Disclaimer: Such works are expressions of the author and the author alone. The characters used were humbly pleaded with to be the embodiment of this work and will return to whence they came when they have completed their task. The only things I own here are my own thoughts. This was meant to be displayed onto whoever should want to see, without asking for any material compensation in return. Ad. Disclaimer: If you didn’t get that, it basically means I don’t own the characters or the series and I’ve made no money of this. In addition to that I would like to say that “You Stay With Me” isn’t mine either. If I didn’t get this wrong, it was written by D. Warren and sung by Ricky Martin. Warnings: Shounen ai, Poetic, 1+2, AU, Sap, Vid/Songfic- not quite sure... Authors Note: I’m beginning this with the chorus. That’s not how the actual song begins but, oh well. ^.^; You Stay With Me by: Lotus-chan *Oh, you stay with me You stay with me* The night was cool and windy as it always was this time of year. The strong wind bat at the coats of those who decided to leave their homes at these ungodly of hours, whatever there reasons. In the seedier parts, the bars were full of men who preferred the warm company of alcohol and shameless women rather than their own wives. The streets were filled with the lost, the unwanted or the damned. Those that had little shelter but the alley ways, burned garbage to keep warm and kept to themselves, while people more fortunate than they ignored them as they walked by. Stars were not seen on nights such as these. Clouds heavy with moisture, roared in the heavens eager to find just the right time in order to release their burdens. Winter was cruel and unforgiving this year but like so many years before it, only rain and ice fell from the sky. Many people in this city who had seen the peak of there lives and were well past, had never before seen snow. Heero walked under the lude neon lights that cheapened the night, hands in his pockets, with only his jean jacket to keep him warm. Though it made little difference to him. Cold is all he’d felt for a very long time. He was only sixteen but within, he felt ages older. There was a vast emptiness inside his heart so tangible it felt like a dead weight within his chest. There was something missing. He looked at all the people around him. Despite the war, everyone was going about their regular everyday lives. Faceless people who lived in just one more city who could care less if one more soldier died for their freedom; their future. Heero sighed quietly and watched his breath disappear in the cool night air. Perhaps Trowa was right. Perhaps they really had become nothing but redundant soldiers. He stopped in front of a night club and looked out onto the empty street, debating whether to cross it. Heero had been wandering aimlessly all night long and what was curious was that he was not sure why. He felt miles away from the small rundown motel he’d been using as a temporary hide-away. When he had arrived, Heero had unpacked a few meager belongings and had inexplicably felt compelled to take a walk. He told himself it was just reconnaissance. That he was only familiarizing himself with the territory should the information be needed later but... that’s not what it felt like. He kept looking at people, at faces. He was looking for someone. *Oh, in my heart And on my mind* A woman wearing a dress too short to be decent and an excessive amount of make up smiled seductively as she walked up to him and began speaking to him. He paid no attention to her, only staring more intently into the street as the wind began to pick up again. After trying several tactics and still not attracting Heero’s attention the women left, frustrated and disappeared into the crowd gathered at the entrance of the night club. He barely noticed as she left, for something else had caught his attention. The wind had grown wild and something like a whirl wind seemed to have developed in the middle of the street. Heero grabbed hold of a stop sign and stared agape as a dark form took shape within the whirl wind. Finally, the wind died and what Heero saw now standing in the middle of the street made his heart jump. It was a boy of sixteen or so. His hair was a rich golden chestnut-brown that reached well past his waist and was left unbound. He was wearing long black robes covered in a beautiful pattern of silver embroidery which made him appear like something out of the past. His striking amethyst eyes were in slight contrast to the clothes he wore but they only worked to make him seem more ethereal. But his eyes alone were not the things that made him seem completely otherworldly. From his back and through the robes sprang a set of black, transparent wings. *Oh, like a melody that keeps haunting me Oh, you stay* Heero watched dumbfounded as the boy stretched out his long wings, feathers fluttering slightly. The boy then began walking away from him, toward the center of the city. Heero looked about him. All of the people outside were still going about their business. Nobody seemed to have noticed a boy with wings had appeared out of thin air in the middle of the street. Heero followed him as the angel? began walking through occasional crowds. The angel went out of his way to keep from touching anyone as he stared intently into the faces of people he passed. Any who passed by him seemed to just continue on oblivious to his presence but every face he gazed into was a visible disappointment to him. Heero was curious but somehow understood at the same time. The people were simply... faceless. Heero followed the boy through the city, his gaze never leaving him almost for fear that this marvelous creature would disappear as deftly as he had appeared if he so much as blinked. Heero watched him as he became more and more dispirited with each person he searched; as finally the boy gave up and walked into an empty park. Heero followed. *Met you underneath the moon Night was over much too soon* The boy leaned almost tiredly against a tree near the lake and sighed deeply. Thunder rumbled in the sky, seemingly reflecting the angel’s somber mood. Heero approached him silently, unsure of what to do or say. The boy seemed to feel his presence and he turned his gaze to him in surprise. Heero stood transfixed. He felt rooted to where he stood and didn’t know why. There was something about that face... He could’ve sworn he’d seen it before... and suddenly, he was breathless. The angel’s surprise melted as soon as he gazed into Heero’s face. The surprise was quickly replaced by elation; an overwhelming joy that was almost palpable. The angel walked up to him until they were nearly touching and took Heeros hand. Heero no longer felt like any of this was real. At the angel’s touch he suddenly felt as if he were floating, as if the world were melting around him and the only things left were the two of them. The angel’s gaze came up from his hand, back to his face and his smile was overshadowed by the tears in his eyes. He leaned in and placed a soft, gentle kiss over Heero’s lips. A tear fell. *We shared a kiss till daylight came And kissed the night goodbye* The moment lips met lips Heero was overwhelmed with a flood of memories. Memories of days long passed, of lives lived so long ago. He remembered each one in explicit detail. Every person, every place, every dream he’d ever had. He remembered every lifetime of joy or sadness. Every night spent gazing into sky, every day he’d lived, fought, died. Everyone of them different except for one thing. Through them all, he had loved only one. *When the sun came up that day We smiled and went our separate ways* They separated. The boy looked into his face with a sense of triumph and a smile still on his face. Heero was dumbfounded. He had been lost for so long. Had been searching for something without knowing what it was his entire life and finally, here it was. He wanted to do... something, but couldn’t think of what. Wanted to say so many things and didn’t know where to begin. And the angels joy was so contagious Heero just gave up thinking and kissed him again. *But I can’t leave the thought of you behind* Before they knew it, the sun began to rise in the eastern sky. Clouds thinned and stars could no longer compete with the brightness of the sun and began to fade away. The angel took Heeros face in his hands and rested his forehead against his. Spreading his ghostly wings, he lifted slightly off the ground and whispered a single sentence that brought Heero panic, and relief all at once: “I’ll be back for you...” ----------- Heero sat idle on his bed in the dark motel room he had rented. He had not moved from that spot for hours, thinking only of one thing. He had not answered any messages which had been sent to him through his laptop and had not gone on any missions since that night. All he thought of was the angel... no he’d learned his name when the memories of hundred lifetimes had been dropped on him all at once. He had thought of nothing but Duo since he had found him again. It had been too long since they had met in the park by the lake. He had returned to that spot hundred times since then, hoping he would reappear but he never did. He couldn’t eat, could barely sleep and when he did... heavens it was torture to dream. He was always there. His smiling face was always with him, his touch always so gentle and it felt as if they would spend whole eternities together when he would awaken alone in his bed to find it was just a dream. *Oh, you stay with me You stay with me Oh, in my heart And on my mind* The events of that night replayed themselves over and over in his mind. He remembered every second of that long awaited kiss. He remembered the look of utter happiness in Duo’s eyes. He remembered the way his heart raced. He remembered the way he had finally felt fulfilled. The way an emptiness inside him had filled with so much emotion all at once he thought he would burst. Most of all he remembered Duo’s promise. Those few words seemed to be the only reason he lived anymore. To wait, a lifetime if necessary, for him to return. *Oh, like a melody that keeps haunting me Oh, you stay* ----------- He walked the streets again that afternoon. The people still walked on oblivious to anything out of the ordinary in their world. To them there was no war. There were no Gundams and there certainly were no winged angels that haunted there every waking moments. As he looked around at them all, none of them even spoke. The people around him walked in crowds but no one person looked at any other. None even touched as they passed. It was almost as if they could read each other minds and knew where to move. Heero cringed. They weren’t people at all, they were more like machines. Mindless and empty. *I look inside the small cafes And hope by chance I’ll see your face* Feathers fluttered out of the corner of his eye and Heero turned. The reflection of a crow flew out of sight, past the length of a store front window. He sighed thinking how even his subconscious seemed to make a mockery of his hope. He leaned back against the outside wall of a shop and watched as people walked about almost blindly and shook his head. He was not a part of this world. Not any more. The wind picked up slightly and brushed against his bare arms. He brought his hands up to warm them and imagined, for just a moment, that they were his... *I hear your voice and realize It’s just a summer wind* He felt more than heard the reverberating footsteps of MS approaching the outer limits of the city. When he looked he knew, even from a distance that they were not OZ MS. Heero walked back into the crowd with an inward sigh. He went against the flow of people but even then they parted before him whenever they came near. A few looked at him curiously and others with disdain until finally, none seemed to notice him at all. They knew he was no longer one of them. *Something in your eyes that night Swept away this heart of mine* As Heero walked, his mind once again wandered back to the events of that night. He puzzled over the memory of Duo’s touch. It had been so... unreal and brought so many emotions with it. Some he could never begin to give a name to. And his eyes... it had been like gazing into an entirely different world in themselves. Magical was not the word to describe it. Magical just didn’t seem to do it any justice. When Heero looked up again, he discovered his wanderings had led him back to the park. Standing a street across from it, he frowned. From here he could see people jogging the paths and children playing under the watchful eye of their parents. He shook his head and moved on. There were just too many people, too much fake happiness. Duo would not be in there now. The sudden reminder of him brought Heero nostalgia. A nostalgia for the things in his dreams to be real once again. *Now I just want you in my arms again* ------------- Heero woke with a start. A cool wind blew into the room through the open window, rustling his unruly dark brown hair and he shivered, not from the cold but from the remembrance of his dream. The dream was quickly fading in his mind but the feeling of it was still there. The urgency still made his heart race and frantically, he got out of bed. He got dressed in a rush. Grabbing his jacket only as an after thought, he swung the door open and ran outside. *Oh, you stay with me You stay with me Oh, in my heart And on my mind* Running through the dark and empty streets still trying to pull his jacket on, Heero attempted to hold onto the last fragments of his dream. He could remember it only in flashes of both sight and sound. There was the lake, the cloudy night sky, and *his* voice that pleaded with him in his sleep, “wake up, I’m waiting for you...” *Oh, like a melody that keeps haunting me Oh, you stay* He reached the park and ran past the playgrounds and paths until he finally arrived at the lake. Heero stopped and leaned against the tree to catch his breath, all the while looking around. Everything was the way his dream had been, from the cloudy night sky to the moon that reflected peacefully on the surface of the lake. With one exception. Heero looked around in all directions hoping to but not spotting his angel anywhere. *How was I to know in that one night My whole life would change* Heero slid to the ground in disappointment. Had it been just a dream then? Had he come out here, in the middle of the night like a complete baka for nothing? He sighed and watched as his breath materialized in the cold and disappeared like a ghost. That one night had changed everything but now, it too was beginning to feel like a dream. *From the moment I looked in your eyes I’ve never been the same* He leaned back, hugging his chest and closed his eyes. The world was different to him now. Ever since that night he had begun to see and feel things differently and each day it was only harder to keep living without him. He didn’t think he could bare it if it turned out to have been just a dream after all. Suddenly, he began to feel tiny feather light brushes against his face and opened his eyes. *And if I could have one chance to have that Moment back again I’d never let it end I’d never let it end* Snow had begun to fall from the scattered clouds in the sky. He sat up and looked at the grass around him. Small white flakes were beginning to blanket the ground. Looking back up at the sky, he frowned curiously as he watched them fall. If he remembered correctly, this town had not seen snow in over fifty years... Movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention and drew his gaze back down. In the middle of the lake a kind of whirl wind had formed. The wind drew up the water around it, swirling it in the air around a shadow that had appeared in it’s center. The shadow took shape and the wind died, allowing the water to fall back into the lake. Heero stood up, eyes wide as an angel with ghostly black wings emerged, standing over the surface of the water. *Met you underneath the moon Night was over much too soon* Duo smiled warmly and walked to the edge of the lake, holding out a hand. Heero almost ran to him but when he reached the edge he hesitated. Duo chuckled, reached further to grab his hand and pulled him onto the lake’s surface. Heero was surprised when he stepped onto the water and it felt solid beneath his feet. He looked back at the angel dreamily and Duo led him further out into the water. Heero followed as if in a daze. Duo’s touch was intoxicating even if it was just his hand in his. The entire world melted around him once again. The trees, the stars, the sky; they all disappeared and all he saw was his angel in front of him. The world vanished and the only things left were the lake beneath his feet and Duo’s hand in his. An unnatural mist crawled onto the surface of the water and circled around their feet as they stopped in the center of the lake. Heero watched the snow flakes settle quietly on Duo’s long hair and wondered in some part of his mind that still knew logic why he wasn’t cold anymore. Duo raised a hand to Heero’s cheek and gave him a smile with eyes half lidded. Heero never saw him speak it, instead heard it in his mind, “I have something for you...” when Duo closed the small distance between them, and kissed him. *We shared a kiss till daylight came And kissed the night goodbye* Ghostly white wings sprang from Heero’s back as if they had been restrained for far too long. Heero felt them as they emerged and sighed into the kiss, wrapping his arms around his love in silent gratitude. He did not feel disturbed by them at all. It felt as if they had been trapped within him all along. Until now. *When the sun came up that day We smiled and went our separate ways But I can’t leave the thought of you behind* They separated briefly, only inches from each other as they looked into each other’s eyes and at that moment both understood each other. Both felt what the other felt and knew what the other knew as if they were one being and shared the same existence; the same soul. The sun, somewhere out there above or below or all around them began to come out of hiding, pushing the night away. The mist grew as if it had a life of it’s own and embraced them like a phantom. Duo, raised both hands to cradle Heero’s face and closed his eyes. Their lips met one more time, before the mist covered them completely and vanished from that world. *Oh, you stay with me You stay with me Oh, in my heart And on my mind Oh, like a melody that keeps haunting me Oh, you stay* ------------ Owari