A Love So Fragile

A Love So Fragile

Pairing: Heero/Duo

Warnings: Yaoi, lemon/lime, language, angst, waff, possible oocness, violence, etc...

Discalimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, nor do I make any profit from the writing of this work of fiction. The song used belongs to Stevie Nicks and features Don Henley.

~Is love so fragile
And the heart so hollow?
Shatter with words
Impossible to follow
You're saying I'm fragile
I try not to be
I search only
For something
I can't see~


(Duo)

Was this what peace was? Was it supposed to be so quiet? So boring? It was so strange to hear nothing, no screaming, no thundering rumble of mobile suits in the distance, no cacophony of explosions, no gunfire, and no talk of mission parameters. It was too quiet. The silence was maddening, deafening as if whatever monster was lurking in the shadows was just waiting, stagnant, biding time until it was prepared to strike. It put me on edge.

I sighed heavily, rubbing my hands over my face, still smooth with youth; my hands calloused still from the remembrance of the controls in Deathscythe's cockpit. The war hadn't been over long, at least not long enough to soften the lingering effects of my time with the giant black mecha. It was, I supposed, rather disturbing how much I missed the machine. Deathscythe, my buddy, my goddamn savior had become a part of me, an extension of my person and I couldn't help but miss him. I could still feel the controls in my hands, hear and smell the blips and burning of wiring in my cockpit. I almost wished the war had never ended. I was listless and left wanting in peace.

I wondered if everything would fade in time. Would the memories become fogged and distorted? Would the nightmares eventually subside? Would my body lose its alertness, get sluggish with the laziness of peace times? Would the compulsion to keep a loaded gun beneath my pillow every night ever go away?

I couldn't fathom a life like that, a 'normal' life. I wasn't normal, never had been. I wasn't so sure I even knew what normal was anymore, not that I had ever really known normal. I glanced at the clock for what had to be the thirteenth time at least. I'd been sitting in my kitchen for hours, just sitting, stagnant and idle like I'd run out of fuel and I supposed I had. What did normal people do with their time? I guessed they worked boring, nine to five jobs or went to endless classes at schools; they dated or visited friends and family. But I had none of those things. Sure I could maybe get a job somewhere, but who would hire me, an ex-terrorist who was only seventeen, not even old enough to buy porn. I'd never been made for normal. I had always assumed the war would be the end of me.

It was an odd way of thinking, morbid really, but it was the way my thoughts ran, unless they drifted to a certain Prussian eyed Japanese boy. I hardly noticed the smile that crept onto my chapped lips at the mere thought of him. The feelings that had developed during our days spent as comrades were, of course, another anomaly. I had meant to close myself off from such dangerous emotions, too much hurt came from falling in love.

It had been surprisingly simple to fall for the stoic Wing pilot, even with all his flaws and quirks. I mean, didn't we all have our own as well? It hadn't even been that difficult to confess the feelings I had to him. He'd have liked us all to believe that he was indifferent, unfeeling and robotic, but I had known better. Plus, I was a firm believer in the direct approach. Expressing myself had been no different.

Of course, I would have liked him to sweep me off my feet and confess that he felt the same, but this was Heero we were talking about. When I confessed to him, he merely stared at me coldly and stated that emotions were a liability and that I should forget all about him and those feelings, since he hardly planned to live through the war. He said I needed to forget love and him before I did something stupid and got us both killed before we needed to be.

At the time he'd said it, I'd thought he was being a bit harsh, and he had been, but soon enough, I understood why. When I'd gone and gotten myself captured by OZ, Heero had come to kill me, I'd been in a real bad way. Heero had refused his instincts, his training and rescued me instead of putting a bullet in my head. He should have, but he didn't, even taking me to a hospital to heal up.

When he'd come for me that time, something had been different, off somehow; something had shifted between the two of us. He didn't talk to me, only muttering under his breath in Japanese about emotions and weaknesses, calling me fragile; he must have assumed I was too incoherent to hear him. I'd laughed even though it had hurt my ribs to do so. It was true, of course. I was fragile, but no more so than any of them, even him. He pretended to be so tough, unaffected, but I knew better. I could see him behind his mask.

He got angry when I laughed at him, but that was expected. He couldn't laugh at himself. It only made me laugh more. My laughter was cut off abruptly, but not by his fist as you might have assumed, but by his lips crashing onto mine instead. As soon as those soft lips crushed mine, I was a goner. No, I was no more fragile than him and he knew it. The truth was obvious then, Heero loved me too and that heated and destructive, beautiful kiss was the beginning and the end of it all.

We never exchanged words about what had transpired between us there in that frigid darkness of the OZ prison cell, my body bruised and broken, the smell of sweat and blood and urine, gunpowder and metal all around us and Heero's gun clutched in his hand still at my temple as he kissed me that first time. It was the first and last we shared. It was like a promise, a secret oath for a later time when we would be free to explore it. And when the war ended and we were free, I waited for him, was still waiting even. He hadn't come.

He hadn't written or called; even an email would have sufficed; nothing came. For the whole year before Mariemaia's attack, I waited. And when the incident happened, Treize's daughter trying to take his place, a puppet for the Barton foundation, I was more than willing to help. I'd been falling apart with nothing to do and fighting her was the escape from stagnation I'd been wanting.

And Heero had come to save us all, just like I knew he would. He couldn't resist the pull, just like I couldn't, just like none of us could. We needed it to know that we existed, that we were alive. He'd come in, like a beautiful, destructive angel of war and put a stop to the whole fiasco. He'd shot a little girl and passed out right in Relena's lap. And then it was all finished and we were useless, nothing without our gundams to define us. And they were gone, destroyed.

It had been too much to think that I would never see Deathscythe again, never feel the controls in my hands, to feel the adrenaline rushing through my blood as I took off for battle. I'd never sit in that cockpit again. The giant mecha had become a part of me and once it was gone, I was lost and left missing it.

Sure, the governement compensated us for our lost youth and innocence, our braveness and courageousness. They gave me a house in the mountains near a lake, a lake for Christ's sake. And a big chunk of change to blow on whatever I so chose, not that I used it much, and the promise to help me adjust in any way I needed. They couldn't give me what I needed, a purpose and the other half of my soul. I was only concerned about Heero, but he'd disappeared.

And so that brought me to where I was now, alone, sitting at my kitchen table (the one I hadn't picked out), staring at the clock and waiting for my life to end. Days turned to months and so on and still Heero didn't come like I'd hoped he would. I felt like I was fading away, blending into the background, a ghost. I needed something, anything to tie me to life. And I found it, getting fed up with the monotony of my days, all bleeding together. I began to write. I wrote about everything, the war, my past, the many lives I'd lead, the many scars I'd gained, Heero, the hurt and when it was all out of me and on the papers, I published it.

I didn't expect it to, but it sold and sold well at that. People wanted so much to know us, to understand our turmoil, what turned a child into a terrorist. Who could make a little boy into a killer and not look back? I showed them; I told the world what we'd known at such a tender age. There was a lot of publicity, but I avoided it. Reporters camped outside my house for weeks, but I refused to come out. What questions could they possibly have? I'd written everything in my novel, absolutely everything. I hid inside; I had enough food to live for months. I got more mail than I ever had before. People sympathizing about Heero, women offering to bear my children, letters containing threats from ex-OZ associates. They wrote that one day they would come for me and I was at the point that I would welcome it. What could they do to me that hadn't already been done? Kill me? I was already dead inside any way. I'd outlived myself as it was.

~ I have my own life
And I am stronger
Than you know
But I carry this feeling
When you walked into my house
That you won't be walking out the door
Still I carry this feeling
When you walked into my house
That you won't be walking out the door~

And then he found me.

The pounding on my door in the middle of the night had me out of bed with a gun trained on the door. I opened it cautiously and swore that if it was ex-OZ or a reporter, I would fill them with lead. I didn't care. I was tired, so tired and it had nothing to do with the late hour.

When I finally opened the door, I dropped the gun in shock. Heero stood on the step, rain dropping from his bangs and matting that ever-unruly hair to his head. He'd found me. He'd come. Sure it had taken him a while, but he had come finally. I swayed on my feet, dizzy suddenly. He immediately reached for me and he was so warm. I hadn't known just how cold I was until he touched me and the warmth spread through my skin, nevermind that he was soaking wet.

“You came,” was all I could say over and over and I was crying, relief washing through me. He smiled.

“I'm sorry I took so long,” he said, holding me against his chest, the door still open behind him, the sound of rain assaulting us, trying to drown out our voices. And I was fragile again, no longer frozen in time. And I grabbed him and kissed him over and over, rain and tears mixing on our skin. And he kissed me back. And I knew he'd never leave again.

~Lovers forever
Face to face
My city or mountains
Stay with me stay
I need you to love me
I need you today
Give to me your leather
Take from me
My lace~


Author's Note:

There will be an accompanying fic from Heero's POV eventually, so keep an eye out. R&R please. I know it's short, but I didn't think it would work longer. ^_^

Xander