WARNINGS: In this fic, you will be subjected to a yaoi pairing -- notably that of 1x2. What you will also find is a startling void of angst, fluff, and lemons. Please don't let the blandness of my writing kill you.

Morning Sky
by Carrie

Well, maybe not entirely why I decided to run under it.

I had abandoned my shoes something like a half-mile back. Sand had been creeping in over the tops of my sneakers and irritating me, so I just flung them off behind me. Maybe the water would pick them up and carry them off. Whatever. I had another pair. I could steal more if necessary. The morning breeze had picked up, and I could feel it playing with the loose hairs around my face and the strands that were coming out of my braid behind me. The rest of the braid was just wagging back and forth behind my back, like the tail of some faithful dog, or a show horse, or something.

Five in the morning was creeping on. I could see it. The four in the morning sky was leaving me for tomorrow, and that was fine. I knew it would be there, waiting for everybody who wanted to see it. The sky was nice like that.

I'm not sure exactly when I stopped running. I just know that eventually, I did, and now I was sitting on the sand. It's funny, the things you do, when you're not exactly paying attention. I was just sitting there, staring at the waves on the beach, letting the wind play with my hair; I decided to play with it too.

There's always been something Zen-like about staring at the ocean. I know that the guys probably think I don't have an appreciation for things like this. Well, that's not really a problem; it just lets me enjoy these things all the more privately. I don't know, maybe I couldn't even enjoy it if other people knew. Moments like these were cherished secrets that only I and the waves knew. They where whispering to me now.

Wow, that was actually kind of poetic.

You do a lot of thinking when you stare at the ocean; or sometimes you don't, if you let yourself go blank. But I didn't. I was thinking. In fact, I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't have done that. I was just getting up for a morning jog, and the rest of the house was still and quiet. I should have thrown on those old, careworn jeans that were softer than jogging pants, tossed on my shirt, slipped into my shoes, and left. I made it through the greater majority of that sequence without stopping: put on the pants, one leg, then the other; rummage around for a shirt, this looks good; shoe one, shoe two, stand up. I glanced at the still-occupied bed next to me.

He lay there, quietly, in the four in the morning void. The inverted light softened every angle on his face; it made his hair smudged into one strange brown mass. It was as if someone had taken a fresh painting of this scene and ran a wet sponge over it. The lines of worry had melted away from his face in the way that only deep sleep can bring. He looked completely at peace.

It was the color of hope.

I walked across the room, stupidly, keeping as quiet as possible, which wasn't exactly difficult. I don't even know why I did it; maybe it was just a shock seeing him vulnerable, and I needed a closer look, just to see that my eyes weren't deceiving me or anything. My feet just carried me over to his side, silently, and I stared down at him.

That had to be one of the most goddamned beautiful things I've ever seen. Although, I'm not sure what it's worth to anybody else, because I have a pretty deranged sense of beauty. I once saw two people, a man and a woman, who were clearly mentally handicapped; they were holding hands and looked about as happy as could be. I nearly cried when I saw that. It's another shade of hope.

I was thinking about that, about him, about the morning sky, the beach we were by with the crashing waves and the shrieking seagulls, and I felt my heart trying to leap out of my chest. When you always live around horror, the stupidest things suddenly become beautiful, even something as stupid as the prosaic pre-dawn sky. I guess it's a way of coping, even though you never really can cope.

I'm still not even sure exactly why I did it. Maybe I'll understand it all later, when I grow up, when I grow old, or even when I grow young and I'm in the fleeting moments before death. Maybe I'll understand then why I leaned over and kissed him.

It wasn't even an impressive kiss. It was stupid, it was prosaic, and it was completely ineffable. A quick, dry, chaste kiss to his forehead. I'm not sure it can even qualify as a kiss -- just a brushing of lips against skin, nothing at all romantic. The way a mother would kiss her child before bed; at least, that's what I'd assume. And once the kiss was done and I took a moment to reel from the shock, I went out jogging.

Why didn't he wake up? I suppose I should revel in the fact that I one-upped him in some way. If he knew, it would burn him up. But then, he would kill me, so I suppose it's good that he doesn't know.

This is counterproductive. I decided to just let my mind go blank. Let the rush of the waves be all that I hear, and damn the cool water touching my toes. Beat after beat, the soft crash, the ebb, the gentle resurgence, then the final withdraw. Then it begins all over again, cool water rushing up to me, kissing my bare toes with white foam. Back and forth, rush and recede, like the beating of two hearts.

I can't be certain how long I sat like that, staring at the water. The tide withdrew and the sun began to cast some light behind me. Don't get any ideas, the sky wasn't on fire with an orchestra of gold and crimson, nothing like that. It was still pretty bland, but just a bit lighter now. A few cirrus clouds gave the greyness a mottled look, like a Dalmatian gone horribly wrong. Apparently, I had been playing with my braid the entire time, and without realizing it, I had broken the elastic and now my hair was getting lose from its braid. Well, it was old anyway.

What made me break out of my thoughtlessness was the sound of feet sliding over sand. Feet with shoes on that bore the gait of someone I wanted to stare at in the four-in-the-morning timeless void. Someone who had unexpectedly soft skin on his forehead and looked like an angel when he slept.

"Duo."

I didn't turn around. I didn't really need to. "Yea, Heero?" Or maybe I didn't want to.

"You were late for breakfast."

"I'm surprised you noticed," I replied. "You're never there for breakfast."

"Yes, I suppose that's so."

I sighed, irritated as I brushed a strand of hair from my face. Stupid wind. "So, who sent you to collect me? Quatre?"

"No."

"Wufei, then?"

"No."

I was getting curious now. "Trowa?"

"No."

"You don't mean to tell me you came of your own volition, do you?" I nearly laughed when I said it.

There was a long pause. A wave crashed, crawled back, surged forward again, and completed its cycle. "You should come in for breakfast."

"I'm not really all that hungry. Are you?"

"No."

My eyes were still fixed on the water. "You can join me if you want to. The ocean is peaceful. It's nice to let yourself go in it."

Silently, he stepped forward a bit and stood beside me. I could see the breeze toying with his shirt, sending little ripples through the fabric, turning it into an ocean. We both stared out quietly, just taking in the waves and the sky.

"Why do you do this?"

I was startled by the question, but I knew what he meant. "Just looking at the beauty, Heero," I replied. "Just looking at the beauty."

"You're always looking at the beauty. How do you see it?"

"I'm not sure. It's just there. I mean, if you think about the way everything works, how things happen, why they happen... if you can look at the world with the wonder of a child, Heero, then everything is beautiful."

His tone became stern. "Don't you ever worry that you'll lose focus?"

"Sometimes you need to lose focus, Heero. Sometimes the lines just need to all blur together. Almost anything can be beautiful."

"Even a soldier?"

Disregarding the clenching within my stomach, I answered him. "Even a soldier."

I nearly jumped when he dropped to his knees beside me. What stopped me were his arms, suddenly around my shoulders. There wasn't anything more than that, just a closing of space and a simple touch; but coming from Heero, this was as good as his going down on bended knee. I reached up with a hand and touched his arm in return, and I leaned a bit closer to him, closing the gap yet further.

And we watched the sun set the morning sky on fire.