In the dark, I can't even see those lines. I can't tell whether the spark in his eyes is mirth or deceit, I can't tell whether his smile is faked or genuine, I can't tell what kind of aggression he's showing in the brief, pale glint of his teeth.

Instead, I have to go by touch. The smooth, taut skin at the small of his back, the rough scar careening sharply across his left shoulder, the wet, warm slide of his tongue into my mouth is all I have to tell me what he's thinking when he pulls me against him, claims my lips with his, enters me with the ferocity of a wild animal.

Does he want me, or does he just want someone? It irks me a little to even be bothered by the question, but there it is. I try to pry the answer out of the soft, thick braid I have fisted in my right hand, out of the hot breath against my jawline, my ear, but touch alone is failing me. Duo, who in the daytime never shuts up, is strangely quiet now, the dull slap of our bodies crashing together the only sound in the room. I find myself wishing he'd say something.

I suppose I am also a different person in the dark. In the daylight, you would never know that I have been ending up in Duo's bed at night with increasing regularity. I am quiet, I am reserved, I take orders well. I don't joke with my coworkers. Most people think I absolutely hate my partner, or, at best, simply tolerate him. In the daytime, I don't give them any reason to suppose otherwise.

But at night I give myself to him. At night, I trace the outlines of his muscles with my hands, trying to discern his feelings there, as if such a thing were possible. At night, I can convey all the strange, confusing emotions that I carry for him, quantify them, express them. I don't need words to place them.

But maybe Duo does, I realize at this moment. Maybe he's been trying to decipher those emotions the way I have been, through stumbling, clumsy, savage touch. In the daytime, I probably could never say what might need to be said to be understood. But in the dark, I am not the same Heero Yuy.

"I love you," I whisper against his skin.

He stills, freezes against me; I can't tell what it means.

Then, he's meeting my gaze with his, those violet eyes endlessly wide, a strange, deep indigo in the dark.

"Me too."

He pulls me deep into his embrace, and now I have a rubric for the heat of his skin, the sweet searing wetness of his kiss. In the daytime, we are both different people, inscrutable in our separate ways.

But here, in the darkness, we exist only for each other.