My AU bunnies strike again. Hope you like. Dunno why I wrote it or where it came from.
Eternal
Heero thought he was beautiful - Trowa Barton, that is. He thought everything about him was perfect. His name, his brown hair that never seemed to obey any rules, his emerald coloured eyes, his thin lips. He thought he was in love with Trowa. He used to lay in the shade of the trees at the school watching him. At that time he was hardly ten years old.
He was surprised when Trowa went up to him one lunch hour. "You always sit on your own here," Trowa said, sitting beside him, "Do you get lonely?"
"Not really," Heero said half shyly. "I watch people."
"I know," Trowa turned and gave him a little smile, "I thought you might like me to come over. You seem as if you want a friend."
Heero felt as if he was losing his voice. His head felt light and he smiled at the other boy dazedly, "I've never had a friend before. You don't always have anyone with you, either." He felt slightly defensive, suddenly, of his lonesome ways.
"No. They talk too much. You never seem to talk too much. I like that." Trowa said quietly. He sat closer to Heero and smiled his strange, half smile. Heero felt as if he was in the presence of an angel. He held his breath as he looked into Trowa's eyes, imagining drowning in a sea of emerald and altogether loving the sensation. He longed to lean forward a bit and kiss the other boy.
From that day on, they were inseparable. There were few words between them, though sometimes they could look at each other, and as best friends often do, communicate whole conversations by simply looking into each other's eyes. Some people taunted them for their loner ways, but after the time Heero hit someone for insulting Trowa, making their nose bleed, people kept away from the two.
Sometimes, a boy called Quatre would come and sit beside them. But he didn't like the silence the way they did, and he soon went away. Others came and went, but Trowa and Heero were constant. They remained friends in their next school, and finally, Heero took a step further in their friendship.
One lunchtime, a lazy, beautiful lunchtime, Heero watched Trowa. Trowa was making a bracelet from daisies for his sister, his attention fixed wholly on the task, and Heero's on him. Heero still thought he was in love with Trowa.
"Trowa," He began, "Would you like to come for tea at my house tomorrow night?"
Trowa nodded. It was the only answer Heero needed. He helped Trowa with the bracelet, and worked out a fastening to tie it to his sister's thin wrist. He was one of the few who didn't care that both Trowa and Catherine were gypsies and lived in a caravan. In his eyes, nothing Trowa did could be wrong.
From that day on, they only got closer. One lunchtime, soon after Heero had turned fifteen, Heero sat with Trowa beneath the trees, and worked up the courage to lay a solemn, tender kiss on his lips. He was surprised when Trowa wrapped strong arms around him and kissed him deeply in reply. He had never expected that.
After that, they were still the same. They spent their lunchtimes together, sat in the shade of the trees, but now they would talk more often. Sometimes Heero would lie with his head in Trowa's lap, and Trowa would play with his hair and they would have long, deep, satisfying conversations about anything and everything. People grew accustomed to seeing them occasionally reach up and kiss each other slowly and gently, no matter who might be watching them.
They took everything at the slow, calm pace they always had done. Heero still thought he loved Trowa. He stopped thinking and starting knowing that he loved Trowa when, at age seventeen, they were at Heero's house. They were in his bedroom - no parent would ever worry about those two, they were responsible, loved each other and would never hurt each other. They were lying on the bed in each other's arms when it just - happened.
The first time they made love they took things very slowly. They were inexperienced, and so twice as careful. If anyone would have asked them, they would have said that the wait between them falling and love and having sex made it better in the end.
It didn't seem to change anything for anyone but them. They still lay in the shade of the trees together, talking softly about the past, the future, and most of all the present. They supported each other, and people said there was no greater couple anywhere.
But it made all the difference to Heero. He knew he was in love with Trowa, and what's more, that he hadn't strayed or stopped loving Trowa as long as he had known him. He still thought Trowa was beautiful, and it was obvious Trowa thought the world of him.
That's why it was such a tragedy when Trowa Barton, almost before they realised he had it, died of cancer. People thought it would break Heero's heart. They were surprised when they could still find him in the old haunts, smiling for a past that was gone and staring back into it, finding a slender, tall, beautiful boy that he would always love. Nothing would ever stop Heero loving Trowa.
But they were not at all surprised when they found Heero dead in that spot under the trees, an empty pill bottle beside him.
Children often would sit there; running their fingers over the cool marble of the marker that had been placed there, wondering. Tracing the names of two men who dared to be happy. Wondering whether in heaven, two angels sat together quietly, loving each other in the perfect calm they had always sought.