Archivist's note: Written for Moments of Rapture's fifth anniversary.

X Marks the Spot
by Mookie

The boy nodded, his head moving very slowly in agreement as his eyes bored into those of his questioner, even though his fingers toyed restlessly with the tattered ribbon.

Duo wanted to ask him one last time, but he remembered how hard it had been to say yes when Heero had done the same thing to him earlier, and he simply waited for Heero to drop it.

Neither of them spoke the entire time they worked with their shovels, although they both stopped at the same time to wipe the sweat off their brow. Duo grinned at Heero, who didn't smile back, but whose eyes lit up briefly before he turned back to pick up another mound of dirt.

Soon there was nothing more than a bare patch in the lawn, one that no one would really notice in a day or two after the wildflowers and weeds grew over it, and Heero propped his spade against the fence and wiped his arm across his forehead.

"Here."

The bottle of lemonade Duo offered him was piss warm -- it had been sitting in the sun the whole afternoon -- but Heero accepted it gratefully and took a long swallow.

He didn't say anything until Duo tipped the bottle back and took a drink of his own.

"You're bleeding."

Duo hadn't even noticed -- a trickle of blood felt much the same as one of sweat and he turned his hand around to watch it. Diluted with perspiration, it was tinged pink, and Duo stuck out his tongue and licked the side of his hand.

"So are you."

Heero brought his finger to his mouth but instead of licking it, he sucked at it. It wasn't the first time he'd cut himself and tasted the copper tang of blood along with the saltiness of his own skin, but it was the first time he'd done it deliberately.

Duo offered him the bottle again and Heero took a smaller sip this time, just enough to make him wince at the combination of flavors in his mouth, and Duo's laughter made him scowl.

He regretted that his sour expression silenced Duo, but he said nothing.

Duo put the cap on his Country Time and twisted it back and forth a few times before speaking again.

"So."

Heero stared down at the soil they'd unearthed and packed back into place. "So."

"You, uh, have my address."

"Yes."

Duo dropped the cap and it bounced once, twice, on the ground. "You going to use it?"

Heero hated the way Duo's voice trembled. He wasn't going to cry, was he?

"Soon as I can."

"I'd write you, you know, if I knew where to send it."

"I know."

"So."

Heero's short bark of laughter surprised them both, and Duo knelt down and picked up the bottle cap. He turned it so the flat side was facing up and pushed it into the ground.

"Think it'll still be here?"

Heero looked away, toward the school. He didn't know. He doubted it, but he couldn't say that to Duo. He hoped so, but he couldn't say that, either. When he replied, his voice sounded as if he'd suddenly matured.

"Time will tell."

Duo got to his feet and brushed the dirt of his knees.

"I guess it will." The question was whether either of them would like the answer they got.

The young man shuffled through the orange and yellow leaves that covered the grass, arcing his cane on occasion and watching the flurry of color that resulted. He'd never thought he'd be back, but then ten years ago he hadn't thought much of anything.

He was lucky.

The car had hit him hard, sending him over the hood and vaulting him over the roof of the car before he landed behind it. Sprawled in the road, he'd thankfully lost consciousness, something it had taken weeks to regain.

The use of his leg had taken longer, and on days like today, it pained him enough to rely on his walking stick. It was definitely going to rain tomorrow -- his leg hadn't been wrong yet, not in the past decade.

When he reached the fence he pulled out a worn piece of paper from his coat pocket. It was soft from having been handled so many times and mostly illegible, but that was OK. It wasn't like he'd really needed a treasure map to find it again. While he had occasional lapses in memory, they tended to be more recent things, and he could always recall them -- it just took a little more time and a lot of patience.

It had hurt him terribly to repeat a year at school. He'd always prided himself on being intelligent and he felt slow and stupid compared to the way he used to be. It had taken a long time to realize that he'd not lost anything he'd learned, he just had to work harder to recall it, but it had been the first time Heero had ever struggled with learning something new. He'd planned on writing, but it was always so hard to figure out how much to say, and when he'd finally sat down and spent hours on a letter, it had come back a week later.

Return to Sender -- Forwarding Address Unknown.

Heero didn't know why he'd jumped at the chance to accept a position here of all places, but it was probably because this was the last place he remembered being truly happy. Before the accident, before losing the only person he'd gotten close enough to consider a friend.

His leg was aching and he was wearing new trousers, but he leaned his cane against the fence and dropped to his knees, wincing at the sharp pain it caused him. He ripped at some of the flowers, pricking his finger on one of them, and sucked in a breath as he saw the bottle cap.

It wasn't the same one -- that he knew without having to process it first. It was orange and the one Duo had shoved into the ground had been white, and inexplicably, it made Heero angry.

He reached for his cane and jabbed it into the ground, using it like a crowbar to loosen the dirt. It took longer than he'd expected it to, but what had him struggling to his feet was the sound of the rubber tip at the end of his walking stick hitting something metal.

The lunch box.

Heero stood, leaning heavily on the cane, and swallowed. It was going to be gross, but he had to open it and see. He cleared away as much of the dirt as he could with the stick, which wasn't much at all since he had no way of lifting it out of the hole he'd made, but all it took was a glimpse at the Transformer on the lid to know it was the same one.

He reached back into his pocket and took out a second scrap of paper. This one was much newer and torn from a phone book, and he hesitated as to whether or not he should find a pay phone and call.

"You came."

Heero whirled around, his leg crumpling under him awkwardly, and Duo caught him before he hit the ground. He'd not even heard Duo approach. He grimaced. If he'd not heard Duo speak, he'd think he was losing his hearing, too.

Heero gripped Duo's shoulder firmly as he pushed himself standing again.

"It's been ten years," he said, feeling suddenly as if it hadn't been more than a day. "I had to."

Duo didn't look pleased to see him, in fact, he looked downright pissed.

"You never answered my letters."

Heero felt his face heat up. "I couldn't."

Duo's eyes flicked down to the leg Heero was favoring, and to the walking stick lying in the dirt next to him, and with a heavy sigh, he returned to Heero's side.

"That's part of it," Heero confessed as Duo pulled Heero's arm over his shoulders. "But..."

Duo stared down at the hole.

"It's still there."

"Yeah."

"You didn't wait for me."

"I didn't think you'd come."

Duo was angry, but if he'd been there and not seen Heero, he'd have probably assumed the same thing. "I wasn't going to."

That was a lie, but he wasn't going to explain himself to Heero -- not when Heero had enough to explain on his own.

"So."

"So," Duo echoed.

"So..." Heero spoke slowly, and Duo thought he caught a slight slur to his speech. "Want to open it?"

Duo lifted Heero's arm off his shoulder and let him slowly lower himself to the ground before dropping to sit beside him in the dirt.

"Came all this way," he shrugged. "Might as well."

They both looked at the hole, and the lunch box that was visible, and then at each other. Duo sighed again.

"Why don't you do the honors," he said. "No point both of us getting dirty."

Heero rubbed at his thigh and then used his fingers to dig the treasure chest the rest of the way out. He put it on the ground between them, glanced up at Duo, and then opened the box.

It wasn't as bad as he'd thought. The ziploc bag was covered in grime and water, and there were a few bugs stuck to the plastic, but it had remained sealed and the bag was still intact. He dragged his pinky in the seam to remove some of the dirt and then pinched the top of the bag.

"Wait."

Duo displayed a bottle of water -- not lemonade -- and shook it. "We should probably rinse it off a little, and your hands, too."

It was cold, the water, but Heero was glad Duo had suggested it. He wiped his hands on his shirt to dry them and picked up the bag again.

"Now or never," Duo said quietly.

He'd expected it to smell, and it did, but not the way he'd thought. It smelled faintly like fabric softener -- a brand they didn't even make anymore -- and Heero picked up the stuffed bear and handed it to Duo before daring to touch the tattered bunny with the red ribbon around its neck.

Ten years ago he and Duo had made a pact. Blood brothers, to the end, they'd told each other, and they were men now, or so they'd said. Ten years ago they were ten themselves, and they were too old for children's toys.

Neither of them could bear to throw them away, though, and so they'd come up with the idea of making a time capsule.

Heero ran his finger over the missing eye of his bunny, Mr. Floppsy, and snuck a glance over at Duo who was gently stroking the long ears of his blue pooch.

"Boo Boo."

"Yeah," Duo said with a rueful shake of his head. "Boo Boo."

Heero brought Mr. Floppsy to his face and breathed deeply, noticing now that there was a distinctly rank odor clinging to his bunny.

He didn't care.

"You're too old for a bunny, you know."

Heero nodded, tears springing to the corners of his eyes. He missed the nights he'd snuck downstairs to watch scary movies, dragging Mr. Floppsy with him. Things had been so much easier then, when he'd only had to worry about spelling bees, long division, and whose house they'd be sleeping at on the weekend.

"Heero?"

Heero squeezed his eyes shut. He was having a hard time breathing and he didn't want Duo to know how much he'd lost the day he'd gotten hit by the car. The dreams he'd had as a kid had been dashed and coming back here had been...not a mistake, but a painful reminder of how much he'd taken for granted back then.

"Hey." Duo was touching him lightly on the shoulder. "I think Boo Boo and Mr. Floppsy could use a bath, and you look like you could use one, too."

Duo carried Boo Boo and Heero's cane, and Heero clutched his bunny with both hands as they walked back to Duo's car.

"Where's yours?"

"I don't drive."

Duo's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he said nothing. He shifted Heero's cane to the hand holding his stuffed bear and reached into his pocket for his keys.

"Hey, Heero."

Heero looked up at him then.

"Where to?"

"Home."

Duo shrugged and opened the door. "It's going to be a long drive, then."

Heero nodded.

"You going to be...is your leg..."

"I'll be fine." It came out more curt than he'd intended, and he stopped Duo with a hand to his shoulder. "Thanks."

Duo hadn't been lying -- it was a long drive -- about two hours and one hundred miles long -- and instead of living in a neat upscale apartment complex, Duo pulled up into the driveway of a little duplex house.

"Home sweet home," he said nervously before turning off the ignition.

Fortunately Duo lived on the first floor, and once Heero had limped into the kitchen he'd sent Heero in to take a shower while he made some coffee. He didn't even know if Heero liked coffee -- Duo didn't particularly care for it himself but he'd learned to tolerate it since it was usually the only beverage widely available for car trips and boring lectures.

Duo looked up when he heard Heero's footsteps, and his eyes widened. It was weird, seeing Heero wearing his clothes -- it made him look years younger and reminded Duo of the times they'd spent the night at each other's homes, sometimes forgetting a T-shirt or set of pajamas.

A few times, Duo had done it on purpose.

"I'm gay, you know," he blurted out.

Heero stopped in his tracks and stared at him.

"I just thought you should know," Duo said. "I don't want you to get all freaked out or anything."

Heero rubbed at his forehead. This was what he hated the most, when things that should click into place easily seemed to elude him, where he had to struggle to put the correct meaning to the words he was hearing in order to communicate with someone.

He looked up and held up his pinky. "Blood brothers, remember?"

"Yeah?"

Heero wanted to lower his arm, but he didn't think it was time yet. "Yeah."

Duo got to his feet and hooked Heero's pinky with his own.

"Swear?"

"I swear."

"So no matter what..."

"No matter what, Duo."

Well Heero had been asking for it, really -- the guy couldn't be that slow as to not read the signs in big blinking neon letters.

Duo couldn't do it, though. Heero looked too confused, too vulnerable, and no matter how much Duo had dreamt about his old friend throughout the years, it had always been more fantasy than substance, and he wasn't about to fuck that up now.

"Duo?"

Heero's pinky was sweaty against his own.

"Yeah, Heero?"

"No matter what, right?"

Duo laughed and finally turned to meet Heero's gaze.

"No matter wh--"

Heero kissed him.

OK, not so much a kiss as an all too brief moving of his lips against Duo's, and when he began to pull back Duo panicked, not wanting Heero to retreat now, not when it was just starting to feel good.

His breath mingled with Heero's and his fingers wound themselves in the hair at Heero's nape, and then Heero's lips parted beneath his own. Duo couldn't help it; his tongue slipped into Heero's mouth.

Heero was saying something, but Duo was enjoying the way his lips moved around his tongue to notice right away.

Duo was shaking when he finally pulled back, his fingers still cradling the back of Heero's neck, and he thought that maybe he'd need Heero's cane after that kiss.

"Yeah, Heero?"

Heero pointed over at the kitchen table, where a sheet of newspaper was spread out and two sets of eyes -- one-and-a-half sets of eyes -- were staring at them.

Duo laughed breathlessly and let go of Heero's hair to reach past him to turn the newspaper around, and his body pressed up against Heero's as he strained to snag the corner of the paper. Boo Boo fell over and landed with his nose between Mr. Floppsy's legs, but Duo didn't think it would be a good idea to point that out to Heero.

He'd let him find out later.

His eyes flew over to Heero's and one eyebrow quirked up. "Heero," he said, his voice hoarse. "Is that a shovel in your pocket..."

"Just happy to see you, Duo." He smiled weakly.

Heero was blushing furiously and Duo thought it was the most adorable thing he'd seen all day. This time pushing himself against Heero was deliberate and he yanked the newspaper so that the toys tumbled onto the kitchen table.

So they were filthy. He could clean up the table later.

His breath caught in his throat as Heero's teeth grabbed the bottom of his earlobe.

Much later.

Heero's tongue was making hesitant swipes around the shell of Duo's ear, and Duo gave one more glance toward Boo Boo and Mr. Floppsy.

"Duo?"

"Yeah?" he croaked.

Heero thrust his tongue right inside Duo's ear, making him buck his hips involuntarily.

"Much, much later," Duo moaned.

"What?" Heero stopped his assault on Duo's ear and Duo grabbed the back of his head and forced Heero's lips to the side of his neck.

"Nothing, Heero," he gasped, struggling to contain his laughter. The first thing he had to do was get them both out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.

Or not, because Heero had definitely taken the hint and was running his tongue along the cord in Duo's neck.

"Fuck Mr. Floppsy," he muttered.

"I'd rather fuck you," Heero breathed in his ear.

On the floor, underneath the table, Boo Boo was face down and the one-eyed Mr. Floppsy lay next to him, on his back, tattered red ribbon streaming to the side. If Boo Boo could talk, he might have said the rabbit was winking at him.

It was a good thing he couldn't, however, because it was only a month later that he and his bunny companion found themselves a permanent place of honor at the top of the bookshelf.

The one in Duo's bedroom.

The room where Heero's cock slid into him on some nights, fucking him furiously, and where other nights it was Duo on top, making Heero forget about how much his leg pained him as he nailed him through the mattress.

It had only taken Heero two mind-blowing orgasms and a bit of creativity on Duo's part to stop the annoying habit he had of pushing Duo away, just when things were getting good, to turn the bear and the bunny around so that they were facing the wall.

Fortunately no one ever noticed that Mr. Floppsy's eyepatch was over his good eye.