---
I'm cold.
Sore, too, and
stiff. My back aches, from falling
asleep on the cold hard metal floor, and the...evidence of the last hour's
activity is drying to a crust on my skin.
Great...now I'm gonna get zits on my stomach. And we won't even go into the tangled mess that is my hair.
Oh, it's great
for a while, I don't deny that.
Adrenaline's pumping, hormones are high, we run like hell for the
nearest enclosed space and fuck each other senseless, then collapse in an
exhausted heap on the floor.
Then after a
while, the afterglow starts to fade.
The bruises start to ache on the bodies we already abuse the hell out
of, and I invariably get cold. That's
my body's reaction to everything strenuous--I freeze. And Heero wraps me up in whatever scratchy, holey, wornout
blanket we've managed to get our hands on, but it's never enough, even when I
cuddle up against him and he holds me in his arms.
So why do I
keep doing it?
Because I love
him, of course.
I wasn't
actually sure for a while. He's
beautiful, and entrancing, and I'm enough of a danger nut that I find that
attitude of his incredibly erotic. And
I'm a healthy teenage boy, you know? No
matter how much energy I spend blowing up the bad guys, there's always
more. Especially when it comes to
sex. So I saw him, wanted him, seduced
him, slept with him.
But there's
more to it than that now. I can't
pinpoint just when I first noticed it--that sadness, the soft vulnerability in
his eyes that makes me want to rearrange the planets for him, or wish I could single-handedly
defeat Oz and turn back time just to protect him, and keep him from ever having
to kill anyone again.
Me. Protect him. What a thought. But it's
true.
Terrorist or
not, he's a better person than me--as pure as they come, and sometimes I feel
like if I drink enough of him into me, that I can touch some of that purity
too. Because I'm as tarnished and dirty
as they come--at the ripe old age of fifteen, I think I've borne witness to
every awful, sordid, despicable thing people can do to each other. And I don't even blink at it anymore.
Lucky for me
I've seen some good things too, or what the hell am I fighting for? But there are good people out there, lots of them, and they're the reason I
risk my ass fighting every other damn day.
Because I'm already ruined, I may as well make myself useful.
Heero hates it
when I talk like that. He continues to
labour under the delusion that I'm secretly as pure as he is. The only holiness I can lay claim to is that
of an avenging angel, purging the world of sin--
But wouldn't
the world be better off with people in it?
So here I am,
on the floor of a what's basically a broom-closet on a spaceship that's not
likely to survive the next battle, wrapped in a scratchy blanket while dozing
in the afterglow of what's supposed to be a horrible carnal sin.
It's not
supposed to be this way--stealing furtive moments in the silent pauses of
violent nights, every lovemaking its own good-bye because we might die tomorrow
and never get to say it. Wondering if
we'll last, or if we'll end up alone, and either way how the hell are we
supposed to go on?
I always
thought there'd be something more. I
don't know, something wholesome I guess.
A house with a flower garden, video rentals, and cooking spaghetti sauce
from somebody's old family recipe. A
house full of kids, maybe, and having people over for holidays. A dog in the backyard--a Husky or a German
shepherd, I like those. A big, playful,
loveable dog.
And a real
bed. King-sized, with a goose-down
duvet and lots of pillows. I think
that's the first thing I want when all this is over--well, that and a place to
put it, of course. I'd like to make love
with Heero on a real bed...hell, I'd like to just sleep next to him on it, to
watch him sink down into the mattress 'cause I know he's never had one either,
to wake up in the morning in that state of perfect euphoric bliss because the
blankets are /just/ the right weight and warmth, and not have to get up and
face death again.
World peace and
a king-sized bed...it's not that much to ask for, is it?
But that's all
a dream right now. This is our
world--this corner of dark cold metal, the rush of bloodlust and the psychotic
thrill of courting death. Fevered sex
that leaves us both with bruises, the only release from a battle that scrapes
away the edges of our sanity til we barely remember we're human, and whatever
wishes I can make for us while I'm huddled and shivering in the void of space.
"Duo,"
he says, his fingers catching the knots in my hair as he strokes it. A little more pain doesn't matter anymore,
because I can no longer imagine a life without it. Something in his voice--the catch, the way it trembles just a
little on my name--tells me he's about to start again. Just in case we fail, Duo. If we don't live through tomorrow, Duo. And I know I won't let him say it, just like
I never let him say it. I can't stand
to hear it. But always he tries, as if
telling me he loves me first would make it all right...as if I didn't already
know.
"Don't say
it, Heero."
"I was
just thinking--"
"Heero!" Pain in my voice, enough to surprise even
me.
He kisses me
silent, adjusts the blanket around my shoulders. "Hush. I was just
thinking, Duo. When all this is over,
I'd like to learn to cook. Or maybe to
sail...it can't be that hard after all we've done, can it? Piloting a boat?"
I tighten my
arms around him, bury my face in his neck, and he kisses a soft line down my
temple. "Will you learn with me, Duo? When it's all over?" he asks.
"If we can
buy a bed," I whisper.
His finger
slips beneath my chin, tilts my face up so I can see his eyes, and the moist
shining in those blue depths he'll never show to anyone but me. "Of course we will," he murmurs, and kisses me
again. "That's how it's supposed
to be."
~Owari~