Chains
disclaimer: you
know i don't own the boys.
Romeo and Juliet is by Dire Straits.
~a lovestruck romeo sings
a streetsuss serenade
laying everybody low with
a lovesong that he made
finds a convenient
streetlight steps out of the shade
says something like you
and me babe how about it?~
He wasn't there--and
then suddenly he was, the morose young man in black, his long chestnut hair
caught and tamed in a braid that fell down his back. His wide violet eyes glistened with tears in the hollow yellow
light of the streetlamp he leaned heavily against. Hands in his pockets, his face upturned, he stared in longing at
the silhouette shadows in motion behind the sheer curtains of a second-story
window.
Every night he
stood there, silent in the sallow glow, watching until the window finally went
dark. And every night, before he faded
back into the welcoming arms of the night, he touched his fingers to his lips
and blew a kiss up into the sky.
"Oyasumi,
Heero," he whispered. "Just
want you to know I still love you."
~juliet says hey it's
romeo you nearly gimme a heart attack
he's underneath the window
she's singing hey la my boyfriend's back
you shouldn't come around
here singing up at people like that
anyway what you gonna do
about it?~
"What are
you looking at, Heero..?" Relena asked, curious, her fingers brushing his
chin, turning his face back from the window.
"Nothing." He pulled away from her, peering out the
crack in the transparent curtains as he tugged them closed. "Nothing at all. Let's go to bed."
He turned away
from the window as she flipped off the light, watching the play and flicker of
shadows in the dim glow of the streetlamp below. /I know you're there,
Duo. Why can't you let it go?/
~juliet the dice were
loaded from the start
and i bet and you exploded
in my heart
and i forget i forget the
movie song
when you gonna realize it
was just that the time was wrong juliet?~
He walks in
beauty, like the night. That's what the
coffee-shoppe poets who were up all night anyway had quoted when he first
appeared, among them but always so alone.
He walked the night, and it was his kingdom; a quiet, exhilarated world
of moonlight and secrets that never show their faces to the sun. He made his rounds; from the bowling alleys
and all-night arcades to ghetto street-corners and urine-stained shelters. Then he waited out the night drinking acid
coffee in a downtown hole, and when the dawn arrived to swallow the shadows, he
faded with them.
It was the only
time he ever saw the day. He sat on the
bridge, above a river slow with the sludge of industry, and watched the sun
blossom into vermilion fire above the horizon, scorching the sky with its
eagerness.
The dawn of
peace, and the end of Death.
He was so
empty.
~come up on different
streets they both were streets of shame
both dirty both mean yes
and the dream was just the same
and i dreamed your dream
for you and now your dream is real
how can you look at me as
i was just another one of your deals?~
"Duo." His name startled him, grated uncomfortably
against his skin. He didn't have to
turn to know who spoke--that voice already haunted his dreams, and with it the
fading memory of a touch, a smile, a kiss.
"It's been a long time."
"Seven
months," he answered. Was it
long? It seemed so. Eternity stretched out forever when it was
spent alone.
"Why can't
you let it go?" Ah. The question. The ultimate question, more profound and difficult than
explaining the meaning of the universe or the true nature of peace.
The
answer: "Because I have nothing
without it."
He still didn't
turn, didn't look, not even when Heero sunk to the concrete next to him,
pulling his knees up to his chest and staring out at the conflagration of
colour in the sky. "That's not
true. It can't be."
"Can't
it?" He surprised himself with the
roughness in his voice, the catch of tears. "Why not? I love you.
I poured so much of myself into loving you that if I let that go,
there's nothing left of me. Why can't
it be?"
Heero tried,
but he faltered. "Because--"
~when you can fall for
chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold
you can fall for pretty
strangers and the promises they hold
you promised me everything
you promised me thick and thin
now you just say oh romeo
yeah you know i used to have a scene with him~
"Because
you don't love me now." Duo
finished it for him, a cold, fatal finality in his words. "Because once every scrap of humanity
was burnt out of me, I had no more to give you, and you moved on to someone
else to make you feel real."
"I didn't
know!" Heero protested fiercely,
strong fingers gripping Duo's shoulder in a vain attempt to turn him, force him
to meet his eyes. "Dammit, Duo, I
was young. I didn't know what I was
doing--"
"And that
makes it less real?" Duo countered, interrupting. "I'm younger than you are. So how come I knew and you didn't? How come it was only real to me? Or was I supposed to know that you'd outgrow
me? That all that bullshit about
forever and I love you no matter what was just a practice round for when you
hit the real thing?"
"I'm
sorry," Heero said.
~juliet when we made love
you used to cry
you said i love you like
the stars above i'll love you till i die
there's a place for us you
know the movie song
when you gonna realize it
was just that the time was wrong?~
"You know
what I remember." Duo's soft voice
was calm, smooth, his eyes fixed on some point over the horizon that only he
could see. "How you used to curl
up in bed after the fighting was over and pull the covers over your head, like
you were hiding from it. And how I used
to tease you out, and try to make you feel better, and tickle you and pretty
much drive you nuts. And somewhere in
the middle of it all you'd kiss me, and cling to me, and I could feel you
trying not to cry. And I'd kiss you
back, and we'd make love like we were the only two people in the universe and
nothing else mattered. And then--"
He stopped, and
Heero looked at him, waiting. Wondering
why he couldn't talk past the catch in his soft voice. He knew what came next. He remembered it too, every detail etched
indelibly on his memory--the pale moonlight shrouding Duo's smooth skin, the
silk of long hair between his fingers, the ragged rhythm of their breathing and
the pounding tattoo of their hearts.
"It was
just the way," Duo finished sadly, "that you could make my name into
a prayer."
~i can't do the talk like
they talking on the tv
and i can't do a love song
like the way its meant to be
i can't do everything but
i'd do anything for you
i can't do anything except
be in love with you~
Heero broke the
long silence that stretched between them.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
Duo's shrug was
only the slightest jerk of his shoulder, his head never turning to acknowledge,
to face the dispassion in the blank blue eyes.
"I don't know."
"I can't
go back to you," Heero stated firmly.
He lay a tentative hand on a black-sleeved arm, only to drop it wearily
when Duo jerked roughly away. "I
can't. This is right--in a different
way than you and I were right. We were
wonderful. I know that. I'm sorry I
hurt you. I am. But I have to make choices, and then live
with them. We all do."
"I
know." Duo didn't look up, didn't
raise his voice, but ripped at Heero's soul with the raw timbre of despair that
coloured his tone. "I'm living
with mine every day."
Heero
sighed. "I love her, you
know."
Duo only
nodded. "I know you do. And I love you."
Gravel stung
the palms of Heero's hands as he braced them, pushing himself to his feet. "You're not going to make this easy on
me at all, are you?"
And finally,
Duo looked at him. He threw himself
upright and spun to face Heero, the sunrise glinting off the tears that stained
his cheeks. "Make what easy? What are you here for? Do you want something from me? Ask it--it's yours; you know damn well I
can't refuse you, not even now."
He stalked toward his former lover, menacing and fragile all at once,
unconsciously huddled against the onslaught of his own words. "Well?
What is it? Do you want me to
wish you well, Heero? I do, with all my
heart. Do you want me to smile and act
like everything's just fine? I
will. Hell, if you want me to I'll
leave the fucking colony--all you gotta do is ask." His tirade broke off in a strangled sob and
his head dropped, as if it were too heavy to hold. "No. I was
wrong. That's not all. You can acknowledge me, goddammit. Recognise that I love you, even if you never
want to see me again--that's something special, isn't it? To have somebody out there who'd do anything
for you? Isn't it?"
~and all i do is miss you
and the way we used to be
all i do is keep the beat
and bad company
all i do is kiss you
through the bars of a rhyme
julie i'd do the stars
with you any time~
The dull,
impotent ache in Heero's gut spread and enveloped him, and his body moved of
its own volition to pull Duo close, holding him against his chest. Stiff at first, he relaxed slowly into the
embrace, the old familiar warmth of his cheek resting against Heero's
chest. "Yes," he
whispered. "Yes, it is. And all I want you to do is forgive
me."
Duo sniffled
into the fold of Heero's collar, his eyes closed tight against the intruding
sunlight. "Already done."
"Really?" Surprised, Heero pulled back--just a little,
his arms still warm around his former lover, just enough to look down into that
smooth damp face. "Then can you
let it go? I did love you, Duo...I
didn't want to make you hurt like this.
I want you to be happy, and move on, and...everything."
Deep amethyst
eyes opened, glittering with tears like fallen stars. "Heero," he explained, patient, despondent, "It's
not that easy."
"Why
not?" Heero asked, plaintive.
And Duo,
slowly, pulled away. Long-fingered
hands, tender beneath the roughened skin, cupped Heero's face, intense, vivid
eyes capturing cold blue orbs in their gaze, trapping them, holding them. "All right." A whisper only, soft, resigned,
despairing. "All right,
Heero. For you." A wisp of exhaled breath between them as he
closed the distance twixt their mouths, claiming a salty kiss in return for the
possibility of absolution.
A moment longer
his fingertips lingered against the windchapped cheek, and then he turned
away. "Good-bye, Heero...I love
you."
~juliet when we made love
you used to cry
you said i love you like
the stars above i'll love you till i die
there's a place for us you
know the movie song
when you gonna realize it
was just that the time was wrong?~
Emptiness, like
the void that preceded all existence, yet contained entirely within the
darkness of his own heart. He'd been
right. There was nothing left of him. All that mattered in him had been devoted
entirely, completely to loving Heero, and with that abandoned, he was
insubstantial. The last sacrifice of
love, then--to give up so entirely, a surrender so profound and paradoxical
that the very act of moving on, trying to forget--a last gift to the one who
still held his heart--rendered him hollow.
But he
promised. He couldn't really forget, it
just wasn't that easy, not a simple matter of making a decision and carrying it
out. He did the next best thing; he
stayed away, kept himself where Heero would never see him, would never be
reminded of the pain he'd caused.
So maybe he was
a martyr after all. But every morning
he fell asleep with the same longing, and in that half-daze between dreaming
and waking he would swear he felt the warmth of another body stretched next to
his, and caught the scent of Heero's body and the tickle of his hair. Traitorous moonlight filtered through his
window to brush his eyes and tear illusion away, reveal that he really was
alone.
And he would
venture out to walk the night again, a silent wraith, the shadow of the God of
Death.
~a lovestruck romeo sings
a streetsuss serenade
laying everybody low with
a lovesong that he made
finds a convenient
streetlight steps out of the shade
says something like you
and me babe how about it?~
The window was
dark--it was always dark now, by the time he found his way there. He planned it that way, keeping to the
darkness, out of the sallow glow of the streetlamps, hidden as only a shadow
could hide. No-one moved behind the
pale sheer curtains of the second-story window, and he was too far away to hear
even the faint snores and breathing of the lovers sleeping within.
He kept his
word, as best he could. Heero would
believe he'd moved on.
Duo touched his
fingers to his lips, blowing a tender kiss into the night sky.
"Oyasumi,
Heero," he whispered as he turned away.
"Just want you to know I still love you."
~Owari~