Author: Keiran
Title: Back Home, In Denial 1/1
Rating: 12
Genre: intended warm-and-fluffy-feeling.
Pairings: 1+2+denial
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. The following is strictly for entertainment purposes.
Archive: Gundam Wing Diaries. For the record, I have an "Ask and you shall receive" policy.
Notes: A Heero way to happily ever after.

Thanks to the Amazing Shenlong Deb, for betaing!!

xxx.XXX.xxx

The night was cold. Heero hated it with a well-disguised passion. He watched the empty landscape outside the window, his expression betraying little but the average – for him – disdain. To him the nights were always cold. No matter the continent, no matter the latitude, to him the nights were always filled with unforgiving space and ice-cold stars.

Heero especially hated this night, for the wide grin on his self-proclaimed companion's face, as he settled into the pilot's seat comfortably. He watched the confident execution of pre-flight procedures, and, being an excellent judge of military capabilities, relaxed into his seat. Or at least allowed some of the tension to dissipate. Duo was grinning again, talking to him as if he wasn't on the way to rain destruction upon his fellow human beings. His eyes shone like the stars Heero hated so damn much. But… they weren't the usual cold sparkles, not distant, or unfeeling, or uncaring.

"… I can go back home, into space," Duo had said. Why on Earth would anyone want to? Heero thought. Why in the world? He watched the other's smiling profile and wondered. Then he looked out the window and found, to his utmost surprise, that the stars didn't seem as cold anymore…

Two tumultuous years later, Heero woke up suddenly. He sat up in his bed, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead. Of all the memories he had accumulated during the wars, this one just had to remain in his head, haunting his dreams over and over again.

"Fuck you, Duo," he grumbled getting up. He chanced a look out the window and breathed in relief, seeing that the sun was already up. He felt like a run, and running under the stars was a big no. A jog before work kept his head clear all day, as long as the only visible celestial bodies were the sun and the moon.

Stretching his arms, Heero made his way to the kitchen where he chugged down two glasses of water. Putting on his beloved spandex shorts was but the work of a moment, though these days he added a sweatshirt on top of the tank top. The days were cold and there was no need to torture himself.

Making sure no one was around to watch, Heero slid down the banister. He liked this time of the day – the normal rules of conduct seemed suspended. The morning air was ice cold, sharp and fresh. It made no difference that he was living in a city this big, somehow. In the early mornings the stern Commander Yuy could slide down the banister and backflip off the stairs outside.

His jog would be deemed a run by most people, but it suited him just fine. Twenty minutes of a hearty sprint, an intensive shower and whatever the Preventers had to offer during the day would surely present little by way of problems. Or, to be exact, the problems it presented would be less like obstacles and more like logical puzzles. With paperwork, which was a bit of a downer.

Twenty minutes later Heero was hopping up the stairs and back into his flat. Shower, breakfast and he was making his way down yet again, this time sedately and with dignity the uniform demanded.

"Good morning Mr Yuy," the elderly owner of the building greeted politely, closing her own door. She was taking her dogs for a walk as usual. Heero returned her greeting and continued on his way. Before long he was in his little office, sorting through piles upon piles of cases someone deemed complicated enough to require his expertise.

Most of them were the same cases he'd stamped the day before, or very similar at least. He read them through anyway, just in case someone managed to find some originality dropped on a street. No such luck though. As usual, mundane, boring problems heaped upon problems. Most of them on L2.

Heero sighed heavily. Goddamned L2. So damn removed from the planet and still his life centred around it. If only they had an expert up there to handle all of the idiotic morons… The force stationed there was eager and talented, but inexperienced. Quite a dangerous combination. Heero looked up, trying to find inspiration on the ceiling. He looked to the left, assessing the door critically. The computer, whose desktop was adorned with starry skies over a desert. Duo had taken that photo during the first war. Heero blamed the desert on the warmth he felt every time he looked at it.

The same photo hung on his bedroom wall.

"Oh, fuck you, Duo Maxwell," he muttered and added a few words to the recommendation on one of the cases, signing with a flourish. He looked at his creation critically. L2 was troublesome. 'L2 Preventer force could use the constant presence of an experienced agent.'

At the end of the day the stack of papers, all signed, made it to Lady Une's desk. It was probably a good thing Heero wasn't able to see the small, knowing smirk forming on the Commander's mouth, as she reviewed the L2 recommendation.

Two weeks later Heero sauntered casually towards a small house in the depths of the L2 cluster. It was rather average, save for being situated in the middle of a junkyard.

"Heero!" The man turned and there was the bane of his life, in all his long-haired glory, two extra large sodas in his hands. "What the hell are you doing here? Relented finally?"

"No," Heero replied with a scowl. "I was transferred. I didn't ask for it either."

"Sure, sure. Have a soda and let yourself in." Duo handed him one of the cups as well as a bunch of keys. "I'll just give this one to Hilde, and grab one more for myself. See you in a few, we're not terribly busy today, I'm sure I can dump most of the work on Hil. We'll get you settled in, pronto!"

"I am not staying long."

"Whatever you say, boy-oh." The wide grin was infuriating. "Your room is a bit cluttered at the moment, but I'll get that fixed right away. I was planning to go for a walk outside this evening, I can grab a suit for you too." And just like that he was gone, bouncing through the junkyard gate and yelling for Hilde to get her ass down and grab the damn drink herself.

Heero stared up at the house. Space. He must have been mad to accept the transfer he thought, opening the front door and stalking through the dim corridor into his room. It was clean, despite the promised cluttering, and ready to be inhabited.

"Damn you, Duo, you assuming bastard," he said quietly, throwing the duffel onto his bed. His lips curved in a warm smile, when his eyes fell on a framed photo on the bedside table.

The door opened, followed by an enthusiastic rap of knuckles against their surface. "Hey! Welcome home, soldier-boy," the American said with a smile.

"Asshole." Duo just grinned.

xxx.XX.xxx

Heero shuddered inwardly. How Duo could voluntarily go outside the protective metal cocoon of the colony, he would never understand. The bastard seemed to enjoy it too, beaming up at the moon and the stars, in between grinning at him. At least he was silent, ignoring him in favour of the astral planes. It suited Heero just fine. The less words, the better.

"You okay?" Duo asked eventually, regarding Heero seriously through the glass of his helmet. The blue-eyed man scowled.

"I'm not exactly inexperienced, you know?"

"At spacewalking, no," Duo conceded and fell silent. "I'm glad you finally came," he added eventually.

"I've been happy on Earth, I'll have you know. I like my job and my place was really nice."

"Like I said you didn't. Please."

"I'm perfectly capable of living my life without your so-called help."

"Probably, yeah." A minute's worth of a pause. "I'm still happy you're here," he added in that very special voice, which always made Heero shudder. He hated letting the effect show, so he shot Duo a look and shut the conversation functions down. No way in hell he'd admit to being happy here, sitting on the steel plates of L2, next to the infamous God of Death, staring at the infinity of space with nothing but a flimsy suit protecting him from a cold end.

But of course Duo couldn't suck it up. "I missed you," he said quietly.

Heero grunted in reply. Missed him? Like hell he did. His life on Earth was perfectly satisfying. "I hope you're happy now," he managed eventually, trying to sound sarcastic instead of curious. Duo laughed.

"I am always happy, don't you remember?"

"Whatever." The two fell silent, staring ahead (or sideways, in Heero's case) like the sky was the most amazing sight in the universe. Perhaps it was. "Why do you like the stars so much?" Heero asked suddenly.

"What?"

"There's nothing up there that's worth watching. Billions of tons of burning helium, random chunks of rock and empty space. Unless you believe in that astrology crap, there's nothing up there worth attention," the man persisted. "So why do you spend so much time up here?" And it truly was a lot of time – Duo was on first-name basis with the staff at the gates and had his own suit and related equipment stored in the "strictly off limits to anyone but the staff paid to keep people out of here" section. It surprised Heero, who, for all his abilities and expert training, thought in terms of necessary procedures and rules.

"I find it soothing," Duo answered eventually, avoiding Heero's eyes. "Besides, it's not empty space. There's plenty of dark matter, molecules, radiation, plasma, gas, debris and a bunch of other stuff."

"It looks empty to me."

"Yeah, well. Isn't it enough that it's pretty?"

"You don't stare at things just because they're pretty."

"Dude. Is there a better reason to stare at things?" There goes that mad grin again. "You've been missing out on life."

"I don't stare at things because they're pretty."

"You're staring at me."

Obviously, it was stupid of him to hope Duo hadn't noticed. "You aren't pretty."

"Oh, now you're being mean."

"You're not pretty. Relena is pretty. You're… attractive." That he had to admit. Duo was a poster boy for attractive. "At best."

"At best!?" Duo seemed honestly shocked yet amused by the off-hand dismissal of his physical qualities.

"You're too skinny to be considered pretty by male standards."

"You ain't exactly a walking work-out ad, just so you know." Another long silence descended. "It's not empty," Duo said eventually. "It's a great big bag of shiny sparkly things. Therefore it's pretty. Therefore it's worth staring at. As for space – I just feel better without all the Gs weighting me down."

"You don't like gravity." Heero was aware how deadpan his voice sounded, but really, how does a person react to such news?

"Nope. Abhor it with a passion worthy of a better cause. I also dislike dust and the colour blue, cause everybody knows black is much more stylish." The latter was painfully obvious to everyone capable of seeing.

"You must be joking," Heero said, after a five-minute long staring contest.

"I'm dead serious."

"I'm supposed to believe that you'd rather live on colonies because you can escape gravity here?"

"Yep, that's about the size of it." A brief laugh. "It's home." The words were almost too quiet for the communicator to pick up.

"By that logic I should be on L1 now," Heero countered, turning his head. So maybe the stars were pleasant to look at. He was still damn sure he would never have come here if the idiot hadn't dragged him.

"Should you really, Heero?" the idiot asked, looking at him seriously for once.

… Damn the polycarbonate plastic, Heero thought, for ruining the moment.

As it turned out later, it would take more than a helmet and a subsequent delay to ruin the moment where Duo Maxwell was concerned.

THE END.