure. It doesn't matter though. I really didn't think that stuff like that would fix this so easily.

As for me, well, I was just sitting on the bench, my eyes picking out patterns in the folds of my rumpled uniform, which lay in a red and black mass of cloth at my feet. I still had trouble moving, and after a few minutes of trying to get the shirt over my head, gave up and just tossed it aside, contenting myself to moodily stare at the row of lockers before me.

"Oh, Duo, aren't you playing today?" a voice said from behind me. I looked over my shoulder a little angrily at the interruption to see another kid on the team standing there, orange ball under arm and ready to go. I was supposed to play first string, but I was beginning to think that Heero had hurt me too much the night before for me to even get on the court. I just shrugged and turned back around. I could sense the confusion he felt at my erratic behavior radiating off his skin. He said, "Duo, is something wrong? You want to talk to the coach about it?"

[Just make this go away.]

I shook my head no, not realizing that I had begun to subconsciously rubbing my twisted wrist, the one injury I could reach without drawing much attention to myself. My whole body pained me, though I tried hard not to make it seem that way.

"Is something wrong with your arm?" he pressed, coming closer. I heard the sound of him dropping the basketball to the floor as he sat down on the bench next to me and plucked my uniform off the ground. He obviously noticed my nervous massaging and wondered what to make of it. I shook my head no again. It was when he put his arm around my shoulder and noticed me physically wince at the pain that he began to figure that something was up. "You're injured, aren't you? Why don't you tell anyone about it? Ask the coach if you can sit this one out."

"I… I don't want to let the team down," I mumbled feebly, trying hard to force a smile. "It's a big game today." It was all I could think of to say. Anything to keep him from wanting to give me a look over and asking questions he 'ought not to ask. Then what would I say? Would I have to… lie?

He furrowed his brow and asked me in a no-nonsense voice to take off my shirt. Reluctantly, I gave into the inevitable and started to unbutton the uniform oxford with shaky fingers. His eyes grew wide and bulbous when he saw all the dark heavy bruises and light cuts crisscrossing my torso, some fresh from Heero's abuse and some old from battles and demons long past. "Is it like that all over?" he asked, fingering me lightly and watching in horror as I grimaced at so light a touch. "How did this happen, Duo?"

I shrugged. It wasn't a lie… not yet. My companion looked up just in time to see Heero lethargically walk past, pausing a brief moment too long behind us, taking in the real damage of what he had done for the first time. I don't think he had really understood how much he had harmed me until he saw me sitting there in the glaring light, accentuating each and every wound he had laid upon my skin. The other boy looked from me to Heero and then back to me again, pieced some more of the equation together and made a simple deduction. "Heero did this to you, didn't he, Duo?"

I was still silent, neither nodding nor shaking my head in reply. Heero was frozen, unable to make a move. I could see… no… I could feel the fear in his eyes. Finally, I opened my mouth and killed the silence. "No," I found myself saying, "No, Heero would never hurt me."

Heero was frozen in the door. It seemed he had been just walking out, lingering in the doorway to hear what I would say, just waiting for the guilty sentence, but the words that fell upon his ears were far from what he had been expecting. Hell, they were far different from what I had been expecting, and I had been the idiot who had muttered them! His fingers were tightened around the lintel as his reactions to my comment played across his face visibly. Heero knew what I always said about lying. You know, that whole "I run, I hide but I never lie" bit. Well, he knew I never did and that I just had, for him.

And you know what the funny thing is? I realized right then that he was worth it. That he was worth breaking the very moral that I based my entire character on and that I would lie and cheat and steal for him if it meant keeping him near and keeping him safe. That he really was everything upon which I built my existence and that ruining him would ruin me too.

I realized in that moment that I really, really was in love with him and that it had stopped being a game a long time ago. Yeah, he got on my nerves a lot, was impatient and cold to me more often than not, even had beaten the shit out of me the night before, and still, I couldn't help but think that it was just love, for both of us. You know, sometimes I really think that his strength is the weakness he's trying his damndest not to show. I was his weakness, and would hide it until he got to hell. Too bad for him that it was all chiseled into his face for the world to see.

Would you believe it, all those thoughts flashing through my mind at warp speed just then wore down my defenses completely. And I know I always say that boys don't cry. Some boy I make then, because I started to cry again, worse than the night before. Even though it hurt me both corporally and mentally to, I couldn't hold back those tears. I couldn't stop crying for both of us.

[Just one more peaceful day!]

The boy who had started all this glared back at Heero, who was just hanging out silently in the doorway, watching with an impassive face. Ah, he had put up the shields again. Maybe this other kid wasn't as good at reading body language as I was, or maybe it was just because he didn't know Heero at all, but I could tell that he was stopped cold by that icy glare in his eyes. Ha, but that look doesn't phase me anymore. I can tell what's going on inside that head of is even if he's got his best "Omae o korosu" countenance pasted on his handsome face.

"I'm taking Duo to the infirmary to get these wounds treated proper," the boy said in a voice that could be nothing but menacing. I guess I was just no good at that lying thing, or he could tell that Heero's reaction was not exactly that of an innocent party. He paused briefly before going on. "You… you tell Coach that Duo can't play today because he's been… mysteriously injured."

Heero nodded curtly and abruptly walked out the door towards the basketball court. I wondered if he even cared about the lying and the fact it had all been for him. My companion helped stupid shaking crying me to my feet and brought me from the gym back to the main building and up towards the nurse's office. On the way he asked me what he should tell the nurse about my injuries. I could tell by his tone he was only trying to humour me; he did know that I had been lying about Heero. I guess I should stick to the truth since that's what I'm good at. Still, what I said before holds true. I'd still lie for him if I had to. Even if it meant making up a huge mother fucking fantasy story, full of bullshit and pussyfooting, as long as it kept Heero hidden and protected, that story would be the best goddamned story you ever heard. Well anyway, I had no idea what to say so I just shook my head mutely as if it was something I'd rather not talk about. It really wasn't in any case.

[And it's been a while since I could look at myself straight.
And it's been a while since I said I'm sorry.]

He left me there in the nurse's care. She was a nice middle-aged lady, thin with short dark brown hair and a pleasant smile. If Sister Helen had had short brown hair and were a bit older, I bet she would have looked just like this lady. They both seemed like they would have made good mothers. For a second, I wondered if the nurse had any kids of her own. She brought me back into a dark little room adjacent to her office where four beds lined the white walls and let me pick one to lie down on. I chose one near the room's only window and eased myself onto the squishy mattress, staring up at the ceiling while she dashed off to grab the suddenly ringing phone. While I waited for her to come back, I let my eyes rove over the room. All the beds were outfitted with patchwork quilts and pillows, fuzzy blankets folded at the foot of each one. There were a lot of posters on the walls, ones that condoned things like smoking and drugs and ones that explained how to do CPR and other stuff like that. But I easily found my favourite was a poster taped over the bed opposite mine, covered with the lyrics to the song "Imagine".

When the nurse came back, she brought with her a white med kit. It kind of made me nervous looking at it. Bandages and needles and antiseptic… scary shit. Well anyway, she kept engaging me in conversation while she had me shed my shirt again to take my mind of the little pains she caused as she examined me. And even when she had me sitting on that bed in nothing more than my favourite pair of boxer shorts, the red ones with the bat wings stretched out over the ass, she had instilled this peaceful sense inside of me, and I could have cared less if she had asked me to tell her word for word what sex was like with Heero and what had really happened between us. I would have. In fact, I almost did spill the beans on everything from Heero to Gundam. I kind of wanted some advice on what to do with my crappy life. Yeah, she was that motherly.

In no time at all, she was ruffling my hair affectionately and telling me to lie down and get some rest. I found my bruises and cuts dressed and my wrist tied to a splint to keep it all straightened out so it healed right. She let me hold the teddy bear sitting on one of the other beds, left a glass of water by my side and even moved the vase of flowers that sat on her desk into the room for me.

I couldn't tell you how long I slept there. I was too comfortable to know or care. All I do know is that after heaven knows how long, I felt the sensation of long fingers entwining themselves in my loosened hair, stroking the long tresses almost affectionately. I mean, I was only half awake at the time, a dull pain still ringing through my limbs and all, but I felt suddenly at peace when I realized it was Heero who was sitting on the edge of my bed, playing with my hair when he leaned down and whispered into my ear, "They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, did you know?" My breaths hitched slightly as his fingers slipped around my plush cheek and over my lips, wiping away the path of tears that ran down my face. I think I fell asleep again to the sound of his voice, mumbling something like "Gomen, Duo. Sometimes…." He was whispering now, still leaning over my body as if to protect me as he spoke, his lips so close, it was nearly like he was leaving a trail of tiny kisses over my face. "…. Sometimes I'm tired of being so damn strong."

[And it's been a while since I've seen the way the candles light your face.
And it's been a while, but I still can remember just the way you taste.]

When I awoke again, I knew I was no longer in the infirmary. I was curled up in a loose fetal position, leaning into a very sturdy body with a pair of very strong arms wrapped around me. I was faintly aware of the sound of Heero's voice, his hot breath puffing over my ear. I realized that he was singing something that sounded like a lullaby in Japanese. I had no idea that Heero Yuy could sing! His voice was quiet and soothing, even if somewhat nasal. I liked listening to it. I wonder if I'll ever hear him sing again. I doubt I'll ever forget it. Maybe one day when I finally figure out Japanese, I'll find out what he was singing. I wonder if the lyrics were as pretty as they sounded.

My eyes slowly opened and focused. The first thing I saw was the blurred green of Heero's shirt where I was cuddled like a lost little child would cling to a big brother or something. When my eyes found the dull metallic gray beyond him, the somewhat familiar control panels and thrusters just beyond his arm, I realized that we were sitting in Wing's cockpit, curled up close to each other, protecting each other.

"Heero?" Strange that the first thing I mumbled was his name, even though I was not entirely sure I was even with him and that I was supposed to be angry with him. It was really hard to stay angry with him, even if it seemed he had no heart.

[And everything I can't remember,
As fucked up as it all may seem to be, I know it's me,]

"Shh, Duo," the sound of his voice played over my ear again. He'd stopped singing, realizing that I was now awake again. "You don't have to say anything." I made a muffled little noise into his shirt and wrapped my arms around his waist, if anything, out of sheer habit. He went on speaking after a moment of silence. "It's blue, by the way."

"What?" I was confused. "Blue?"

"Well, dark blue really. Maybe even more on the violet side," he said. I felt his finger caress my chin, lifting my face up to meet his. "Like the colour of your eyes. That's my favourite colour."

I smiled weakly at him. He had finally opened up to me. It was the first bit of personal information about himself that he had ever volunteered to me of his own accord. I reached up and touched his cheek, my smile broadening a bit at the peaceful expression that now graced his face. "You look even more amazing when you smile. You should smile more. I bet people would really like that."

"Would you like that?" he asked. When I nodded, his answer was simply beautiful. "Then I will smile more for you."

Well I had to smile myself at that. With a pleased chuckle, I pressed myself closer to him, decided for sure that I really had fallen for the stupid bastard. What a jerk, making me all weak at the knees for him. It's just like him to do that, you know?

We made love for the first time after that, right there, in Wing's cockpit. No, it wasn't just sex like it had been before. There's a distinct difference between sex and making love. This time, it actually seemed to mean something to the both of us. Let me just say this: Heero never got on his knees for anyone until that night. I'd never seen him so willing to please me before. He gave himself to me, let me see the poor sad vulnerable little boy he truly was. It was like I was with a totally new person—a quiet softer Heero Yuy who was buried under years of pain and hardship. It was something that had emblazoned itself on both our memories, I'm sure. I wonder if things will change for everyone after this?

February 14, AC 197

It's been a while since the last time I took the time to write like this, but I haven't had any need to until now. I'm feeling so depressed! We had a year or so of peace and I had about that much time with Heero. It's all over now though. I really don't think I'll ever get the chance to see him again. We had a brief interlude from that peace with a war that was just concluded at the end of last year. So the world's back on track, but my life's gone to hell again. Heero and I made love for the last time snuggled in a nest of our clothes at the back of an old warehouse we were hiding out in on colony X-18999 just before the conclusion of that war with little Mariemeia and her army. After that, we finished the mission, busted Relena out of captivity and then you know what? We went our separate ways! Can you believe that? It might sound sick of me to say this, but I miss the war and all the fighting when I got to be with him. I wondered if he had gotten tired of me and that's why he had me go live with Hilde. He said it was for my own good that I get a job and that Hilde would be a good person to help me get financially set. Told me that without a war, it would be hard to support ourselves and all that bullshit. I mean, Hilde's nice and all; she's one of the coolest, probably my best friend, but she's not Heero. I can't support myself without him and I think I'm going crazy. Like not metaphorically crazy, but really stark-raving mad. Hilde made me go see a shrink for a while, and he suggested I find a way to let out my frustrations and all. Writing all of it down kind of helps a little. I told him that I used to do it all the time, and he said it was a good habit to have, so I decided I'd try it out again. He's right though; it does help a little. For now it will have to do. Actually, he originally wanted to put me in the nut house, but Hilde wouldn't stand for it. It took a lot of arguing, but I got out of it, though it's probably where I belong.

[I cannot blame this on my father.
He did the best he could for me.]

June 29, AC 197

I tried to call old Wuffers up yesterday at Preventers, but he wasn't around, so I got forwarded to Lady Une, me being an old Gundam pilot and all. When she heard that I wanted a spot on her crew, she was more than happy to oblige and even more happy to offer me a spot on her team of agents who usually got landed on top-secret jobs. Told me that having a thief like me on board could prove effective and all that jazz. Well whatever made her happy, I guess. In any case, I've got a job with her now, and I'm going to move out of Hilde's at the end of this week. Out with the old and in with the new. I even have a new alias: Maxwell Smart. Catchy, yeah? Anyways, Hilde was glad for me even though I couldn't tell her where I was going. Une had placed me on one of her top covert teams, one that usually took missions so confidential that my joining them would mean that I would essentially disappear from the face of the Earth. Duo Maxwell is going to rest for a while, not to be dug up until someone realizes that he's died. That's okay. I don't think anyone would even miss me. Hell, I don't even think I would miss me. I'll go back to being Shinigami, just a face without a name. It's the only thing I seem to be good for anyway.

[And it's been a while since I could hold my head up high.
And it's been a while since I said I'm sorry….]

{{A/N}} Oh, tears! The song, It's Been Awhile, belongs to Stain'd. Oh at BTW, didja catch the reference to the old spy show "Get Smart"? (Well, it's easy to figure out from the title...) Good job if you've been able to catch all my little spy sweet-nothings here and there (*cough*chaptertitles*cough*).