trigger# 4, GW, "Chase this Light"
Title: "Chase this Light"
Fandom/Original: Gundam Wing
Author: salamandere
Pairings: 1=2, get-together
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Duo POV, train of thought randomness, wee angst
Disclaimer: don't own, don't profit from, title from Jimmy Eat World's "Chase this Light" album and song.
Words:1,744
I’m in the mood for something dark. Desperately sick of every day, of pettiness. Nothing is bigger than it was. So now I feel like I don’t fit inside anything. Can’t relearn monotony, mundane, can’t even sit still. The drums across the street, some kind of catalyst for my blood flow, an easy kill, as it were. It’s not chance that metal and electrics, drums and rhythm are on tonight. Someone’s favorite concert, some chance at escape. I just need answers, I just need not to face it tonight. I just…need to call Heero Yuy.
Take what we can, these days, so there can’t be any regret. He said that. I don’t call. I walk down and out, jump over the wall, slip under the fence, turn off everything but that old thrill, a little pale, but it’ll do. Over another wall and past the bouncers and ticket takers, blending into the crowd, music taking it all away. I can’t even hear the lyrics, it’s just the pulse. Something primal that I need. Can’t do without. Finally settles something inside me raging all night long. Kind of calm and frantic. Kind of like…him.
Voices. Or not so much. Some kind of ethereal sound of living. Proof of existence. That’s what I really wanted. They’re all blending together, a choir of humanity and I can’t add any noise at all, this moment. I’m caught up in the lights and the way the air is hot, the way the floor throbs under thousands of feet. Shuddering like a suit in death throes. Something grand and morbid-briefly, effusively alive. Fireworks or lightening. Then suddenly I feel good again. Feel like putting my arms around someone. Miss him. Feel down again. Close my eyes, put my arms up, phantom you, I tell him. Tell no one.
The room spins as I do, getting dizzy, feeling free, feeling honest and removed. He’ll never know this moment, but I do. I hover, full up, emotive and everything heightens. Sound and taste, everything sharpens, my eyes go wide, just too much to see, in this life. Still some living left. Rock on young savior and all. Swelling hearts, I just want to be let down easy. The tempo climbs, an erratic climax and then stunning silence. Chime in the roar of the crowd. Faces of strangers similar in their thrill, one mass, my face as well. Stay with me, I mouth. That feeling of belonging. Just let me…
Caught off guard, your shadow beside me, flickering in those lights. I lose my breath, like a punch to the lungs. But it’s magic and light and something just as dark as before. Poison is easier to drink than desire. You burn me. Somehow I know that this world we love-where I am loved-is imaginary. The crowd presses in and now I don’t want humanity I want the open road, ice cold dark sky above me, those graveyard stars. I want to be as happy as everyone thinks I am. I want to find somewhere simple, something clear. I leave the same way I came in. I let the small rush of adrenaline flow, feel real again. Look down at my hands clambering over the raised fence, pale, veined, used to this.
I want you to see me. You should be here. With me, here. Because I could be anybody crawling around in this dark night, absolutely small, feeling like the world is bent before me, some kind of violin strain or blood stain. There’s a chance you’d understand.
The street seems incredibly quiet now. The heartbeat of music inside the dome dims, more like a headache than anything. I just walk. The sun is long set but I feel that a few dying rays would be appropriate. Then I laugh. Head trip, too deep into pity, tonight. I won’t always be so selfish, I tell myself. I won’t always love what I’ll-or I won’t get into that again. Ducking my head and grinning into the collar of my jacket. My feet know where they’re going but my head isn’t along for the ride. -Love what I’ll never have. It creeps in, finishes me up. We can’t regret, you told me. I won’t always live in this feeling. I’m hoping it so hard my knuckles are white in fists, I realize. But it’s the one thing that’s always been mine. You can’t change anything about death.
It’s a long walk. Over an hour of empty thoughts and the heaviest wishes, stargazing and hands in pockets. I almost turn back when I realize where I am, three blocks away from where my feet really intended to go. Then again, I never turn down a chance for your attention. Another laugh. Wonder when I started talking to him instead of about him. It’s all mine to lose, anyway, so it shouldn’t matter to anyone but me. My body proceeds uninvited, my head threatens, teeth-gnashing sigh, goes back to the bright lights above.
I’ve never been to your place so late at night. The stone steps leading up to your narrow townhouse are bluish in the light, your door is a dark blood black. I sit on your steps for a while, gathering up and tucking in all my flaws, getting out all the worry, never mind and laissez-faire. Doesn’t matter if you realize why I’m here, so long as you open the door and let me in. I’ll try a little harder some other time. Right now I just want to see your face. Taste the air around you. Kick myself.
A chime lilts into the air. Pretty. Better than picking your locks. Every second I swallow stones, sigh, run my fingers through my hair. I could’ve slept, been a normal night, alone, a little too far to reach. Then your eyes are staring into mine, quiet, not at all surprised. Love your phlegmatic responses, makes me smile.
“Hey.”
And you just nod and step back, into the dark hallway, holding the door open for me. I feel dizzy again. Feel possibility biting at my heels, climbing up my veins, injecting me with a sense of future so full I grin, dazzle you into a small smile, tell you I walked here all this way to see you, had to, feel too restless and alive to sleep. You are close enough to kiss. I grab your arm instead, colliding with your skin, warm from sleep, where you must have been.
“Take a walk with me.”
Your shocked look, softening to indulgence, you still haven’t even said a word to me as you grab your jacket, shrug it on over your tee shirt, look beautiful in your coat and pajama bottoms. I’m still holding on tight, somehow. You nod to the door, as good as ‘lead the way.’ Love how you let me act insane and treat it as normal. It’s beautifully painful. Feel like I could love you eternally like this. Tragic.
I take the door handle, pull it back, open wide enough to feel the cool breeze, mild in the still night, see it sift through your hair. I step forward, tug you with me, but you tug back, a rock wall I can’t move.
“Duo.”
Soft. Question, command, it doesn’t matter because you have my full attention. I turn back to you, start to ask when you speak first.
“How did you know?”
So rich and soft, Heero Yuy. A cocked eyebrow, maybe, a probing smile appear on my face, some kind of substitute for confusion. And I don’t know exactly, but I can see what needs to be said, because Heero Yuy, after all, is someone I understand.
“Just that kind of night. Can’t be alone. Right?”
You nod once, slow, testing it out, this new kind of truth in the dark. “Wanted to be with you,” I say because I also need to test, to push the boundaries.
I’ve needed to tell that to you. Like an ocean of relief, so complete I almost feel like I have to sit down. Strange those moments that hit you, a real punch to the head. Doesn’t even matter if you really get it, because it’s been said. Right to you. Like a wave of clarity. I can see straight for the first time in a long while.
You nod again. Look past me to the quietly waiting street beyond, look back to my face. Yours is bathed in golden street-lamp-light. Makes it look like coins are raining down in your blue eyes. It’s so hard not to-but I close my eyes, take myself away for a moment and you speak again, filling up an expectant silence.
“I was thinking about you.”
And suddenly it feels safe. Your body looks solid in the play of shadow and light, your presence real, warm. You look so capable. You are. You look like, if I throw myself against you, you’d barely flinch, you’d be ready to catch me as I wrap you up, this must be how it goes, love, straight and plain-I’ve never felt this way.
I do it. I collide with you, wrap my arms around your back, pull you close, splay my fingers in your hair, against your neck, breathe you in, feel you gasp, fist your tee shirt hard enough to stop my shaking. Or maybe yours. You smell warm, like bed, cozy, I could suffocate from trying to inhale your scent.
Then I understand what it means to feel butterflies-sickeningly excited, beautifully free, over-flowing with possibility. Your arms come up around me, tight, tight enough to make me grin into your shoulder. Butterflies like an entire orchestra rising up, strings and wind and brass, melodic eruption in crescendo, peaking higher than I ever expected.
Then the quiet peace of knowing how beautiful it was-how it will be.
I whisper it into your shoulder. “I wanted you to open your door so badly.”
“I wanted you to come over.”
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t let you go. Tonight was so hard without you, it’s incommunicable how easy it is now. Just enough to know you’re standing here in front of me, that I can hold onto you. That all my unreasonable, fearful waiting, is gone. I’m not going to turn away because this now, is really who I am.
Take it as it comes, take what you can, you said. No regrets.
So I decide to kiss you, full, rich, soft. Your warm lips kissing me back, hesitating, eager, a mouth against mine that fits perfectly.
Fandom/Original: Gundam Wing
Author: salamandere
Pairings: 1=2, get-together
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Duo POV, train of thought randomness, wee angst
Disclaimer: don't own, don't profit from, title from Jimmy Eat World's "Chase this Light" album and song.
Words:1,744
I’m in the mood for something dark. Desperately sick of every day, of pettiness. Nothing is bigger than it was. So now I feel like I don’t fit inside anything. Can’t relearn monotony, mundane, can’t even sit still. The drums across the street, some kind of catalyst for my blood flow, an easy kill, as it were. It’s not chance that metal and electrics, drums and rhythm are on tonight. Someone’s favorite concert, some chance at escape. I just need answers, I just need not to face it tonight. I just…need to call Heero Yuy.
Take what we can, these days, so there can’t be any regret. He said that. I don’t call. I walk down and out, jump over the wall, slip under the fence, turn off everything but that old thrill, a little pale, but it’ll do. Over another wall and past the bouncers and ticket takers, blending into the crowd, music taking it all away. I can’t even hear the lyrics, it’s just the pulse. Something primal that I need. Can’t do without. Finally settles something inside me raging all night long. Kind of calm and frantic. Kind of like…him.
Voices. Or not so much. Some kind of ethereal sound of living. Proof of existence. That’s what I really wanted. They’re all blending together, a choir of humanity and I can’t add any noise at all, this moment. I’m caught up in the lights and the way the air is hot, the way the floor throbs under thousands of feet. Shuddering like a suit in death throes. Something grand and morbid-briefly, effusively alive. Fireworks or lightening. Then suddenly I feel good again. Feel like putting my arms around someone. Miss him. Feel down again. Close my eyes, put my arms up, phantom you, I tell him. Tell no one.
The room spins as I do, getting dizzy, feeling free, feeling honest and removed. He’ll never know this moment, but I do. I hover, full up, emotive and everything heightens. Sound and taste, everything sharpens, my eyes go wide, just too much to see, in this life. Still some living left. Rock on young savior and all. Swelling hearts, I just want to be let down easy. The tempo climbs, an erratic climax and then stunning silence. Chime in the roar of the crowd. Faces of strangers similar in their thrill, one mass, my face as well. Stay with me, I mouth. That feeling of belonging. Just let me…
Caught off guard, your shadow beside me, flickering in those lights. I lose my breath, like a punch to the lungs. But it’s magic and light and something just as dark as before. Poison is easier to drink than desire. You burn me. Somehow I know that this world we love-where I am loved-is imaginary. The crowd presses in and now I don’t want humanity I want the open road, ice cold dark sky above me, those graveyard stars. I want to be as happy as everyone thinks I am. I want to find somewhere simple, something clear. I leave the same way I came in. I let the small rush of adrenaline flow, feel real again. Look down at my hands clambering over the raised fence, pale, veined, used to this.
I want you to see me. You should be here. With me, here. Because I could be anybody crawling around in this dark night, absolutely small, feeling like the world is bent before me, some kind of violin strain or blood stain. There’s a chance you’d understand.
The street seems incredibly quiet now. The heartbeat of music inside the dome dims, more like a headache than anything. I just walk. The sun is long set but I feel that a few dying rays would be appropriate. Then I laugh. Head trip, too deep into pity, tonight. I won’t always be so selfish, I tell myself. I won’t always love what I’ll-or I won’t get into that again. Ducking my head and grinning into the collar of my jacket. My feet know where they’re going but my head isn’t along for the ride. -Love what I’ll never have. It creeps in, finishes me up. We can’t regret, you told me. I won’t always live in this feeling. I’m hoping it so hard my knuckles are white in fists, I realize. But it’s the one thing that’s always been mine. You can’t change anything about death.
It’s a long walk. Over an hour of empty thoughts and the heaviest wishes, stargazing and hands in pockets. I almost turn back when I realize where I am, three blocks away from where my feet really intended to go. Then again, I never turn down a chance for your attention. Another laugh. Wonder when I started talking to him instead of about him. It’s all mine to lose, anyway, so it shouldn’t matter to anyone but me. My body proceeds uninvited, my head threatens, teeth-gnashing sigh, goes back to the bright lights above.
I’ve never been to your place so late at night. The stone steps leading up to your narrow townhouse are bluish in the light, your door is a dark blood black. I sit on your steps for a while, gathering up and tucking in all my flaws, getting out all the worry, never mind and laissez-faire. Doesn’t matter if you realize why I’m here, so long as you open the door and let me in. I’ll try a little harder some other time. Right now I just want to see your face. Taste the air around you. Kick myself.
A chime lilts into the air. Pretty. Better than picking your locks. Every second I swallow stones, sigh, run my fingers through my hair. I could’ve slept, been a normal night, alone, a little too far to reach. Then your eyes are staring into mine, quiet, not at all surprised. Love your phlegmatic responses, makes me smile.
“Hey.”
And you just nod and step back, into the dark hallway, holding the door open for me. I feel dizzy again. Feel possibility biting at my heels, climbing up my veins, injecting me with a sense of future so full I grin, dazzle you into a small smile, tell you I walked here all this way to see you, had to, feel too restless and alive to sleep. You are close enough to kiss. I grab your arm instead, colliding with your skin, warm from sleep, where you must have been.
“Take a walk with me.”
Your shocked look, softening to indulgence, you still haven’t even said a word to me as you grab your jacket, shrug it on over your tee shirt, look beautiful in your coat and pajama bottoms. I’m still holding on tight, somehow. You nod to the door, as good as ‘lead the way.’ Love how you let me act insane and treat it as normal. It’s beautifully painful. Feel like I could love you eternally like this. Tragic.
I take the door handle, pull it back, open wide enough to feel the cool breeze, mild in the still night, see it sift through your hair. I step forward, tug you with me, but you tug back, a rock wall I can’t move.
“Duo.”
Soft. Question, command, it doesn’t matter because you have my full attention. I turn back to you, start to ask when you speak first.
“How did you know?”
So rich and soft, Heero Yuy. A cocked eyebrow, maybe, a probing smile appear on my face, some kind of substitute for confusion. And I don’t know exactly, but I can see what needs to be said, because Heero Yuy, after all, is someone I understand.
“Just that kind of night. Can’t be alone. Right?”
You nod once, slow, testing it out, this new kind of truth in the dark. “Wanted to be with you,” I say because I also need to test, to push the boundaries.
I’ve needed to tell that to you. Like an ocean of relief, so complete I almost feel like I have to sit down. Strange those moments that hit you, a real punch to the head. Doesn’t even matter if you really get it, because it’s been said. Right to you. Like a wave of clarity. I can see straight for the first time in a long while.
You nod again. Look past me to the quietly waiting street beyond, look back to my face. Yours is bathed in golden street-lamp-light. Makes it look like coins are raining down in your blue eyes. It’s so hard not to-but I close my eyes, take myself away for a moment and you speak again, filling up an expectant silence.
“I was thinking about you.”
And suddenly it feels safe. Your body looks solid in the play of shadow and light, your presence real, warm. You look so capable. You are. You look like, if I throw myself against you, you’d barely flinch, you’d be ready to catch me as I wrap you up, this must be how it goes, love, straight and plain-I’ve never felt this way.
I do it. I collide with you, wrap my arms around your back, pull you close, splay my fingers in your hair, against your neck, breathe you in, feel you gasp, fist your tee shirt hard enough to stop my shaking. Or maybe yours. You smell warm, like bed, cozy, I could suffocate from trying to inhale your scent.
Then I understand what it means to feel butterflies-sickeningly excited, beautifully free, over-flowing with possibility. Your arms come up around me, tight, tight enough to make me grin into your shoulder. Butterflies like an entire orchestra rising up, strings and wind and brass, melodic eruption in crescendo, peaking higher than I ever expected.
Then the quiet peace of knowing how beautiful it was-how it will be.
I whisper it into your shoulder. “I wanted you to open your door so badly.”
“I wanted you to come over.”
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t let you go. Tonight was so hard without you, it’s incommunicable how easy it is now. Just enough to know you’re standing here in front of me, that I can hold onto you. That all my unreasonable, fearful waiting, is gone. I’m not going to turn away because this now, is really who I am.
Take it as it comes, take what you can, you said. No regrets.
So I decide to kiss you, full, rich, soft. Your warm lips kissing me back, hesitating, eager, a mouth against mine that fits perfectly.