[fic] Armistice - I guess I never posted this??
TWO YEARS AGO I SAID I WOULD WRITE MORE AND I DIDN'T AND THAT IS A SAD THING :( I want to write stuff, I miss it. My life has gotten so busy, but I miss this fandom and writing and reading. Blah.
Here is a fic I wrote for the Moments of Rapture contest way back when and never posted to my LJ, which I like to keep as a full list of all the stuff I wrote. So here.
Title: Armistice
Pairing: 1x2
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Post-EW, angst, lemon, language
The whole world had taken to the streets to celebrate peace, and Sanq looked like it was trying to outdo the rest of the United Earth Sphere Nations all on its own. It was an hour to sundown and streamers were already flying, some released by revelers out of windows, some sent plummeting to Earth in enormous bales from the cargo bays of soaring planes overhead, their exhaust trails dyed blue and gold, the colors of the UESN. There was noise everywhere: street vendors screaming into the din as they hawked their wares, car horns honking in unison, firecrackers sputtering on the pavement. Children ran up and down the street, sparklers clutched in their tiny fists, some of them too young to even remember the war.
Hands in pockets, Duo continued along his route, taking it all in. The revelry, the joyous celebration felt so far from him, as if he had arrived on an alien planet during a national holiday. The contents of the plastic bag hanging from his elbow clinked together as he walked, spurring him forward. The world’s celebration wasn’t for him-- today was not a day for a mobile suit pilot to show his face.
Giant televisions, set up in the main square, broadcast the Armistice events being held in other parts of the Earth Sphere Nation before the 5th Annual Sanq Armistice Day Celebration began in earnest. An enormous crowd had gathered to watch the speeches and, especially, the fireworks at sundown. It seemed everyone Duo passed as he hurried along was drunk or well on their way, as if it was a prerequisite for watching the show. He didn’t blame them, though. He was on his way to do the very same thing.
He cut down an alley to avoid some of the crowd, taking a meandering route along some less-populated streets as he headed for his destination: the Sanq National Arboretum. It was closed for the holiday, and the massive fence he came upon sported an impressive succession of locks, topped off with an imposing sign declaring that Trespassers Would Be Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law. Lucky for him, he was great at picking locks and not getting caught. The guard station was completely empty, anyway-- everyone was down in the street. The war had ended five years ago and everyone was still raw from it. Celebrating the peace felt like a mandatory expression of how precious it was, how recently it had been merely a dream. Even Duo was heading to a celebration, his own version of one.
He felt the burn of the war in his memory a different way than the rest of the world. To the people in the street, throwing confetti in the air and dancing drunkenly under the banners in the square, he was the war, its brutal, cruel face, a murderer in a great beast of metal and green laser fire.
To him, well, the war had been the worst and the best time of his life. The memory of splitting aircraft carriers and mobile suits in two with his beam scythe thrilled him in a way he never admitted in mixed company. He was Death once, and he had been damn good at his job, and he still missed the way his Gundam’s throttle fit in his grip, the way the pilot seat hummed around him, syncing with his heartbeat. And there was almost no one in the world who knew how he felt, who loved peace more fiercely than anyone who had never killed for it, yet mourned the exhilaration of war, the sweet taste of blood in their mouth, the way impending death made their neurons fire and their senses burn.
But not quite no one.
There was an incline leading to an overlook of the city that Duo hurried up, hustling past the towering trees, impatient to arrive. A path was carved out of the rock and he took the makeshift stairs two at a time. He could see the little enclosure, the wooden fence and the smattering of empty benches, the plaque that pointed out key buildings from the view-- Parliament, the Peacecraft Estate, Preventers Headquarters. It was darkening quickly, and the shadow of the trees pitched the overlook nearly black. Duo, however, could see perfectly who was already there, waiting for him.
“You’re early,” he said.
Heero turned.
“You can’t beat me here every year,” he replied, with something like a smile.
Heero was wearing a sweater and jeans, a far cry from the boy in spandex, but his hair still fell thick into his eyes, piercing blue as ever. If anything, he was more dangerously handsome than he had been even back then. Duo allowed himself a few seconds just to look as Heero approached him to pat him on the back in greeting.
Letting his gaze drop, Duo fished out the beer he had brought for the occasion.
“Sorry bud, they were out of everything by the time I got there. I hope you don’t mind Blue Ribbon.”
Heero shrugged. “It’ll do the job.”
True enough. Its job was just to provide the lubrication to get them talking, reminiscing, letting this stolen space of theirs serve as a different kind of remembrance, a different kind of celebration. The speakers beginning to gather at the stage set up far below them would extol the preciousness of peace, the fragile quality of it, but they didn’t need reminding of that. That wasn’t what they were here for.
“Did you see the Preventers aircraft’s little paint job earlier?” Duo popped the top off a beer. “Wonder where they found the budget for that.”
Heero fished a bottle out of the container and twisted the cap off. He shrugged.
“These things get more elaborate every year,” he said. “I heard they’re going to release 50 tons of fireworks in Sanq alone tonight.”
“Geez, you’d think it was a holiday or something,” Duo joked, glancing sideward at Heero, and they clinked their bottles together in a silent cheers.
The first speaker was taking the podium below. They were too far up to make out any features, even on the giant screens, and the sound from the city was merely a distant buzz. Whenever the speaker said something particularly rousing, the buzz would grow to a hum, then fade.
“Is Relena speaking tonight?”
Heero shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“I hear Quatre’s giving one on L-4 later,” Duo muttered, glancing upwards. The glow of the emerging moon made locating the colony impossible. “I hope he doesn’t get his feelings hurt if we don’t watch.”
“He won’t mind.”
“Nah, he’d never mind, and if he did he’d never tell you.” Duo took a sip of his beer and began to feel comfortably warm. “But the man loves his speeches.”
“He gave enough on Peacemillion alone to last us a lifetime,” Heero said, with a small wry smile.
Duo glanced at him. The faintest light from the city reached his features and highlighted them in the darkness, painted that smile a pale yellow.
“Yeah, geez, you got within five hundred feet of Sandrock and you’d have him on your comm, telling you not to give up hope and believe in yourself or something equally goofy. If it was anyone but Quatre, I would’ve told him to shut up.”
“But when Quatre said it, it sounded inspired.”
“Yeah, although hell, if those colonists knew what we knew, I don’t know how they’d feel about the guy giving ‘em speeches on peace. The man was a force to be reckoned with in a mobile suit.”
Duo took a long drink from his beer and watched the way his words registered with Heero. This was well-tread territory between them by now. Quatre always gave a speech on L-4 on Armistice Day, and they always laughed about how Quatre was the last person they would give a platform to if they knew how crazy he could get in a Gundam, how it was always the sweet-looking ones you had to watch out for.
“Hell, you can take one look at me and know I’m out of my goddamn mind,” Duo said with a grin.
“At least you don’t dress like a priest anymore,” Heero chuckled. “That was... weird.”
“You’re one to talk!”
The second speaker had taken the stage, it seemed, from the long applause that floated up to them. It barely registered in Duo’s mind, his thoughts a million miles away, years away, the memories beginning to come back bright and loud, spurred by the beer and the company.
Heero shook his head. “Remember those uniforms we had to wear, when we were at that school together?”
“Oh yeah, how could I forget? They were ridiculous!” Duo laughed. “That was the first and last time I wore a fucking ribbon around my neck. I looked like a ten-year-old girl.”
“It did match your hair well.”
“Real funny, Yuy--”
“Some of the male students thought you were a flat-chested girl.”
“All right, enough--”
“I think seeing you in the locker room gave them some confusing feelings.”
“Fuck you, man!” Duo crowed, and Heero nudged him with his shoulder to show he was kidding. Duo thought he might be blushing, and hid his reaction behind his shitty beer.
“I hated going to school,” Heero said.
“No shit, what were they going to teach us anyway? We could have probably schooled the teachers in a physics lesson anyway. I’ll never forget that test where they gave us the so-called melting point of gundanium and asked us to find the pressure at which a Leo could puncture a Gundam’s hull.”
Duo was smiling but he remembered the chill that had run down his spine, reading over the question. He knew it was bullshit, gundanium was heat resistant to far beyond the capacity of a Leo’s weapons, but he had broken character-- stupid, slacker class clown-- to write a rebuttal to the fascist fuck of a teacher, one that had taken up the margins of the page and the next page after it. He had received an F on the test and a note from the teacher to “see me after class,” but he had been out the door for the mission anyway and the risk of being detected had been worth that small sense of satisfaction that he’d pissed the asshole off.
“Gotta love an Alliance-approved curriculum,” Heero said evenly, eyeing him.
Duo finished off the rest of his beer and quickly went to open another. From the applause filtering up from below, the third and final speaker was taking the stage. If Relena was on tonight, this would undoubtedly be her time.
“Remember when we met?” Heero said. To change the subject, Duo supposed.
“Of course I do! I managed the impossible, right?”
“You’d think you’d be more contrite about shooting your friend, Maxwell.” Heero was smiling.
“You weren’t my friend yet, Yuy, you were a scary-looking dude on a pier who was about to shoot a very pretty young lady. Besides, it’s a point of pride that I was the only guy who ever managed to pop you one.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You paid me back the favor in spades, though. Stealing my shit.”
Heero snorted. “I taught you a valuable lesson in trust.”
“Yeah, and apparently I didn’t learn a damn thing, since I’m still hanging out with you.”
“Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you, anyway?” Heero replied, nudging Duo with his shoulder.
There were a few particular reasons why Duo still hung out with him, but he planned to take those to his grave.
“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing at his nose with his sleeve. “I must be crazy. Hanging out with a guy who blows himself up for fun.”
There was a long silence at his side, only the faint roar of the crowd audible. Oh hell, had he brought that up too soon? They usually got around to it sooner or later, and Heero took it differently every time. Duo glanced at him and found him staring solemnly up at the moon.
“That was pretty embarrassing.”
Duo let out a laugh, relieved he hadn’t pushed too far. “Yeah, I’d say that was kind of excessive. You damn near gave Quatre a heart attack. You should have seen him afterwards. He didn’t want to eat for a couple of days.”
Heero frowned.
“You two were together?”
“Yeah, we were hiding out in some desert palace Quatre owned. He may have owned the whole damn desert, I don’t know. We didn’t know what to do after you self destructed, so we just waited for something to happen.”
“I don’t remember much of the aftermath.”
“Yeah, well, you were dead,” Duo said, and then suddenly it all came back to him, in a rush that flooded his chest.
Heero had been something between a rival and a friend, the only friend Duo had that didn’t come equipped with laser weaponry. He had forgotten how to trust other people, and Heero had never learned, but somehow, it had come naturally to them when they were together. He remembered the late nights spent in each other’s rooms, pouring over mission details, memorizing base specifications and security codes, an unspoken understanding between them: I trust you with my life. These were details that, if one decided to betray the other, would have spelled swift death, but he had just known Heero wouldn’t betray him, had felt that implicit trust that had been lost to him since he was a boy, scavenging on the streets for food with Solo at his back.
And then Heero was gone, blown apparently to smithereens, and all of that was lost, and Duo had been lost with it.
He could see the gleam of the white marble palace as he approached it in Deathscythe, the way it had burned his reddened eyes. He hadn’t cried on the way but he had come damn close, and he had hurried to some corner of the house in shame, embarrassed by his weakness, by the way he had felt like his heart had been ripped out again, again, didn’t he ever learn not to get attached to people? He had felt like a fucking idiot, though the fact that Quatre looked physically wrecked and refused to eat had made him feel a tiny bit better.
The second night there, he had walked miles into the desert, until he could barely see the compound behind him, and stared up into the stars and let himself be as fucking miserable about Heero’s death as he damn well wanted to be.
“I had a funeral for you,” he blurted.
Heero turned to stare at him.
“What?”
His hands gripped the damp cold glass of the bottle. He was surprised this still managed to affect him.
“Yeah. Out in the desert. I had a funeral for you. I figured no one was going to give you one if I didn’t. I’m-- I was used to that.”
“You gave me a funeral?” Heero repeated.
He was trying to get Duo to look at him, but Duo just stared down at the festival below, seeing only the blue tinted sand that had stretched for miles in all directions and the yellow moon that had served as his only witness.
“What did you do?” Heero pressed.
“You really want to know what happened at your own funeral?”
“Most people don’t get to find out what people do for them when they’re dead.”
He had a strange expression on his face, those piercing eyes looking for something from him. Duo glanced at him and quickly away.
“Just some dumb shit. I said some stuff, I don’t remember--” aw hell, he was lying now, this wasn’t supposed to still feel so raw-- “And I poured some liquor out on the sand. We call that an L-2 Eulogy. A real esteemed historic tradition and all.”
“What did you say?”
Jesus, couldn’t he just let this one go?
“I don’t remember, I told you. I was drunk, anyway. And besides, you weren’t dead. The next time I saw you, you had a gun pointed to my face.”
The speaker had finished below, to uproarious applause. Remember the horror of war, so that peace is never forgotten. Something like that, right? That was always a hit with the crowd. Music swelled up from the square, which meant the fireworks would be starting in minutes.
There was no good way to describe the way seeing Heero in that cell had made him feel. The delirium of starvation and dehydration, the injuries he’d sustained in interrogation, knowing that the next time they came for him, it would be the final time, and then the door had opened and it had been Heero Yuy, right as rain, and for a moment, Duo had believed in God. He’d brought him back from the dead, delivered him to Duo, it was a fucking goddamn miracle. Some of the things he had felt at that instant terrified him, how happy he was, how desperately thankful he was to see Heero again.
And then the gun to his head and the fierce determination in Heero’s eyes had brought him crashing back to reality.
They hadn’t talked about this before. Well, Duo had never admitted he’d thrown a fucking funeral for Heero either, might as well get all the uncomfortable topics out of the way.
Heero stared down at the crowd below them.
“I was supposed to kill you. They broadcast that they were going to execute you on live television, and I thought you might tell them something to grant a stay of execution.”
“Gee, Yuy, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Duo muttered, remembering the fire in Heero’s eyes beyond the barrel of the gun. Jesus, like it was yesterday. Damn.
“I was a fucking idiot, okay?” Heero said, suddenly irate. “I thought I was doing you some kind of favor. Like if I killed you, at least it wasn’t them who did it.”
“Yeah... I know. I know. I was happy it was you who was doing the honors.”
“Jesus Christ Duo, don’t say that...”
“I mean, it hadn’t been a great week for me, you know? I figured I was dead one way or the other, better it wasn’t some jackoff in Oz fatigues putting the bullet in my brain.”
“Duo, goddamn it, don’t talk like that!”
That look was in Heero’s eyes again, the fire, as mesmerizing and terrifying as when they were teenagers. Like they were talking about something Duo had said yesterday, not five years ago. Death was no longer a constant companion, a taste lingering in the back of his mouth, but maybe he would never forget how that felt, because it was humming in the corners of his mind right now.
Why was Heero so upset? They had felt the same way about it back then, about dying, about the things you did for comrades in arms. It was more likely than not that neither of them would live to see the end of the war. If it came to that, it was the least they could do to make it so at least no Oz piece of shit got the satisfaction of taking them out.
“I wouldn’t have been mad at you,” Duo said, and then let out a bizarre laugh. “I mean, I wouldn’t have been mad at anyone, being dead and all, but--”
“--Duo, stop. Just...”
Heero ran a hand over his face. It was a minute before he spoke again.
“I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t have. I mean, I couldn’t. I tried to... I had my finger on the trigger...”
With a choked growl, he threw his empty bottle as far as he could, sending it flying into the forest below. He ran his hands through his hair, rubbed his eyes, shaking his head like he was trying to dispel the memory by force.
Duo stared at him. He had never seen him so upset. It was setting him on edge, because wasn’t this supposed to be over and done with? Shouldn’t they have exorcised these ghosts by now?
Tentatively, he put his hand on Heero’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was tense as a wire.
“No, you didn’t do it, buddy. You saved my life instead. You dragged me out of a high-security prison like it was a walk in the park. Talk about debt I can never repay.”
Heero shook his head.
“That’s not true. You did the same for me.”
Well, that was true, he supposed he did. Busted him out of prison, though he didn’t exactly drag him out. More like threw him hurtling from a thirty story building. But that was different, somehow. He hadn’t even known Heero’s name, just that he had to be a gundam pilot, and he had blue eyes that were terrifying to look into. Duo had been the one holding the gun and he still had been a little scared! It was as simple as that. He had been interested in the kid and had wanted to know more. That he would turn into a friend-- no, his closest friend, his most important friend-- had never even crossed his mind. He was just curious, and he liked breaking into places. And he couldn’t get the guy’s angry glare out of his mind.
But Heero had elected to put his own life at risk and blow his mission just to bust him out of prison, had delayed going to space to tend to Duo’s wounds, when all his instincts had told him to put a bullet in his brain. That meant something. It damn well meant more than curiosity. And something about the meaning in Heero saving him, dragging him out of that place, too weak to really walk under his own power, had kept him from ever bringing it up before. He was afraid to find out what it had meant. What it might still mean.
There was a scream from the darkness where Heero had thrown his bottle and a tiny sliver of light rocketed into the sky, then exploded in the air in a million sparks to the swell of the music far below. The fireworks were starting.
Heero lifted his head from where it was buried in his hands, staring out at the explosion as it faded into nothing, replaced by another, the blue gleam of it lighting his face.
“Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I had pulled the trigger.”
“Heero...”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this. They did not tread this kind of emotional territory. His heart thundered against his ribs, loud as the fireworks exploding above their heads.
“I used to think about it all the time... just how close it was. How close I got to doing it. What my life would be like now. Jesus Christ, Duo, it scares the shit out of me.”
“Heero, you don’t have to--”
“I would have nothing.” Boom. Hiss. Heero’s face was flooded suddenly red. “I would have lost everything that mattered in my life with one gunshot.” Boom. Blue fading to green. “I’d be dead by now if I had done it. I’m sure of it. I would have killed myself.” Boom-- now yellow. “Sometimes I just think about it and I’m paralyzed with the fear that I almost lost you... I almost fucking killed you, Duo... what did you say at my funeral?”
Heero turned to him and no amount of light from the fireworks could mask the blue of those eyes, the intensity with which he stared at him now. Duo’s hand on his shoulder felt glued to the spot, like he would fall to the ground without that anchor, paralyzed by Heero’s glare.
What the hell could he do besides tell him the truth?
“I talked about you,” he said softly. If Heero hadn’t been so close, there was no way he’d be able to hear him over the fireworks. “I said you were a good guy-- no, I think I used the word incredible-- an incredible guy, and that you were my friend, my only friend, though you had a real scary laugh...” He thought Heero might laugh at that now, but no, he just looked wrecked. “You had the most amazing blue eyes and when you looked at me like you were impressed with something I said, it made me feel so... amazing.”
It had. Oh God, it had. He had never found another high quite like it, though rocketing through the air in Deathscythe came close. But he felt unstoppable when someone as unbelievable, as perfect as Heero Yuy looked at him like he was proud to be his friend. He still felt that way, five years later. No one could make him feel worse, or better, than Heero could.
The rest spilled out of him like a stopper had been pulled on his heart.
“You were so special, so much more than just what you were trained to do, and it was such a fucking shame that you were dead, that you had been taken from me. I said I... I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was lost and alone. I asked God to bring you back to me. I said it wasn’t fucking fair to take you away, you meant too damn much to me. He could have anyone else-- hell, He could have me whenever He wanted-- but He couldn’t have you.”
Heero stared at him, his eyes wide. He didn’t look angry anymore, but Duo could not define what had replaced anger in his expression. He could barely speak after all that he had blurted out. He felt fifteen again, completely overwhelmed by loss, kicking sand in the desert and screaming at the sky. He couldn’t believe he had remembered everything, but he did, and truthfully he knew he would never forget. It just mattered too much. Some things, like the way he felt about Heero, never faded with time.
The exploding sky painted Heero gold, then blue, then red. In the intermittent light, Duo could see he was breathing hard. He wondered what he must have looked like himself, because he felt like he was going to have a heart attack any minute.
“Duo...” Heero said, almost too quietly to hear, and then he was grabbing for him, taking strong fistfuls of his shirt, and pulled their mouths together. Duo sucked in a sharp breath, then sank into him, lost himself in Heero’s mouth, the desperate press of his tongue.
Oh, Christ. He really was going to have that heart attack.
Heero’s kiss was wild and ragged, and Duo found himself pressed against the fence, Heero’s leg sliding between his as his tongue searched out every corner of his mouth, like he wanted to taste all of him, like he wanted to steal the breath right out of his body. Duo’s hands slid from Heero’s shoulders to tangle in his hair, curl around the nape of his neck, holding on for dear life.
This is what it had meant to him when Heero had lowered that gun. This is what it had meant to see Heero standing in the doorway of the cell, fierce and beautiful as an angel. This is what it had always meant, all of it. He had loved him from the moment he had met him, and by the time he found himself in the desert, pouring out a bottle into the sand and fighting back tears, he was already consumed by it. He had lived in war and in peace, and he thought that if the day came that peace crumbled to bloodshed again, he would be able to live with it, he would stand up and fight again. But if he had to live in a world without Heero in it, he would probably crumble too. Heero was his peace. He was his reason for celebration.
Heero pulled away, his breath ragged, and pressed his face to Duo’s, his eyes shut tight.
“Why did you wait until I was dead to say that?” he whispered. Emotion was fighting its way through his words.
“I didn’t know until then,” Duo answered, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry, I’m a coward.”
Heero sighed. “So am I.”
The hands that seemed poised to tear Duo’s shirt to shreds came up to frame his face, and Heero closed the distance between them again, his mouth so soft and warm, sweet with beer, tender as it coaxed Duo’s heart into his throat.
The fireworks were still pounding overhead when Duo whispered, “Heero, take me home.”
They snuck out of the arboretum and fixed the security fence back in place, then headed out through the more deserted parts of town to avoid the deafening roar of the crowd in the square. People were celebrating in earnest now, cheering every explosion, every shower of light, hanging out of windows and climbing onto rooftops to see the show. The celebration would continue all night, as somber remembrance gave way to the unbridled affirmation of life.
They walked down the street in silence to Heero’s place, and halfway there Heero reached for Duo’s hand in the darkness and held it fast.
They embraced in the doorway, Heero’s mouth overwhelming him again, and then Heero fumbled with his keys and managed the lock, pulling them both inside and slamming the door behind them.
“Come with me,” he said, leading Duo in the darkness to his bedroom. He didn’t bother with the light as he pushed him to the bed and began removing their clothes. The din of the crowd far downtown could be heard even through the shut windows. Music still blared, miles away in the square, but its tune was muted and impossible to decipher there in Heero’s apartment. All that mattered anyway was the pattern of Heero’s breath, the way he inhaled sharply when Duo pulled him down for a kiss.
Duo hadn’t known this is what he’d wanted five years ago. His emotions back then were so hard to understand, so unfamiliar. He had never felt the way he did around Heero with anyone else, but it had taken him years to figure out exactly what that meant, years of fumbling around in his underwear with barely coherent thoughts of his friend to make it crystal clear. If this had happened back then-- Heero’s tongue in his mouth, his broad hands exploring his body-- how would he have handled it? He had no idea. He was barely handling it now.
They tumbled in the bed, swiftly removing layers of clothing, until all that was between them was skin and hot breath and five years of longing to make up for. Heero ended up on top, sucking Duo’s bottom lip between his teeth and slipping his hand between their bodies, the muscles of his arms taut and flexed and mesmerizing to watch. He took Duo in his hand and worked him for a while, then wet his fingers hastily and slipped them lower to prepare him. Duo’s eyes had slid shut when Heero had kissed him again and he opened them to find Heero watching him with that solemn blue stare.
“Duo...” Heero whispered, his expression changing as he caught Duo’s gaze, looking as desperate as Duo had ever seen him. “Oh God, Duo...”
That last night on Peacemillion, Duo had sat awake and wondered what would come for them after the war, a thought he had never allowed himself to entertain before. But there, on the cusp of the ultimate battle, it had suddenly seemed possible they would live through this hell and meet whatever lay on the other side, and suddenly there were all kinds of questions he had never bothered to ask, of himself, of his friends.
Whatever happened, he had decided then, lying on that hard narrow bunk, he wanted to be with Heero. As long as Heero was alive, as long as he still had a friend at his back, it didn’t matter what came next.
But if he had imagined this, it had seemed impossible, too much to hope for that Heero loved him in return. His friendship was precious enough, the thought of anything more seemed selfish to yearn for. But hell, had Heero been wanting this too for all those years? Jesus, what had they been wasting time for?
Heero spit into his hand and prepared himself, pressing hard against Duo, his breath hot and thin, the sound as sweet as any music playing outside. He kissed the line of Duo’s jaw, the bulge of his adam’s apple, then started to sink into him, and Duo thought he was ready to have that heart attack now. Blood pounded in his ears like the explosions of fireworks, spots danced in front of his eyes, seemed to light the room before him. He drew in a quick, hard breath, fingers digging into the skin of Heero’s back. Heero was so much taller, so much broader, than when they were young; he had the strong, sturdy body of an adult now. The muscles under Duo’s hands tensed with exertion. Heero stilled when he was fully inside, eyes heavy, mouth sliding along the curve of Duo’s chin to find his lips and capture them again. He let out a low, growling moan around Duo’s tongue.
“Duo... I always wanted this... I always... I didn’t know how to tell you...”
“Yeah.” Duo smiled against Heero’s mouth. “Me too. I’m an idiot, I don’t know what your excuse is.”
Heero chuckled. It sent shivers down Duo’s body. “I guess I’m an idiot too.”
“Well, what are you gonna do about it now?”
Heero reared back, taking Duo’s wrists in his hands, and smiled fiercely, his eyes ablaze. It was the kind of look that used to terrify him, but now it sent his nerves to fraying in an entirely different way.
“I’m going to make up for lost time.”
With that, he began to move his hips, and Duo lost himself in the sensation, his mind dead to the world, conscious thought a thousand miles away. Outside, far away, the celebration continued, people dancing and drinking and shouting just to show how happy they were to be alive.
And weren’t the two of them doing the same thing? Because Jesus Christ, Duo had never been so happy to be alive.
Heero stared down at him, that same inscrutable look on his face, only Duo was beginning to get an idea of what it might mean. He pressed a hasty kiss to Duo’s shoulder, pumping in and out of him, biting his lip like he was afraid of what noise he might make otherwise. Duo chuckled, then groaned as Heero did something that felt particularly amazing.
“Heero! Ah, Jesus... Heero...”
Heero’s movements were quickening, intensifying. He took Duo’s jaw roughly in his hand and pulled him into a kiss, his moan getting lost between Duo’s lips. Heero’s tongue was confident, demanding, the slide of it against his own sending electric shocks down his body. His hands gripped Heero’s shoulders forcefully, instinctively, and then Heero thrust into him the right way again and he was climaxing, arching violently from the mattress, some wordless shout escaping him before he fell back to Earth. Heero shuddered above him, biting back a cry, and collapsed into him, breath ragged in Duo’s ear.
“Duo... Duo...”
Duo saw stars dance behind the swirling darkness of his eyelids, black-blue like that desert night sky that still haunted him. He gripped Heero as tightly as he could manage.
He was here. Heero was still here. He had never left.
Maybe it was time to let that boy in the desert know he had nothing to grieve over.
They lay prone for a while, though Heero eventually shifted so his full weight wasn’t on Duo, but he didn’t let him out of his arms. They listened to the sounds of the celebration filter in from outside and allowed their heartbeats to slow to normal.
“Should we be out there?” Duo said quietly.
Heero sighed against Duo’s neck.
“I’m fine right where I am.”
Duo chuckled.
“Fair enough. I didn’t want you to think you were missing out on the festivities.”
“Whatever festivities they have out there are not going to beat this. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the Armistice.”
Duo shifted in Heero’s arms until they were face to face, those blue eyes staring into his. He took his time with a kiss, thinking of that night spent lying in his bed on Peacemillion, the future seeming alive with possibility for the first time, and how crazy it was that they would end up here, how impossible it seemed. And yet... how right, how perfect.
“I’m really fucking glad you’re alive, Heero. Hell, I’m glad I’m alive.”
Heero’s gaze leveled him.
“Me too.”
They didn’t belong with the revelers on the streets. Theirs was a different kind of remembrance, the kind that remembered the bad things with the same sort of wistfulness as the good. The pain, the sorrow, the bloodshed, it had all brought them to this moment, so none of it deserved to be forgotten. All his memories were precious, because Heero was an integral part of so many of them.
Some things he could never have back. He still woke sometimes with his hand curled around the throttle of an imaginary Gundam. But he hadn’t lost Heero-- he had come close, terribly close, but Heero was still here, still at his side, so immeasurably, impossibly vital to him. He had Heero forever.
And that, above all, was worth celebrating.
The End
Here is a fic I wrote for the Moments of Rapture contest way back when and never posted to my LJ, which I like to keep as a full list of all the stuff I wrote. So here.
Title: Armistice
Pairing: 1x2
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Post-EW, angst, lemon, language
The whole world had taken to the streets to celebrate peace, and Sanq looked like it was trying to outdo the rest of the United Earth Sphere Nations all on its own. It was an hour to sundown and streamers were already flying, some released by revelers out of windows, some sent plummeting to Earth in enormous bales from the cargo bays of soaring planes overhead, their exhaust trails dyed blue and gold, the colors of the UESN. There was noise everywhere: street vendors screaming into the din as they hawked their wares, car horns honking in unison, firecrackers sputtering on the pavement. Children ran up and down the street, sparklers clutched in their tiny fists, some of them too young to even remember the war.
Hands in pockets, Duo continued along his route, taking it all in. The revelry, the joyous celebration felt so far from him, as if he had arrived on an alien planet during a national holiday. The contents of the plastic bag hanging from his elbow clinked together as he walked, spurring him forward. The world’s celebration wasn’t for him-- today was not a day for a mobile suit pilot to show his face.
Giant televisions, set up in the main square, broadcast the Armistice events being held in other parts of the Earth Sphere Nation before the 5th Annual Sanq Armistice Day Celebration began in earnest. An enormous crowd had gathered to watch the speeches and, especially, the fireworks at sundown. It seemed everyone Duo passed as he hurried along was drunk or well on their way, as if it was a prerequisite for watching the show. He didn’t blame them, though. He was on his way to do the very same thing.
He cut down an alley to avoid some of the crowd, taking a meandering route along some less-populated streets as he headed for his destination: the Sanq National Arboretum. It was closed for the holiday, and the massive fence he came upon sported an impressive succession of locks, topped off with an imposing sign declaring that Trespassers Would Be Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law. Lucky for him, he was great at picking locks and not getting caught. The guard station was completely empty, anyway-- everyone was down in the street. The war had ended five years ago and everyone was still raw from it. Celebrating the peace felt like a mandatory expression of how precious it was, how recently it had been merely a dream. Even Duo was heading to a celebration, his own version of one.
He felt the burn of the war in his memory a different way than the rest of the world. To the people in the street, throwing confetti in the air and dancing drunkenly under the banners in the square, he was the war, its brutal, cruel face, a murderer in a great beast of metal and green laser fire.
To him, well, the war had been the worst and the best time of his life. The memory of splitting aircraft carriers and mobile suits in two with his beam scythe thrilled him in a way he never admitted in mixed company. He was Death once, and he had been damn good at his job, and he still missed the way his Gundam’s throttle fit in his grip, the way the pilot seat hummed around him, syncing with his heartbeat. And there was almost no one in the world who knew how he felt, who loved peace more fiercely than anyone who had never killed for it, yet mourned the exhilaration of war, the sweet taste of blood in their mouth, the way impending death made their neurons fire and their senses burn.
But not quite no one.
There was an incline leading to an overlook of the city that Duo hurried up, hustling past the towering trees, impatient to arrive. A path was carved out of the rock and he took the makeshift stairs two at a time. He could see the little enclosure, the wooden fence and the smattering of empty benches, the plaque that pointed out key buildings from the view-- Parliament, the Peacecraft Estate, Preventers Headquarters. It was darkening quickly, and the shadow of the trees pitched the overlook nearly black. Duo, however, could see perfectly who was already there, waiting for him.
“You’re early,” he said.
Heero turned.
“You can’t beat me here every year,” he replied, with something like a smile.
Heero was wearing a sweater and jeans, a far cry from the boy in spandex, but his hair still fell thick into his eyes, piercing blue as ever. If anything, he was more dangerously handsome than he had been even back then. Duo allowed himself a few seconds just to look as Heero approached him to pat him on the back in greeting.
Letting his gaze drop, Duo fished out the beer he had brought for the occasion.
“Sorry bud, they were out of everything by the time I got there. I hope you don’t mind Blue Ribbon.”
Heero shrugged. “It’ll do the job.”
True enough. Its job was just to provide the lubrication to get them talking, reminiscing, letting this stolen space of theirs serve as a different kind of remembrance, a different kind of celebration. The speakers beginning to gather at the stage set up far below them would extol the preciousness of peace, the fragile quality of it, but they didn’t need reminding of that. That wasn’t what they were here for.
“Did you see the Preventers aircraft’s little paint job earlier?” Duo popped the top off a beer. “Wonder where they found the budget for that.”
Heero fished a bottle out of the container and twisted the cap off. He shrugged.
“These things get more elaborate every year,” he said. “I heard they’re going to release 50 tons of fireworks in Sanq alone tonight.”
“Geez, you’d think it was a holiday or something,” Duo joked, glancing sideward at Heero, and they clinked their bottles together in a silent cheers.
The first speaker was taking the podium below. They were too far up to make out any features, even on the giant screens, and the sound from the city was merely a distant buzz. Whenever the speaker said something particularly rousing, the buzz would grow to a hum, then fade.
“Is Relena speaking tonight?”
Heero shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“I hear Quatre’s giving one on L-4 later,” Duo muttered, glancing upwards. The glow of the emerging moon made locating the colony impossible. “I hope he doesn’t get his feelings hurt if we don’t watch.”
“He won’t mind.”
“Nah, he’d never mind, and if he did he’d never tell you.” Duo took a sip of his beer and began to feel comfortably warm. “But the man loves his speeches.”
“He gave enough on Peacemillion alone to last us a lifetime,” Heero said, with a small wry smile.
Duo glanced at him. The faintest light from the city reached his features and highlighted them in the darkness, painted that smile a pale yellow.
“Yeah, geez, you got within five hundred feet of Sandrock and you’d have him on your comm, telling you not to give up hope and believe in yourself or something equally goofy. If it was anyone but Quatre, I would’ve told him to shut up.”
“But when Quatre said it, it sounded inspired.”
“Yeah, although hell, if those colonists knew what we knew, I don’t know how they’d feel about the guy giving ‘em speeches on peace. The man was a force to be reckoned with in a mobile suit.”
Duo took a long drink from his beer and watched the way his words registered with Heero. This was well-tread territory between them by now. Quatre always gave a speech on L-4 on Armistice Day, and they always laughed about how Quatre was the last person they would give a platform to if they knew how crazy he could get in a Gundam, how it was always the sweet-looking ones you had to watch out for.
“Hell, you can take one look at me and know I’m out of my goddamn mind,” Duo said with a grin.
“At least you don’t dress like a priest anymore,” Heero chuckled. “That was... weird.”
“You’re one to talk!”
The second speaker had taken the stage, it seemed, from the long applause that floated up to them. It barely registered in Duo’s mind, his thoughts a million miles away, years away, the memories beginning to come back bright and loud, spurred by the beer and the company.
Heero shook his head. “Remember those uniforms we had to wear, when we were at that school together?”
“Oh yeah, how could I forget? They were ridiculous!” Duo laughed. “That was the first and last time I wore a fucking ribbon around my neck. I looked like a ten-year-old girl.”
“It did match your hair well.”
“Real funny, Yuy--”
“Some of the male students thought you were a flat-chested girl.”
“All right, enough--”
“I think seeing you in the locker room gave them some confusing feelings.”
“Fuck you, man!” Duo crowed, and Heero nudged him with his shoulder to show he was kidding. Duo thought he might be blushing, and hid his reaction behind his shitty beer.
“I hated going to school,” Heero said.
“No shit, what were they going to teach us anyway? We could have probably schooled the teachers in a physics lesson anyway. I’ll never forget that test where they gave us the so-called melting point of gundanium and asked us to find the pressure at which a Leo could puncture a Gundam’s hull.”
Duo was smiling but he remembered the chill that had run down his spine, reading over the question. He knew it was bullshit, gundanium was heat resistant to far beyond the capacity of a Leo’s weapons, but he had broken character-- stupid, slacker class clown-- to write a rebuttal to the fascist fuck of a teacher, one that had taken up the margins of the page and the next page after it. He had received an F on the test and a note from the teacher to “see me after class,” but he had been out the door for the mission anyway and the risk of being detected had been worth that small sense of satisfaction that he’d pissed the asshole off.
“Gotta love an Alliance-approved curriculum,” Heero said evenly, eyeing him.
Duo finished off the rest of his beer and quickly went to open another. From the applause filtering up from below, the third and final speaker was taking the stage. If Relena was on tonight, this would undoubtedly be her time.
“Remember when we met?” Heero said. To change the subject, Duo supposed.
“Of course I do! I managed the impossible, right?”
“You’d think you’d be more contrite about shooting your friend, Maxwell.” Heero was smiling.
“You weren’t my friend yet, Yuy, you were a scary-looking dude on a pier who was about to shoot a very pretty young lady. Besides, it’s a point of pride that I was the only guy who ever managed to pop you one.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You paid me back the favor in spades, though. Stealing my shit.”
Heero snorted. “I taught you a valuable lesson in trust.”
“Yeah, and apparently I didn’t learn a damn thing, since I’m still hanging out with you.”
“Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you, anyway?” Heero replied, nudging Duo with his shoulder.
There were a few particular reasons why Duo still hung out with him, but he planned to take those to his grave.
“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing at his nose with his sleeve. “I must be crazy. Hanging out with a guy who blows himself up for fun.”
There was a long silence at his side, only the faint roar of the crowd audible. Oh hell, had he brought that up too soon? They usually got around to it sooner or later, and Heero took it differently every time. Duo glanced at him and found him staring solemnly up at the moon.
“That was pretty embarrassing.”
Duo let out a laugh, relieved he hadn’t pushed too far. “Yeah, I’d say that was kind of excessive. You damn near gave Quatre a heart attack. You should have seen him afterwards. He didn’t want to eat for a couple of days.”
Heero frowned.
“You two were together?”
“Yeah, we were hiding out in some desert palace Quatre owned. He may have owned the whole damn desert, I don’t know. We didn’t know what to do after you self destructed, so we just waited for something to happen.”
“I don’t remember much of the aftermath.”
“Yeah, well, you were dead,” Duo said, and then suddenly it all came back to him, in a rush that flooded his chest.
Heero had been something between a rival and a friend, the only friend Duo had that didn’t come equipped with laser weaponry. He had forgotten how to trust other people, and Heero had never learned, but somehow, it had come naturally to them when they were together. He remembered the late nights spent in each other’s rooms, pouring over mission details, memorizing base specifications and security codes, an unspoken understanding between them: I trust you with my life. These were details that, if one decided to betray the other, would have spelled swift death, but he had just known Heero wouldn’t betray him, had felt that implicit trust that had been lost to him since he was a boy, scavenging on the streets for food with Solo at his back.
And then Heero was gone, blown apparently to smithereens, and all of that was lost, and Duo had been lost with it.
He could see the gleam of the white marble palace as he approached it in Deathscythe, the way it had burned his reddened eyes. He hadn’t cried on the way but he had come damn close, and he had hurried to some corner of the house in shame, embarrassed by his weakness, by the way he had felt like his heart had been ripped out again, again, didn’t he ever learn not to get attached to people? He had felt like a fucking idiot, though the fact that Quatre looked physically wrecked and refused to eat had made him feel a tiny bit better.
The second night there, he had walked miles into the desert, until he could barely see the compound behind him, and stared up into the stars and let himself be as fucking miserable about Heero’s death as he damn well wanted to be.
“I had a funeral for you,” he blurted.
Heero turned to stare at him.
“What?”
His hands gripped the damp cold glass of the bottle. He was surprised this still managed to affect him.
“Yeah. Out in the desert. I had a funeral for you. I figured no one was going to give you one if I didn’t. I’m-- I was used to that.”
“You gave me a funeral?” Heero repeated.
He was trying to get Duo to look at him, but Duo just stared down at the festival below, seeing only the blue tinted sand that had stretched for miles in all directions and the yellow moon that had served as his only witness.
“What did you do?” Heero pressed.
“You really want to know what happened at your own funeral?”
“Most people don’t get to find out what people do for them when they’re dead.”
He had a strange expression on his face, those piercing eyes looking for something from him. Duo glanced at him and quickly away.
“Just some dumb shit. I said some stuff, I don’t remember--” aw hell, he was lying now, this wasn’t supposed to still feel so raw-- “And I poured some liquor out on the sand. We call that an L-2 Eulogy. A real esteemed historic tradition and all.”
“What did you say?”
Jesus, couldn’t he just let this one go?
“I don’t remember, I told you. I was drunk, anyway. And besides, you weren’t dead. The next time I saw you, you had a gun pointed to my face.”
The speaker had finished below, to uproarious applause. Remember the horror of war, so that peace is never forgotten. Something like that, right? That was always a hit with the crowd. Music swelled up from the square, which meant the fireworks would be starting in minutes.
There was no good way to describe the way seeing Heero in that cell had made him feel. The delirium of starvation and dehydration, the injuries he’d sustained in interrogation, knowing that the next time they came for him, it would be the final time, and then the door had opened and it had been Heero Yuy, right as rain, and for a moment, Duo had believed in God. He’d brought him back from the dead, delivered him to Duo, it was a fucking goddamn miracle. Some of the things he had felt at that instant terrified him, how happy he was, how desperately thankful he was to see Heero again.
And then the gun to his head and the fierce determination in Heero’s eyes had brought him crashing back to reality.
They hadn’t talked about this before. Well, Duo had never admitted he’d thrown a fucking funeral for Heero either, might as well get all the uncomfortable topics out of the way.
Heero stared down at the crowd below them.
“I was supposed to kill you. They broadcast that they were going to execute you on live television, and I thought you might tell them something to grant a stay of execution.”
“Gee, Yuy, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Duo muttered, remembering the fire in Heero’s eyes beyond the barrel of the gun. Jesus, like it was yesterday. Damn.
“I was a fucking idiot, okay?” Heero said, suddenly irate. “I thought I was doing you some kind of favor. Like if I killed you, at least it wasn’t them who did it.”
“Yeah... I know. I know. I was happy it was you who was doing the honors.”
“Jesus Christ Duo, don’t say that...”
“I mean, it hadn’t been a great week for me, you know? I figured I was dead one way or the other, better it wasn’t some jackoff in Oz fatigues putting the bullet in my brain.”
“Duo, goddamn it, don’t talk like that!”
That look was in Heero’s eyes again, the fire, as mesmerizing and terrifying as when they were teenagers. Like they were talking about something Duo had said yesterday, not five years ago. Death was no longer a constant companion, a taste lingering in the back of his mouth, but maybe he would never forget how that felt, because it was humming in the corners of his mind right now.
Why was Heero so upset? They had felt the same way about it back then, about dying, about the things you did for comrades in arms. It was more likely than not that neither of them would live to see the end of the war. If it came to that, it was the least they could do to make it so at least no Oz piece of shit got the satisfaction of taking them out.
“I wouldn’t have been mad at you,” Duo said, and then let out a bizarre laugh. “I mean, I wouldn’t have been mad at anyone, being dead and all, but--”
“--Duo, stop. Just...”
Heero ran a hand over his face. It was a minute before he spoke again.
“I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t have. I mean, I couldn’t. I tried to... I had my finger on the trigger...”
With a choked growl, he threw his empty bottle as far as he could, sending it flying into the forest below. He ran his hands through his hair, rubbed his eyes, shaking his head like he was trying to dispel the memory by force.
Duo stared at him. He had never seen him so upset. It was setting him on edge, because wasn’t this supposed to be over and done with? Shouldn’t they have exorcised these ghosts by now?
Tentatively, he put his hand on Heero’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was tense as a wire.
“No, you didn’t do it, buddy. You saved my life instead. You dragged me out of a high-security prison like it was a walk in the park. Talk about debt I can never repay.”
Heero shook his head.
“That’s not true. You did the same for me.”
Well, that was true, he supposed he did. Busted him out of prison, though he didn’t exactly drag him out. More like threw him hurtling from a thirty story building. But that was different, somehow. He hadn’t even known Heero’s name, just that he had to be a gundam pilot, and he had blue eyes that were terrifying to look into. Duo had been the one holding the gun and he still had been a little scared! It was as simple as that. He had been interested in the kid and had wanted to know more. That he would turn into a friend-- no, his closest friend, his most important friend-- had never even crossed his mind. He was just curious, and he liked breaking into places. And he couldn’t get the guy’s angry glare out of his mind.
But Heero had elected to put his own life at risk and blow his mission just to bust him out of prison, had delayed going to space to tend to Duo’s wounds, when all his instincts had told him to put a bullet in his brain. That meant something. It damn well meant more than curiosity. And something about the meaning in Heero saving him, dragging him out of that place, too weak to really walk under his own power, had kept him from ever bringing it up before. He was afraid to find out what it had meant. What it might still mean.
There was a scream from the darkness where Heero had thrown his bottle and a tiny sliver of light rocketed into the sky, then exploded in the air in a million sparks to the swell of the music far below. The fireworks were starting.
Heero lifted his head from where it was buried in his hands, staring out at the explosion as it faded into nothing, replaced by another, the blue gleam of it lighting his face.
“Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I had pulled the trigger.”
“Heero...”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this. They did not tread this kind of emotional territory. His heart thundered against his ribs, loud as the fireworks exploding above their heads.
“I used to think about it all the time... just how close it was. How close I got to doing it. What my life would be like now. Jesus Christ, Duo, it scares the shit out of me.”
“Heero, you don’t have to--”
“I would have nothing.” Boom. Hiss. Heero’s face was flooded suddenly red. “I would have lost everything that mattered in my life with one gunshot.” Boom. Blue fading to green. “I’d be dead by now if I had done it. I’m sure of it. I would have killed myself.” Boom-- now yellow. “Sometimes I just think about it and I’m paralyzed with the fear that I almost lost you... I almost fucking killed you, Duo... what did you say at my funeral?”
Heero turned to him and no amount of light from the fireworks could mask the blue of those eyes, the intensity with which he stared at him now. Duo’s hand on his shoulder felt glued to the spot, like he would fall to the ground without that anchor, paralyzed by Heero’s glare.
What the hell could he do besides tell him the truth?
“I talked about you,” he said softly. If Heero hadn’t been so close, there was no way he’d be able to hear him over the fireworks. “I said you were a good guy-- no, I think I used the word incredible-- an incredible guy, and that you were my friend, my only friend, though you had a real scary laugh...” He thought Heero might laugh at that now, but no, he just looked wrecked. “You had the most amazing blue eyes and when you looked at me like you were impressed with something I said, it made me feel so... amazing.”
It had. Oh God, it had. He had never found another high quite like it, though rocketing through the air in Deathscythe came close. But he felt unstoppable when someone as unbelievable, as perfect as Heero Yuy looked at him like he was proud to be his friend. He still felt that way, five years later. No one could make him feel worse, or better, than Heero could.
The rest spilled out of him like a stopper had been pulled on his heart.
“You were so special, so much more than just what you were trained to do, and it was such a fucking shame that you were dead, that you had been taken from me. I said I... I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was lost and alone. I asked God to bring you back to me. I said it wasn’t fucking fair to take you away, you meant too damn much to me. He could have anyone else-- hell, He could have me whenever He wanted-- but He couldn’t have you.”
Heero stared at him, his eyes wide. He didn’t look angry anymore, but Duo could not define what had replaced anger in his expression. He could barely speak after all that he had blurted out. He felt fifteen again, completely overwhelmed by loss, kicking sand in the desert and screaming at the sky. He couldn’t believe he had remembered everything, but he did, and truthfully he knew he would never forget. It just mattered too much. Some things, like the way he felt about Heero, never faded with time.
The exploding sky painted Heero gold, then blue, then red. In the intermittent light, Duo could see he was breathing hard. He wondered what he must have looked like himself, because he felt like he was going to have a heart attack any minute.
“Duo...” Heero said, almost too quietly to hear, and then he was grabbing for him, taking strong fistfuls of his shirt, and pulled their mouths together. Duo sucked in a sharp breath, then sank into him, lost himself in Heero’s mouth, the desperate press of his tongue.
Oh, Christ. He really was going to have that heart attack.
Heero’s kiss was wild and ragged, and Duo found himself pressed against the fence, Heero’s leg sliding between his as his tongue searched out every corner of his mouth, like he wanted to taste all of him, like he wanted to steal the breath right out of his body. Duo’s hands slid from Heero’s shoulders to tangle in his hair, curl around the nape of his neck, holding on for dear life.
This is what it had meant to him when Heero had lowered that gun. This is what it had meant to see Heero standing in the doorway of the cell, fierce and beautiful as an angel. This is what it had always meant, all of it. He had loved him from the moment he had met him, and by the time he found himself in the desert, pouring out a bottle into the sand and fighting back tears, he was already consumed by it. He had lived in war and in peace, and he thought that if the day came that peace crumbled to bloodshed again, he would be able to live with it, he would stand up and fight again. But if he had to live in a world without Heero in it, he would probably crumble too. Heero was his peace. He was his reason for celebration.
Heero pulled away, his breath ragged, and pressed his face to Duo’s, his eyes shut tight.
“Why did you wait until I was dead to say that?” he whispered. Emotion was fighting its way through his words.
“I didn’t know until then,” Duo answered, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry, I’m a coward.”
Heero sighed. “So am I.”
The hands that seemed poised to tear Duo’s shirt to shreds came up to frame his face, and Heero closed the distance between them again, his mouth so soft and warm, sweet with beer, tender as it coaxed Duo’s heart into his throat.
The fireworks were still pounding overhead when Duo whispered, “Heero, take me home.”
They snuck out of the arboretum and fixed the security fence back in place, then headed out through the more deserted parts of town to avoid the deafening roar of the crowd in the square. People were celebrating in earnest now, cheering every explosion, every shower of light, hanging out of windows and climbing onto rooftops to see the show. The celebration would continue all night, as somber remembrance gave way to the unbridled affirmation of life.
They walked down the street in silence to Heero’s place, and halfway there Heero reached for Duo’s hand in the darkness and held it fast.
They embraced in the doorway, Heero’s mouth overwhelming him again, and then Heero fumbled with his keys and managed the lock, pulling them both inside and slamming the door behind them.
“Come with me,” he said, leading Duo in the darkness to his bedroom. He didn’t bother with the light as he pushed him to the bed and began removing their clothes. The din of the crowd far downtown could be heard even through the shut windows. Music still blared, miles away in the square, but its tune was muted and impossible to decipher there in Heero’s apartment. All that mattered anyway was the pattern of Heero’s breath, the way he inhaled sharply when Duo pulled him down for a kiss.
Duo hadn’t known this is what he’d wanted five years ago. His emotions back then were so hard to understand, so unfamiliar. He had never felt the way he did around Heero with anyone else, but it had taken him years to figure out exactly what that meant, years of fumbling around in his underwear with barely coherent thoughts of his friend to make it crystal clear. If this had happened back then-- Heero’s tongue in his mouth, his broad hands exploring his body-- how would he have handled it? He had no idea. He was barely handling it now.
They tumbled in the bed, swiftly removing layers of clothing, until all that was between them was skin and hot breath and five years of longing to make up for. Heero ended up on top, sucking Duo’s bottom lip between his teeth and slipping his hand between their bodies, the muscles of his arms taut and flexed and mesmerizing to watch. He took Duo in his hand and worked him for a while, then wet his fingers hastily and slipped them lower to prepare him. Duo’s eyes had slid shut when Heero had kissed him again and he opened them to find Heero watching him with that solemn blue stare.
“Duo...” Heero whispered, his expression changing as he caught Duo’s gaze, looking as desperate as Duo had ever seen him. “Oh God, Duo...”
That last night on Peacemillion, Duo had sat awake and wondered what would come for them after the war, a thought he had never allowed himself to entertain before. But there, on the cusp of the ultimate battle, it had suddenly seemed possible they would live through this hell and meet whatever lay on the other side, and suddenly there were all kinds of questions he had never bothered to ask, of himself, of his friends.
Whatever happened, he had decided then, lying on that hard narrow bunk, he wanted to be with Heero. As long as Heero was alive, as long as he still had a friend at his back, it didn’t matter what came next.
But if he had imagined this, it had seemed impossible, too much to hope for that Heero loved him in return. His friendship was precious enough, the thought of anything more seemed selfish to yearn for. But hell, had Heero been wanting this too for all those years? Jesus, what had they been wasting time for?
Heero spit into his hand and prepared himself, pressing hard against Duo, his breath hot and thin, the sound as sweet as any music playing outside. He kissed the line of Duo’s jaw, the bulge of his adam’s apple, then started to sink into him, and Duo thought he was ready to have that heart attack now. Blood pounded in his ears like the explosions of fireworks, spots danced in front of his eyes, seemed to light the room before him. He drew in a quick, hard breath, fingers digging into the skin of Heero’s back. Heero was so much taller, so much broader, than when they were young; he had the strong, sturdy body of an adult now. The muscles under Duo’s hands tensed with exertion. Heero stilled when he was fully inside, eyes heavy, mouth sliding along the curve of Duo’s chin to find his lips and capture them again. He let out a low, growling moan around Duo’s tongue.
“Duo... I always wanted this... I always... I didn’t know how to tell you...”
“Yeah.” Duo smiled against Heero’s mouth. “Me too. I’m an idiot, I don’t know what your excuse is.”
Heero chuckled. It sent shivers down Duo’s body. “I guess I’m an idiot too.”
“Well, what are you gonna do about it now?”
Heero reared back, taking Duo’s wrists in his hands, and smiled fiercely, his eyes ablaze. It was the kind of look that used to terrify him, but now it sent his nerves to fraying in an entirely different way.
“I’m going to make up for lost time.”
With that, he began to move his hips, and Duo lost himself in the sensation, his mind dead to the world, conscious thought a thousand miles away. Outside, far away, the celebration continued, people dancing and drinking and shouting just to show how happy they were to be alive.
And weren’t the two of them doing the same thing? Because Jesus Christ, Duo had never been so happy to be alive.
Heero stared down at him, that same inscrutable look on his face, only Duo was beginning to get an idea of what it might mean. He pressed a hasty kiss to Duo’s shoulder, pumping in and out of him, biting his lip like he was afraid of what noise he might make otherwise. Duo chuckled, then groaned as Heero did something that felt particularly amazing.
“Heero! Ah, Jesus... Heero...”
Heero’s movements were quickening, intensifying. He took Duo’s jaw roughly in his hand and pulled him into a kiss, his moan getting lost between Duo’s lips. Heero’s tongue was confident, demanding, the slide of it against his own sending electric shocks down his body. His hands gripped Heero’s shoulders forcefully, instinctively, and then Heero thrust into him the right way again and he was climaxing, arching violently from the mattress, some wordless shout escaping him before he fell back to Earth. Heero shuddered above him, biting back a cry, and collapsed into him, breath ragged in Duo’s ear.
“Duo... Duo...”
Duo saw stars dance behind the swirling darkness of his eyelids, black-blue like that desert night sky that still haunted him. He gripped Heero as tightly as he could manage.
He was here. Heero was still here. He had never left.
Maybe it was time to let that boy in the desert know he had nothing to grieve over.
They lay prone for a while, though Heero eventually shifted so his full weight wasn’t on Duo, but he didn’t let him out of his arms. They listened to the sounds of the celebration filter in from outside and allowed their heartbeats to slow to normal.
“Should we be out there?” Duo said quietly.
Heero sighed against Duo’s neck.
“I’m fine right where I am.”
Duo chuckled.
“Fair enough. I didn’t want you to think you were missing out on the festivities.”
“Whatever festivities they have out there are not going to beat this. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the Armistice.”
Duo shifted in Heero’s arms until they were face to face, those blue eyes staring into his. He took his time with a kiss, thinking of that night spent lying in his bed on Peacemillion, the future seeming alive with possibility for the first time, and how crazy it was that they would end up here, how impossible it seemed. And yet... how right, how perfect.
“I’m really fucking glad you’re alive, Heero. Hell, I’m glad I’m alive.”
Heero’s gaze leveled him.
“Me too.”
They didn’t belong with the revelers on the streets. Theirs was a different kind of remembrance, the kind that remembered the bad things with the same sort of wistfulness as the good. The pain, the sorrow, the bloodshed, it had all brought them to this moment, so none of it deserved to be forgotten. All his memories were precious, because Heero was an integral part of so many of them.
Some things he could never have back. He still woke sometimes with his hand curled around the throttle of an imaginary Gundam. But he hadn’t lost Heero-- he had come close, terribly close, but Heero was still here, still at his side, so immeasurably, impossibly vital to him. He had Heero forever.
And that, above all, was worth celebrating.
The End