24-Aug-2000
this is draco's birthday fic, a specially requested 6x13. i *was* waiting to post it on draco's birthday (8/28) but i wanted to put it nearer angel ikari's "Cooking With Wufei". it's as if she and i exchanged personalities while writing these fics.
DISCLAIMER: Sunrise, Bandai et al own GW, and I own nothing. Suing would be pointless.
WARNING: yaoi, faintest hint o'lime, angsty angsty
NOTE: This is completely outside the GW timeline. I made eveything up.
Corridors, hallways, passageways; call them what you will, I have never liked them. Nothing good ever happens in a hallway.
I was six when my mother died. A riding accident. Riding in competition, she cleared all the fences, only to be thrown from her horse when it shied at its own shadow. An irony I never learned to appreciate.
They brought her home, to her own bed, to die. My father wouldn't leave her side. I was deemed too young, they wouldn't let me see her. Leaving me nothing to do but play outside her door, waiting. In the hallway. They finally sent the butler out, to tell me she had died. The butler.
I never got to say goodbye.
Six years later, the Sank Kingdom fell. I can still taste the desperation, the fear. The whole house shaking from the force of the explosions, the servants wailing. Relena had a death-grip on my leg, looking up at me with her wide, wide eyes. She never made a sound.
We were waiting for our father, our meager possessions scattered about us. In the hallway again. He was in his study, having one last, desperate meeting with his ministers. One final try to save the world he had created. The sound of the gunshot surprised us all. The echo went on forever.
This time they sent the valet.
Don't tell me there's no such thing as fate; that our lives are not predestined; predetermined. My life is bound to a pattern. I was 18 the first time I made love to Treize. Ha! 6 and 6 and 6... the number of the Beast. We were cursed before we began, and I too much the fool to notice.
Treize. He was so beautiful then. He said I was, too. Just two young men, revelling in first love and in each other. No two other people could love as truly, as deeply as we did. We were special, magical; that's what we told ourselves. It's hard to believe we were ever that young.
I remember our first night, so long ago. Treize lying on the bed; his sweat, my sweat, not yet dry on his skin. The moonlight, pouring in through the window, gilding his features with silver. He looked classical, eternal. He always seemed god-like to me.
My breath was still shaking as I trailed my fingers across his face. I don't know what I thought: that it was all a dream, that it couldn't be real? Treize captured my hand and held it still. I stopped breathing at the look in his eyes. Such need, such desire-- and all for me.
He kissed my palm, held it to his cheek. "Always," he whispered. "Forever." We fell together, our bodies joining in a liquid grace, a rightness I had always thought impossible. I felt no fear with him. I felt invincible.
Sometimes, in my dreams, in the darkest part of the night, I can almost remember the taste of him.
War brings changes you cannot stop, try as you may. For us, 'always and forever' turned out to be just under two years. It was more than anyone else ever had with him, but it was not enough. Oh, God, it was not nearly enough.
I was waiting for him, dress uniform chafing, irritably pacing the marble floor of his front hall. Hallways again. I should have known.
He came towards me, buttoning his jacket, the heels of those damn useless boots of his striking the floor. My smile, the one I kept just for him, slid from my face. Improbably, I knew what was going to happen. I could feel it in the air, in my blood.
Treize stopped before me, opened his mouth. I put my hand over it. "Don't", I said. "Just don't." He closed his eyes, briefly kissed my hand. He turned to leave, and the word was torn from me, although God knows I tried to keep it from leaving. "Why?"
He wouldn't even turn to face me. Looking back, I can fool myself that there was regret, pain in his voice. I didn't hear it then. "I don't need you anymore", he said. He walked away, leaving me alone. In the hallway.
Now, so many years later, I'm pacing another hallway, corridor, passageway; call it what you will. I dislike this one intensely. It has no happy memories for me, to help blunt the pain I currently feel.
Why are the lights so bright? Do they really think anyone wants to see clearly here? If I could dim my vision, even for a moment, I surely would. I see everything sharply enough as it is.
For every twenty-one white squares, there's one blue one. There's three chairs, a water fountain, and those damn swinging doors they won't let me pass through. After my third attempt, they had to threaten me with Security. Now I'm a good boy, just pacing.
Would he want me here? Does he know? Either way, it doesn't matter. I couldn't not come. Despite the years and the pain and the recriminations, he's the only man who ever held my heart. It flew to him the day we first touched, and I've never had it since.
The swinging doors finally open, and the surgeon comes towards me. He has blood on his scrubs, fresh, the color a little darker than Treize's roses. Once again, I don't need the words. I know what he is going to say, just by the look on his face.
My legs give way, and I slide down the wall. My head rests on my knees, and I feel hot tears prick at my eyes, slide down my face. I don't know why I feel so surprised.
Nothing good ever happens in a hallway.
END END END
that's it. what do you think?
draco: sorry i didn't give a deathfic warning, but i wanted to make sure you would read it. happy birthday?
(:./hyuy/hallways)
