________heard the whispers of the stars at the night of moon smiling - by adire___

The moon stared into the ship with ancient eyes.

Peacemilion won't withstand another major hit.

Sightless, introspective, the boy stared blankly at nothing, his eyes not seeing the table before him, nor his comrades at his side or the chessboard between them--though only moments before he had been mentally deriding them for taking the time to play a simple game when the ship could be attacked again at any moment. No....his gaze was turned inwards, finding scenes burned on his memory from days, months, years ago, drawing him into a world of hazy fog, mist, memory--and formless worry as he searched through years of experience and combat training for a solution to the conflict raging about them.

"Heero? Do you want to play?"

The voice was like an insect buzzing about his head, and he ignored it--or thought that he did. That voice remained in his mind, speaking words that distracted him from his concerns about the forthcoming battle and steered his thoughts down an entirely different path.

"Heero? Do you want....do you want me?"

What....?! He jerked minutely, mouth tightening for a moment; he was sure that he had heard those words aloud, but no--no, it was only in his mind.

"Heero? You okay? .....Is there.....is there something bothering you?"

Silence. He could not answer that second voice, because the first was still in his mind. Teasing. Taunting, tormenting. Maddening.

You've got Relena on the brain, don'tcha Heero? I'll bet I could distract ya, buddy boy. Just forget all about her and c'mere.

No....no! What was wrong with him? Human biology did not allow for a relapse into puberty--did it? And yet even during that troublesome time he had never had this many problems focusing, nor had his imagination played such mad havoc upon his senses. Perhaps he could blame it on Relena; the girl had gotten under his skin somehow, with her irritating habit of simply trying so damned hard to be something that he would approve of. But she had only paved the way, forged a path for yet another to travel upon to find his final home in Heero's unfamiliar interest and fixations.

Duo.

Lighten up, Heero. You've just got a little crush on me, that's all. And who could blame you? I am drop-dead gorgeous, after all. Just deal with it.

Trickster. Jokester. Stay out of my head, damn you. I've got enough problems with Wing Zero running around my brain like a rat in a maze.

But I'm not really here, Heero. You're creating me all on your own. A mere second of silence in which he could feel the others' curious eyes upon him--one pair in particular, vivid and intense--and yet an eternity stretched on. Dead blue eyes stared like soulless sapphires, chiseled and hard, focusing blankly upon the beverage container held within his hand. I can't lose focus like this, not this close to the decisive battle. I can't.

But I don't know how to stop.....Duo. I want you....

....and I don't think I could ever have you.

He could not bear to look in Duo's direction, but his image flashed before his eyes nonetheless--as always, the same vision that came to mind whenever the slender, chestnut-haired boy crossed his mind, the same memory that mocked and plagued him eternally.....endless torment, and a secret, shameful, hateful pleasure.

The moon looked so cold from space. Colder even than the railing clasped between his fingers.

Heero sighed, slender digits for a moment curling more tightly about the railing of Peacemilion's observation deck, as though he might crush the metal in his devastating grip. How many hours had he spent here since boarding the ship--how many hours had he been here only tonight, staring through the vista-wide window and lost in introspective thought? Time seemed to fly from him in this place, where if he stared straight ahead there was nothing to see but the jeweled glints of stars and that icy silver disc that always mocked him with its eternal apathy and taunting, elusive smile.

When he let go and simply breathed, it was though he were floating in space, alone and drifting forever in a strange tranquility of solitude, listening to the whispers of the cosmos.

Wing Zero made him feel like that sometimes--as though he were floating within the womb of that star-strewn void, cocooned within the distant warmth of its heart and pulsing slowly, steadily in time with the life of the universe.

Wing Zero made him feel too much, and yet too little.

Teeth gritted, jaw clenched, Heero turned away from the mind-numbing vista before him and towards the door. He might as well get some rest now, while he could; the next time that he faced Zechs, he doubted that the Lightning Count would show any mercy towards his opponent just because he was falling asleep in the cockpit. Wing Zero certainly wouldn't; he could almost feel it mocking him from the hangar.

The hallway was empty, shadowed and silent, and his footsteps rang as hollowly as the slow beating of a heart within a cavernously echoing chest, somehow seeming emptier, as though the lightness of the near-freefall of the lowered gravity had somehow amplified the void of every sound.

For some reason his hands felt cold within the pockets of his jeans.

It wasn't far to the soldiers' barracks where he and the other Gundam pilots were quartered; as he passed their rooms, his thoughts slid over each like mercury slithering smooth and liquidly insubstantial across a mirror, lingering momentarily upon Trowa, Quatre, Wufei and.....

"Nnnhhhh....."

Duo? He paused at the chestnut-haired pilot's door as a soft sound drifted through the thick metal of the barrier, a dull, muted surprise flickering distantly through him. It had sounded almost as though the other pilot was in pain....but not quite; there was something else beneath the sound, something rougher and liquid and strange. What in the....?

Common sense told him to leave it alone; if Duo was conscious enough to make any sort of sound, then he was conscious enough to summon help for himself if he was injured--but curiosity, a burning need to know, twitched and aggravated at him like a horde of tiny creatures crawling beneath his skin, their chitinous limbs itching at him terribly.

Another sound, a soft, drawn, lingering moan, floated to Heero's ears; he felt himself shiver inexplicably, and suddenly those creatures beneath his skin melted themselves into an unbearably warm flow of liquid electricity that raced and prickled over his skin. Abruptly he could bear his curiosity--nor the strange feeling--no longer and, with a dark, forbidding frown that should have served to frighten away the wraiths that flitted at him with teasing, invisible touches, he lifted his hand to touch steady fingertips to the keypad to the left of Duo's door.

Bypassing the lock code was no difficult task; setting it so the door would only slide open the merest slit required a moment's more thought. But less than a minute later the act was accomplished, and Heero knelt to the side of Duo's door, wiry body tensed in preparation for swift flight should any hint of his stealthy scrutiny be discovered. A single eye peered coldly through the minute aperture, and saw....Duo.

Duo as he had never seen him before.

Moonlight trickled into the room like thin, translucent milk, sliding in serpentine ripples across the floor and collecting in pools within the confining wrinkles of the rumpled white sheets of the bed against the back wall. The entire chamber was cast into shades of pale, crystalline azure, as though Heero's eyes had caught the light and reflected it in jeweled tones to paint everything in the room--including the source of those soft sounds that had drawn his attention in the first place, washing naked, moon-pale skin with an opalescent sheen of inconstantly shifting oceanic hues.

Beauty embodied laid nestled against the softly sweeping cradle of the sheets, silken texture of skin making the rough cotton seem even more coarse by comparison, caressed by the gossamer-liquid sheen of unbound locks of fine chestnut that spread out like a shining cloak beneath the boy on the bed. Those cascading tresses rippled in gentle waves like the sea lapping at a white-sand shore and threatened to spill to the floor as their owner's head tilted back against the edge of the bed, exposing the expression of sinful rapture upon that lovely face. Delicately rakish features were upturned to the moon's touch, lips as soft and moist and pink as dew-laden rose petals parted as though breathlessly awaiting the kiss of that wan light, allowing each softly rushed, whispered breath to escape to hover upon the air like the notes of whatever silent music that luxuriant lashes of deepest black shivered in time to, brushing like soft raven feathers against bisque-pale skin.

Heero heard someone gasp, and then realized that it was himself; he watched as though hypnotized as hands like gracefully fluttering doves, capable of so much cruelty and pain, roved slowly over lean planes of taut, lithe musculature, lavishing gently teasing caresses upon trembling flesh and eliciting further moans from Duo's throat. Wide eyes followed the path of traveling fingertips, and as though that body quivered beneath his own touch Heero found himself suddenly unable to breathe, unable to tear his eyes away, his throat dry, mind racing, skin burning and tensed frame racked with a near-convulsive shudder at the sound of every last one of the other pilot's low moans and cries. Licking his lips, he pressed himself close to the wall, and then bit down fiercely on his lower lip as his skin and suddenly-sensitive muscles came in contact with the abruptly too-cold metal, and if he had not already been kneeling his legs might well have given out on him. My god....what....what's happening to me....what....is this feeling....?

"I....ahh.....Heero...."

Eyes flying wide with near-panic, the pilot of Wing Zero jerked away from the door, pressing against the wall and flushed with the certainty that he had been caught--but no sounds of any other activity drifted from the room. Only those deep, rushing breaths sounded forth, interspersed with the occasional soft, broken noise, and slowly, warily, his heart hammering within his chest, Heero twisted to peer through the opening once more, not sure if he could have stopped himself even if he had tried.

Duo writhed before his sight, his touches more frenzied now, swifter, and once more Heero's name spilled past his lips, making the other boy's stomach knot and twist into coils of smouldering need as he stared in shocked confusion. This is....this is desire.....unfamiliar.....why.....why does he call for me....why do I feel these things? Now Duo's caresses seemed to brush over his own skin, and as he watched ivory fingertips dance across and around tiny, taut buds of flesh, as he heard the other raise his voice in the most strained cry yet, Heero squeezed his eyes tightly shut and pressed his forehead against the wall. How do I make it stop?

"Yes....nnhh.....yes! Oh god, Heero...."

Duo....why? Why me? The pilot of Wing Zero pressed his clenched fists against his thighs, shoulders hunching as he struggled to slow his deep, heavy breaths, struggled to quench the licking flames that ached to suck him into their inferno. I must not look again....I must not.....But once again he found that he could not help himself; it was as though he were a man possessed as he turned to look into the chamber once more, one hand clutched to his chest, over the rapid timpani of his heart.

Surely Duo would hear his harsh, raspy breaths and stop, flushing with the same shame that nearly swamped Heero--but the other pilot continued on, oblivious, too lost in the red waves of his own desire to even realize that the hot crimson tide had reached out to lap at another. Heero's eyes were drawn to the pinkness of a rough tongue-tip as it flitted moistly over those tempting lips, following it closely, feeling its texture tantalize his own skin....and then his gaze trailed downwards, tracing the sleek lines of a shivering white body gleaming with a slight sheen of sweat, following those exploring hands to a place that he had not dared to look upon and yet now could not draw his eyes away from.

Smooth fingertips grazed over throbbing desire, and then closed over heated skin, and with Duo's husky, velvet-sensual cry came Heero's own.....softer, much softer, the barest noise confined deep within his throat, but as inexorable as the rising tide, and he clamped down fiercely upon the sudden urge to mimic the other's motions, fingers clawing savagely at his jeans just as the other's free hand clawed at the sheets, the pain of fingers digging into flesh somehow welcome. He was the pilot of Wing Zero; he had mastered the Zero system, dominated it utterly, and he would be damned if he would let his will be betrayed by his body and these unfamiliar, nearly overwhelming impulses, no matter how achingly good it felt.

"God, Heero--!!"

God, Duo....He didn't know how much longer he could stand it; his body throbbed heavily, almost painfully, and beneath the dull sense of wonder, anger, confusion was a rising surge of urgency, pounding at him relentlessly--too much sensation, too much emotion, too much everything for the withdrawn, stoic pilot....and as Duo's voice rose in a wordless crescendo, somehow seeming to urge him to press his hungry body against the wall and slide against it, he reached a peak, a crucial moment of tension--at the same moment as Duo, and yet as the other's release took place in the form of an ecstatic, almost brutal explosion of passion colored with the ragged, erotically hungry notes of his final voicing of Heero's name....Heero's took the form of the urge to escape, and in a sudden burst of motion he fled down the corridor, pursued by that fading cry and his every step punctuated by his rasping, almost frantic breaths.

Heero....yes...ah....yes!! Duo's voice echoed in his mind like a ghost's relentless haunting, electrifying him, tormenting him, making his vision swim as he raced through the hallways towards the hangar. He felt hunted somehow, as though there were some growling, lazy predator loping at his heels....but no death-marked prey ever felt this strange, quivering elation, felt its knees weaken and tremble at the hunter's closeness and desire, nor felt such overwhelming confusion at this sudden wanting, needing, hunger. He should not....should not want those things, whatever they were....those were things that men wanted, ordinary men with ordinary lives--and Heero was anything but that. He should not want those things, and he hated Duo for making him need them with his forbidden, tantalizing cries in the darkness, cries that beckoned him with the allure of whatever secret thoughts lay within the other pilot's mind. He hated Duo for wanting him, for daring to commit such acts in his name.

He hated Duo for making him feel suddenly vulnerable.

He hated Duo, and deep within his core where the desire to kill existed something new took root, coiling and bright and molten. He hated Duo, and he wanted him so terribly that it might well kill him.

Wing Zero's cockpit waited for him, as cold as ever--his shield, his protection from the world, from feeling, from his own humanity. He could forget there, submerged in the Zero system's simulation programs, surrounded by the familiarity of solid metal and cocooned by his Gundam's icy mockery. He could stop thinking there, stop doing anything other than what he was meant to do.

But he could not stop needing.

Such memories, swift and enough to make a weaker man tremble in his chair, colored by his mind in shades of red passion tinged with the dully flickering flame of anger.

Heero wondered idly how many minutes, or perhaps only seconds, had passed while he had drifted amidst the clouds of recollection; certainly not many, for silence still reigned, and he could still feel the eyes of his curious comrades regarding him in question. Duo's especially--they seemed to laugh at him, entice him, and he imagined that he could feel the other's secret desire in his stare, though the thought was ridiculous.

The beverage container in his hand resolved itself before his blanked vision, and he finally remembered to move, lifting the straw to his lips to take a flavorless sip. He wondered what Duo would do or say if he knew what Heero had witnessed, knew that the other was now privy to his secret. Probably nothing; Duo could laugh anything off, and would probably turn out some glib excuse that would make everything seem trivial, and might even unravel the knots of need that remembering had spun into Heero's innards.

If only it were that easy; if only he knew how to lay to rest what Duo had awakened.

His thoughts were violently, almost viciously interrupted by the blaring of Peacemilion's alarm klaxon, its strident tones cutting through the air like death cries, sounds that he almost welcomed. Those sounds meant that it was time to fight, perhaps even time to die--time to do what he was meant to do, and lose himself in the familiarity of otherwise meaningless combat.

"Let's go!" Quatre cried, and as though propelled by that call the five Gundam pilots shook off their lethargy and ran for the door. Heero was slower to rise from his chair than the others, but less than a moment behind as he catapulted himself towards the door--until he was stopped by a hand upon his shoulder, and he turned swiftly to face its owner, eyes wide in surprise.

Vibrant eyes of sparkling indigo looked back at him, glittering with laughter and something deeper, darker, well-concealed but still there; Heero found himself staring into an easy, mocking smile that seemed only too familiar from his hours alone upon the observation deck, and suddenly he could not speak as his stomach tightened inexplicably, his shoulder tingling where the other's pale, elegant hand rested upon it.

"Hey." Duo's voice swathed him like spidersilk, softer than his usual laughing tones, laced with the same pulsing darkness that swam deep within his eyes like some mysterious creature of the deep, nothing more than a murky, indistinguishable shape in the liquid midnight sea. "Heero."

It was a long moment before Heero could reply, and were he a creature of less control and reserve he might have blushed as his thoughts struggled to stray from the images conjured by that lingering contact and focus upon a coherent response. "Yeah?" he forced out, and was surprised--and relieved--when his voice came out in its usual dead, even tones.

He almost flinched as Duo stepped closer to him....and then closer, and closer still, until the fabric of their clothing brushed and he could feel the palpable warmth of the others' skin radiating through the thin layers in an attempt to melt his muscles into trembling insubstantiality. "Next time, " Duo whispered, both the heat in his eyes and the low, husky roughness of his taunting voice nearly succeeding in doing what his closeness had begun, "why don't you come inside? If you're lucky....maybe I'll let you do more than just watch." No shame, no hesitation; only smouldering intensity, quiet promise, and a deeper thread of something softer, more sincere....almost poetic.

Shock blanked Heero's world, leaving only vast whiteness--and then his vision cleared, and he saw Duo before him once more, still smiling that dark smile that made his insides tremble....and Heero swallowed down hard, pushing aside his surprise and forcing himself to think rationally. So his observation had been discovered after all; for a moment he felt the faint twinge of self-hatred normally brought on by a failed mission, but he ignored it as he stared back into that molten gaze, letting the silence stretch between them with an impassivity that he could not quite make seem genuine. You don't know what you're saying, Duo.

You don't know what you're saying at all.

He should have spoken, but he had nothing to say; there was nothing that he needed to say, for in that instant the walls separating human consciousness melted away and he entered into a wordless communion of thought that would not have allowed him to speak even if he had tried. He could only meet Duo's gaze in silence, his eyes as cold and impenetrable as ever but his mind lingering upon the strangeness of barely-remembered feelings teasing at his heart: sadness, longing, remorse....guilt. For a moment he wondered what would happen if he took Duo up on his offer, wondered if he could bring himself to answer the urge of his flesh to touch lips to lips--but he knew that he never could, and never would. It was too dangerous for the other pilot, too dangerous for himself, detrimental to the completion of their mission, and as the interminable minute stretched onwards he wondered if Duo could see that knowledge in his gaze--wondered, and then knew that he did.

But it didn't stop him from spending another long, painful moment.....simply wanting.

Duo....I....if we survive, then....then......

The alarm klaxon sounded again, shattering the silence before he could complete a thought that he was not sure that he even wanted, and he jerked away; suddenly the distance rushed between himself and the other once more, like a suddenly released wall of water flooding to fill an abyss--and he turned away, moving swiftly towards the door.

But he could not stop himself from pausing in the doorway, glancing over his shoulder to where the other still stood, looking somehow lost and forlorn despite the saucy smile that still graced his lips, tainted by a subtle hint of pain. Beautiful....so beautiful, with his wide, depthless eyes and pale skin and the rich glory of his bound hair floating behind him in the lightness of free-fall, with his wild, free laughter and indomitable spirit and soft, sweet boy's longing.

I'm sorry, Duo, he whispered to himself, and then fled to where Wing Zero awaited him--his torment, his alter ego, his passion.....his prison.

Outside, the moon looked in on him and smiled its cold, unfeeling smile.  

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