Again, for Sunny, the best Gundam reviewer I have.
Also, to everyone who reviewed my last fic... YellowDancer21, Lucifer's Garden, Tiger of the Wind 1, and all the rest, the 14 of you ROCK MY SOCKS!
A/N; This is the first fic I've posted that I haven't been completely happy with. It is in SERIOUS need of a beta reading, so if anyone fells up to it, would you please email me and let me know?? Or, just make suggestions in reviews, if you'd prefer, and I'll do my best to see them done! Thank you.
Disclaimer: Don't own either Zechs or Heero, cuz if I did, then there would have been far more shônen-ai on the series. Don't own the song non plus, wish that I did, because Dido rocks!!
Lyrics of the song are indicated by italicized words in double brackets. ((like so))
All You Want
((I'd like to watch you sleep at night,
to hear you breathe by my side....))
He looked so different when he was sleeping, sprawled languidly beneath the thin sheets, pale blond hair making a halo over the soft pillows. In dreams, the air of tension, the razor-sharp alertness that was his trademark vanished; no dark shadows from the past lingered over his features. Gone was the aloof, exacting Colonel Merquise of Oz; when he slept, he was nothing more than a 19-year-old boy.
I loved him like that.
((And although sleep leaves me behind,
There's nowhere I'd rather be.))
Sometimes it became so easy to forget that we were only teenagers, easy to pretend that we weren't at war ... that we weren't enemies.
I never slept, not when I was with him. Curled up next to his warm body, my head nestled against his chest, one strong arm encircling my waist—I cherished every moment. Every twilight-hued second, mere moments snatched in the cool, blue hours after evening and before dawn.
With the rising of the sun, we would be forced to remember, to fight once again.
To try to kill each other.
I wonder if he ever knew that I couldn't do it. That on that clear morning in Antarctica, faced with the possibility of his death, my eyes had been clouded with tears.
I could never kill him.
((And now our bed is oh so cold,))
The room was empty when I arrived, the walls a flat beige that I had never noticed before. Bland, resigned, tired; a perfect analogy for my life when I wasn't with him.
The place felt abandoned, as though the weary paint somehow held the memory of laughter and sighs, and was still refusing to let it go.
((My hands feel empty, no one to hold.))
It was always the same, when he was called away on a mission. Alone in an empty apartment, with only my melancholy regrets for company.
I always worried about him. It was a bitter irony that I should care the most about the one man who was the most threat to me. The man I was supposed to kill, the one I knew would kill me someday.
I missed him.
((I can sleep what side I want...))
I couldn't go home – or what served as such for the moment. I hade made my excuses to leave; Trowa would be suspicious if I turned up again unexpectedly.
None of them knew.
I slipped awkwardly into the bed, immediately feeling the loss of his presence compound itself a hundred times over. I missed his glinting blue eyes, looking at me wryly from under silvery-blond bangs. I missed the brush of his fingertips over my skin, the soothing sound of his low voice, whispering that he loved me as we lay together. The bed felt too big for only me... it hurt to be alone here.
((It's not the same with you gone.))
I curled up in the centre of the mattress, pressing my face into his pillow, trying to be as close to him as was possible. Shameful, that I should cry over one night apart. The fabric grew damp against my cheeks. Shameful... that I should cry....
My quiet sniffling was the only sound, deafening in the crushing silence. I had never noticed his quiet breathing, the sound of his heartbeat, before they were gone.
((Oh, if you'd come home...))
Sirens awoke me, flashing red lights screaming past the window, like flickering electric flames streaking the confines of my own personal hell. In the distance, there was a ruddy blaze, soaking the low-lying clouds in mottled orange and brown. The Oz base.
My heart froze, my mind screamed. It would be a Gundam attack, of course; only Gundam pilots could take on an Oz base. Gundam pilots never lost, they would die before surrendering, as a matter of pride, destroying themselves, their gundams, and any enemy foolish enough to get close.
Zechs.
He would take it as a matter of honour to be in the centre of that battle, the closest one to the Gundam when it detonated.
Eyes wide with panic, hands pressed against the cold glass, I willed myself to look harder, to see past my shadowed reflection, past miles and the buildings that separated us to see that he was all right.
I found myself making deals with God, childish promises to an unfeeling entity. 'I promise I'll never kill anyone ever again, I'll be good, I'll give up fighting and turn myself in, so long as you keep him safe. Don't let him die, please...'
Snow.
Cold white flakes that drifted down from the sullen sky in lazy spirals. They melted as they hit the window where I stood in silent, paralysing fear. Another game, another form of reassurance. 'If the drop on the right side hits the windowsill first, he'll be ok.'
My breath condensed on the glass, hiding the glimmer of flames behind an opaque mist. I ran my finger through it, tracing the letters of his name in the katakana of my language, the roman alphabet of his.
'Please let him be aright.'
There was no answer from the clouds above.
((I'd let you know that...))
"I love you." I pressed my forehead against the window, heedless of the tears that streaked my face, pressing one hand to my eyes. "I love you, Zechs..."
'Come back to me, please...'
I don't know how long I stood there, how long it was until I sank, beaten, into a chair, eyes facing the window, gaze facing inwards. Numb, I awaited some form of report, a message from one of my companions, a "breaking news" broadcast on the TV. Something to let me know if he was still alive.
((All you want, is right here in this room...))
A key in the lock. I was to the door before it opened, flinging it wide, flinging myself into his arms, burying my head against his shoulder.
He sighed quietly, sagging back against the opposite wall under my weight. Stepping back to look at him, I saw the purple smears of fatigue lining his pale eyes, noted the blood on his uniform.
"You're alive..." I couldn't believe it; it was too improbable to be true. This tired, battle-weary angel wasn't really in front of me, and it was just the hallucination of a grieving mind that made me see him. I had seen the fires, heard the sirens wailing. It wasn't possible.
He smiled thinly, stepping past me into the room, leaving me to shut the door. I turned quickly, afraid to let him out of my sight for a single moment, lest he disappear from me again.
((All you want.))
Just in time. I saw his knees buckle, lunged forward to catch him as he fell. Supporting his tall frame with difficulty, I helped him to the bed, laying him down on it gently.
Alive.
His eyes flickered open for a moment, a heart-stopping intensity of blue, before drifting closed once again. I saw the exhaustion writ in every line of his body; Zechs wasn't very adept at taking care of himself. He would push himself beyond all human limits, days of brutal fighting, battle after battle, without stopping to sleep or eat. This wasn't the first time he'd appeared half-dead on my doorstep.
((And all you need...))
I gently undid the buttons of his ruined tunic, hissing between my teeth in sympathy at the wounds I unveiled. His entire torso was mottled purple-blue with bruises; dark blood caked over long gashes across his chest.
I probed at the injuries with delicate fingers, being more than familiar with injuries associated with Mobile Suit battles. 5 ribs broken, at least, Zechs had been as rough as ever.
"Baka," I whispered softly, through the panic that gripped my throat. "I need to get you to a hospital."
"Thank you, but I already declined that offer from a medic, Heero," he muttered, his voice a rasp of pain.
"Idiot! Do you want to die, Zechs? Why didn't you go to the hospital... you need to see a doctor."
Blue, blue eyes...
"I needed to see you."
A small, tentative smile that curved his perfect lips...
I burst into tears.
((All you need, is right here in this room,))
He pulled me down to him, pressing his lips against my burning eyelids, tracing the tracks of my tears with gentle kisses. Still I sobbed, uncontrollably, all the fear and hurt and anger of our relationship emptying in one burst of emotion.
He held me close through the storm that shook me, mindless of his own pain. I wanted him to hold me like that forever.
((All you want.))
Silver moonlight traced slender fingers through the curtain of cloud, running her fingers over the wooden windowsill, through the blurred and faded inscription of my love's name on the glass. His face looked so serene in the moonlight, like a Roman statue, carved out of flawless marble.
He looked so young when he slept, so untroubled by the worries and pain that haunted him while waking.
And I, the silent watcher, protecting my sleeping angel. In the chair I had moved next to the bed to be near him, I waited, observing him through half-closed eyes, drinking in the sight of him. Our hands lay entwined on top of the white blanket.
((I like to watch you sleep at night,
To hear you breathe by my side.))
End
--------
OWARI! What did you think? Just a short Gundam Songfic, from a song that I love! I was originally going to do the whole song, where it becomes apparent that the guy was cheating .
"...But in that night, you broke my heart.
If only you had slept alone,
If those seeds had not been sown,
Oh, you could come home..."
And have Heero see Zechs with Noin or something. It would have been a good angsty ending, but
a) I was in a rather mushy warm-glow mood after writing my WHR fic, "Redemption",
b) I would never let my sublime Zechs be such a prick.
But let me know if you would have preferred that! It would mean eliminating everything from((Oh, if you'd come home...)) onwards... but I suppose if I get the time, I may give it a shot. 'Course, now I'm being plagued to write a new WHR fic... hmm, maybe I'll do an angsty one of them!!!
Please Review,
and be so kind,
Or I will kick
Yo' scrawny behind!
Thank you, thank you...
Xtine
