Propinquity
Pairings: 1+2
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing characters are not mine. Lyrics to "Propinquity" are not mine either.
Warnings: introspection, shounen-ai; spoilers for early series, Episode Zero.
Author's Notes: The song is "Propinquity" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Gender pronouns have been altered where necessary. ^_~
/lyrics/
/I've known for a long time
the kind of guy you are/
It was... at the start of the war that I first met you, and you were one of the first people I ever met. Real people, that is. Odin Lowe is almost too far back in my life for me to remember, but he took care of me for a few years, so I suppose he must have been a real person. After that, the only real person I knew for years was Dr. J, and even then it was kind of conditional. He didn't see me as anything more than a useful tool, and I... I felt nothing for him. Or for anyone.
When I came to Earth at the start of Operation M, I met Relena. She was really the first person I ever knew who was interested in me for being me, and I didn't know how to deal with that. That was all that was between us, really -- for a while I thought that I was in love with her, but in the end I realized it was just gratitude towards the first person who cared about me, really cared about *me.* Of course, back then I didn't know the first thing about friendship, much less love, and I was completely prepared to kill her. I would never have known what a mistake that would have been if you hadn't come along then and stuck your nose in.
/the smiles that cover teardrops,
the way your head yields to your heart./
There's nothing like hindsight to let you realize your past idiocies. Now, looking back on it, I realize just how much like you that little stunt was. You saw me about to shoot Relena and you immediately stepped in to help, even though it put you and your mission at risk. But that's just who you are. You saw someone in trouble and had to help them. And you didn't even shoot to kill, even when I proved to you that nothing short of killing me would stop me.
No; you just put three bullets into my hide, and then turned around and blew up the hospital I was trapped in, jumped off of a fifty-story building beside me, and spent the rest of the day talking my ear off. All with the same manic grin, the same devil-may-care attitude that anyone would look at and think that you'd never had a sad thought in your head.
I know better now, of course.
/The things you kept inside
that most men couldn't bear
Well I've known you for a long time
but I've just begun to care./
Now, I know better... because now I know who you are. I found out about your past, did you know that? About your years of living on the street, a childhood spent stealing scraps to survive. About Solo, and the L2 plague. About when Father Maxwell took you in and gave you a new family; about when Father Maxwell and the rest of the orphans and the church were blown into pieces by Federation troops.
Knowing, I could never think of you as... anything less than real after that. No -- in fact, I always thought you were more than real, larger than life. This nightmare of a life of yours would have reduced any lesser man to a shivering, useless wreck.
But not you. You smiled.
/Yes I've known of all the heartache
And I've known of all the pain/
And I knew about the nightmares, too -- how could I not, all the nights we roomed together? You always tried to hide them, the times in the middle of the night when you woke up shivering and sweating or crying from whatever vision or memory of pain tormented you. Maybe you could have hid them, if I hadn't been lying awake myself as a result of those same nightmares.
Mine always featured an innocent girl and her puppy.
Who died in yours?
/I've seen you in the sunshine
and I've seen you in the rain/
I tried to put you out of my head. It didn't work. No matter how thoroughly I disciplined my thoughts, almost every day when I was attending some other task, I would realize that my mind was drifting back to you. At the time, I didn't understand what was happening... but I do now. Now, I realize that the vision of you filled my thoughts because I'd never met anyone so beautiful before.
And you are beautiful, magnificently so. You were breathtaking the first time I met you, dressed to kill with a gun in your hand. You were alluring when I saw you lounging around in shorts and a t-shirt, basking in the sunlight and those strange indigo eyes of yours fixed out on the ocean. Just the little bit of you I could see over our Gundams' coms, was lovely, because it was you. Even when I half-carried you out of the OZ base when you were filthy and haggard and every inch of your skin was mottled with bruises. Even then, you were beautiful.
/I've seen you make a look of love
from just an icy stare,
And I've known you for a long time
But I've just begun to care./
You once told me you were the only friend I had; at the time, I didn't believe you. Partly because I wasn't yet able to believe in altruism, or kindness, or -- even -- love. Partly because on a subconscious level, I couldn't understand why someone like you could ever want to be friends with someone like me. It confused me, how you could be so unrelenting in your attempts to befriend me, when I never offered you the slightest encouragement; your warmth and friendly chatter flew right in the face of my cold glares and death threats. You seemed to... take them as a challenge, to drag me out of my shell -- I didn't realize until later, after you were gone, how far you'd brought me back to humanity without me even realizing it. Again -- hindsight...
But I never did -- and still don't -- understand why you struggled so hard and so long to try and earn my approval. Leaving aside the entire issue of what *my* judgment is worth in the first place -- if it was my respect you wanted, you earned it the first time I saw your Gundam fight. I know you're not as stupid as you sometimes pretend to be, but for some reason you never realized that, and it puzzled me no end how I inspired you to try for inhuman lengths. I never expected you to do all that I could do; I have no desire to create another Perfect Soldier, especially not if it meant killing the part of you that I always silently envied.
But you always went away feeling unworthy. I never wanted that.
/I know I've been blind
To not have loved you all this time
But the image of you wasn't clear
I guess I've been standing too near/
...I guess I'm as much of a fool as you are. It wasn't until you weren't around any more, and I couldn't look forward to seeing you fight in the next battle or show up on a mission of mine that you had no business being on, that I realized what I was missing. Not until you were no longer around -- did I notice that I NEEDED you around. I mean, really, for someone who's supposed to be good at figuring out what's going on in the world around him, I did a pretty pitiful job of figuring out my own heart...
I shouldn't really be surprised. After all, I never admitted how much you meant to me when you were within arm's reach; why should I have done any better when you weren't around to knock sense into me any more? I don't know when you became such a important part of my universe, but I couldn't see you -- really see you -- until I looked around and realized that there was a hole in my life shaped like you.
/It's taken me a while
But I have finally found
What you are to me
And that's what really counts./
My epiphanies, I realize, are poorly timed. I never knew I wanted you, until I could no longer have you. It was only after the war ended, and Mariemeia's rebellion put down, that I've really had the time to think. That I finally forced myself into a moment of honesty, that I finally opened my eyes to what has been staring me in the face all this time.
I know you now. You are black to my white, life to my death, heat to my cold, sound to my silence. You are everything I am not, everything that I ever wanted.
I love you.
/And what you are to me
Is something we can share
I've known you for a long time
but I've just begun to care./
I'm going to find you, Duo Maxwell, and I'm going to finally tell you what I should have figured out two years ago. I know you probably don't think of me as anything but a friend, but I'm not going to sit back and stay silent as long as I have hope that you could return my feelings. I do know that you care about me enough that, even if you don't love me back, you'll try not to hurt me and you won't let it destroy our friendship. Because that's not the kind of person you are, and that's not the kind of person I would fall in love with...
Hindsight.
I love you, body and soul. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, if you'll have me. I hope you will, and I hope I can give back to you a fraction of what you've given to me.
/Yes, I've known you for a long time
but I've just begun to care/
~owari~
Mikkeneko: Well?
Duo: That was it?
Heero: It was obvious!
Duo: It was pointless!
Heero: It was short!
Duo: It was... fluff?
[pause]
Heero & Duo: WE LOVED IT!
Please send comments to: Mikkeneko