17-May-2001
Title: Make Me Understand
Auhtor: Ryan Harbin
Warnings: Shounen ai, and so very much saaap....
Pairings: 1+2, basically nothing that could even be vaguely construed as 1+R in this one... ^^;
Archive: GW Addiction
Notes: Well... Some people wanted a sequel for 'Anniversary.' (Myself included.) So I, ah... wrote one.
BTW, this be Misu-chan's extremely late birthday present... Cause she wanted it. ^^ *patpats her*
Suggested listening: Any of the slow Jump Little Children songs... 'Cathedrals,' 'Dancing Virginia,' 'B-13,' 'All Those Days Are Gone,' 'Say Goodnight,' '15 Stories,' etc...
[I'll trade the moon for the sun,
But this feeling for no one]
- Jay Clifford, 'All Those Days Are Gone' (the best JLC song ever, imo... It's gorgeous!)
He'd gone back, the familiar setting now unsettlingly twined with new memories, the cold iron gates now evoking different feelings, the grief and self-hatred he was so accustomed to giving way to more pleasant thoughts of Duo, of his gentle baritone voice, of his lips soft, surprised, beneath Heero's own.
Even driving away, he'd been unsure of himself, half of him wanting to turn back around, his mind desperately inquiring what he was going to do now. Another fragment incoherently screamed for him to flee, reasoning that Duo had been wrong, that he didn't deserve any redemption, from himself or others. It told him he couldn't afford the comfort Duo offered, that he needed his grief, his blame.
He'd been so scared once Duo's words really sunk in. Numbly, he'd continued, until he was too far to go back, the cemetery - and Duo - just the memory of another year's visit. And he'd been comfortable with that, even as he knew, in the back of his mind, that he was doing nothing but hiding from an unwanted truth.
At least, he'd been comfortable for a short period of time.
But then he longed for the comfort he'd so pushed away, the reality in Duo's words making it impossible for him to wallow in self pity and blame as he'd done for so long. He was lost, suddenly forced to realize he'd long ago severed his connection to reality, that he needed to start his life again, but had no hint as to where to begin.
He'd floundered for six months, seemingly drifting in and out of consciousness, as he lost his grip and struggled to regain it, grasping frantically as if he was just an addict in need of a fix.
And then, at least for some sort of routine, he found himself back here. October ninth, AC 199, returning to this dark spot for some sort of foundation to his otherwise listless existence.
But was that all?
He'd been uncertain of what to expect, predicting during the drive up what his reaction would be. Whether it would be the same as always, that overwhelming feeling of guilt, of being at fault for the one disaster that hurt you the most. Or whether it would be total indifference, or maybe that he could accept Duo's allowances.
He hadn't guessed at his actual reaction, though.
He'd viewed the granite stone, etched with those still easily recalled words, with a detached sort of mourning, the kind practiced by mere acquaintances, or maybe...
Someone who had finally let go.
(6 Months Later)
So here he was again, searching for something to define his life, as Relena's memory had so driven him for years. Lacking purpose, his life was an endless downward spiral or short commitments to various, meaningless projects and equally stunted relationships. Without his guilt to make him feel at least something, he was hollow, cold and constantly sullen. He'd fallen out of contact with all his old friends, as he realized he no longer had anything in common with them and could barely hold a conversation. So he stumbled along his devoid existence, haunted even more by the lack of self-incrimination than it seemed he'd been while he could still blame himself. He'd honestly hoped, coming here today, that seeing what had once been the catalyst for everything he knew could focus him again, but all he felt while gazing at the empty gray stone was overwhelming loss, the knowledge that he'd taken himself away.
He'd had a few relationships which seemed that they might last, two or three women and even a man once, but it seemed he held every one up to an unreachable standard of what he deemed the person good for him was, and no one had quite projected the same aura, or had the same voice, and no one's lips had felt quite right under his. It was always him who walked away.
He was destroying his life, striving for the perfection of one he might never even see again, one whose last chance was probably today. Maybe, even, there'd been some hope as he'd come today, but in the end it was exactly like most every day of the past when he'd visited, facing in solitude the means for everything he'd done wrong in four years. He sighed, turning away, and nearly, to his tremendous surprise, knocking into another form which had apparently materialized from the very air.
"Yo," came the simple greeting, lips moving bare inches from his own face, the space between them product more of instinct than any skill or reflex.
He'd thought, even as he compared everything to what he thought Duo would be, that he'd managed to keep the braided young man from his mind. But he realized he had been radically erroneous as he joyfully contrasted Duo's laugh to his conception of it, observed with maybe too much bliss the graceful hand that gently pushed wayward golden brown strands from lurking in his face.
"D - Duo?" he managed to stutter through the cotton filter that seemed to censor his words before they reached his vocal cords.
"Of course!" Duo replied with a mischievous grin Heero had never been shown before.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, shifting nervously back a foot or so.
"Well, ah..." Duo's eyes, the same wide, deep blue-violet that he remembered, were suddenly everywhere but meeting his own. "It's almost the tenth anniversary of the Maxwell Church, and I thought I'd come before the cameras did, you know?"
The Maxwell Church... It seemed a familiar term. Ten years ago, yes, he remembered reports of an orphanage massacre he'd barely comprehended. There'd been a single survivor, one -
"You're that Duo Maxwell?" he asked, unsettled at the shock of revelation that flooded through him.
Duo indigo eyes fled to the ground, one foot picking at the artificial green of the grass as he nodded, almost as if he were ashamed.
"I'm sorry," he said abruptly, earnestly remorseful that he'd brought up what must have been a painful issue for Duo.
"It's nothing," Duo said with a slight shrug, finally bringing his gaze back to Heero's, so that Heero could see that, while he may have been forgiven, everything was not fine. His lack of experience with actually being human, sympathetic, betrayed him, and he could find nothing to say as he stared back into Duo's eyes.
"Hey," Duo interjected into the loaded silence, his voice still quiet and almost hoarse. "You want to... Do something? Have coffee? Lunch?"
Had any other person in the world been asking, he would have refused, as politely as possible, then walked away before offering any real explanation. But he knew just the same that he'd never repudiate Duo the same way. He nodded a silent assent.
Duo smiled, a genuinely exultant expression he hadn't seen a year ago. Equally strange, though, was that he felt a sudden swell of delight inside himself, something totally unexpected and not at all prepared for.
He'd never before been able to walk through the quiet cemetery, its still, rarely visited stone memorials offering an unread testament to their designates, its quiet broken only by the crunch of his own feet sifting heavily through gravel, without it being a stark reminder of where he was, why he was there in the first place. He couldn't escape it. Yet now, moving more than platonically close to Duo, he found the morbid mementos that periodically broke the flat earth nothing important, the familiar land marks he'd so memorized before meaning little. It was a curiously freeing feeling, making him finally realize that maybe he could escape the dark scourge that had shadowed his life for three years. He was suddenly paying more attention to his animated companion, the way his long rope of hair swayed with his confident stride, as if to add more swagger to the movement, the way his fine-boned hands were never still as he spoke, gesticulating any which way to gracefully illustrate whatever point he happened to be making. Heero paid more attention the voice than the words it was coating, sinking into the even, baritone timbre and reveling in its sudden inflections and fallings back to normal tone.
He followed Duo's car to a small coffee shop on the opposite side of the graveyard from his own home, yet found he could barely remember the journey there, and would have a hard time making his way back. Duo waltzed in as if he owned the place, ordered the 'usual,' and watched expectantly as Heero stammered an order which later revealed itself to be something he didn't exactly enjoy. A man strummed on a guitar in the corner, moaning out low laments Heero usually would have immersed himself in, content to find sympathy in the tortured notes, but he barely paid attention this time, keeping his eyes and thoughts locked onto his easy going escort.
Duo proved to be more... alive... than he was accustomed to, as he usually preferred the company of people more akin to his own brooding nature, and for years, it seemed, had preferred no company at all. His round violet eyes reflected everything in his line of sight, as if you could see the world his way by simply gazing into them. Something about him was unceasingly in motion, whether it was his hands in their incessant gestures, mouth with his warm babble, or even his hair swaying in the slight gust that blew refreshingly through the small shop whenever someone opened the door.
What he said was unusual, as well. Duo pointed out the old drink cup rings bruising the table, the creak of his chair when he leaned back, the lone leaf, darkened brown in death, that rustled through the open door. He appeared thrilled to make these seemingly obvious observations, and Heero realized that he was absorbed totally in the braided young man's discoveries. Their drinks, taken in sparing, unnoticed sips, gradually disappeared, much to the dismay of both, and after several refills both were fairly trembling with caffeine intake and could find no more excuse to remain.
"God, I'm so hyped up," Duo commented as the door swung shut behind them with a soft jingle of loosely attached bells.
"So am I," Heero agreed with a slight smile and, to his surprise, a small chuckle.
"Let's run!" Duo suggested brightly.
"Where?"
Duo shrugged. "You don't always have to have a purpose, Heero. That's part of the fun of life!" He smiled brightly and jogged a few feet away.
The fun of life... A concept totally alien to him, Heero realized as he followed the swinging plait of Duo's hair. Life had been simply a task for so long that he seemed to have lost all enjoyment. Concepts such as spontaneity or impulsive randomness hadn't figured into the equation for all too long, he thought as he quickened his pace to match Duo's long stride.
His companion glanced at him from the sides of laughing eyes, and equally sped his velocity, drawing ahead with a challenging laugh. Once again Heero caught up, only to have Duo playfully dart just out of reach, leading him in a winding course, easily circumventing both people and other obstacles, such as the fast food kiosks or street vendors, giggling all the way.
He let Duo lead the seemingly random chase, winding down arbitrary streets before sharply turning into an alley and even taking one shortcut through a crowded business complex. The black suits they whizzed by looked on in incredulous, scandalized amazement, but Heero ignored them with a thrill of adrenaline he hadn't felt in years.
He didn't know how long he followed Duo, both barely sweating in the chilly weather, as he found himself not concerned with time - another first in years. Instead, he busied his mind with the heavy rush of the wind overflowing his ears, blocking out all sound but the fall of his feet on varying urban surfaces, and the cool beat of the breeze against his skin, molding his clothing to his body as he fought it to trail his quarry.
Duo eventually led him to a park, stopping once the hard impact of feet on concrete and asphalt softened to the easy yield of loam and the whispering give of grass. Heero barreled into him, letting momentum couple with gravity to tumble them both to the grass, which produced a soft rushing that filled his hearing. And then Duo was laughing, the sound twinkling around them before floating into the approaching twilight to enchant the sky. Heero was shocked to realize that he was, as well, his laughter melding with Duo's as easily as their limbs, tangled in a seemingly intricate pretzel. He was unaccustomed to the shaking of his shoulders and sharp hiccoughing of his diaphragm, but welcomed the strange sensations as he had everything else extraordinary about this day. The world rushed around them, mothers hurrying their children home before dark as the fathers hastened to join them, adolescents prayed to grow up quickly and their collective alacrity dulled their whole experience. But for once Heero let it all bypass him, choosing instead to revel in the sense of his companion. Duo was warm, at once above and under and among Heero himself. His tackle had tossed the two haphazardly to the ground, ending with Heero sprawled, half-covering the violet-eyed young man with one leg thrown between Duo's own, one arm spread over Duo's chest and the other still under his back where it had landed. Duo's extremities were similarly extended into random territory, even his braid in a casual arc over his head. His right arm was under Heero's head, left flung away from both their bodies.
Their laughter trickled away slowly, not so much from a loss of happiness but a steady lapse into deep contentment for both, each totally absorbed in the other, mind and form.
"That was... fun," Heero said with a distinct feeling of an unwanted admission. He drew himself from where he'd landed, head about even with Duo's floating ribs, dragging himself up until they were even, and he could look properly into Duo's happily shining eyes. The heavily sliding adjustment in his position ground grass and dirt into his clothing and skin, but he ignored it, even though he knew it would itch like mad later.
Duo gazed at him through slightly closed, content eyes. "Yes, it was," he whispered, a sweet half-smile gracing his lips and softening the already round lines of his face even further.
"I've never done that before," Heero confessed haltingly.
"Neither have I," Duo said, chuckling.
"No, I mean, I've never done that before. Just let go, and not listened to logic or cared about what the people watching thought." He normally would have been self conscious of such frank truth, but telling Duo felt different from telling anyone else, and each revealing word actually served to make him feel lighter, fall deeper into the euphoric crack that was slowly chinking wider with every disclosure caused by his remarkable companion.
"Really? Never" Duo's tone was as amazed as he'd ever heard anyone utter. He slowly untangled his torso and arms, flipping onto his stomach and pulling himself up onto his elbows, looking down on Heero in apparent shock, face to face but at a different angle. His legs, though they'd now done a one-eighty, remained interwoven with Heero's own.
Heero replied by shaking his head, an action he was accustomed to as a barrier against revealing too much in words but that seemed much for simple now, especially as he accompanied it with a slightly jocular "Never."
"We'll have to teach you, then," Duo said, grinning. His rib pushed against Heero's arm with every breath he took, and the fading sun outlined his attractively disheveled hair in a golden lit halo, casting his face into semi shadow.
"I'd like that," Heero murmured truthfully, surprised at his own honesty. In a flash of daring, he scooted closer to Duo, pressing enough into his right arm that the violet eyed young man was forced to move it, making an equally impetuous shift and resting it on the other side of his companion, bringing the two into somewhat the same proximity as earlier, only through conscious actions instead of inertia.
"I think," Duo continued softly, bringing his face closer to Heero's own in the classic pre-miss move, "that we should continue right -" Whatever he was going to finish with was swallowed as Heero negated the slight space between them with a motion of his own. Their second kiss was infinitely deeper, loaded with more meaning than their first ever could have, chaste and unexpected as it had been. It was strange, reflected Heero, how much need and desire and wait and want and passion - and inexperience, to his chagrin - could be communicated by the simple joining of two people's mouths. Of course, one could say it was more than just their lips. Duo's entire torso had been re-draped over Heero's, his hands snaking down Heero arms to capture Heero's and bring them closer in to their bodies, his legs still in the same configuration. In short, they were totally wound around each other, but he found in hard to concentrate on anything but Duo's mouth, moving around and seemingly in his own, tongue providing a delicious subtext to Heero's own in a dance that left him totally lost. Duo's lips melded perfectly his, alternately pushing firmly or just barely brushing electricity, and everything in between. When at long last he broke from Heero's lips, he used the advantage to feather light touches of his lips from the tip of Heero's nose to the bridge, then down his cheek to trace along the jawbone, and continuing over the rest of his face from there. Both were breathing heavily as he drew back just enough for speaking room.
"I think," he said in voice so low and intimately softened that it seemed more a hum, "that was an excellent start."
TBC...? One of my beta readers asked for a lemon sequel... Ack!
I can't believe I wrote that... I'm scaring myself! *hides behind Noir* Hope you rikey!
Muchas dankes to Noir, for being a wonderful and tolerant beta reader! *hugs* Don't worry, you can so write like that! ^_~
Ryan Harbin
Please send comments to: rioroute_vilgyna@yahoo.com