[deep kick]

Title: Deep Kick
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairing: 1=2
Stuff: language, braid torture, post EW, but series at the same time (O__o), lemony, experimental POV stuff
Disclaimer: When GW and the RHCP belong to me, I'll let you know. Heero's song is Luna, by the Pumpkins.

This one's for Sunhawk, because she's unfathomably wonderful to me. I blame the story on her, too, since she suggested I use my painful family vacation as fiction fodder. I know she probably meant for me to draw inspiration from the actual vacation and not a song I've listened to a thousand times on my iPod, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

++++

When he'd asked me why I'd done it, I realized I was too timid to ever admit the whole truth of it, and probably always would be. It was after I'd infiltrated Barge with a pistol, a silencer and every intention to shut Duo Maxwell up forever, but I guess there are some things that not even I'm strong enough to get over. The question probably should have been expected, considering what I'd done, but not even I had anticipated the course of my actions, thus leaving me without a stock answer I'd rehearsed beforehand. But once I'd been met with it, it unleashed the floodgates for a lot of things I hadn't taken the time to really ponder before and I wasn't quite sure where it left me.

Just why the hell had I let him live, anyway?

With the momentary circumstances and all the political unrest at the time, things probably would have been simpler if I'd left Duo lying in that prison cell with a bullet between his eyes instead of sitting beside me in the copilot's chair of the shuttle I'd commandeered to escape. No matter how I tried to reason it out, I kept coming back to the conclusion that maybe I'd allowed myself to get too friendly with Duo in those months we'd spent together. He didn't particularly remind me of anyone, like Relena did, with those shining, young eyes that looked so much like those of that girl with the dog. Instead, Duo's eyes had been dead and accepting of his fate when he'd been faced with the barrel of my gun, not entreating me for anything but eternal peace. I wasn't sure what it meant if Death was ready to die.

The shuttle had been on autopilot for the past twenty hours and Duo had since fallen asleep beside me since he'd initially asked the question, probably tired of waiting for me to puzzle out a decent answer for him. His dirty cheeks had started to regain their natural rosyness since we'd been en route, colouring a bit of life back into his face. Still, his hair was matted and tangled and he was going to have to stay off that one leg if it was ever going to heal properly. One of his arms was busted, too. His shoulders rose and feel with each tired breath he let out, a low snore escaping him every now and then, but I didn't mind; I liked the reminder he was still alive.

It was then that I realized how selfish I'd been, even if I'd seemed benevolent by breaking him out of imprisonment instead of shooting him. For the sake of the greater good, I should have just stuck with my original plan to off him; Duo had proven himself to be a detriment to the cause, and keeping him around was really more of a risk than an asset, even considering the useful skills the American did possess. But, despite all my careful designs, I hadn't been prepared for the heaviness I'd felt at the thought of stealing my best friend away from myself. And then I wondered if that was really so bad to want that for myself.

I turned to watch his sleeping face again, and for the first time, I hadn't felt guilty for my decision. It was an emancipating sensation. Slowly. I was beginning to understand that motivation for fighting - why so many were willing to die for this cause. I'd tried to imagine a future without the people I'd come to consider my friends and realized that one that didn't include them wasn't worth spilling blood for, anyway. I remember reaching across the space between us with a tentative finger, overcome with the urge to touch Duo's face. Maybe I wanted to prove to myself that it wasn't a dream that he was beside me again. Maybe I'd just been too chicken-shit to admit the things I felt about him were unique to the relationship I shared with him.

My fingertips had grazed his cheek, daring to push a loose strand of his long, long hair away from his face, but no more. I'd quickly recoiled after that, distracting myself with superficial trivialities like the bloodstained turtleneck I was still wearing, or the grime streaking my own face. I sent him one last, longing glance and then unbuckled myself, allowing the antigravity to lift me out of my seat. It's still a mystery to me how he could sleep in zero grav; the weightlessness, even if I was strapped down, always made me feel restless and queasy. I guess he just didn't get as airsick as I did.

I guided myself out of the cockpit, using the back of the pilot's chair as leverage to propel myself forward. I grabbed onto the handle by the door to hold myself steady as I pressed the button to activate it and then passed into the cramped cargo bay to the aft of the ship. There had been a tiny closet of a room back there for a small crew to take up residence on longer flights, but there really wasn't much more space in there than there was in the cockpit. I went rooting through the lockers in there anyway, relieved when I found a fresh pair of leggings, another shirt and an unopened package of socks. I kicked off my boots and left them floating in my wake as I hurried to strip myself of those soiled garments, which were ripe with the scent of blood and smoke. A particularly scarlet-soaked section of my sleeve clung to a clotting wound on my bicep; I winced and hissed in pain as I peeled the cloth out of it. There was a burn on one of my thighs that made it particularly hard to get my old pants off and begged for a salve of antiseptic. Naked except for a pair of boxers, I floated back over to the lockers, this time in search of a first aid kit to dress my wounds. I remember desperately wishing the ship's sparse bathroom had been equipped with a real shower, even if it wasn't practical for a transport like this one.

After I'd tended to my medical needs and redressed, I tucked the first aid kit under one arm and made my way back to the cockpit with the intention of checking up on Duo, knowing it was very likely that he was probably at least just as battered as I had been. The irony of the situation was not lost on me, either, but I'd been past caring by that point.

I reentered the cockpit to find Duo still dozing in the copilot's chair. He'd probably been disgustingly tired after his whole ordeal and I didn't blame him for wanting to sleep. It had seemed like he was having nice dreams, anyway, and just because I could never hope to have a sleep like that didn't mean I had to begrudge him the same thing. I left the first aid kit to float by his chair as I guided myself to his side so I could give him a quick physical assessment. I hummed a little to myself as I worked, desperate to fill up the empty sound of the air circulating through the ventilation systems. I usually didn't even realize when I was doing it.

I was halfway through with my task when I found myself met with a pair of sleepy, ocean blue eyes, which were speckled with the depths of the stars outside our shuttle. I remember thinking I'd never seen eyes so round and blue as I stared incoherently at his curious face. "He'ro?" he yawned, slowly waking up more with each passing second. "What're y'doin'?"

I'd been more focused on the way my fingertips seemed to burn even when they were only touching the black fabric of his clerical shirt. "Can you... tell me where you hurt?" I finally garnered the brainpower to ask, hovering over his lap.

Understanding budded in those bright blue eyes and he answered with a low moan, "Everywhere."

I moved to grasp the arms of his chair, keeping my gaze level with his even as my lower half started to drift upwards a bit. "Where does it hurt the most, then?"

He moaned again and used his better arm to gesture to his ribcage. "Hurts to breathe," he wheezed, the stilted nature of his words illustrating his discomfort far better than what he'd actually said.

Hoping his ribs weren't cracked but preparing for the worst, I then said, "Is it okay if I help you out of your shirt? So I can check?" I don't know what was so embarrassing about asking such a necessary question or why I felt the need to clarify my intentions. Maybe, because I didn't trust them myself, I assumed he shouldn't either.

He assented with a slow nod of his head, reaching to fumble with the seat harness to better accommodate himself. I stopped him as soon as I realized what he was trying to do, assuring him that I could take care of it for him. "You just relax - try not to strain yourself," I told him, taking note of the way he grit his teeth when I touched his shoulder. It seemed to pain him a lot to be held in place that way, so I let go and lowered myself into his lap instead, wedging my knees in the space between his thighs and the chair's armrests as I started to unfasten the little buttons of his shirt. Parting the black cotton, I found his torso horribly bruised, a sight that had caused a fist of rage to tighten around my chest. I glanced up at him, the worried disbelief in my eyes expressing my question more eloquently than my words could.

"It's not important," he said around a strained smile. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Okay," I said, completely accepting of his decision. He didn't have to explicitly tell me what happened on Barge for me to know that it had been abusive and violent. The thought of OZ treating a prisoner with such disrespect, even if he was a hated criminal in their eyes, made me feel even worse than my airsickness did.

"Heero?"

My fingers froze over his ribcage, which I was carefully checking for fractures. For a second, I'd thought I'd made him uncomfortable with my explorative fingers, and then, I'd worried that I'd hurt him even more with a careless touch. I could feel his harsh breathing against my forehead, ghosting through my messy bangs to warm my flesh. Upon looking up from my task, it was only then that it realized just how close we were, our noses almost touching, our bodies almost complete crushed together in the tiny space. I was startled by the urge to turn my head and show him just how close our lips were, kind of like a movie poster I'd seen recently, but I didn't.

I guess he took my silent gaze as answer enough and went on with whatever he wanted my attention for. "Were you humming a little while ago?" he asked. His chest heaved with the strain of speaking beneath my hands.

My mouth opened in surprise, but no sound came out. There was a smile on his face, and I thought maybe he was going to make some joking comment about it to ease the heaviness in the air. At least, that's what I'd normally have expected him to do.

"You were, weren't you," he pressed, still smiling at me. My eyes were trained solely on his moving lips, like they were the only things I could see, and I thought about the movie poster some more. The smile grew heavy at the corners, becoming a bit more desperate in shape; "Please, tell me you were - that I wasn't just imagining it."

Bashfully, I'd nodded, unsure as to why I was hesitant to own up to it. I pointedly went back to checking his ribs for any injuries, dropping my eyes from his. I hadn't even really noticed that I had it until he'd brought it up.

He didn't try and recapture my visual attention when he spoke again, but I could feel his eyes on me, which was enough to make my fingers jerk to an abrupt stillness again. His baritone voice was soft around the edges, like shape whose edges tapered off into nothingness. "What was that song?" he wanted to know. I couldn't tell if he was jabbering on for his benefit or mine - or for anyone's at all.

"I don't know," I'd answered quietly, trying hard to will my fingers back into motion again. I was frustrated to find them stupid with the heat of his skin against their tips. "I think someone used to sing it to me once. Maybe it was my mother - if I ever had a mother. Or Odin. Or maybe I just heard it on the radio once." I leaned my head forward, daring to press my forehead against his shoulder, my voice a bit hoarse for some reason. "I can't remember anymore."

"Oh."

My entire body tensed when he lifted his good arm and settled his hand against the back of my skull, pressing me closer into the crook of his neck. I could smell the sweat and blood and the smoky residue clinging to his body like it had been worked into his very flesh. It mingled with that darker, kind of musky scent I usually associated with him - like the smell of the berth on the Sweepers ship.

"Do you think you could... hum it again?" His voice was hardly a tremor beneath my hands, which were still lying loosely against his bare torso. "It was nice."

I tried to protest, sure my face was aflame with redness. "I don't really remember how it goes."

"Then make it up," he said, shifting into a more comfortable position beneath me. "I just want to hear your voice." He was silent for a few moments more, and then, taking a cue from my continued silence, added, "I... I missed you, Heero. I was sure I'd probably never see you again after that mess with blowing Wing up and all. I'm really glad you're not dead."

"Me too," I found myself admitting, my eyes a bit wide with surprise, not exactly sure what my answer referred to. I hadn't expected to see Duo on the vid screen in that newscast about his capture, but more and more, I was starting to wonder if my impulsive plan to go up there and kill him hadn't been a ruse even at its inception. Maybe it was just an excuse to see him again. I vaguely wondered if my reaction would have been the same if it had been one of the other pilots on that screen.

My hand twitched against his torso, and I suddenly remembered why we were sitting like this at all. Reluctantly, I forced myself back into a more upright position so I could return to my former task of checking his ribs. My brows furrowed in concentration over my nose as I carefully applied pressure to each rib, gauging his reaction with each touch. I didn't realize I'd started to hum again until I heard Duo let out a contented purr, ragged as it was from his pained breathing. He closed his eyes again, and I moved on to check his lame arm.

"What moon songs
Do you sing your baby?
What sunshine do you bring?"

Somewhere along the way, the words of the song started to fit back in with the tune, though the voice that recalled them in my head was frustratingly ambiguous, leaving me no clues as to where I'd heard it before. Before I knew it, the lyrics were starting to become more littered amid my warbled humming.

"Who belongs?
Who decides who's crazy?
Who rights wrongs where others cling?"

It wasn't long before I realized that Duo had fallen back asleep. More or less assessing that he would need some heavy duty bandaging, I pushed away from the copilot's chair, leaving him to slumber on quietly. I grabbed the back of the chair and swung around to its side, crouching on the outside of one armrest so I could reach over his body and at least fasten the lap harness so he wouldn't float away. His mostly unbuttoned clerical shirt, though still fastened around his neck and hanging from his arms, hovered around his bruised torso like a thin storm cloud in the zero grav; his hair snaked unnaturally towards the overhead console, twisting like a tail that was chasing itself 'round and 'round. I held myself beside him for a bit longer, folding my arms against the chair and leaning against them as I looked up at his tired face and wondering what made him so much more than just a friend to me.

I really wished I could remember more about that lullaby, if only so I could tell him more about it. I hadn't thought he'd trusted me enough to let me ease him back to sleep. What kind of strange camaraderie had we really formed here? It was nothing like the one I'd come to share with Trowa or Quatre. For some reason, I couldn't quite call Duo a brother like the other two; there was something about the description that seemed inappropriate and altogether lacking.

I gave up trying to understand, knowing it was something out of my league. I pushed off the armrest, drifting towards the aft end of the cockpit to seek out the storage compartment near the door. Finding it, I pulled the door open in search of a blanket. The brown, woolen cloth that I found wasn't quite what I'd been hoping for, but it would suffice. I ferried the blanket back to the copilot's chair and carefully whipped it around Duo's comatose form. I drifted around him tucking the loose corners of it beneath him and hoping it would keep his unpleasant shiver away. I finished the job by coiling his drifting braid and wedging it behind his neck as a sort of makeshift pillow.

"I'll sing for you,
If you want me to.
I'll give to you...."

More of the song returned to me as I clutched the back of the chair, still content to watch him just breathe. I became acutely aware of my proximity to him as he shifted in his sleep, rolling his head in my direction and blowing soft puffs of air onto my face through his parted lips. Even though his lips were awfully chapped and caked with tiny flecks of blood, I thought again of that movie poster, wondering if this was the sort of thing that played out in the film - if that ever actually happened in real life. Wasn't that sort of touching that people shared with someone special? J had explained this kind of thing to me in rather gratuitous detail, but I was only just now beginning to think that his teaching hadn't been nearly thorough enough. And his lessons never made me think of things like that movie poster or that I'd maybe, one day, want something like it for myself.

I decided this was something that required more exclusive thought, and I launched myself into the air again with another push off Duo's chair. I let myself drift on my back, my hands folded over my stomach as I stared up through the observation window fixed into the ceiling just behind the overhead console. Usually the wide expanse of space reminded me that my problems were trite and insignificant, but this time, I found the endless stars making me feel hopeless, like there wasn't a single person out there who could help me to understand. Except for one, that is, but he was currently fast asleep.

"And it's a chance I'll have to take.
And it's a chance I'll have to break."

I tried to hum some more, hoping to find the same comfort in it that Duo did, but it was to no avail. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't, feeling terribly queasy, though not really so much because of my airsickness. My body was in pain, but the burn on my leg and the wound on my arm were hardly the cause of it. I tried to ask myself where I hurt the most and didn't know what to do when I realized it was my heart.

++++

The rattle of the chain link fence shaking beneath our hands and feet was loud in my ears as we scrambled up it, and yet, all I could think about was that damn tongue piercing of Heero's. The image of him toying with the knobbed end of the metal bar between his wet lips really wasn't the best thing to be distracted by with a brigade of coppers on your tail, to be perfectly honest. Not for the first time since he'd gotten it a few weeks ago, I cursed feeding his impulsiveness at the tattoo parlour; the damn thing kept coming to mind at the most inappropriate moments. Actually, all of the piercings Heero had collected since then had been prominent thoughts lately, and probably not for the reasons they should have been.

I suppose I should backtrack a little - back to that tattoo parlour in Kyoto, probably. It was the start of this series of edgy, adrenaline-pumped risks we found ourselves involved with more and more lately. Surprisingly, Heero was the one who suggested we go in, reminding me of that discussion we'd had about it while we were still in England. I think he'd taken to the idea more than he letting on - a suspicion that was proven when I found him lying beside me, getting a tattoo of his own etched into his back. They were even similar designs: a burning phoenix for me and a coal black raven for him.

It was hours of painstaking work, but he didn't flinch once. I figured he wouldn't, but I had to let myself ramble every now and again to distract myself from the needle. I guess I ended up mentioning how I thought he'd look good with an eyebrow ring, and I knew he was lost the second I saw that certain glow set in his dark blue eyes.

"Maybe I'll start out with one that's a little less prominent," he'd said thoughtfully.

"You could get one in your ear," I'd said, not even really thinking about what I was encouraging. "That'd look good, too."

"Maybe," he'd hummed. The plush tip of his tongue darted out between his lips, licking the bottom one, which seemed to spur his next comment. "I could get one there, couldn't I?"

Leave it to Heero Yuy to make even the simplest questions ambiguous. I arched a perplexed eyebrow at him, demanding a bit more information. I suppose he just assumed that everyone was privy to whatever illogical thought patterns his brain followed simply because they made perfect sense to him.

"Tongues," he clarified. "They do that, don't they?"

"They do," I answered slowly, noting the way that determined light in his eyes intensified. Relena's eyes did the same thing when she latched onto something, and I can assure you, it's a bit nerve-wracking sometimes. Suddenly unsure if this was the sort of thing I should be coaxing Heero into doing, I lifted my head and addressed the woman working on Heero's back: "Do you?"

She smirked a little, pausing for a moment so she could chuckle a little. "Sure we do," she'd said, clearly not aware of my thoughts on the matter.

"It'll hurt a lot," I emphasized futilely. That argument wasn't really much of a deterrent for a guy like Heero.

"It's worth it," Heero's tattoo artist replied. "It makes kissing better." I noticed the bit of metal dotting her own tongue as she spoke.

"Does it really?" Heero perked up. I was surprised that her second comment was what seemed to clinch the prospect for him. I hadn't even been aware that Heero had an interest in kissing anybody - or kissing at all, for that matter. "Duo, is that true?"

Caught off guard, I found myself stumbling over an answer. "Well, in my experience, I guess...."

"So you think it's attractive?" Heero pressed. I swear he was taking mental notes or something.

Heero's tattoo artist looked like she was going to voice an opinion of her own, but I cut her off before she got the chance. "When did you plan on kissing someone, Heero?" I asked, my tone a bit sharper than I'd intended it to be. I didn't care if I sounded kind of jealous; I just didn't want Heero getting involved in something without thinking about the repercussions.

"I don't know," he'd said inconsequentially, which led me to wonder what the hell he meant by that. "But I've always wanted to try."

That was pretty much that. Nothing I could say was going to get him to change his mind, either, though I couldn't help but feel that his decision had been sealed by something I'd said - not that I had any clue as to what that might have been at any rate. Later, when we left, I was reading a pamphlet about how to care for our new body art while Heero busied himself with experimentally rolling his tongue around the steel trinket that now adorned it. Little did I know what nature of beast I'd created. After Kyoto, we went to Brisbane, where he gained a ring for each ear, and then an eyebrow piercing in Amsterdam. He didn't outright say it, but I think he got his nipples done when we got to Barcelona. In New York, he got two more ear piercings, and now, here in LA, just this morning, he'd doubled up the eyebrow ring he already had.

It was as if he knew I liked it, the bastard.

Which is how we ended up here, running as fast as we could from three relentless blue boys, ironically in the employ of the LA Preventer division. Between travel expenses and Heero's new hobby - for lack of a better word - we'd found ourselves a little bit in the hole as far as funds went, so I decided I might as well whip out some of my more desperate tactics and teach Heero about the art of the five-finger discount. Unsurprisingly, Heero latched onto the basics of pick pocketing with flying colours, impressing even me when he managed to filch an expensive wristwatch off some guy's arm on the subway. Trading the watch at a pawnshop found us free of the evidence and three hundred credits richer, which I boasted I could top, easy. And thus started the latest addition on our growing list of daredevil amusements.

Of course, too much of a good thing always makes for a mess. Guess we'd gotten cocky or really sloppy or just had really bad luck. About an hour ago, Heero had lifted an expensive pocket computer, while, at the same time, I scored a jingly set of car keys. We'd been smooth about it, but both people noticed they'd been had a little too quickly and were fast to put two and two together. Well, before we knew it, someone had called up the cops and here we were. Now it was just a matter of finding a good place to ditch their asses. At least they were starting to lag, while Heero and me both had stamina to burn. It was a good thing we had the cover of night and a more than decent head start on our side.

"This way," I hissed as we hopped the fence, dropping down to a concrete expanse on the other side. I led the way a few feet forward, my intentions more than clear as I neared the edge of the pool the chain link fence surrounded. Glad I'd long since replaced the boots with a pair of flip-flops somewhere across Europe, I launched myself into a graceful dive, barely breaking the surface as I went under and settled beneath the water. The swell of bubbles moments later announced Heero's entry into the pool. This particular tactic had gotten me out of a few sticky situations when I was a kid, and the practice had helped me build up a pretty decent meter for holding my breath. Heero was the only guy I knew who could top it.

The erratic swoop of flashlights skimmed the surface of the water above us, signaling the arrival of our pursuers. Fortunately, the pool we were hiding in was a bit out of the way and probably not first on their list of places to look for us. They probably barely gave it a passing glance when they ran by, assuming that we'd just continued down the street. But hey, if anyone had honed running away to a fine art, it sure as hell was me.

I glanced at Heero, who was floating just beside me in a cushion of bubbles. His bleached bangs had a kind of sea foam green tint as they swayed with the ebb of the water and his tee shirt and shorts billowed around his body. I thought he kind of looked like a space cadet underwater like this, hovering indefinitely in a place where the usual rules of gravity didn't apply. The air bubbles swimming around him even sort of reminded me of stars. I pointed upwards to the surface, indicating with a quick flurry of hand signals that I was going to check if we were in the clear yet.

With an acknowledging nod from him, I swam up to the top, careful not to make much of a splash when I came up in case one of the cops had straggled. Keeping my head below the pool's wall, I made my way over to one of the exit ladders, silently peering through the perimeter fence to the darkened street beyond it. In the sputtering glow of the lone streetlight there, I found it blessedly empty. With a triumphant grin, I dove back under to alert Heero that it was safe to come back up.

He broke the surface moments after I did, shaking his head of sopping hair in an effort to rid it of some of the water's weight. In the dim light, I thought the image was particularly ethereal, like he was some kind of mythical sea creature that had come out of hiding. A merperson, my mind supplied helpfully.

"Lucky," I breathed, thinking more about undersea people than our recent close shave. He made an oblivious sound of agreement, and for once, I didn't feel the need to go and talk his ear off about my particular thoughts at the moment. I might have if I figured the most I'd get was an eye roll or even a laugh at my expense, but the embarrassment of admitting that I'd just compared him to such a traditionally beautiful creature far outweighed that risk.

The sound of the water lapping against the pool walls and up against our bodies echoed softly in our ears as we took better stock of our surroundings. The pool seemed to belong to a school or something. A big banner that read 'Home of the Fighting Eagles' in blue and yellow letters hung on the fence near the pool house, where the area's only light tried hard to illuminate everything around it. "Kinda feels like a movie or something, doesn't it?" I commented idly, dipping my head back into the water.

Heero's face looked a little far away for a moment or two, but then again, it might have only seemed that way because I was trying to watch him upside-down. Cast in thick, inky blue shadow, his lips hardly seemed to be moving when he spoke. "What kind of movie?" The reflection of the pool house light on the water threw warbled, yellow shapes across the contours of his face, glinting on the metal rings he wore. His wet shirt melted tightly against his body, proving my suspicions about Barcelona.

I pulled my head up, the chlorinated water gluing my hair beneath my chin and against the back of my neck. "Well, gee, I dunno. A lot of different sorts of stories can start in the same place," I mused, peeling the hair out of my face and slicking it back over my scalp. "I mean, maybe this is a scary slasher flick, where the killer's been waiting to pop out at us when we get out, or maybe it's some kind of fantastical thing, with sprytes and - and... merpeople living in the pool."

"You have a lot of ideas," he surmised.

I was in the process of pulling the rubber band out of my hair so I could redo my ponytail. "What can I say? I like looking at the movie trailers online," I shrugged as I whipped my hair off my neck and into the safe confines of the band. I could still feel the water dripping off the ends and rolling down my back, but it was a sight better than having all that hair stuck to my skin, even if it was a lot shorter than it once was.

He was quiet for a few moments, trying to decide if he wanted to comment or not. "I like movie posters," he eventually said at length. I wasn't sure why he couldn't address me directly when he said that, like there was some reason his admission might make me think less of him.

The silence that followed suggested that his comment probably meant more to him than it ever would to me, but even I knew when to call it quits on a topic. "So," I said, groping for a way to continue the conversation, "what kind of movie do you think this is?"

"I don't like things that are so easily categorized." His answer was a bit more prompt this time, but definitely no less ambiguous.

I thought about that for a little bit and decided I agreed, and I told him so. Idly, I started paddling backwards towards the deep end of the pool, kicking off my flip-flops and letting them float along the top of the water as I moved. I couldn't decide if Heero's comment had been an evasion or a suggestion or what, but I still couldn't help but wonder what sparked it. Heero rarely wasted breath on meaningless things. Which got me thinking about his piercings again.

"Why'd you get so into that, anyway?" I asked, catching him playing with his tongue bar out of the corner of my eye. My shoulders collided with the end of the pool, throwing off my equilibrium. I snatched for the lip of the wall, which, I'm sure, must have been quite the entertaining sight for Heero since he was smirking like a cat as I thrashed my arms around. I narrowed my eyes dangerously at him once I'd managed to grab onto the wall again, but the unwavering expression on his face denoted his awareness of my insincerity.

I might have said he was toying with me when he finally answered, but there was a serious quality to his tone that suggested otherwise. "The same reason I got the tattoo," he said, his smirk becoming a bit more sullen.

"To remember this experimental phase in our lives?" I asked, though there was a certain expression in his eye suggested that wasn't quite the answer he had in mind. I felt like there was something I was missing, not so much in what he'd been saying, but more in what he hadn't.

I detoured from the conversation by hoisting myself out of the pool to sit on the edge, next to the low diving board. My legs were still dangling into the water as I bent forward and clawed off my soaked shirt, which I slopped onto the concrete next to me with a loud, sucking fwop. The air was warm, but I still shivered a little bit beneath the translucent film of water that still glossed my skin, suddenly feeling pragmatic for passing off a pair of long, orange swim trunks as casual shorts for the past few days.

Heero was still dallying in the middle of the pool, watching me with those kittenish eyes of his. I think he wanted me to come back into the water with him, but I wanted to dry off a little before we left, so I compromised by crawling out on the diving board and settling down near the tip of it. At first, it was a little disarming feeling the flexible board dipping beneath my weight, but rearranging myself so I was lying on my back quickly fixed that little problem. When I rolled my head back to peer at Heero over the edge in this new position, the whole world turned over, but then again, Heero kind of made me feel like that when I was oriented normally, too. At least I didn't have to worry about the board snapping beneath my fat ass.

Overhead, the sky was hazy with this red gauze that the city's nighttime lights threw up. The only things that were really bright enough to see from there was the L1 colony cluster, which radiated with the same reflected glow as the waxing moon nearby. A few exceptionally brilliant stars twinkled here and there, too, dotting the sky like a dark canopy with holes punched in it. "Seems like another world up there," I sighed, folding my arms behind my head. "Do you think we'll go back any time soon?"

I heard the soft splashing of water as Heero moved a bit closer to the diving board. "Having second thoughts about your deep kick?" he asked, his exact proximity a little hard to tell with the way the low echo of his voice distorted against the pool walls.

"I - no!" I snorted indignantly, scandalized by the mere suggestion. "Are you?"

"I never did," he said with a shrug that disturbed the gently rippling water with another soft splash. "We're here for you." The open-endedness of that statement made me want to reach out and hold him under water until he confessed the whole extent of it to me.

I tried not to think about it as I let out another sigh. "Maybe I should give it up," I lamented, finally voicing the hopelessness that had started to set in somewhere in the Midwest. "We've been all over this damn planet and I still haven't found it. Maybe I'll never find it...." Maybe trying to reinvent the rush I'd felt as a teenager had been too ambitious a goal - or I just was going about this in a completely wrong and backwards way.

"Hey, at least you have a best friend," Heero reminded me, his soft voice probably the most soothing sound in the universe right then. I felt the board bend a little more beneath my body as his hands grasped the edges of it. Effortlessly, he hoisted himself out of the water and supported himself on his folded arms, a pillow for the top of my head. I might have been scared of falling headfirst into the water if he hadn't been there. The sight of his face obscured my view of the sky, but I kind of thought it was an improvement. He was still talking, but I think I was more concerned with catching a glimpse of his tongue piercing than actually listening to what he said. "You said it yourself: most people never get a best friend," he went on. "But here, you've got one who'll follow you to the ends of the earth and back. You know I would, Duo... I am."

I stared up at him, my breath stuck somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I could see so many more stars in Heero's eyes than I ever could trying to see space from a place like this. A stray trickle of water ran down the fat chunk of blond hair that fell over the middle of his face, plopping in the hollow of my left eye, but I barely noticed. Maybe I was looking for answers in all the wrong places - was thinking too grandly. Maybe what I wanted was a small thing, like a mote in someone's eye that still contained the expansiveness of galaxies uncharted.

He was leaning over me now, his face a blur to my unfocused eyes, yet more clear to me than ever before. "What part of the movie is this?" I wondered, not at all expecting my voice to come out sounding so strangled.

One set of fingers ghosted across the shape of my face, sending an indescribable sensation of warmth and cold through my system. His thumb lingered on the soft ridge of my bottom lip, imbuing it with the sterile taste of the chlorinated water. He was humming a little, his tune easily recognizable as that sleepy lullaby-like song he used to sing to himself during the wars. Seemed like he'd gotten more familiar with it as time had gone by - or had just reinvented it for himself. "Not a movie," he interrupted himself to murmur, his hand slipping under my chin to cup it.

Then, before I knew what was happening, I felt the diving board dip a fraction lower as he lowered himself nearer to me, the soft pressure of his wet lips against mine. My mouth opened in surprise, never in a thousand years expecting a development like this, and his mirrored mine. I felt the cool metal of his tongue ornament against my own, and after weeks of watching him play with it, I couldn't resist the urge to do the same. I found myself wondering why kissing Heero didn't feel as strange as it probably should have, or why all the pick pocketing and pursuing cops in the ESUN didn't feel nearly as exhilarating. Or, most importantly, Heero would want to kiss me at all.

His upside down kiss was sloppy and rich with the sweetness of his inexperience. Vaguely, I found myself recalling the tongue piercing incident as he tentatively slid it against mine again, mentally reviewing all the things he'd said. I was suddenly struck with the urge to know if this was the kind of thing Heero had in mind when I'd asked him about kissing and then felt an inexplicable knot of envy for the person he'd been thinking of when the whim first struck him. The idea that maybe Heero had never kissed anyone before this started eating away at me, and, opening my mouth a bit more, I became desperate to make sure Heero never wanted to kiss anyone else ever again. I justified it as my best friend instinct taking over, but the excuse sounded pretty damn lame even at the time.

When we parted, he lingered above me, but didn't say anything. I thought the beautiful darkness in his eyes spoke far more expressively than any words ever could. Moments later, though, his face was gone, replaced with the murky, red sky as he silently glided back into the water, vanishing beneath the soft waves just like a merperson. I stared blankly up at L1 for some indefinite period of time until I heard the telltale splash of Heero breaking the surface of the water a little ways off. I could faintly hear him humming his song, his deep voice reverberating all over the pool and all through my head.

"I'll hear your song,
If you want me to.
I'll sing along...."

I rolled over onto my belly, cushioning my chin atop my hands as I watched Heero in the middle of the water, floating absently on his back, his heavenward eyes seeming to stare at everything and yet, nothing at all. Maybe merpeople were like underwater angels, I thought as I watched him drift across the water. Vaguely, I wondered if they could sing. Heero seemed to be managing decently enough, anyway.

Two of my fingers found my lips, which still tasted like chlorine and Heero. I kissed their tips, shuddering as a euphoric burn spread from my mouth and shuddered across my whole body. It was warm, like a shower of falling stars had rained through me. Maybe they were the stars I saw in the dark of Heero's eyes. I glanced back at him, still floating like he was lying on a cloud as he hummed. I wouldn't go as far to say that Heero had some amazing singing voice, but there was this passionate quality to it that made it sound like it belonged to an angel. I thought, maybe if I stayed quiet long enough, the merpeople would come up to the surface to listen. Stupidly, I thought I might have scared them away when I realized I'd absently started to hum the simple tune along with him and quickly shut up.

"But it's a chance I'll have to take.
And it's a chance I'll have to break."

I closed my eyes in an effort to try and get my thoughts in order, but even then, I kept seeing things. Probably because the splotchy blackness reminded me of the stars and the sky and Heero's eyes. There was a sad, longing emptiness that seemed to have wrapped itself around Heero. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice when he spoke - when he sang.

The fading of his humming was what jarred me back to reality, suddenly afraid that he was drifting away. Though I was relieved to find that he was still where he was before, I couldn't chase away the feeling that the pool was stretching out wide between us: an unfathomable ocean that could snatch him away at any moment if I wasn't paying attention. He was always there at my side, and I knew it was high time I started being there for him - to be as good a friend to him as he had to me. Pushing up onto me elbows, I tentatively called out his name, hoping my voice didn't drown itself as it reverberated across the pool.

The water lapped around him as he swung back into an upright position, treading water right where it got just an inch too deep for him to stand on his toes. His piercings glistened with a dull, metallic sheen beneath his wet hair. I'd fucked up somehow, I just knew it. There was no other reason he'd be staring at me so expectantly with those eyes, like he died a little more with each wordless moment that passed.

Sad, dead eyes, hopeless they'd never see what they most desired.

"Just like me," I whispered, leaning over the edge of the diving board to try and distinguish my wavy reflection on the water's surface and found, with the bad light and my new haircut, my face was hard to really tell it apart from Heero's.

A ripple broke the image in the water, and I looked up to find Heero had swum back to my end of the pool and was bobbing in front of the diving board again. The stars were still glimmering in his deep blue irises, but seeing them still there was the sort of reassurance I could go for right then. "Hey," I murmured, somehow feeling shy when I met his gaze.

"Hey," he replied, his voice just as hushed as mine. His arms folded, he leaned on the tip of the diving board again, just as he had done when he'd kissed me. My lips tingled at the recurring thought.

I wanted to ask him at least a million questions, but couldn't find the right way to do it. I'd been fucking retarded enough already, and the moment felt so fragile, I was scared to death I was going to crush it with my stupid, clumsy hands. Hands that couldn't create shit, I reminded myself glibly.

The corners of my mouth wobbled up into a nervous smile, unsure of what to say but afraid to let him think his presence was unwanted. "So," I began, gnawing on the inside of my lip, "what were you meditating so hard on over there?" Realizing the question was a pretty stupid one, I fought to redeem myself by adding, "It's just that... well, your eyes seemed so lonely, and I...."

His response interrupted my rambling. "You," he said simply, as if the answer should have been obvious. I guess it was, really, since I'd been thinking about him, too.

Still, I was a little miffed by his response, trying to plot out how feeling like that figured in with our friendship - with that kiss. "You're lonely when you think about me?" I wondered tentatively, fearful of what it might mean.

His damp fingers were in my hair, his forehead pressed against mine, like he was trying to draw me into himself. "Can't you... see?" he implored, his voice faint beneath the sound of the sloshing water around us. "All that matters to me is your love. I'm blind and waiting for you."

"Heero...." My voice was pathetic-sounding - like I'd been sucker-punched in the gut.

"It washes over you and me in colours you can't deny," he went on, the words coming faster now. "I'm drowning in it and I want so badly for you to grab onto me, Duo." He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth like he was trying to seal his emotions inside, but it was no good. "Please," he whispered.

To say I was overwhelmed would probably be the understatement of the century. I never thought Heero's affection for me could run so deep or that he would ache from it so much. I felt like a fool for not figuring it out sooner. "Hey, hey, Heero," I said, reaching up to cover the hand that was in my hair with one of my own. "You know what we share won't break so easily. Don't fall apart on me here, okay?"

"I've been falling apart for so long already," he protested tiredly, like he'd been fighting it for far too long. It pained me to know that it was my fault he felt that way. "I just want to be with you, Duo, even if you don't feel the same things I do. Anywhere you go, just allow me to go there, too."

"Heero," I repeated, moving my hand so I could lift his chin. Heaven seemed to fit the shape of his eyes so perfectly. The stars were falling from his eyes now, rolling silently over the curves of his cheeks. I caught them on the crook of my finger as I brushed it gently over one eyelid. "You're already too much a part of my life for it to be any other way. There's a reason I like you best - why I chose you to be my wingman," I told him, hoping he understood I was okay with it.

The melancholy that cloaked him melted into something more hopeful. Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth impulsively against mine again. The kiss wasn't much this time - hardly more than simple lip-to-lip contact - but it was laden with even more passion than the first. It was like he was trying to convince me of everything he felt, as if his words hadn't been enough to adequately express it.

I was smiling when we parted. "Don't think you have to save your song for when you're alone," I assured him, nuzzling him playfully. "Because as long as we're friends, you're never by yourself. I'd never let you be."

The change in his expression was subtle, but it spoke volumes to me. "I know," he murmured, one corner of his mouth gently curving upwards.

This time, when he sang, I didn't feel wrong when I hummed along with him.

"I'm in love with you.
I'm in love with you.
So in love
With you."

++++

TBC!

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