Chains

Okay...the background. This is one of my favourite songs, ever, by anybody. I had this vague idea for a songfic using them months ago--August I think at least--but never made it past the first paragraph until this morning, when I glanced at them and *POW!* everything fell into place and it started to write itself. This is what it decided to be. I warn you...it's sad.

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Chains

by Ashura

disclaimer: you know i don't own the boys. 'Romeo and Juliet' is by Dire Straits.
warnings: Angst, shounen ai
Usual: /thoughts/, lyrics are italicized
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a lovestruck romeo sings a streetsuss serenade
laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made
finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
says something like you and me babe how about it?

He wasn't there--and then suddenly he was, the morose young man in black, his long chestnut hair caught and tamed in a braid that fell down his back. His wide violet eyes glistened with tears in the hollow yellow light of the streetlamp he leaned heavily against. Hands in his pockets, his face upturned, he stared in longing at the silhouette shadows in motion behind the sheer curtains of a second-story window.

Every night he stood there, silent in the sallow glow, watching until the window finally went dark. And every night, before he faded back into the welcoming arms of the night, he touched his fingers to his lips and blew a kiss up into the sky.

"Oyasumi, Heero," he whispered. "Just want you to know I still love you."

juliet says hey it's romeo you nearly gimme a heart attack
he's underneath the window she's singing hey la my boyfriend's back
you shoudn't come around here singing up at people like that
anyway what you gonna do about it?

"What are you looking at, Heero..?" Relena asked, curious, her fingers brushing his chin, turning his face back from the window.

"Nothing." He pulled away from her, peering out the crack in the transparent curtains as he tugged them closed. "Nothing at all. Let's go to bed."

He turned away from the window as she flipped off the light, watching the play and flicker of shadows in the dim glow of the streetlamp below. /I know you're there, Duo. Why can't you let it go?/

juliet the dice were loaded from the start
and i bet and you exploded in my heart
and i forget i forget the movie song
when you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong juliet?

He walks in beauty, like the night. That's what the coffee-shoppe poets who were up all night anyway had quoted when he first appeared, among them but always so alone. He walked the night, and it was his kingdom; a quiet, exhilarated world of moonlight and secrets that never show their faces to the sun. He made his rounds; from the bowling alleys and all-night arcades to ghetto street-corners and urine-stained shelters. Then he waited out the night drinking acid coffee in a downtown hole, and when the dawn arrived to swallow the shadows, he faded with them.

It was the only time he ever saw the day. He sat on the bridge, above a river slow with the sludge of industry, and watched the sun blossom into vermilion fire above the horizon, scorching the sky with its eagerness.

The dawn of peace, and the end of Death.

He was so empty.

come up on different streets they both were streets of shame
both dirty both mean yes and the dream was just the same
and i dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real
how can you look at me as i was just another one of your deals?

"Duo." His name startled him, grated uncomfortably against his skin. He didn't have to turn to know who spoke--that voice already haunted his dreams, and with it the fading memory of a touch, a smile, a kiss. "It's been a long time."

"Seven months," he answered. Was it long? It seemed so. Eternity stretched out forever when it was spent alone.

"Why can't you let it go?" Ah. The question. The ultimate question, more profound and difficult than explaining the meaning of the universe or the true nature of peace.

The answer: "Because I have nothing without it."

He still didn't turn, didn't look, not even when Heero sunk to the concrete next to him, pulling his knees up to his chest and staring out at the conflagration of colour in the sky. "That's not true. It can't be."

"Can't it?" He surprised himself with the roughness in his voice, the catch of tears. "Why not? I love you. I poured so much of myself into loving you that if I let that go, there's nothing left of me. Why can't it be?"

Heero tried, but he faltered. "Because--"

when you can fall for chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold
you can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
you promised me everything you promised me thick and thin
now you just say oh romeo yeah you know i used to have a scene with him

"Because you don't love me now." Duo finished it for him, a cold, fatal finality in his words. "Because once every scrap of humanity was burnt out of me, I had no more to give you, and you moved on to someone else to make you feel real."

"I didn't know!" Heero protested fiercely, strong fingers gripping Duo's shoulder in a vain attempt to turn him, force him to meet his eyes. "Dammit, Duo, I was young. I didn't know what I was doing--"

"And that makes it less real?" Duo countered, interrupting. "I'm younger than you are. So how come I knew and you didn't? How come it was only real to me? Or was I supposed to know that you'd outgrow me? That all that bullshit about forever and I love you no matter what was just a practice round for when you hit the real thing?"

"I'm sorry," Heero said.

juliet when we made love you used to cry
you said i love you like the stars above i'll love you till i die
there's a place for us you know the movie song
when you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong?

"You know what I remember." Duo's soft voice was calm, smooth, his eyes fixed on some point over the horizon that only he could see. "How you used to curl up in bed after the fighting was over and pull the covers over your head, like you were hiding from it. And how I used to tease you out, and try to make you feel better, and tickle you and pretty much drive you nuts. And somewhere in the middle of it all you'd kiss me, and cling to me, and I could feel you trying not to cry. And I'd kiss you back, and we'd make love like we were the only two people in the universe and nothing else mattered. And then--"

He stopped, and Heero looked at him, waiting. Wondering why he couldn't talk past the catch in his soft voice. He knew what came next. He remembered it too, every detail etched indelibly on his memory--the pale moonlight shrouding Duo's smooth skin, the silk of long hair between his fingers, the ragged rhythm of their breathing and the pounding tattoo of their hearts.

"It was just the way," Duo finished sadly, "that you could make my name into a prayer."

i can't do the talk like they talking on the tv
and i can't do a love song like the way its meant to be
i can't do everything but i'd do anything for you
i can't do anything except be in love with you

Heero broke the long silence that stretched between them. "What do you want from me?" he asked.

Duo's shrug was only the slightest jerk of his shoulder, his head never turning to acknowledge, to face the dispassion in the blank blue eyes. "I don't know."

"I can't go back to you," Heero stated firmly. He lay a tentative hand on a black-sleeved arm, only to drop it wearily when Duo jerked roughly away. "I can't. This is right--in a different way than you and I were right. We were wonderful. I know that. I'm sorry I hurt you. I am. But I have to make choices, and then live with them. We all do."

"I know." Duo didn't look up, didn't raise his voice, but ripped at Heero's soul with the raw timbre of despair that coloured his tone. "I'm living with mine every day."

Heero sighed. "I love her, you know."

Duo only nodded. "I know you do. And I love you."

Gravel stung the palms of Heero's hands as he braced them, pushing himself to his feet. "You're not going to make this easy on me at all, are you?"

And finally, Duo looked at him. He threw himself upright and spun to face Heero, the sunrise glinting off the tears that stained his cheeks. "Make what easy? What are you here for? Do you want something from me? Ask it--it's yours; you know damn well I can't refuse you, not even now." He stalked toward his former lover, menacing and fragile all at once, unconsciously huddled against the onslaught of his own words. "Well? What is it? Do you want me to wish you well, Heero? I do, with all my heart. Do you want me to smile and act like everything's just fine? I will. Hell, if you want me to I'll leave the fucking colony--all you gotta do is ask." His tirade broke off in a strangled sob and his head dropped, as if it were too heavy to hold. "No. I was wrong. That's not all. You can acknowledge me, goddammit. Recognise that I love you, even if you never want to see me again--that's something special, isn't it? To have somebody out there who'd do anything for you? Isn't it?"

and all i do is miss you and the way we used to be
all i do is keep the beat and bad company
all i do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme
julie i'd do the stars with you any time

The dull, impotent ache in Heero's gut spread and enveloped him, and his body moved of its own volition to pull Duo close, holding him against his chest. Stiff at first, he relaxed slowly into the embrace, the old familiar warmth of his cheek resting against Heero's chest. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes, it is. And all I want you to do is forgive me."

Duo sniffled into the fold of Heero's collar, his eyes closed tight against the intruding sunlight. "Already done."

"Really?" Surprised, Heero pulled back--just a little, his arms still warm around his former lover, just enough to look down into that smooth damp face. "Then can you let it go? I did love you, Duo...I didn't want to make you hurt like this. I want you to be happy, and move on, and...everything."

Deep amethyst eyes opened, glittering with tears like fallen stars. "Heero," he explained, patient, despondent, "It's not that easy."

"Why not?" Heero asked, plaintive.

And Duo, slowly, pulled away. Long-fingered hands, tender beneath the roughened skin, cupped Heero's face, intense, vivid eyes capturing cold blue orbs in their gaze, trapping them, holding them. "All right." A whisper only, soft, resigned, despairing. "All right, Heero. For you." A wisp of exhaled breath between them as he closed the distance twixt their mouths, claiming a salty kiss in return for the possibility of absolution.

A moment longer his fingertips lingered against the windchapped cheek, and then he turned away. "Good-bye, Heero...I love you."

Emptiness, like the void that preceded all existence, yet contained entirely within the darkness of his own heart. He'd been right. There was nothing left of him. All that mattered in him had been devoted entirely, completely to loving Heero, and with that abandoned, he was insubstantial. The last sacrifice of love, then--to give up so entirely, a surrender so profound and paradoxical that the very act of moving on, trying to forget--a last gift to the one who still held his heart--rendered him hollow.

But he promised. He couldn't really forget, it just wasn't that easy, not a simple matter of making a decision and carrying it out. He did the next best thing; he stayed away, kept himself where Heero would never see him, would never be reminded of the pain he'd caused.

So maybe he was a martyr after all. But every morning he fell asleep with the same longing, and in that half-daze between dreaming and waking he would swear he felt the warmth of another body stretched next to his, and caught the scent of Heero's body and the tickle of his hair. Traitorous moonlight filtered through his window to brush his eyes and tear illusion away, reveal that he really was alone.

And he would venture out to walk the night again, a silent wraith, the shadow of the God of Death.

The window was dark--it was always dark now, by the time he found his way there. He planned it that way, keeping to the darkness, out of the sallow glow of the streetlamps, hidden as only a shadow could hide. No-one moved behind the pale sheer curtains of the second-story window, and he was too far away to hear even the faint snores and breathing of the lovers sleeping within.

He kept his word, as best he could. Heero would believe he'd moved on.

Duo touched his fingers to his lips, blowing a tender kiss into the night sky.

"Oyasumi, Heero," he whispered as he turned away. "Just want you to know I still love you."

~Owari~

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More of Ashura's work can be found here, at her website.