Title: Twenty Years
Characters/pairing: Heero Yuy/Duo Maxwell
Warnings: AU, written in a blind panic with the clock ticking closer to midnight
Notes: Written for Stage 5: Commitment, for stagesoflove

Duo let out a sound of frustration. "These things never work right!" He should have known by now. He'd made a souvenir coin a long time ago, when the entire fourth grade class had gone on a field trip and he'd stuffed the machine full of quarters in order to get a personalized coin with his name and birthday on it.

He'd told himself then he was stupid for assuming the letter hadn't printed, just because it looked like that way. All his friends had double letters in their coins, and so did he.

So did the coin he was creating now.

"Shut up," he said before Heero could say a word. "I know."

He wasn't even sure he knew what was so special about these coins. The ones Heero had gotten - the ones where you fed in a penny and some quarters and it rolled the penny into an oval - at least those were trinkets that you could look at in a year and remember where you'd gotten it from.

Heero handed Duo his overnight bag and they left the airport.

It was late by the time they got back to Heero's apartment. Sally had been good enough to pick them up after their weekend trip and Duo hadn't realized how tired he was now that he was sitting down again until the car stopped moving and the interior light went on. He blinked open his eyes and felt Heero's unshaved cheek against his chin. It appeared he wasn't the only one who had dozed on the way here.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Sally whispered to Duo as she handed him Heero's keys. "I'm taking my car over to a friends for the night."

Heero was leaning on him heavily and when Duo got the door open, they just threw their luggage to the side and stumbled to the couch, kicking off their shoes and falling onto the cushions.

It felt nice, Heero's head on his shoulder, and just when he was on the verge of falling asleep again, Heero got up.

"Heero?"

Heero got up and stretched, yawning loudly as he did. "Bathroom," he mumbled. He flicked his gaze to Duo's and suddenly didn't look very tired at all. "Bedroom?"

There had been two beds in their hotel room, and both of them had been used. Duo wasn't sure he was ready for anything more at this stage of the game, but he had just spent a weekend with Heero, and appearances aside, they were both too tired to do anything.

He was too tired to even take off his pants.

He nodded and followed Heero down the hall, where he waited for Heero to use the bathroom first and decided better to go now than have to wake up in a couple hours to take a piss.

It always happened during the best parts of his dreams, too.

When he joined Heero in the bedroom, he found he wasn't too tired to be nervous. Heero had changed out of his jeans and into a pair of sweatpants, and he was playing with something in one hand.

Duo went to the other side of the bed and sat down. "Coming?"

Heero nodded and joined him on the bed where he leaned close. "You've got something behind your ear," he said, and he reached behind to display a brassy colored coin. He handed it to Duo, plopped down on his pillow, and closed his eyes.

"What's this?" Duo asked. He turned it over. HEEERO YUUY -MARCH2 9

Duo laughed. "How long have you had this thing?"

"Dunno," Heero mumbled. "Twenty years?"

It seemed about right. Duo rubbed at the worn letters with his thumb and put the coin in his pocket with the one he'd made at the airport. It wasn't the first time he'd had to sleep in his clothes. He stretched out on the bed next to Heero and reached over him to turn off the lamp, giving him a short but sloppy kiss on the cheek.

Heero grunted in annoyance, but Duo hadn't turned off the lamp before he saw the corners of his lip turn up.

Duo patted the coins in his pocket. Twenty years.

It sounded like a plan to him.