Author: FancyFigures
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, wish I did, just enjoy writing about 'em for free etc
Pairings: 1x2
Category: Romance, post-war
Warnings: Yaoi, lime
Spoilers: None
Notes: The brilliance of a meteor shower can illuminate many things - not just the night sky itself.
Feedback: If you liked it, PLEASE let me know!

Written for the Hatsukoi contest August 2004 - and especially for Jo, due to her inspiration!

A Brilliant Night Sky

Duo flung himself down on his back, crushing the tall grass beneath him. His braid swung out from behind, and fell to the ground beside him. He let out a long sigh of amazement.

"Look at it! I never saw anything so fantastic!"

Heero kept his gaze on the sky - he didn't bother looking down at his companion. It was the small hours of the morning; there were no artificial lights or other inhabitants up here on the hill; and it was pitch dark, even though it was the middle of summer time. If he'd looked down at the young man lying flat out beside him, he wouldn't have been able to see anything but the gleam of Duo's wide eyes, and the shine of his teeth as his mouth opened in its usual, easygoing grin.

And he already knew what both of those looked like.

There was a sudden streak across the sky, heralding both light and speed, and it distracted them both. Together, they watched jagged flares of fire chase after each other across the black sky, their sudden, sharp brightness illuminating the darkness above them for brief, yet beautiful moments.

Duo let out a long, low whistle. Heero shook his head, a little impatiently.

"This is an annual event, Duo. Are you telling me you've never seen the meteor shower before? In all that time you were on Earth?"

"No," sighed the man on his back. "It's a first for me, Heero. I mean, I guess I saw it, of course I did, but -" he struggled for a moment, to find the right words. "But I never saw it like this."

"Like what?" Heero still sounded irritated.

"Like - like relaxed, like at rest, like a free man!" The words spilled swiftly out of Duo, like they always did. He always had plenty to say, and he always said it, regardless of his audience. His youthful enthusiasm was one of his most prominent characteristics; it coloured everything he said and did. "Like I can take my time to enjoy it, to savour it. Like I can find a good place to view it, rather than stuck in a mobile suit or a spaceship, or a gutter, or a prison - well, like I can lie out here on soft grass that's still warm from the day just ended, and not worry about an ambush, or blowing my balls off, on a hidden mine!" His laugh was relaxed, too. Heero wanted to tell him that was enough explanation, but Duo wasn't stopping any time soon.

"Like I can watch it, knowing I've got a full belly, and a healthy body, and enough money of my own to buy a paper tomorrow, to read the accounts from all those amateur space buffs! Like I can watch, knowing that Trowa and Quatre are watching it themselves, from their high rise apartment; knowing that Wufei and Sally are watching from the airfield, toasting the wonders of the sky with their colleagues."

"You're too fanciful -" Heero started to protest.

Duo laughed more loudly now, and as if in accompaniment, there was another sudden explosion of heavenly sparks, bursting across the sky, marking the trail of a distant comet for all on Earth to see.

Heero was startled - he looked down at Duo, quickly, seeing the boy's face silhouetted in the half-light, his eyes fixed on the sky, his mouth open, and his tongue slipping out to moisten his lips. He looked like a kind of night-demon - a bright, fallen child of the comet. He was at one with the illumination.

Heero marvelled at his own fanciful thoughts, even as they consumed him.

"Look at it, Heero! It's brighter and better 'n everything here, isn't it? And it's nothing that we've done; nothing that man has done. If we believed in God, that's who we'd thank for this show, wouldn't we? Not the weather watchers; not the scientists; not the spacemen."

Heero knew that he should dismiss this conversation as whimsical nonsense. But, tonight, the words of sense were slow to his lips. "I've seen it many times, Duo. But once I knew it was just the effect of space dust trailing in the wake of a comet, I knew its scientific reason. When you've seen something once, there's no reason to find it anything different, the second - or seventh - time."

"No!" exclaimed Duo. He lifted himself up on his elbows; turned his face towards Heero's profile. It was still, and seemingly unyielding in the night air. "There are always chances for first times, Heero, you must know that! Like I said, this is the first time I've seen the meteor shower, at my leisure - the first time I've been at this stage of my life. Dammit, this is the first time I've seen it -" he paused, and Heero felt a breath of something both chill and warm in the air around him.

"The first time I've seen it with you, like this. Isn't it?" His laugh was softer now, and almost self-conscious. Heero wasn't used to a Duo in that mood; he almost didn't recognise it.

He wanted to reply; but as usual, Duo's words were first into the awkward silence.

"Can you remember the first time you saw space, Heero? The amazing sight of so many miles; so few boundaries; so few fellows to share it with. The blackness; the brightness of stars; the thrill of moving across it -"

"The fear of it," said Heero, quietly.

Duo nodded; Heero didn't need to say anything else, for he understood him perfectly. "And the first time you left a ship and walked in space; the first time of utter isolation; of total absorption within it; the first time you tried to master it for your own purposes."

"The first time I fought there -"

"Yeah. The first time we fought - and were at the mercy of our enemies; and were never sure if we would win -"

"Or if we'd even return."

There was another flare across the sky - another slender trail of bright sparks, blazing a fiery tail to the comet's orbit. The buildings in the town below the hill flashed in relief, as if there had been a sudden lightning strike. Then the soft darkness of night settled back over them.

Heero still sat upright, his back straight, his head held high on a slim, strong neck. But Duo watched as his hands fisted at his sides. It was as if he faced some internal struggle.

"It makes me remember the first time I met the guys, Heero - met you. It's always been about that - about space. About battle, and noise, and fierce, explosive light, and excitement, and fear." He sighed, and turned his head back up to the sky. "It's overwhelming, Heero. This is a first time for many things - a first time out of that context. A first time as just me. And perhaps it's the same for you. Guess you're right, though - I am being kind of fanciful..."

He fell back on the grass, watching the remaining sparkles of the previous meteor shower, falling from the sky as if to shower him with fine grains of space sand.

"Look at it again, Heero. See it in a new place, a new time. With a new lover."

Heero didn't know if he'd misheard the last words - Duo's voice had fallen to a soft murmur. His eyes were half closed, as if he thought he might doze for a while out here, comfortable enough on the soft ground. Heero looked again at the sky, following the illuminated trail of mere space dust as if it were something else - something more like the Holy Grail, than the practical demonstration of a scientific theorem.

His own eyes grew wide in the ghostly, magical light. His mouth opened very slightly.

When he next spoke, it woke Duo from his reverie. "They're brilliant lights, Duo - falling from a brilliant night sky. I've never seen it like this before - I've never seen anything like this before. The scope is huge; the brightness is spectacular. The whole display is magnificent, and its conception is beyond anything I could either imagine or understand. Is - that what you meant?"

Duo gasped slightly, with surprise. His eyes were jewel bright in the darkness; they gazed at Heero with a fierce, new concentration. "First time I've heard you be so poetic, Heero Yuy! That is exactly what I meant... but, hey, I want you to see it for yourself - not just to humour me -"

Heero turned his upper body suddenly, so that he loomed over Duo's prone figure, casting his shadow between Duo and his view of the sky. The fingers of his hand pressed against Duo's, flattening the grass blades beneath them. His voice was low, but very intense. "Dammit, Duo Maxwell, you are always talking, talking, and never listening!"

"Huh?"

"Everything you do, you do with wholeheartedness, and commitment, and no-one can ever mistake your involvement! I'm used to your enthusiasm, your passion, your fervour - I've fought with it, I've lived with it - I've scorned it, I suppose, many times. And I've let it lead me to many places that I never thought I wanted to go. But this is the first time I've ever seen you awed by anything -"

Duo opened his mouth, either to express his surprise, or to fire off a protest - then Heero leant further down over him, and kissed his parted lips. Firmly - and thoroughly.

There was quite a time, then, with no words between them. The flares exploded joyously and vibrantly above them, searing across the night sky. But the two young men clung to each other, bodies pressed together tightly on the grass, the ground warm from their own heat now, and they continued to kiss; just as joyously, and just as vibrantly.

Heero broke finally, because he felt the need to breathe. His lips felt numb; his tongue was almost sore from its battling inside Duo's eager mouth.

"And that's the first time I've ever been able to shut you up, Maxwell -"

"Uhh - "groaned Duo, in a plain admission of that truth.

"- for long enough to show you how I feel!"

Duo's hand was tight on his upper arm, and he was tugged back down to resume the assault. The night air was cooling around them, but they didn't feel it on their bodies. Heero teased his arms round Duo, under his torso, running down to grasp his hips; Duo snaked an arm around Heero's neck, to clutch him nearer and tighter, his breath panting and his tongue thrusting fiercely into the warm, erotic sanctuary of Heero's mouth.

A flash of meteoric lights speared across the sky above them. Heero saw the reflection in the dark, swirling depths of Duo's pupils.

"First time you've seen it like this -" panted Duo, echoing Heero's words.

"First time I've seen you like this," moaned Heero, in reply. His hands were tucked inside Duo's waistband - he seemed desperate to test the scientific theorem of the zip on Duo's jeans. Duo, rather than pushing him off, appeared to be a willing lab assistant, spreading his legs around Heero's body. "First time I've seen you properly!"

There was more silence, and more kissing, though it was punctuated by moans and the occasional grunt; once, with a yelp from Duo, as Heero's hand slipped triumphantly down inside the front of his jeans.

"Duo -" Heero sounded breathless - which he was. "I'm - I want this, Duo. I want you."

Duo lay back on the ruined grass, his lips plump, and well-used, and shining in the dark; his chest heaving with his own need and excitement. "I've wanted you, Heero Yuy, for as long as I've been buggin' you! It just took you so long to notice me like this. Damn, I thought perhaps you never would..."

"We'll miss the meteor shower -" gasped Heero, his hand pausing in its investigation.

"I'm seeing stars of my own," muttered Duo. He grabbed at Heero's hand - guided it back on its track.

"That's so damned corny!" Heero sounded disappointed. "Is everything always a joke to you -?"

"No!" Duo protested again, and for a second, they both paused, searching for words to explain the sudden shift in their relationship. "Not this, Heero..." Duo saw Heero's lower lip shining with the saliva from their shared kisses, with an ethereal illumination of its own. His knees were drawn up either side of the other man's hips; he sheltered Heero's crouched body within his own. The night air was calm around them, though he heard the rustle of a bird's disturbance in the bushes; the soft crackle of leaves shifting on nearby trees.

"Those places I took you, Heero - those places you never thought you wanted to go..."

Heero's murmur was warm on the skin of his neck, as he leant in to him again. "Perhaps I was just too cautious, Duo. When you did take me, I found that I wanted to be there, after all. It wasn't always just a place, you see - it was often a feeling, too. Everything you showed me, it was like that; everything you live by, yourself, you shared. We're so different, I thought. But now I see that everything is different, when I'm with you."

Duo tightened his legs around Heero; opened his mouth for more attention. Heero's invading hand was warm and confident inside his clothing, and he felt the sudden rush of desire, sweeping along the full length of his young, strong limbs, leaving goose bumps along its path.

"Is this a first time too, Duo?" murmured Heero, a slight smile curving his mouth. "Making out in the open air? Maybe it is..."

Duo scoffed, softly. "Maybe not! You think I'm some innocent? When I've passed through space, and fought historic battles, and lain on crushed grass, watching meteor showers -"

Heero was still smiling, but now he was searching Duo's face, trying to read his mood; trying to understand why he felt as he did. There was confusion in Heero's expression, but there was also desire, and delight, and a brave vulnerability. Duo saw it all; he wanted to treasure all those feelings; he was humbled that he was being given the chance.

"But this is a first time," he whispered back. He put his hand to Heero's cheek; drew his mouth back down on to his. "This is the very first time I've ever said this to anyone, Heero Yuy; the first time I've asked for this from someone; the first time I've felt this way..."

His lips murmured words of nonsense and need into Heero's welcoming mouth. Their eyes sparkled; their arms tightened around each other. Another burst of light in the sky lit up their bodies, twisted and melded together. The bushes rustled again; the leaves whispered. The illumination of space hid their blushes, and the gentle noises around them hid the words that they muttered and gasped to each other. But that was fitting, because they were private words, and private matters, albeit in a public place.

The comet blazed its trail; the meteors flared, and sprayed their sparks across the heavens. The sky was brilliant with everything that lit up the night; and below it were laughs, and gasps, and hot, smooth skin. Clumsy fingers; hungry lips; delighted nerves. Thrilled discovery, and sudden, sharp, blazing ecstasy.

Private matters. A vulnerability in both of them that was raw, and new, and never more exciting.

A first love.

Under a brilliant night sky.

End

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