Category: Fluffy sap
Rating: PG
Pairing: 2+1/1+2
Disclaimer: These delightful people are the property of Sunrise, the Sotsu Agency, TV Asahi, and Bandai--and I intend no infringement upon those rights.
Warnings: Shounen-ai, blissful disregard of the series timeline, equally-blissful reliance upon cliched settings and characterization. Whee! ^__^
Notes: This is a holiday present for my sweet Joriel, who asked for a Christmasy revelation-of-affection story. This was supposed to be a short little vignette, but got a little carried away--anyway, hope you like it, Jori-wifey-chan!
/ denotes thoughts
He was cold. And miserable. After slogging through deep drifts for the last two miles between his landing zone and the safehouse, Duo had very little patience left for formalities.
Stomping booted feet on the snowy front step, Duo glared up at the tumbling flakes through snow-dampened bangs. Ridiculous. He knew the secret knock. He did.
And anyway, why did they need a secret knock for an abandoned cabin halfway up the side of some godforsaken mountain in the middle of nowhere? As if they couldn't see any potential threat coming five miles off....
Okay, he didn't remember the secret knock.
He settled for bellowing, instead. "Dammit, Yuy, you know it's me! Put down that gun I know you're clutching and open the goddamn door! If I freeze to death out here, you can explain it to the doc--
The door flew open; still gripping the handle, Duo was yanked inside before he could let go. The motion was so sudden that he might have fallen, if his path to the floor hadn't been blocked by a wall of wiry muscle. A pretty skinny wall, as walls went, but plenty solid enough to knock most of the wind out of an unsuspecting fellow pilot--and if Duo had any breath left, it fled as soon as he met that icy blue stare.
/I'm cold and soaking wet but the frostbite isn't going to get a chance to kill me because I'm going to kiss you and then you'll kill me, all right, and it will be worth it because--/
"You coming in, or do we both get to catch pneumonia?"
Duo gave his head a sharp shake, paused to remember how his legs worked, and attempted nonchalance. "Hey, as long as we get cute nurses to fuss over us, I say we go for the pneumonia!"
"Baka. Sounds like you're already feverish. Get in here."
The door slammed on the spinning whiteness outside, and Duo looked around the warm firelit interior of the tiny cabin. Pretty Spartan--a rough table against one wall was the only item of furniture--but there were two rolled sleeping bags stacked next to a fully-functional fireplace, and some kind of food was bubbling over the low flames.
"Hey, you brought supplies!"
"Someone had to, Maxwell. You don't have a history of coming prepared." Heero gave his gun a quick once-over to make sure the safety was back on, and laid it on the table next to a heap of spare clips.
Duo struck an aggrieved pose. "I've been living out of a gundam for the past two months, Yuy. Excuse me if I didn't have time to hit a grocery store on my way to the last firefight!"
"Whatever. Do you at least have dry clothes?"
"Somewhere in here." Dropping to the floor to dig through his pack, Duo came up triumphantly with an armload of denim and flannel. "Do we have a bathroom?"
"Sort of. There's an attached lavatory. No tub, though."
"I think I've had enough of a soak, thanks. No peeking, handsome--I'm gonna change."
Heero snorted as Duo dripped past him to the lean-to that housed the primitive bathroom. /Idiot's lucky he didn't lose some of that lip to frostbite on the way up here. Who goes out into this weather without a coat?/
Poking at the fire, Heero let his mind sneak guiltily back to his first glimpse of Duo that evening, when he'd spotted the other pilot jogging the last few yards to the door: hair a damp rope down his snow-wet back, teeth chattering between lips blue with cold. /Could've fixed that. Right in the doorway, I could have--/ Heero cut off that dangerous line of thinking with another jab at the coals. /No chance of that, Yuy. He's got his heart set on cute nurses./
Still, Heero's acute hearing insisted on picking up every damp slap of wet black cotton against the lavatory's floorboards, every rustle and zip as Duo climbed into dry clothing on the other side of the thin lath wall. He came out dragging a wide-toothed comb through his loosened hair, cursing cheerfully at tangles.
"One of these days, I'm just gonna snap and go after this mess with a hacksaw." He dropped to the floor in front of the fire, settling into its glow with an expression of almost feline bliss. "Gah. Thought I was never going to be warm again."
He still looked chilled, Heero thought critically; pausing in his fire-tending, he unzipped one of the sleeping bags and slung it around Duo's shoulders.
"Hey, thanks." Duo looked up in surprise, abandoning his comb to accept a mug of soup. "Ohhhhh. That's good."
Settling into a cross-legged position on the other side of the hearth, Heero hid a smile behind his own mug; only Duo could manage to sound downright orgasmic over a cup of reconstituted vegetable broth.
For his part, Duo took advantage of the diversion offered by the food to get a good look at the other pilot; it had been almost two months since their missions last threw them together, and he couldn't drag his eyes away. /Long time no see, Heero. Now's when I should notice that you look like hell, that it actually was possible for you to get scrawnier, that those are new scars all over you--but you still manage to be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen./
Before Heero could catch him staring, Duo redirected his eyes to the window, where falling snow thudded softly against the panes. It had been peaceful out there among the pines, everything hushed under a blanket of white. Like a picture, something he had seen before. Like--
"Hey, do you know what day it is?"
"On which calendar?"
"Earth standard." Duo's eyes were so bright with excitement that it hurt to look at them, but somehow it would hurt more to look away.
Heero did a quick conversion in his mind. "24 December."
"And that is--?" Heero looked at him blankly, and Duo sighed in defeat. "Sorry. Just one of my baka culture's baka holidays. One of the big ones. Thought you might have heard of it."
It was suddenly imperative to get that brightness back. After rifling through his mental files, Heero came up with a possible answer. "Christmas?"
A sharp sideways look from under the chestnut bangs, so quick he almost missed it. "Yeah."
He still had to recoup some ground, it seemed. "Some kind of birthday?"
A longer look this time, and the brightness was definitely creeping back. Heero felt a glow of accomplishment.
"That's tomorrow. The birthday, I mean. Tonight's for waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"When you're a kid, you're waiting for presents. If you're lucky, anyway. I don't know what grownups wait for. Grace, maybe."
Heero considered his words; Duo was already graceful, in his opinion, but maybe the word could mean something else. Seeing the puzzlement on his face, Duo answered the question he hadn't asked. "It's like mercy, sort of--or revelation. A gift you didn't ask for."
"Oh." Heero raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment; other people's religions had never made much sense to him. Still, it sounded like a nice idea.
Something seemed to have struck Duo as amusing, though, and he didn't notice Heero's dismissive reaction. Watching him smile, Heero decided to risk asking. "What?"
"'S funny, that's all."
"What's funny?"
Before answering, Duo set down his empty mug and rolled himself up in the sleeping bag, scooting so he could still face the hearth. "Reminded me of an old story. There were animals there for the first birthday, see--everything in creation singing alleluia, and all that."
It sounded like a mass hallucination, but Heero nodded anyway.
"So some people say that the animals still get a word in--on Christmas Eve, starting at midnight, they get an hour to speak."
Chin propped on his crossed wrists, Duo stared into the fire. "I always wondered what they'd say--if they just did the praise thing, y'know, or if they said hi to each other, told their kids they loved 'em, that kind of thing. Guess they probably get by without words most of the time, but I always figured they looked forward to getting to say it for once. I was a pretty stupid kid, huh?"
He looked up, fully expecting to be informed that he was still a baka, but Heero was looking at him with the strangest expression on his face--as if more than one impulse battled for control of his facial muscles.
"Heero? You okay?"
Familiar irritation seemed to win the war, and Heero stood up abruptly. "It's getting late, and we need sleep. Give me your mug."
He went out into the whitewashed darkness to rub the dishes clean with snow, then loitered until his head felt clearer. Being alone with Duo like this was definitely dangerous, if something as simple as a child's story made him all wobbly inside. He distrusted that feeling of warm weakness almost as much as he hated the confusing ache that he was coming to associate with physical proximity. He didn't know where either sensation came from, but had a good idea where they were headed--and he could only watch in rising discomfort as they persisted in disrupting all of his carefully-arranged mental processes. /But it feels good to be with him, doesn't it? And it would feel even better to--/
Before he could head into that quagmire again, Heero gathered a double handful of snow and grimly scrubbed his face with it until the stinging chill cleared his mind of all warmer thoughts. /Take that,/ he thought triumphantly, and gathered up an armload of wood before stomping back into the cabin.
His good intentions were shattered again as soon as he came through the door; in his absence, Duo had spread out the other sleeping bag to warm in front of the fire, and had even folded one of his own extra shirts to serve as a pillow. /Damn it, Duo--why do you keep doing things for me?/
Deferring comment, he bent to pile a night's worth of sizeable logs on the fire, poking them deeper into the coals until they caught.
Back inside his own bag, Duo appeared to be almost asleep, his head pillowed on one bent arm as he blinked up owlishly. "We locked down?"
"Yeah." Heero toed off his boots and climbed into the sleeping bag, shifting to find a comfortable position on the unforgiving floor.
"Mm. Warm enough?"
"Aa." The quilted bag was warm all the way through, thanks to its careful positioning. "Thanks."
"No problem. Merry Christmas, Heero." Curled on his side, Duo was smiling as he fell further into sleep.
Rearranging his makeshift pillow, Heero tried to follow. It wasn't easy, especially with his nose against a pile of cloth that smelled like Duo: soapy, almost piney, sharp and clean under his face. After a while he gave up and just breathed it in, figuring that it would soon become familiar enough to be ignored. It didn't work. At least, he caught himself reveling in the scent long after he thought he should have been able to tune it out. Ridiculous. But no matter how he stationed himself, he couldn't seem to find a position that successfully invited sleep.
Out of habit, Heero glanced at his watch during one of his restless shiftings: 12:21. According to Duo's story, they were well into the magic hour. The thought that the woods outside might be full of talkative deer and chattering rabbits made him smile in spite of himself, but a look at the still figure opposite him gave him pause.
The fire might have been drawing its warmth from that sleeping form, instead of the other way around; the wavering flame-shadows lingered lovingly over Duo's face, wiping away the lines of worry and weariness to leave only the child he should have been.
Heero shook his head. /He can sleep like that, in spite of everything. There's something he draws on, some reservoir that I don't have. Like he's more alive than everyone else--a lot more alive than I am, anyway. Maybe that's what the moths see in the flame./
Lulled by the crackle of the flames, spellbound by the flickering play of light, Heero settled in to watch him sleep. Duo moved slightly every once in a while, murmuring occasionally as he dreamed. At one point he rolled to his back, flinging one arm out of the warmth of his sleeping bag and frowning slightly at the resulting draft.
Reaching across the little distance between them with a gentleness that surprised even himself, Heero bent the unresisting arm and tucked it back under the quilted cover. Before Heero could retrieve his hand, Duo had laced their fingers together, curling over to rest his cheek on their joined hands.
The intimacy of the new position made Heero catch his breath. /I didn't want this, Duo--to feel these things, to be confused like this. I didn't ask for this./
The phrasing of his own thoughts stopped him, bringing back Duo's earlier words: 'A gift you didn't ask for.' Was this grace, then? This little space of peace in the middle of a war, this well of warmth in the snow?
He lifted his head until he could see his watch propped against the table leg. Five minutes till one; the hour was almost up, and he hadn't found words yet. The need to speak seemed urgent.
"Duo. Are you asleep?" Of course he was.
"Mm." Maybe not all the way asleep.
/Just say it. He won't remember in the morning, and you'll finally be able to get some rest./
"I think I--" He drew a deeper breath. "Suki da, Duo." The relief was palpable. Now if he could just get his hand back, he could--
"Love you too, Heero."
Absolutely certain that he was dreaming, Heero risked a look at Duo's face; those incredible eyes blinked back at him, sleepy but definitely aware.
Revelation. The gift he hadn't asked for.
Grace.
Now he didn't have any words at all, and it didn't seem to matter. Duo's eyes were already drifting shut again, heavy lashes crashing down above that same dreaming smile. Carefully dislodging his fingers, Heero scooted his sleeping bag across the floor until he could slide his other hand under Duo's warm cheek, curving his free arm over the bundled shoulders. The logistics of this gift could be figured out in the morning, he decided.
For now, there would be no more waiting.
-end-
Lilias
Please send comments to: Liliascrescens@cs.com
