Chapter Text
00 - Cold Blue Orb
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AC 195 - 24th December
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From the observation deck of MO-II, lights left down and window shades up, the entire universe seems one velvet black room with a glowing blue orb at its center. There is nothing but dark, regardless of the window, the vacuum of space, or the bed of stars surrounding. Sitting in the windowsill, still in his flight suit, with his knees up to his chest, Heero watches the Earth as it slowly spins. The view here differs so much from that of L1. There, you could only see a small, cold blue orb in the distance, and the Moon loomed nearby. The hollow shine of the light side of the moon at one side seemed to sap the beauty out of the scene. Earth looked like a shy smear of paint at opposite, always retreating into the dark but never moving away. Here, Earth fills the center, pulling and glowing, glittering, radiating light and color. He keeps his chin tucked onto the tops of his knees and watches the earth rotate slowly beneath, like a rolling ocean. Night is falling over one edge, and the yellow and orange pinpricks of electric lights spread rapidly. Only a few hours ago, he was plummeting backwards in his suit, desperately training his bolt rifle on the falling remnants of Battleship Libra. The cockpit had nearly boiled as Wing began to reenter the atmosphere, nearly too late—then, miraculously, the sights flashed green. The bolt struck true, and, with a scream, the metal had broken up, then shattered into dust.
He’d saved the Earth, and all those glittering lights kept shining on. Many were none the wiser. Some would never know.
If he’d been more present in this moment, he’d have noted how much he stank of sweat. Or that he couldn’t recall the last time he’d eaten.
Instead, he closes his eyes and sighs. Imprinted on his eyelids are so many flashing lights, of explosions, crosshairs, tracer rounds, and fire. When these fires are out, he thinks distantly, as he starts to fall asleep on the spot, where will I go? What is there for a soldier with no war to fight?
“Champagne?”
The sound should startle him, but he’s less surprised in this strange peacetime he finds himself that Duo has snuck into the room without making a sound. He’s become used to this, in particular. Duo, flitting through the dark when it suits him, turning up without a sound.
He lifts his head and sees his comrade, standing in the dark room, light from the earth casting a pale blue glow on him, with a glass flute, a gold and red bottle, and a beige ceramic mug. When Duo sees him, the customary grin spreads across his face, and he lifts the objects and mugs playfully, offering them. “Mm?”
Heero pauses, and Duo leans to the side, observing him.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people anymore,” Heero finally says, almost smirking as he says it. He keeps his chin on his knees, so Duo can’t see, and faces back toward the window. But he’s almost too tired to move, all of a sudden. “We’re civilians now.”
Duo laughs a loud, easy laugh. “What, are you gonna turn cop on me? You can’t tell me where to lurk and not to lurk. Come on—the literal hero of the day deserves something to celebrate. And I’m going to let you off that easy,” he says and crosses the last distance by pushing off and floating in the low gravity.
He stops his momentum, hand to the window, and pushes down to sit on the windowsill, facing Heero. He puts the bottle down just between his flight boots and then holds up one cup in each hand.
“Which takes your fancy?”
Heero simply arches an eyebrow at him and pointedly looks at the coffee mug.
At least, for all his talkativeness that sometimes grates—unnecessary—on the battlefield, conversations with Duo mean the other pilot will instinctively fill the spaces Heero tends to leave empty and uncomfortably quiet and intense, whether on purpose or for lack of social skills. He’s hardly thrown by any lack of social decorum. He often groans or bemoans Heero’s general lack of tact, but he rarely takes any of that personally. Just keeps the conversation rolling, all on his own if he has to.
Duo holds up the plain coffee mug under suspicion. “What, this is fine! Why are you so critical of this lovely little cup?”
“For champagne?” Heero asks in response, still with his chin on his knees, looking up through his bangs. “Even I’m aware it’s the incorrect vessel.”
“Incorrect vessel? You might be getting just stuffy enough to become a cop, you know,” Duo leans forward, crossing his legs, and wags the cup at him comically. “I don’t like cops, you know. I like you like you are, you amazing freak, you.” At that, he promptly puts the mug down in front of himself and, in opposition to that, puts the glass flute. The difference between them seems appropriate for Duo, who, true to his twofold namesake, seems to gleam one way on the surface, while concealing another form beneath.
“Fine. You can have the fancy one. You did just save the planet. Tro and Quat have the other two. This was all I could scrounge from the galley. Glad 'Fei didn't want any. More for me and you! Plus, I don't think that guy even drinks water, let alone fancy liquor!”
He then takes the already-opened bottle and pulls the cork from it. A corner of his tongue flits out, which he bites in concentration as the cork sticks for a moment. Then it comes free with a loud, round pop. Heero notices now that there’s less than half remaining swirling about as Duo fills both the cups with what’s left, humming happily.
Heero now lifts his head and sits up. “How much have you had?” he asks.
Watching the amber-yellow pour out, the other pilot grins. He finishes pouring—then tops off Heero’s glass with the last drop for good measure. “For Heero the hero,” he says playfully, putting his arms out to the side in a wide flourish. Then, he grabs the mug and lifts it to start a toast. The non-answer indicates something very clearly about just how much he had already ingested to Heero.
He then finally unwinds from his tired pose and mimics Duo's cross-legged stance on the wide windowsill, but doesn’t yet take the filled glass by his feet.
“No? Then don’t mind if I take just a little sip before the toast!”
Duo takes a long swig from the mug and sighs in satisfaction.
“I’m not,” Heero says quietly, looking at the tiny crawling bubbles jiggling up the glass. “At least, I don’t feel like one.”
Duo pauses and lowers the mug, frowning. He pauses, suppresses a hiccup.
His giddiness seems to be only a thin varnish over something below. A tired, empty something, only shaped like the devil-may-care kid before him. “You mean—without the effort of everyone—all the things we all did, sacrificed to get here—we’d be completely fucked? That, when the guns get laid down, there's just nothin' but carnage left?”
Heero hums in affirmation, watching the bubbles pop and disappear.
The bottom of the scuffed-up mug holds Duo’s gaze for a long while.
Duo continues, after issuing a long sigh. “Yeah. It doesn’t exactly feel like we’ve won anything. Just less killing, for a while.”
Heero holds his pose, still watching Duo opposite him, in unusual silence.
When Duo notices him watching, he looks down, clearing his throat. Then they both look out the window at the glowing blue Earth.
“I dunno—maybe it’ll last, though,” Duo says, just before he downs the last of the champagne. “I want to believe peace can exist.”
Then, after another long moment in silence, something is decided. Only the sound of the ventilation, a low, white hiss, fills the room. Heero leans forward, picks up the champagne flute, and reaches for Duo with the other, open hand. Duo watches him, wide-eyed, expectant, with his mouth drooping into a confused gulp. Then Heero again arches his eyebrow, looks at the mug, and curls his fingertips in a ‘give-here’ gesture.
Duo finally catches on and hands over the mug. Then Heero pours half of his portion back into the pilfered mug and returns it.
Heero raises the quarter-full glass, straightening up. “Then let’s toast to peace,” he suggests, watching the blue glow on the window-side of Duo’s face turn his expression from low to strangely angelic as he cracks a smile. Duo hoists his own and holds it up towards Heero.
“Hey, yeah! I’ll toast to that,” Duo says, and they clink glasses, then drink.
Duo takes another large gulp from his cup, then looks up to see that Heero has, inexplicably, downed the entire flute of champagne in one go, as if it were the perfectly normal response after a toast. When he naturally nearly chokes on it, manages to swallow without losing the mouthful, and awkwardly looks up at Duo, there is a long pause—the cold, blue orb of Earth the backdrop behind—and then Duo breaks into a long, hard laugh, boisterous and almost wheezy. Heero wipes his mouth, chuckling despite himself and watching the other pilot lie back, holding his gut, and laughing some more.
There is no winning in war. But the pause feels fruitful nonetheless. Worth it, Heero thinks, as the sound of laughter fills the black of the room running seamlessly into the endless black death of space beyond.