somewhere i have never travelled

disclaimer: the poem at the beginning and end of this are by e.e. cummings. i don't own it, and i still don't own the GW boys--i keep trying, but they never seem to come up for sale on Ebay.

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//somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near//

Guess who I didn't expect to see. But there he was, always so careful to never quite meet my eyes, even when his arm around my shoulders supported me to the shuttle he had waiting.

"So what are you doing now?" I asked him, just making conversation really. I guess I was trying to let him know it was okay to talk to me. That I didn't hold it against him, what he said last time. It was all a big misunderstanding anyway. I thought he needed somebody--actually I still do, but I wasn't about to force him. I told him I cared for him. That I thought he was beautiful. I kissed him. He got scared, and fed me a lot of crap about how he couldn't afford friends. It about broke my heart to hear him force the words from his lips, but I left when he asked me to.

I didn't think he'd ever want to see me again.

He didn't answer, of course, just mumbled something about a mission. "Maybe I should go with you," I suggested, and he tried unsuccessfully to hide his surprise.

"You should concentrate on getting better," he protested, eyeing my injuries again. I admit I had taken a bit of a beating. "Why not go to school? I've already got the enrollment taken care of under your name."

"Under my--" I just stared at him for a minute, stunned. "How? Why?"

His vivid gaze fixed oh-so-firmly on the control panel. "I needed an alias, that's all. My name...would have been noticed."

"But--" There was something here I remained unable to grasp. "Why mine? Heero, there's got to be ten zillion names out there you could have picked. Why didn't you just make one up?"

He just shrugged, still not looking at me. "I couldn't think of another one, that's all. Besides, it's easier this way, isn't it?"

I snorted. "Until your classmates wonder how your hair grew three feet in one night." He looked up at me sharply, with something I could /almost/ have sworn was a hint of a laugh. "Eh, it's okay. I'll deal with it."

More silence, stretching out into the coming dawn til I couldn't keep myself from asking the question that had been running through my head since we first started to land. "Heero?" A grunt of acknowledgement bade me continue. "Why did you pick my name? Really?"

"I told you, I couldn't think of another one!" he growled, almost before the question had left my lips.

I shrugged. "Okay." I couldn't shake the instinct that there was more to it, but what was I going to do? Dammit. I wanted to help him, he was just so determined not to let me. My patience isn't endless. I would eventually give up, and then he'd have nobody. Well--there was that girl, but I had a feeling she didn't understand the depth of the problems Heero had. And all the better for her, really--I don't think anybody who hasn't sold their soul to the gods of war and death at fifteen can understand, but that's what I was doing all this for, wasn't it? So nobody else would have to?

Still. I wasn't helping Heero.

"Duo?" It's funny, really. Until he said he'd borrowed it, I hadn't been completely sure he knew my name. Sure, I told it to him, he just didn't really seem to care. He'd called me any number of other things, none of which were complimentary, but not just Duo.

"Yes, Heero?" Try to be non-threatening. Just in case he /is/ trying to say something not involving mission parametres.

"I wa--about the last time." He stuttered, trying to get out the words, and I paused, waiting for him to continue, swearing to myself I'd give him time.

But he couldn't say it.

So I did. I'm the one that's good for talking, after all. "I'm sorry, too," I told him.

He looked at me, startled. His eyes were fragile, suddenly, the way I remembered them--not cold, not empty, just locked tight, keeping his soul a prisoner deep inside himself. I smiled, tried to pretend I didn't notice--tried to pretend I wasn't affected by the naked need reflected in his face. "Yeah," I repeated, "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have pushed you. I mean, we barely know each other, right? I guess I just figured...well, we /are/ two of the only people in the universe who have any idea what we're doing out here. I just wanted to let you know I understand you better than you think I do."

My speech was finished. Heero sat staring at his hands long past the point when I would have been screaming just to change position. As it was I removed myself to the floor and started going through the odds and ends in my pockets, just to give myself something to do while I waited for him to work through whatever it was that was going through his head. Trying to ignore how impossibly beautiful he was.

"Duo...will you do that again?" The question was so soft, and so sudden, I thought at first I might have hallucinated it out of sheer hopefulness. But there he was, watching me, his hands twisting around each other in his lap, unguarded eyes watching me with trepidation.

I eased upright, crossed to him, meeting his eyes, cupping his soft face in my hands. He didn't pull away, and that alone spoke more of trust than any words could have. He stood, tense and still, his mouth half-open in anticipatory awkwardness.

Our lips met, and for all I'd expected to be leading the way through this encounter, I was dizzy. His mouth, soft and pliant as it was, refused to surrender completely to my tongue, and his own dove between my lips. I felt my hands slip from his cheeks to encircle his neck, felt his firm chest press flush against mine and his fingers tangle tentatively in my hair. When I didn't pull away either, he slid his hands down my braid, snapping the tie when he came to it, loosing my hair to spill over my shoulders. Somewhere in the midst of things his eyes had closed, his body relaxed--his hands grew bolder and his mouth more demanding, til I was the one in danger of being overwhelmed by the energy surging between us.

"I want more," he whispered, so softly I could barely hear him, as he broke the kiss to press his lips to my neck. He nibbled my skin, and I moaned, what was left of my vision swimming before my eyes--where the hell did he learn that? My fingers clenched against his back, wrinkling his shirt, evoking a rise of desire only too apparent from against my own heated body.

"Anything you want," I murmured in answer, arching my neck beneath his lips, seeking out his skin with my own, swaying slowly against him. "I love you." Maybe I shouldn't have let that slip out. I'd never said that to anyone, not like I was saying it to Heero, but it was true. I'd loved him from the moment I first saw him, even if I had meant to shoot him--I'd caught a glimpse of those deep, haunted eyes and I was lost for good. I could have wandered forever in those eyes, exploring them, prying Heero's soul from the oubliette he'd imprisoned it in.

His body froze, the warmth of a gasp brushed my neck before he pulled away. I thought, at first, that I should have kept my big mouth shut. Then I got a good look at his face.

He wasn't angry. He wasn't upset. I'm pretty sure he was scared, but he wasn't running away, either, or preparing to feed me the same old lines of bullshit. He was just...staring.

"Nobody's ever told me that," he finally breathed. His eyes melted, he almost fell back into my arms, clinging, so fragile yet still so unbelievably strong. His lips were on mine again, warm sighs and intoxicating kisses spread over my face, his every movement secretive, as if he thought he were dreaming and would soon wake up.

"I'll tell you as often as you like," I promised, and sank with him to the floor.

//(I do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands.)//

~Owari~