"Light on the Stage"

Written By: Impish

Rating: R

Pairings: 1x2x1

Category: AU, Drama/Romance (but not in a "hearts and flowers" way)

Warnings: AU, things teenagers do that they're not supposed to (smoking and drinking, etc.), general reckless behavior. Talk of illegal drug use, Drunk driving (do not try this at home, kids. It will not end well for you.)

Summary: Two messed up kids in a small country town are drawn to each other, and together, form a brand of music from the old.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the songs used to inspire this piece. I will give a shout out to any inspirations found within.

Archives: http://www.gundam-wing-diaries.150m.com/gw/Impish/gwImpish.htm
http://www.freewebs.com/soft-sugar/impishinklingsfiction.htm
Anyone else, all you have to do is ask.
Notes: Apologies, but the next part won't be out for quite a while since I'm going to be out of town for a bit. Extra special thanks and love to Badmomma and NoirAnge for the wonderful beta work.

"Light on the Stage"

CHAPTER 8: Love Songs


Two months later, Duo was getting cold, lying on Heero's bathroom floor.

Wearing only his boxers, the cold of the tiles was soaking into his skin. Goosebumps rose on his arms and his toes curled. He grinned with satisfaction.

Having got in at two in the morning after an end-of-summer bonfire at Walker's, Duo had fallen asleep next to Heero on the bedroom floor while the radio had played on. All too soon he’d been woken by a ridiculously drippy love song some pop idol was trying to rag off as Country. When it was followed by three more that were even worse, he knew he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep without somehow obliterating the noise from his memory. The solution resulted in his closeting himself in the bathroom and proceeding to write an anti-love song.

He stuck the pencil between his teeth like a horse's bit and examined what he'd written so far. The words on the page took up more space than they should have, written around smudges and heavily crossed out words.

"Love, ain't what this song's about
Candlelight ain't what I'm in the mood for now
I don't need a metaphor to help me get this out
Love ain't what this song's about

It's about beer and whiskey and drinkin
It's about playin the fool and actin without thinkin
It's about runnin with your buddies you don't give a damn
What in the world happens to you, man
Oh love ain't what this song's about"

"Cryin ain't what you're gonna hear," He added, pencil biting into paper gleefully. "You won't have any salty tears drownin in your beer, so if you're feelin down then you'd better steer clear."

Heero's sleep-muzzled voice came from where he leaned in the now-open doorway. "Duo, what're you doing?"

"Writin'." Duo answered brightly, adding, "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to wake you." He looked up and grinned.

Sleepy was a good look for Heero. It softened that troubled expression he'd been wearing lately, the one that was a vague push of his brows, an uncertainty in his eyes that bordered on sadness.

"S'ok. Some damn song about the color of eyes being the ultimate indicator of how much you love someone was what got me up, not you." Heero said, looking over Duo's shoulder. When he saw what Duo had written he snorted. "I guess we woke up to the same song."

"Or something scary close to it." Duo said, still scribbling lazily. "The songs on that station all kinda sound alike."

"There're a few good ones." Heero shrugged. "And they still play some of the oldies."

"I don't listen to the radio much anymore." Duo sighed. His favorite station had been turned into another generic Top Twenty channel.

Heero, who had been hearing rants about it for a week, didn't answer. Instead, he washed up and cleaned his teeth as another few lines were worked out on the much-abused paper.

"It's about wine and rhythm and song
It's about doin one thing and makin sure you do it wrong
It's about givin in to your deepest desire
Settin the whole damn world on fire
Cryin ain't what you're gonna hear."

"So?" Duo asked expectantly after repeating the lines aloud.

"Can't wait to play it," Heero told him, "*After* we get some food."

Duo brightened. "I could go for some grits."

"Disgusting."

"What kind of South'ner are you if you don't like grits?" Duo drawled.

"One with good taste?"

"Mmm, I don't think so. At least not as long as you call black coffee and cigarettes a nutritious breakfast."

"So do you." Heero grumbled, giving up the sink to Duo and going into his room to change.

"No, I consider black coffee and cigarettes *part* of a nutritious breakfast. There are several other parts I enjoy." Duo said around Heero's toothbrush, then threw the toothpaste at him when he made a dry crack about exactly what "parts" Duo enjoyed.



After a large breakfast at the diner that was not at all nutritious, the two took Duo's car out on the back roads, knowing it was the last time they'd be able to do so before school started up again.

Summer vacation had passed this year as it always seemed to for Duo: hot, and quick, and missed in the blink of an eye.

Duo drove while Heero played around with the new song on the guitar that Duo now kept in the back seat along with a shotgun. One leg on the dash, the other out the open window, Heero strummed out a tune and they took turns singing.

The air was heavy, filling the car like a huffing, irritated child on the brink of tears, as they flitted about from place to place. Most of their old hangouts were dried out from two months of drought; the creek was nothing more than a few puddles writhing with snakes. All that was left of the watering hole was a film of toxic green over thick mud, and clouds of mosquitoes. They could have looked for someplace new, Duo supposed, but today was a day to revisit, a memoriam to another summer buried and gone.

When the sun was high enough that they could sketchily assume it was around noon (the clock in Duo's car was broken), they pulled over in a field. It was the one they had gone to near the beginning of summer where they'd stargazed, and parked close enough to some dried-out trees so that the car was in the shade.

Duo dragged out a handle of whiskey from under the seats and he and Heero walked through the low, dusty trees that edged the sides of the secluded field. When they'd last come out here, the grass had been tall and beginning to yellow, but now the ground was cracked and uniformly brown; any surviving plants were withered and limp, as though defeated by the relentless heat.

They wandered around kicking rocks, talking about Robert Redford and Paul Newman in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and Duo wished that look in Heero's eyes would go away again. Eventually they made it back to the car and sat on the hood, gazing at clouds as fixed in the sky as if they were painted there.

Sick of the songs on the radio, which, contrary to all logic, seemed to be getting worse the more whiskey they drank, Duo decided to come up with another new one, as well as take the opportunity to alter Heero's mood. He took over the guitar and Heero wrote down what he came up with. The result was a much less defiant pseudo-love song, something Duo drawled out so offhandedly that it seemed much funnier than it probably should have.

"…You know a pretty girl… she'll leave you.
Leave you to drown in your own tears.
You know an ugly girl, well she'll leave you too…
But then again, who really cares?

So sit down here beside me girl,
And I will tell you what we will do.
We're gonna twist them lids
And hope our kids look more like me than you!"

Duo wasn't attempting to be particularly melodic, and eventually, Heero was laughing so hard at the faces Duo was pulling he could hardly fix the lyrics.

"…So darlin' don't you worry,
'Cause they say that love is blind…
Lust has eyes like an eagle-
It's gonna drive me outta my mind.

Though my eyes sometimes wander,
It doesn't mean that I'm untrue.
You're not the best,
but you're the best that I can do.
You're not the best,
But you're the best that I can do!"

"I think I like your love songs." Heero told him when he'd finished and Duo grinned.

"You know, that song should be warbled more than sung. And played with a really twangy guitar. Like, ridiculously twangy."

"The more tongue in cheek the better?" Heero offered.

"Exactly." Duo sighed contentedly, sticking the guitar back in the car through an open window and laying back against the windshield. Another set of clouds was hovering on the horizon, flattened out as if they had been spread low across the sky with a butter knife. Duo turned his face to look at Heero, wishing he could say something to chase away the last of the uncertainty that had remained in his expression.

"There are so many love songs." Duo said, contemplatively. "But mostly they're either about what it's like falling and being in love, or what it's like and how much it hurts when that ends."

"Why are you so good at writing them?" Heero wondered, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it up slowly.

"Love songs? I didn't know I was. I guess it's something that's easy for me to be sarcastic about."

"The first one you wrote, 'Beer'… that one was about both."

"That one… was about an incomplete love." Duo said, wishing he could erase the dreamy sadness from his own voice. "Something crueler than one-sided."

He was quiet for a moment, then said, "You know, I was thinking… you should go to Texas Tech."

"What?" Heero frowned.

"I think you should try to go to Texas Tech." Duo repeated.

"Why?" Heero sputtered.

"You remember that time in the diner when Relena asked us what we were going to do once we graduated?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, it got me thinking. A college town like Lubbock is a great place to play music; there're tons of bars looking for cheap live entertainment. We could play together for real, start a fan base. I could get a day job and we could share an apartment or a house off-campus. We both know how much your parents want you to go college; I think you could get them to pay for your rent if you wanted."

"You want me to pay for a college education so we can play in bars for peanuts?"

Duo smirked at him with a lifted eyebrow. "It gets your parents off your back and leaves you to do what you really want to. And don't act like you don't, 'cause I know you do."

Heero paused, looking briefly away into the grass. Sighing, he flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette. "Sure I want to. It's not like we don't practically live together as it is. I was just surprised that you're actually capable of planning for the future."

Duo kicked him in the shin and told him, "There's a first time for everything."

Not quite satisfied, but certain the conversation was over, Duo closed his eyes and relaxed, idly humming the tune to "Getting' By," as the song seemed to match both their thoughts at the moment. It was true that his style was surviving day-to-day, but the idea that this whatever-this-was he had with Heero should continue for a good while in the future wasn't something even his spontaneity would change his mind on.

"Just gettin' by on gettin' by's my stock and trade," Heero sang softly, picking up on Duo's humming, "Livin' it day to day… Pickin' up the pieces where ever they fall,"

"Just lettin' it roll, lettin' the high times carry the load," Duo answered, "An' I'm livin' my life easy come easy go…"

They'd traded lines back and forth through most of the "Hill Country Rain" album when Duo suddenly sat up. "Is it me, or did it just get really dark?"

They both looked up at the sky past the cover of trees. As they'd sat there, the clouds had grayed and thickened, now curling dark over the sky like the heavy, solid pelt of a wolf.

"They said the draught wasn't going to let up for a while." Heero muttered as the first drops of rain began splattering around them.

"Looks like they were wrong." Duo said, getting to his feet, his eyes still fixed in the distance.

The drops multiplied distinctly and began a heavy, rushing rhythm as a faint crack of thunder sounded in the distance. Suddenly, like the opening of floodgates, water began pouring down with a ferocity usually reserved for scenes of epic romance in movies. Even with the trees for cover, their clothes were soaked through within seconds.

"Fucking weather guy couldn't predict this?" Heero yelled above the noise of the pounding water, scrambling to roll up the windows. The rain was so thick that water glossed over the windshield in an uninterrupted wash.

Duo grinned back at Heero, the impulsiveness of the weather pouring over his skin with the rain, and, turning his face up to the sky, held his arms out in glorious welcome.

"Duo, we've gotta get out of here or we're gonna get stuck!"

The storm was dangerously seductive, and he felt something building up inside of him, something deep, wide, open, something that felt good— devilishly, horrifically good. He felt so terribly wonderful he thought for a moment it would break out of his skin and tear out into the landscape.

There was an intense flash of light, and Heero said something about trees and electrical storms, but it was mostly drowned out by a collapsing roll of thunder.

Duo looked at him, the grin on his face maniacal in the brilliant blue light that blazed across them both. With a war cry that was startling even to his own ears, Duo leapt off the car and began to run, away from the car, away from the woods, away from the road, away from everything except Heero, because Heero would pick up the chase. Heero would always be there.

The dirt was already churning into mud and the beaten grass tugged at his boots as he sprinted out into the open. His soaked shirt and jeans stuck awkwardly to his body, fighting the pull of the wind and movement. The field sloped up in front of him and everything beyond was only a vague grayness. He heard Heero behind him and ran faster, ran until he couldn't see trees or fences, until there was nothing but the open land, the storm, and Heero at his back.

Duo's laugh was wild, long, and eerily in synch with another rumble of thunder. Rain ran down his skin, blurring his vision and playing with cold strands of loose hair that were coiled like limp fingers at his neck. He could taste it on his lips, smell the elemental mating of earth, water and air.

He half-twisted at a run, and that was all Heero needed to catch up with him. Their eyes connected in the air, something both determined and resigned in Heero's, and then they were both hitting the ground, hopelessly tangled. Heero stared at him, looking more serious than Duo had ever seen him, and for a flashing second, Duo was scared that the sadness hadn't gone away. Heero's eyes seemed to catch the moment of fear, and Heero held onto it like it was something precious. Then Heero kissed him, and Duo grinned and kissed him back because Heero was as urgent as he was, because wrestling didn't end in cactus gardens anymore… now it ended with something infinitely more gratifying…

Heero's mouth was on his, open and hot, and oh, god, he felt like *fire* and freedom. Like he'd been struck by lightning, the heat of it pulsing through him in rhythm with his heartbeat. It was all so sloppy, the way Heero's body slid over his stomach and their chests met at an angle that made him choke out a thirsty moan, even as it forced the air from his lungs.

Hips dragging up to meet hips, Duo shifted his body eagerly into a better position, pulling down so that the full weight of Heero's body was on his. Duo's hand was at the small of Heero's back, fisted tight in his shirt, the other was splayed out beside them, grasping at soil and grass like it was all that was chaining them to the physical world. Mud oozed through Duo's fingers and the heel of his boot dug a curling trench as he arched his back, aching to be closer as they kissed with a violence matched only by the storm that raged on all around.

The rain-soaked roughness of their jeans only provided more friction between them as the grinding movement of their hips became something more precise, deeper and more deliberate. He was sinking into the mud as he tilted his chin and sucked hard on Heero's tongue. The delicious build of wanting stretched like a yawn until it rounded out and consumed everything, and Duo couldn't do anything but hold on tight, to Heero and to a fistful of mud.

Heero's mouth broke away from his, water pouring down the bridge of Heero's nose onto his face. He felt Heero's lips trail along his cheek until they hovered over his ear, every warm breath on his cold skin shaped with need. Heero's teeth closed over the lobe of his ear, tugging down, and Duo's mouth opened with a soundless, open moan as he came. A second later, Heero gasped out low and tight.

Their heaving breaths warmed each other's cheeks as another flash of lighting danced across the sky. It was strange how cold his skin was, when he felt so hot.

It was strange how everything felt, really. His limbs and the fabric of his clothes were heavy. He could feel mud sliding down the back of his pants, pasting bits of grass to his back where his shirt had ridden up, Heero's wet skin on his and the rain pouring down on his exposed face.

Despite how strange it felt, Duo might have been content if the sun had decided never to come out again.



The next morning, Duo stood at his empty mailbox, looking at the perfectly clear sky.

The rain the day before had stopped as suddenly as it had started, though the low, dark clouds had remained as Duo and Heero spent an hour pushing Duo's car out of the mud. Even when they'd made it out of the field, the dirt and gravel roads had been a mess, and they got stuck two more times before they made it to anything paved.

"Is something wrong?" Heero called out the car window from where he was slumped in the passenger's seat, feet crossed on the dash. They had only stopped off for Duo to check his mail before going out for an early lunch, but for some reason Duo seemed stuck in place, staring at the sky like it was to blame for something.

"I hope not." Duo said, shaking his head as if to clear it, and getting back in the driver's seat.

"What do you mean?" Heero asked, tilting his head to watch Duo put the car in gear.

Duo smirked at him briefly and then focused on the road. "Nothing at all. Don't mind me, I'm just hungry."

Heero let himself be distracted, ignoring the passing scenery. "Yolanda's, then?"

"Ooh, Mexican. Good idea. The margaritas at Yolanda's are amazing."

"It's not even noon yet." Heero felt he had to point out.

Duo snorted. "Like that's ever stopped us before. Still… it's probably a bad habit to be in. So, today is officially Wait Until Happy Hour Day."

Heero rolled his eyes. "I don't know how much better that is."

"Baby steps, Heero. We're taking baby steps."

"Right… Duo, you just missed the turn."

"No I didn't. This is a back way so we don't have to take the frontage road."

"We're going in the wrong direction."

"It'll loop back, don't worry."

"Last time you said that, we ended up in Waco."

"Bet you lunch."

"…Deal."

Ten minutes later, they were seated in a booth eating chips and salsa.

"You know, you can stop gloating now." Heero told Duo, not looking up from his menu.

"I'm not gloating, I'm smiling. There's nothing wrong with me smiling, is there?" Duo asked innocently. "But, damn, these taste so much better, knowing you're paying for them."

"Yeah, with the money I won off you for Waco."

A waitress appeared to take their order, cutting off the banter. She flirted with Duo and he flirted harmlessly back, kicking Heero's foot under the table as he ordered. Heero kicked him back and Duo grinned. The waitress, thinking he was smiling at her, flushed happily and went off to place their orders.

"You surprised me yesterday." Heero said suddenly, startling Duo with the admission.

Duo knew Heero wasn't referring to him running around in an open field during a lightning storm. He did stupid shit like that all the time.

"You mean that I can plan ahead?"

Heero shrugged, the gesture loosely affirmative. "Yeah. But also that you want to make a career out of music."

"I want to play in bars for college kids. That's more a sign of alcoholism than a career choice."

Heero ignored the quip. "I don't care where I go, I just want to play music, but you hate everything about the Country Music industry. What I want to know is why you want to try to break into it?"

"I don't want to sell out, Heero." Duo said, suddenly serious. He paused, staring at Heero with an unbroken intensity. "I just want to bring Country's *soul* back, for people to listen to me and know it hasn't died. I want to feel the lights on me like when we play at Sweetstone." He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't care if I don't make it big. I don't really care if I make it at all. I'd be happy just playing in bars for small crowds, as long as they sing along and feel like I do when I'm flying down the highway singing 'Live Forever.'"

"We could change things." Heero said, stirring the ice around his water with the straw. "We could start something new. Something new that would bring back the old."

"We could." Duo replied, the smile in his eyes intense and focused on Heero.

"Guess I'd better get in to Tech, then."

"Guess you'd better."



Heero paused and turned when he heard Duo's voice call his name. Jogging up to him, Duo clapped a hand on his shoulder and they continued walking through the crowd of students together.

"Fucking first few weeks always fucking suck." Duo huffed, his hands yanking at the straps of his backpack. He turned his shoulders to avoid a group of girls who didn't seem to think they had to look where they were going and Heero made a low noise of agreement, stepping around a freshman who'd dropped all his books.

"Only two periods left." Heero reminded Duo.

"Oh, well. If things get too unbearable, we can always get out last year's birthday present from Meiser." Duo grinned, and pulled something out of his pocket.

Heero raised an eyebrow. "A pink highlighter? How generous."

Duo's grin widened. "Yes, it looks like a highlighter, doesn't it? It even works as a highlighter." Duo twisted the back end off, holding it in such a way that his hands covered it and only Heero could see what they hid.

It was a bowl.

"Let me guess… Walker's idea." Heero said, amused.

"Of course. And I still have a little something from Walker and Alex." Duo winked.

"A matching gift?"

"Oh yeah. I have such giving friends. See you after?"

Heero nodded, and they split into separate classrooms just before the bell rang.



The mailbox was still empty. It had been over two weeks, and the mailbox was still empty.

It was stuffed full of coupons, bills, and a few personal letters, but as far as Duo was concerned: Empty.

He stood in front of the mailbox, backpack hanging from both shoulders, hands stuffed in his pockets, staring at it blankly. A spider skittered across the piles of useless mail and stopped square in the center of the opening, as if it were staring back at him.

"It doesn't mean anything." Duo told the spider. It didn't seem convinced.

He got in his car and went for a drive.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Additional Notes:
For those of you who don't have stoner friends, a bowl is basically a pipe for smoking pot (or whatever).

"Love" by Roger Creager
"You Aren't the Best" by Charlie Robinson
"Gettin' By" and the Hill Country Rain Album by Jerry Jeff Walker
Reference to "Feels Just Like it Should" by Pat Green

Chapter 9

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