Website: www.geocities.com/asukalangley2nd/
Warnings: Slight angst, sap, yaoi
Pairings: 1x2
Notes: This was written for the Moments of Rapture contest, and I didn't realize how hard it was to write romance until I finally had to XD Special thanks to Sheena, my beta reader ^-^

In the Back of the Closet
by Chauni

It has been ten hours.

I had read his mission report beforehand, and knew...

He should have been back six hours ago.

I am not one to worry, for in the end, I trust him; I have to. He is my only partner after all, and if there is no trust, no communication, then that jeopardizes all efforts towards the mission. But I'm fooling myself even as I say that, lying to myself with an unwavering voice, a deadly venomous thing that's as vile as anything I have ever known. I'm deceiving myself...my feelings...

I know why I trust him.

He's my friend, the only one I've ever had; the only person I would trust myself to.

Granted, two bullet wounds and some stolen Gundam parts later we're still talking, so I'd assume he is my friend. He tolerates and accepts every attempt I've made to brush him away, to get him away from me before the cold daylight of another war can stream in, but he still sits here beside me.

Or did, anyway, before he went on this damnable mission.

I turn to the clock on the nightstand, the neon green numbers reminding me of the print on my laptop, and I dimly realize I fell asleep for an hour. Holding my breath, I hear nothing, not the water of the shower, not the hushed snoring of anyone in the bed across from me.

Seven hours now.

Still clad in the starched and uncomfortable uniform delivered to us by the indifferent staff at St. Mercy of Angel's, I sit up and brush the dark hair from my eyes, growling a bit under my breath as I do so.

I'm worried, and I chastise myself for it.

Where did my faith in him go? He, I, we need that belief, and where is it now?

I'm anxious, eyes buzzing over everything like an insect trapped inside a jar, and I realize that's how I feel: imprisoned, twitching, almost claustrophobic, stuck through on some proverbial needle.

I should be looking for him...but he can handle himself...right?

I loosen the bandana-type tie that is cinched around my damnable tight throat, and let it hang open as my feet hit the floor with the quiet thump of the issued shoes. Dusk has finally settled, with the hints of some indigo resting on an undeterminable horizon, the color of his eyes that night...those times... Standing up is a feat in itself, as bones crack and pop and I find myself grunting in unison with most of them. Sliding fingers through my short hair does nothing to aid in its taming, as it seeks its own path to wild excursion.

Having nothing else to do, and realizing the inevitable, I make my way to the laptop, unplugging it from the wall. I need to pack, to erase all traces of us when it is known that he hasn't returned, that he's missing, that he's...

Be realistic...

That he's dead.

Going to the dresser, also dorm-issued, I begin pulling clothes from their wooden depths and dropping them onto the bed. Our sacks are in the closet, and reaching into the darkness of the small storage space, I feel my fingers brush against something cool and slick. At first, I figure it for a weapon, the sheath of a knife or a gun, but upon pulling it forth into the dying light of the small room, I see I am wrong.

It's a small metal box, turned to fire with the dusk that drifts in through the window.

Taking it back to the bed, I peel the top off and began to sift through it before dumping it over onto the bed before me. Normally, I would never do something like this...but...it has been eight hours now, eight hours and seventeen minutes. How slow have I been moving?

A bunch of little things, insignificant to me, the world to him, tumbled out onto the crisp sheets, and my fingers danced over a couple of the items: a golden cross slightly tarnished with age and wear, a piece of cloth covered in small stains which after close examination made me realize it was mostly blood, a leather hair tie I have never seen him use, a news article on the Maxwell Church Massacre on L2, and finally, a photograph, creased and wrinkled, as if gripped by small hands for the better half of seven years...which is exactly what has happened.

Digits latch onto the cross, and I note the scratches carved into the surface, from time and need and love, and the right arm is bent upwards a bit as if caught on a shirt or something. The metal chills, not in the way normal unworn gold did, but in a faithless way, as if such a trinket has been abandoned so long ago. Unable to take it much longer, I set it back down and let my fingers run over the three other objects with a dejected sort of curiosity, a need I wouldn't entertain. Finally, I decide the picture was good enough to raise my questions to, and bringing it up, I let my eyes settle on it.

I have no clue who the other boy was, with that long hair and bright emerald eyes, bearing the same smile as the one I have come to know so well, but the other child, no more than six...it has to be...

With his small arm slung around the taller boy, a shirt at least three sizes too large hanging off his tiny frame, is Duo, forever captured in this endless moment in time and with brilliant dark eyes staring back at me. Hair, somewhere trapped between a chestnut radiance and a dirty, neglected brown hangs down in his face, along with several blackened streaks down his cheeks, which were still littered with the barest hints of baby fat. The background is some alley that looked like any other alley I've ever seen: blue-gray building behind him, street littered with papers and refuse, and the sunlight banished as if it never existed, and replaced with a pale and flickering fluorescent out of sight.

But the smiles...on both of them...

How could someone who has so little smile so largely?

I don't understand it, can't comprehend such a thing. He is so thin, almost emancipated aside from those cheeks, covered in filth and wearing stolen clothes, and they both look so happy, like...like they're rich, rolling in money and goods beyond all ideals.

It flutters from my fingers, to lie face down on the blankets as I begin to put everything back into the box. Fire has burned itself out and was replaced with the oblivion of nothingness, no color trapped within that metal. Capping it, I hold it to my chest for a long moment, reveling in the weight, so much for something so small.

Did I know him at all? Here is his life, measured in cheap trinkets like coffee spoons, and I hold it all in my hands. I don't know what half of it means, why that cross is so battered, who that other person is in that photograph, but it had been *his* life, and I find myself holding the remains in my hand like some ash filled urn. Should I bury this? Stick it beside some nameless plaque, where only I know what it means? My own makeshift grave for my first and only friend?

Is that all he is? If that's the case, why do I burn, from the inside out?

I had spent nights staring at him while he slept, breaking out of the cocoon of his blankets in savage fits of nightmares, and I thought...Maybe...

I want to know him, now that he's gone. I want to find out the person in that picture, want to know who first handed that frozen cross to him, want to know whose blood stains that cloth. I want to listen to him tell me the secrets I can only imagine, to understand what it is to live a life like he has, a never-ending tale of immersion and struggle...but, I'll never get the chance. All his secrets, all the promise, all the hope for me, for him, for us, is gone, blown away in some fiery consumption of ener--

"Hi, honey, I'm home!"

The box tumbles from my stunned fingers as I gradually stare upwards, meeting those eyes that had been the elusive horizon only a moment before. Contents tumble out, spilling across the floor, life scattering across the room as I can do nothing but gape, wide-eyed at his appearance: uniform ruffled, a bit wrinkled, but otherwise fine, hair perfect, but it's his smile that captivates me.

Alive...so alive...like in that picture, as if nothing has ever touched him.

Can it be real? Is there something truly that pure in life, so untaintable that not even the one called Shinigami take it from him?

"Heero? Are you going through my stuff?" His voice is trembling softly, a light quivering like the released bowstring, and I watch as he takes a step forward, looking at the crooked cross that had tumbled to a stop at his feet.

"You're alive."

He doesn't look angry as he picks up the trinket, but the smile is gone; he realizes what I was doing, and I think I might have hurt him by losing faith. But...but he's alive.

What is all this relief coursing through me like a frigid breeze, the only thing to quell the burning from before? The dread, the pain that had pricked the edges of my senses, dissolves into a world of plain sight, and all the while, I can't tear my gaze from him as he presses that cross to his lips and muttered a name, a meaningful breath with purpose as it slips forth.

And I realize that this amount of relief isn't normal. Would I feel this way for anyone else, any other person I have ever met? J? Odin? Relena?

My body comprehends it before my mind can, but before them, I think my heart knows. Damning logic for the moment, I will dwell on this all later, when I can have him lying in my arms asleep and not staring longingly from across the room. One hand grabs each of his arms, fingers digging into the white uniformed shirt slightly as if to make certain he is really here, standing before me in that atmosphere that only he can pull off, and I feel him stop as his back hits the wall. The questions in his eyes quickly change to a controlled panic, and his mouth opens to voice everything, all his "whys" in one flood.

But I stop it before can even begin, pressing my tiers against his in a flood of emotions I am desperately attempting to understand.

I am kissing him, him, my best friend, my roommate, my partner...

What kind of partner?

Every way...my partner in everyway, if he would have me.

My movements have caught him off guard, and he's bending under the force of my kiss, bowing beneath me like a tree in a tsunami. Dimly, I feel each of his knees flank my legs as he falls downward, lightly clamping around my right knee to steady himself as one hand clutches loosely at my sleeve. His breath fills my mouth, stunned and covered with the sweet taste of a gentle moan, and I swallow it, taking it into myself, like I want to with the rest of him, to create one being where I never have to worry about losing him again. One hand slips from his arm to wrap around his throat softly while the other moves to nestle in his hair, so different and so like the tresses in that aged photograph, threading into it as much as possible, given the plait it was drawn into.

Lips give way to the ambrosia of his mouth, and I find myself seeking to touch the soul beneath, to eat that life that has forever eluded me. He accepts me, all of me, like no one ever has. No training, no molding, no changing, but myself, total, complete, and he has stayed by me for it.

When did I fall for him? When did I pry my lashes apart and begin this downward spiral? It took his "death" to make me realize it, to be slapped in the face with, but how did it ever begin?

But it doesn't matter, really. As long as I feel it now, as I accept it and don't ignore it anymore, then maybe, maybe we have chance in a world of blood and darkness.

I can feel the intoxicating flush in my cheeks as I close the kiss, bringing our lips shut before pulling away with a quiet pant. Honeyed lashes part like the sea, languid and slow, and I can slivers of his eyes reflecting in the desert of white. He opens his mouth to inquire, but stalls to draw in a quick breath first, giving me a chance to cut him off.

"You are late. Eight hours and forty-eight minutes. Don't ever do that again."

I give him a smile that I can see reflected and distorted in the glassiness of his eyes, and press a final kiss to his moist and parted lips. The stunned look quickly retreats to a relieved expression, and I wonder with a smirk if he thought I was giving him the "Kiss of Death". Most likely. My fingers find his, interlocking with the heat of his hand, and I pull him to bed, tugging gently.

"Don't ever do that to me again, Duo."

"Mind telling me what I missed while I was gone?"

Turning around, noting the way my hand held his, the way the moonlight has begun to filter in and illuminating his flesh in platinum, the way the braid has started to unravel, strands breaking free from their confines, and the way that wrinkled uniform hangs from his thin body, I can't help but smile at him, something I reserve for only certain people, certain people like him.

"I had an epiphany induced by someone's life I found in the back of a closet, that's all."

The all-knowing smirk is up within an instant, and it doesn't take a genius to know what I mean by that. I don't need any other fancy words, anything that has been played over and over and lost meaning with its fickleness. I just need to look at him and show him the me that no one else can ever see, the me that only he would accept in it's entirety.

And in his arms, I have found the peace that has eluded me for the better half of my life, and I realize, I am home.