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"Survival"Written By: Presser Pairings : 1x2 Disclaimer : Gundam Wing characters aren't mine Rating : R Warnings : Language, and the tastefully
suggestive sex "Survival" Carved into my flesh, just to the left of my right hip bone, is an “H.Y.” How it got there is a story, indeed. + + + Panama. Hot. Humid doesn’t begin to describe how my skin felt inside my clothes. J seemed to think we’d find something there that could defeat, or at least, impair, the work of OZ. So there we were: me and The Machine, swimming through tetze flies thick as spider webs. + + + Night. Moon. Eucalyptus musk. Unknown chirrups and calls. Occasional yellow irises blinking beyond the campfire. Inside the tent, under the squito net: “You awake?” “Why?” “Just . . . “ “Go back to sleep, Duo.” “I was just thinking . . .” “Not one of your better points.” A snuff of air through the nose. “I was just thinking . . . What are you gonna do after?” “After?” “The war.” Pause. “What makes you think there’s gonna be an ‘after?’” Pause, this time, mine. “I --” “Look, Duo. We never have anything more than today. There really isn’t a past or a future, you know? There’s only right now. Right fucking now. What just happened? It’s gone. What might come? It’s as dependable as -- as -- hell, I don’t know what. It’s not dependable at all, okay? We’ve got today, right now. That’s it.” “So . . . you do what you think you have to?” “You do what your heart tells you to do. What other way of living is worth anything? You do what you know you must, what you can’t live without doing. Does anything else really matter?” “But --” “Look. The war -- it just magnifies what we all know is the truth, what we’ve all known all along. “People get confused. They get caught up in what’s happening in their lives, what she and he and them and they are doing, going, having, getting. Stuff that really doesn’t matter tops the list. ‘What’s cool?’ ‘What’s hot?’ ‘What’s new?’ “But war -- it levels everything. Only the essentials, only the essentials. “Survival, Duo. That’s what war is: survival,
the fight for it. It’s nice to think you’re fighting for
a greater good, or even for the “But, Heero. Don’t you give your life for a reason? I mean, you could’ve run. I could’ve. We didn’t have to do this.” Pause. A long one. “Heero?” “Heero? You listening?” “Look, Heero, I don’t -- I mean, I -- hell, I don’t know how to --” I snarled at myself, my stupidity. “I guess . . . I’m trying to say, that . . . if you ever . . . I mean, after . . .” A dark form jutted in front of the moonlight above me. A hand beside my head, another beside my ribs. “Heero?” Lips, hot, on mine. His chest, on mine. My arms above, around his shoulders, pulling him down. We turned, fought. Fought for survival. The war between us was -- well, an observer might have thought it was for domination. But Heero and I -- we knew better. The war between us was, indeed, for survival. But not for each of us; for US, for the “us” that was selfless. The me-you-me that wasn’t either of us, but a new person different from either of us, that included both of us. The “us” that was more than either of us would ever be without the other. Union: the opposite of war. War divides, conquers, imposes, destroys. Especially destroys. Union joins, fulfills, invites, creates. Especially creates. Heero on top of me, over me, roughly caressing, stroking,
biting, and -- and in me. Explosion. heatlightfirepinpointwhitehotpassionspillingspillingspillingovergodgodgo doverinto whiteness gone gone gone And then -- The prickly sweatmusk of him, all over me, in me. The weight of him on me. Our chests pumping oxy into the blood. And then -- “This never happened. Okay?” Ice in the heart, frozen thunder. “This never happened. YOU GOT IT?” “Y - yeah. Okay.” A sleeping bag scritched against the plastic tent bottom, against the black loam of Panama. And I -- -- and I -- + + + Morning. Eat. In silence. Pack. Hoist the pack, move out. His signature glare, same as always. Not a hint of what happened the night before. We marched quickly, fighting against the sun, against the daylight. I fought the urge to wince as we moved. Beneath my trousers, blood trickled from the flesh wound by my right hip bone: an “H.Y.” carved there by my knife while he slept. “Never happened,” huh, Heero? I’ll remember. Every fucking time I look down while dressing. I’ll remember. And I’ll survive because of it. Finis.
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