Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing… I wish I did… I wish I owned it all… I am getting no money from this fic, (unfortunately: I'm broke…) so please do not sue me.

AN: Ok, I've been chain reading 1x2 for a while now, so I decided to try my hand at one, even tho I know next to nothing about the series having only seen 3 and a half eps. This is completely AU and probably severely OOC. But what the hell, I showed it to my friend (and partial inspiration) and she said I should post it, so I am. It's strange and kinda sappy and completely Duo's POV it has past 2xH and present 1x2 shounen ai. Ummm… the title sucks, but anyway, just read it. And then, please, review…

Duo's Walls

My room's a mess, anyone who knows me can tell you that. I don't intend it to be, but it always is. It's like no matter how much I try to keep ahead of it- I can't. That's one of my worst features, but I don't care… much. My floor and all the surfaces may be a mess but my walls. My walls are tidy as hell!

I only figured this out last night. I was just lying in bed waiting to fall asleep when I realised that, although to the outsider my walls may look random and messed up they're not. They're the tidiest thing about me. And even though that outsider might see then as junk I've collected across the years they aren't that either. If you wanted to you could tell my life's story from these walls. And I'm not joking.

Admittedly, my life story wouldn't be very interesting, considering the fact that I'm a 17 year old boy whose led a relatively sheltered existence. But every single thing I stick on those walls means something.

One wall is dedicated to posters- large, small, old new. There's one, high up in the tip corner, directly at the foot of my bed. It's dog-eared and I've lost count of the number of times it's fallen down. Even the sellotape holding it together is falling apart! But it's like an old friend. That poster's from my first concert, and every time I look at it I remember how excited I was and how it felt to be there listening to the music and singing along. Of course it helps that L2 are still my favourite band, but that day was a good one. My foster-dad took me and he was wearing this ridiculous hat. I found it really embarrassing at the time but now I laugh both at the hat and myself.

Also up there, with the posters is another: a fantasy scene. It's huge, about A1, with mythical creatures playing in beautiful scenery beneath a full moon. It looks completely out of place to everyone but me, as though it's been shoved unthinkingly in the middle of the band and film posters. But it isn't. That picture says more about me that just that I have an unhealthy obsession with fantasy. It was a birthday present, about three years ago from one of my best friends, Quatre Raberba Winner. It doesn't sound that impressive, but to me it is. Y'see, Q couldn't be there that birthday. He was on a business trip with his Dad. But he still found the time to choose me that, a present I love, and even went to the trouble of giving it to Trowa to give to me! He could have waited till he saw me at school, but he didn't. So that poster has pride of place up there.

Q features a lot on my walls, as do Trowa and Wu, two of my other best friends. Though Wu-man would kill me if he ever knew I called him that, even to myself. His proper name is Wufei and he'd love it if I ever remembered it. But I'll get to the wall of fame in a minute.

Before that there's another picture, wedged in the corner of my mirror but still of vital importance. It shows my first, and only girlfriend, Hilde. At the time the photo had been taken we'd been going out for about a month and we'd just been to the cinema. I was doing an incredibly overdone impression of one of the characters, accent, walk and all! It might seem strange to some people, to have my ex on my wall, but even after we broke up we remained good friends. And even though she's moved away now we still keep in touch. IN fact her latest letter is pinned to my notice board. Her friendship and the fact she considered me worth dating mean a lot to me and having her picture on my mirror stops me from getting too vain, because it always reminds me of all her teasing about my 'big head'. So I have I thank her for that as well.

Next to her letter on the notice board are the words of my favourite song, surprisingly not L2 and just as surprisingly, if not more so, a love song. That song means so much to me. Every time I hear it I tear up. I can't help it. There are only three people in the world that know about it and 2 of them I've already mentioned. If anyone else found out I'd be so embarrassed I'd probably scream. Well, anyway, this song. It's what I play when life seems too much and everything's going wrong. I put the headphones on, and flick the song on and cry all my frustration out. Every last tear. I hum it to myself when I'm having a bad day and I sing it if I'm upset. That song and those lyrics have seen some pretty hard wear over the last 17 years. They accompanied me through break ups, upheavals, heartbreak and death, and I'm pretty sure they have more work yet to come.

Also one the notice board, draped across several pins, is my rosary. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge believer in God. Faith isn't the reason behind those beads for me. Well, not faith in some almighty being that gets his happies from torturing poor souls down her on earth, but faith in something different. Those beads represent my faith in the goodness of mankind. Corny I know, but that, in essence, is what they are. After my mother died, leaving me alone in the world, I gave up on hope- on people. But I was lucky, because there was someone who never gave up on me. The orphanage chaplain, Fr Maxwell, whose name I took. He never gave up on me, showing me kindness and helping me understand that there was still hope. The rosary beads were left to me in his will, along with my cross, which I wear every day and a small some of money. So they're there out of respect for a man who never lost his faith, even when faced with the death and suffering of interminable cancer.

I mentioned my mother's death, so I guess now it's only fair I put her picture into my mental review. It's hung just above my bed in a plain silver frame, watching over me as I sleep. It's always been there, ever since she died. It's as if I have my own personal guardian angel protecting me. I find it difficult to get to sleep without her presence, so often, at other people's houses, I end up awake at 4:30 in the morning without having had a wink of sleep. In the picture she's smiling, looking beautiful with long brown hair and violet eyes, like mine. Wufei said I look a lot like her, the nicest thing he's ever said to me. I hope it's true.

Back to the notice board now. Alongside the lyrics and beads is a post-it note. Completely innocuous to most people, but then again, as I think everybody will agree, I'm not most people. Written on it, in my neatest handwriting, is my motto. The line I live by and the phrase that everybody associates with me: 'I may run and hide but I never tell a lie.' That doesn't really need explaining it's just there to inform the world of who I am.

Hanging off the bottom of the board is a card. A Christmas card to be precise. Highly out of season at the moment, but still important. It's from several years ago, just after I'd been fostered and it has the usual cheesy, heart-warming picture on the outside. The stuff that would usually make me feel sick: children opening presents under a huge Christmas tree, lit by the light of a huge log fire. But the inside, that's what counts. 'Dear Duo,' it starts, 'thank you for agreeing to be part of our family and our lives. We hope to have you here for many Christmases to come, Merry Christmas, love from Mr and Mrs Goodman' - my foster parents. That was the first proper Christmas I ever had, and the first Christmas card. I never really know what it was, then I came here and I understood…

Now it's time to turn to the wall of fame. Well, actually, it's more like a door. It's a huge glass frame I have hanging on the back of my bedroom door, filled with pictures of my friends and I doing some of the stupidest things. There's Trowa and me doing the three-legged race. Wu running away from Q-man and his water pistol. Me trying to ski backwards down a hill on a school ski-trip to Canada, and succeeding, after a style. Then there's one of my favourites, taken last Halloween party at Q's house. It's got Q as an angel, naturally and me as Shinigami. Wufei is in drag as a witch (which was, of course, my idea and my handiwork!), Trowa's a clown and my other friend, Heero, as, well, himself. Sadly I couldn't get him into the cat costume! But besides all these there are others. All of us crammed into a photo booth. A loada school photos, a group shot of a picnic by the river. Quatre sleeping on a bus, head on Trowa's shoulder and mouth slightly open. Yeah they're the good pics, the ones that remind me of friendship. Those guys rock! Seriously. Only Quatre could get away with taking a pic of us all first thing in the morning!

Heero… Well I said he was my friend, but it's a little more than that. He's my very best friend. So why'd I leave it so long to talk about him? Because I save the best till last of course! My last pic on my wall is of Heero. It's a brilliant picture, which shows him with one of his rare smiles, which is goo because I'd hate to have my boyfriend shooting me his patented glare of death all day long. Yup, that's right, he's my boyfriend. That's what I mean by saving the best till last. He means a lot to me, more than I'd ever admit without serious coercion. He's been my friend for what seems like forever, even if he did hate my guts when we first met. And we're still friends now, we just go out and kiss as well, and one thing about Heero Yuy… he's a damn good kisser! The one thing this reminds me of, more than anything else is the day when I realised, well when we both realised, we wanted to be more than friends. I'd been having a shit day and I was in one of those moods where nothing seems to be going right and everyone and everything hates you. I was ranting away at him while he typed up an English essay on that bloody laptop of his. I wasn't even sure he was listening. But apparently he was. Even though he gave no indication of it whatsoever other than a couple of grunts. I finished on a question, and I guess I must have run out of air because usually when I start talking I never let anyone else get a word in edgeways. But anyway, I left him hanging with 'Does anybody even give a shit about my feelings?' and he replied, quite calmly and quietly (though he has since told me that he was terrified and it took every ounce of control to stop himself from shaking like a leaf) 'I do,' without so much as looking up. Well that took the wind right out of my sails, so to speak. I didn't get what he was talking about at first, but after a lot of stammering and uncomfortable silences we worked it all out. Our first date was a week later. But that picture reminds me of then because that night, at the end of that godawful day, was the first time I ever saw him smile like that. I've seen it a load of times since, but that first time was special, in fact, it turned that crap day into one of the best in my life. Pretty amazing really.

Well, that's it, that is the life and posters of Duo Maxwell, infamous schoolboy, as told by his own four walls. But y'know what? I gotta space, a huge big one, just waiting for my next set of pictures.

~*Owari*~