If Only in Your Smile
by Veste Notus
Heero awoke with a start. He was having a grave amount of trouble focusing his eyes to the darkness that had splattered itself across the sky. Giving an audible grunt, he picked himself up off the cold metal floor and paced.
He’d never had such a powerfully realistic dream. It was strange for Heero. He was so fully convinced that he’d opened up to Duo… He’d finally shown Duo his world, only to have it taken bitterly away from him like everything else he’d ever had. Heero quickly ran a hand over where his dream Duo had bitten him. The skin was, not surprisingly, unmarked.
“Only ten…” he said with a soft sigh. Heero sank down into the down metal once again, dizzy from standing so quickly. His mind mulled dully over the fact that he’d sustained heavy damage during his last battle. Wing fared no better.
Heero rested a hot hand on Wing’s cool exterior and tried to stand again. He had to stand. He had to get up. He had to find Duo. He didn’t want to regret any longer.
He just wanted to be free.
A few attempts at getting up proved useless. Heero lay still on the floor, unable to move any longer. He glanced ever upward at the darkened sky and let himself cry. It wasn’t that he was sad, no… Just frustrated…
“I finally get everything figured out…” he paused to cough up a little blood, “but I can’t do a damned thing about it…” With the bitterest of laughs, Heero closed his Prussian blue eyes in an effort to fuse the real world with his dreams.
“I want to go back… I want to live on the edge of my dreams for always. It will never be real, but at least I can go to you there. At least I can hold you there…”
Heero didn’t hear the footsteps behind himself. He just lay on the ground, his head slightly propped up against Wing’s mechanized foot, his eyes closed ever so lightly, and his lip trailing blood from the corner of his mouth.
Moreover, Heero didn’t feel the breaths come closer to his bleeding lips. Duo had been lucky to be alive from their last mission and, having maintained consciousness, he spent quite some time worrying and looking for his partner.
“Heero…” he called out softly, barely expecting a response. He took the Japanese boy into his arms and cradled him gently. Heero was, as he’d hoped, just on the edge of sleep, aware of his surroundings, yet strangely oblivious.
“Duo…?” came the shaky voice of the boy in his arms. Duo merely put a finger to Heero’s lips in an effort to silence him.
“You’ve done enough talking, Heero… Looks like you have a concussion…” Duo’s voice trailed off as he mentally assessed the damage inflicted upon Wing’s pilot. “Concentrate, Heero… Try to stay awake… for me, Heero… Stay awake…” Duo’s voice trickled away with the bitter tears that rolled down his pale cheeks.
Heero merely laughed – a tiny, hardly audible laugh that was probably more of a sigh than anything else. He groped the air for something to hold and satisfied himself with clutching Duo’s braid. Heero looked in Duo’s direction with a sleep-filled gaze.
“…more than enough, Duo…” Heero mumbled at him.
“S-say again, Heero? What’s more than enough?”
Heero didn’t respond. Instead, Heero, using Duo’s braid, pulled the American boy’s head down until Duo’s teeth grazed Heero’s neck.
Duo tried to pull away – the shock of what was happening overwhelming his system – but Heero held him tightly to his neck. Duo began to panic. He bit Heero in an effort to wake him and make him stop. Heero loosened his grip on the American boy and whispered something that sounded vaguely like “…twelve…”
Duo merely looked at him inquisitively.
“Duo, am I in a dream?”
Duo shook his head furiously, still confused as to what Heero was up to.
“Am I alive?”
Duo gave a quick nod.
“Are we free?”
Duo couldn’t respond.
“Free from what, Heero?”
Heero couldn’t respond.
After eons of silence, Duo shrugged and hoisted the Japanese boy over his shoulder, convinced that Heero needed medical attention first and foremost. Inside Deathscythe’s cockpit, Duo tended to Heero’s external wounds; cleaning them, disinfecting them, and finally wrapping in fresh bandages. While he treated the large gash in Heero’s leg, Duo began to hum a light tune.
It started meek, but grew in volume, never above a whisper…
Heero recognized the tune instantly. It was the song he’d whispered to Duo in his dreams… It was déjà-vous; it was coincidence; it was luck; it was true.
“Duo…” Heero called out. Duo stopped humming and looked deeply into Prussian eyes. An expression of pure concern befell his delicate face. “Why do you look so sad?”
Duo avoided Heero’s eyes as he spoke. “‘Cause, if you haven’t noticed, Heero, you’re not exactly in top condition… I don’t know how bad your wounds are, but you obviously suffered some form of head trauma…” Duo’s voice trailed once more as Heero leaned closer to Duo.
“Why do you say that?”
Duo flushed crimson and took a gulp. “B-because the real Heero wouldn’t act like this… The real Heero wouldn’t act like loved me like…” The two boys drew closer. “I…” Their foreheads met. “…love…” Duo’s head tilted slightly. “…him…” Their lips collided wonderfully with one another’s in the ultimate crescendo of love.
Duo pulled away and rested his head on Heero’s shoulder, apologizing softly for taking advantage of Heero’s weak mental state.
Heero felt a few tears stain his shirt.
“Duo…” Heero began, lifting Duo’s chin with a gentle hand. “If only in a lullaby, if only in a melody… If only in a memory, if only in goodbye…
I love you most, if only in your smile.”
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