Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sitting at an outdoor cafe, looking out at the sea over Miriallia Haww's shoulder and grasping for any small talk, all Athrun can think of is how much he wants to see Kira again. That's hard enough as it is, but if he thinks about much else, he fears the swell of everything he's been feeling lately will up and sweep him away, and he has his dignity to maintain, while he's out in public and trying to ask a rather tall favor of a young woman who doesn't exactly owe him any.

But so many things have changed just in the last few months since they last saw each other, and that's why he has to see Kira, now, face to face. That's why it's imperative, he has to ask—

"Can we talk?"

It started with something as simple as that, three soft words of Kira's swallowed up by the hum of the Archangel around them. Neither could deny that they had much to talk about. Years to catch up on. Years to reconcile. Years of disorientation and misunderstanding when the war had come between them, and never asked their opinion.

Months of conflicting feelings Athrun hardly understood himself, let alone ever wanted. Grief and love and anger, burning anger and need and loss so strong it hurt, and the hatred and the vengefulness he didn't want to feel but couldn't ignore, and the agony of betrayal and shame, and a guilt that somehow no amount of forgiveness would ever assuage, and the times when everything just seemed so pointless, and those terrifying moments he couldn't feel anything at all. . . .

How was it possible for all of that to exist in one person at once, or for such a person to be broken so many times and still somehow remain whole?

But there was something in the desperate searching of Kira's eyes that made Athrun wonder if he had ever been as alone in his feelings as he had thought.

The image of Bloody Valentine's remains is still a fresh specter in Athrun's mind and he has to exorcise it. Like something unreal, a nightmare he hasn't quite shaken off, only it wasn't a dream. It was real.

"Kira," he says in the driveway where they are parked, as he grips the steering wheel in both hands, "remember what I asked you, that time we were both here on Orb?"

A barely perceptible affirmation comes from the passenger seat beside him, and he doesn't have to turn to know Kira's eyes are on him.

"I asked, what should we really be fighting against, and how are we supposed to do it? And you said we'd look for the answer to that question . . ."

Athrun almost breathes the word, as though in relief:

"Together."

He can see Kira's lips forming it in his mind even now, around a smile that shone in his eyes. With such hope. . . .

Is it possible to still have any?

"But . . ." Athrun sighs. "I still haven't found the answer."

A sinking feeling comes over him as he remembers that time, when they were so much younger—only a little over a year younger really, but he feels how much they've changed since then, how little anything has changed. Those wounds have not yet healed. Maybe they never will. Like a broken bone not set quite right, Athrun carries around that emotional limp, what remains of who he was during the war. What remains of his broken ties with his late father. The feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and the guilt he had managed to ignore for so many months. . . .

He didn't bury them deep enough.

He folds his arms over the steering wheel and grips it in his hands, then leans his forehead against his crossed arms. He is no longer in space, inside that monster that was GENESIS, watching his father cling to his arrogance just as tightly as ever as he died. And he is not yet, once again, a soldier and a slave to ZAFT. The feeling of claustrophobia passes, sung away by the cry of gulls on the updrafts, and the sound of the ocean below the cliffs.

And by Kira's touch as he reaches out to put a hand on Athrun's shoulder. For a moment it disorients Athrun, who can remember a time not that long ago when it had been his place to comfort Kira like this—a long time ago before any talk of war.

They've changed so much since then, but it feels to him like Kira has matured more than he.

Athrun wants to lean into that touch so much, but the open top of the convertible leaves them exposed on the blacktop to the windows of the building on the bluff, so he doesn't. He can only bring himself to close his eyes and tilt his head in Kira's direction, and appreciate how far he is from his friend's embrace.

"Why don't you come inside," Kira says as though reading his mind, and squeezes Athrun's shoulder. "I can get you something to drink."

"Sure."

"Let's go to my room. We can have privacy there," Kira said, and for a moment Athrun was transported back to the dormitory of a prep school that smelled like the fabric softener in Kira's clothes—or maybe he just remembered it that way because of Kira. The open window in Kira's room and the warm, clean air of Copernicus, and the rough yarn weave of the afghan sent from Kira's mother, that had kept Athrun's shameful thoughts secret from his best friend when they'd huddled together beneath it on those lonely nights away from home.

Athrun nodded and followed down the corridor that smelled like recycled air and sterile plastic surfaces, swept along by his body's momentum.

They stopped before a door in an empty hallway that Kira did not open. Instead he murmured something to Athrun that made him avoid Kira's eyes and lean against the wall like a timid schoolboy. But he did not back away or do anything to stop the inevitable when Kira's hand touched his arm, just lifted his face to meet the kiss he had somehow known was coming, and could never have predicted. There was an urgency in that hand on his sleeve, gentle as it was. Gentle as were the lips pressing chastely against his.

Athrun raised his hand but found himself suddenly hesitant to touch Kira's face. Afraid he would find this Kira no more than a dream, and when he woke it would be back on the Vesalius, the last months just a long nightmare he was destined to live over and over again. If it turned out the soft hair under his fingers, or the familiar hand begging permission to land on his waist, were not real, Athrun thought he might just give up altogether.

But then Kira, who had to pull himself away deliberately, grasped Athrun's wrist as he opened the door, leading him into the dark within his room, and that grasp was very real.

Kira doesn't get Athrun a drink.

He doesn't take Athrun through any part of the house where they might run into someone and have to explain Athrun's presence, answer to the usual niceties. The children are gone; they're out on the beach with Lacus; and they don't care who sees the strange car parked in the drive as long as no one interferes. They don't have that kind of time. So Kira takes him directly to his room and locks the door behind them, and Athrun does not argue. He was never really thirsty to begin with.

Once inside the dim of the room, an awkward raking of fingers through hair, a nervous sigh, and before Athrun can think of anything stupid to say Kira's arms are around his shoulders. Like someone who has never known cold until plunged into warmth, Athrun only understands upon contact just how much he has yearned to hold Kira like this again, and be held by him. He leans into his friend's embrace, swallows his pride and wraps his own arms about Kira's waist, stroking his spine, and if he had a choice he would have been content to stand forever just like that, in that space where nothing could ever tear them apart again.

But he hears Kira exhaling deep at his ear, feels Kira's hot breath tickle his neck, and the desire that shamed Athrun in prep school begins to reawaken in his body.

He is not ashamed now. He murmurs in Kira's ear, "I want to forget," just as Kira had in his that first time in the Archangel hallway that made him blush. "Where I've just been. . . . Junius Seven. . . . God, Kira, all of it. . . . Just for a little while."

Kira pulls his head back so that he might see the expression on his friend's face, as though to judge his sincerity from it. He must trust what he finds in those green eyes for he grabs hold of Athrun's jacket just below the collar, and tilts his head to meet Athrun's lips in a simple kiss.

It didn't stay simple for long. Nothing with Kira ever could.

Athrun probably should have predicted it, that they wouldn't talk. They didn't even turn on a light. There was too much to say that none of the words seemed right, there was no place to start. I'm sorry, he wanted to say, for all of it, but it just didn't seem sufficient so no words came out, and Athrun just pressed his lips harder to Kira's and let them speak that way.

He just clung tighter to Kira, to his face leaned by adolescence and the war and to his soft, soft hair, never letting go. Kira's fingernails grazed Athrun's scalp, tracing patterns in the back of his neck that made Athrun shiver down to his inseam, made his heels rise off the floor in the mild gravity.

And Kira was pressing against him as though the slightest gap would drive them apart, as though someone might come and steal his hard-won Athrun away from out of that darkness, out of the paltry glow of the digital clock that made them both so pale. The numbers sparkled in Kira's heavy eyes, like night light on the ocean, when one can't even make out the horizon where the stars melt into the breakers. Inseparable, like their two trembling bodies, and the weight of Kira against him was indistinguishable from the pressure rising within.

The smell of the ocean is in Kira's clothes and hair. Athrun can taste it salty-sweet on his skin wherever he lays his lips: Kira's warm mouth, the curve of his jaw, the softness of his throat below his ear where his pulse jumps and races, and back to his mouth, mashing against Athrun's so hard it makes their teeth ache.

He's shrugging out of his jacket while Kira tugs at Athrun's belt and the snaps of his shirt collar, and cursing Kira for just having to wear something with so many goddamn buckles today of all days. But even before Athrun gets the bloody thing off he can still feel the warmth of Kira's stomach beneath his thin red shirt pressing against him with each hitch of breath, can still glance down and catch the tantalizing glistening of sweat in the hollow of Kira's throat as he lowers his eyes to help Athrun along. The violet of his eyes is so dark beneath his lashes with a desire Kira can barely contain, it makes his fingers tremble as they fumble against Athrun's on the buckles. It would almost be funny if it weren't so frustrating, and neither has any desire to laugh anyway.

"Okay," Kira mutters so quiet and matter-of-factly against Athrun's mouth Athrun can't be sure he imagined it, but the jacket comes off after a few tugs of the cuffs, then the red shirt with it. And Athrun can't even wait for Kira to lower his arms, he's running his hands up Kira's sides, over the ridges of his ribcage, his lips tracing the sinews in Kira's throat, making Kira suck in his breath while he's still tangled in the shirt over his head.

But turn-around is fair play. And as soon as he's free, Kira starts pulling up the hem of Athrun's shirt, so that Athrun has to break that deep and wonderful kiss they'd locked themselves into in order to duck out of it.

It's only a few steps back to the edge of the bed. When he sits down, Kira leans forward to join him, but Athrun stops him with a hand against his belly, a hastily uttered, "Wait."

Kira does as told, but his breath quickens audibly above Athrun even before Athrun's fingers move to undo the fly of his low-slung trousers. Those fingers can't work fast enough for either of them.

They stumbled onto the bed, Kira falling awkwardly atop him, and Athrun couldn't keep pretending this was anything but what it was. He had a hard-on for his best friend, and it was like the accumulation of years—just like all those lonely nights aboard the Vesalius, when he could pretend the thrum of the ship's engines vibrating up through his headboard was Kira's heartbeat echoing in time with every flick of the wrist. Except this was real, and it was Kira's knee between his legs, dipping the mattress between them, Kira's mouth desperately seeking out his with that wet moan, with that awkward bite of Athrun's lower lip that made him gasp and grab at the sheets like a lifeline.

Like he was falling through space.

Kira's name was on his tongue, interspersed with that of God, as though in an unconscious prayer of thanks for this reunion—this introduction, really, because this Kira, though familiar, was new to Athrun, grown up and filled out and somehow so much more beautiful after all this tragedy than the last time they had lain anything even close to this as boys. And when Kira's fingers reached up to undo the first few buttons of his own jacket, it was all Athrun could do not to help tear him out of it.

He couldn't be sure when he lost his own, only when Kira pulled the T-shirt over his head, because they had to break apart long enough to do it. The hair tickled him as it fell back into his eyes, but Athrun didn't care. He could see Kira with his hands as they glided under his friend's shirt, mapping every nuance, every new feature of his body like blind cartographers. The erratic fluttering of Kira's stomach muscles, the sudden stiffness of his nipples beneath the pads of Athrun's fingertips, that made Kira's breath hitch and a cry catch in his throat in the most helpless way it drew a sympathetic whimper from Athrun.

But it was all still a long way from third base; and when Kira's hand slipped inside the front of his trousers, the force of the reaction it caused in Athrun's body rattled his teeth, he bit down so hard to keep the floodgates closed.

"Did I hurt you?" Kira whispered in his ear, and it sounded even then like he was already crying. That hand retreated, tantalized, and stroked the ridge of his pelvis, acclimating Athrun to its weight, its warmth.

But Athrun shook his head, breathless.

He was afraid to speak, afraid that if he let go he'd lose himself in the flood, drown in it, like he always felt he'd drown in the tall grass outside that school on the Moon where they used to go, back when everything was so much easier, lying next to each other and his senses were full of Kira. But, God, how Athrun wanted to let go. Just not yet. "No," he managed to breathe. "Don't stop."

"Athrun. . . ."

The familiar sound of a zipper roused Athrun back to the present and the dark Archangel cabin, and he raised his eyes to see Kira's fingers busy with his fly, to see Kira watching him with dark eyes and wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. "Will you touch me?" he whispered, like he was ashamed of the sound the vowels made.

Like he was ashamed of what they were doing, but Athrun knew that couldn't be farther from the truth.

He choked on his Yes, so he just swallowed and nodded, and surprised himself that he wasn't at all shy about holding Kira in his hands, stroking him and making him gasp so that he had to sit down, and Athrun rolled onto his side to face him. The sheets felt cold against his bare backside and Athrun drew in a ragged breath against Kira's shoulder, while Kira's rolling into his hand, his fingers running through Athrun's hair for a little while made Athrun forget himself.

Those fingers pull upward in a sudden hiss of breath when he takes Kira into his mouth, but Athrun doesn't complain. He takes it as gratitude, as guidance, that upward tug, as he lets Kira's cock slide like velvet over his lips and tongue and, God, the taste of him. . . .

Athrun's eyes drift closed as he relishes this, as he searches for an elusive trace of memory. The detergent on Kira's clothes is different here, now, from what he remembers, but the scent of Kira himself, caught on his hair when they slept under the same blanket as boys, on the soft skin of the underside of his wrist that Athrun always longed to press his lips to, it's here, the signature of everything he is on the back of Athrun's tongue, in his nostrils as he breathes in deep through his nose.

Kira moans and rocks forward—gently; he doesn't want to overwhelm Athrun, never has. His ass is so small in Athrun's hands, and that's one thing that hasn't changed a bit. It almost makes Athrun want to laugh, if not for the serious shiver he catches running down Kira's spine.

"Ah—Athrun. . . ." Kira breathes—doesn't have the willpower to ask outright if Athrun's ready yet, because if he keeps going like this Kira doesn't know how much longer he can hold back.

Athrun couldn't stand it any more. Feeling like he would burst if he kept it in any longer, he pulled himself away from Kira's lips to speak, but even then the words didn't want to come out and Kira didn't want to let him go.

"Kira," Athrun mumbled against his friend's mouth, breathing in his breath, "I've been thinking about it and . . . I want to . . . Well, I want you to . . ."

Something in his tone of voice and Kira's eyes went wide with concern. He pushed himself up on one elbow. "What?"

The way he stared just made Athrun feel all the more awkward. Here he thought he had become so jaded from all the blood and the fires they'd walked through, and yet his cheeks were hot and he had to turn his eyes in order to say it. "I wanna feel you, Kira . . . you know. . . . In me. . . ."

"Oh."

It took another moment before what he was saying fully sank in. "Oh!"

"Just fuck me, Kira," Athrun sighs. "That's all I want right now."

Kira doesn't show it as he sinks down onto the bed, but he hates it when Athrun talks like that. It's not so much the language, it's the desperation he can't stand—like Athrun's just so sick and tired of living their brand of life, that kind of desperate—even if it's the same desperation Kira feels inside himself. Like they would just lose themselves in one another if it were possible, just fade away from the rest of the world and all the obligations it heaps on them, all the expectations, the self-righteousness that gets under their skin like a drug. All the awful things they've done that people who just don't know, who shouldn't even be talking, call duty, and honor. Heroism. For being a sanctified, glorified killer.

It's because Kira knows how Athrun feels, how he escapes inside himself, how he uses every thrust to forget, to pound out the unpleasant memories one by one until those carefree days on the Moon, before Bloody Valentine, before Chairman Zala and Nicol and GENESIS, are all he can think about, if even that. . . . That's why Kira doesn't want to hear it. Not from Athrun.

That's why Kira can't condone Athrun's plan of escape: He's too good a person. But he can't bring himself to deny his friend what he wants either—what Kira wants himself, as the hitch in his breath against Athrun's lips that have found his again proves, and his slight, anticipatory trembling between Athrun's knees that make the mattress dip under them as Athrun straddles his hips. Like Kira's going into battle again. He doesn't want the responsibility, his gasp says. He's given up fighting and killing, and he doesn't want to be responsible for breaking Athrun apart.

But the thing is, he's not. And sometimes it gets so bad the pain that shoots up Athrun's spine when Kira's pressing inside him is the only thing keeping Athrun together.

"Shit," Kira swore through gritted teeth, and Athrun would have seconded that observation if he weren't trying so hard not to breathe. It's just that it wasn't what he expected. Kira said he'd found something in the cabinet to help but Athrun couldn't tell in the dark, and he might as well have been dry for all the good it did. It felt like Kira would tear him apart.

Athrun yanked the pillow out from under his head and shoved it under his backside, hissing in a breath at the utterly alien feel of another person inside his body, another heartbeat pounding inside him. It hurt a little more than he expected, but not nearly as much as he deserved.

"I'm sorry," Kira said. "But you're just so much tighter—"

"And I . . . thought it was obvious . . . I hadn't done this before." Athrun's words came out in gasps, and he gripped the pillow so tight he swore his fingertips met through the padding. But he forced himself to relax, to concentrate on the agony of Kira filling him. His best friend, his worst enemy, the one he always loved even before he knew what all that meant. The one it was hardest to forgive.

The one he was saddest to see go.

This was not hell, this pain. They had been through that together and come out of it so far—forged all the stronger for it or damaged beyond repair, Athrun could no longer tell. Either way, this he could deal with.

Nor could he complain, not really—he really wasn't as impatient as he sounded—because Kira was so gentle no matter how much it hurt. Athrun had been labeled a traitor by his own people and shot by his own father—he wasn't sure that wound, though just a red scar now, would ever heal—and he certainly didn't belong among these Naturals whose dirty looks said they all knew exactly what he'd done, who he'd killed.

And here was Kira, naked and unashamed between Athrun's thighs, leaning on one shaking arm above him, the sweat glistening on his stomach that was clenching from his trying so hard not to push in all at once, he was so heavy inside Athrun as it was, and still he had the clarity and the compassion in those unblinking violet eyes to ask, through Athrun's choked whimpers, "Is this any better?"

Oh, God, yes. So much better.

Athrun's mouth slips from Kira's as he lets out a deep, shuddering breath. He sits back, his eyes dark and distant beneath his lashes and knitted brows in retreat, in concentration on the singular feeling of Kira hitting that one spot deep inside him again and again, harder, his fingertips white they're pressed into Athrun's thighs so hard.

Tears sprang to Athrun's eyes. He could feel them, rolling hot and wet down his temples, gathering in the back of his throat. He just prayed Kira wouldn't see them, as he pulled Kira down and wrapped his arms tight around his shoulders.

It wasn't that Athrun was ashamed of Kira seeing him this way. He just didn't want him to stop.

It still hurt—God, did it ever—but he had to have it, no matter how sore it left him. He had to have some lasting trace of this affection because he just didn't know when he'd have Kira here with him like this again, if ever, because it would be so easy for something to happen to one of them next time they went out into space, his father was still out there waging this war, escalating it, and even if all Athrun had left were bruises at least it was proof that Kira had existed—that they had done this, if only just once. . . .

Kira's knees slipped on the sheet and so did Athrun's heels on the backs of his legs, but at least he had Kira in his arms, under his bloodless fingers—like Strike wrapped in his Aegis what seemed like eons ago, counting down the milliseconds to self-destruct, and in all the time since then Athrun hadn't been able to stop thinking, what if he had tried just a little harder? Had Kira recognized that evening when they met finally as allies that if Athrun had seemed angry then it was mostly at himself—only at the understanding that if they had not by some stroke of dumb luck cheated fate, he would have murdered his only friend?

He stifled a cry in Kira's shoulder, and Kira whispered against his ear like they weren't in this situation, like he wasn't thinking the exact same thing, like Athrun had just fallen on his ass on the athletics field or anything more innocent than this, his voice so impossibly, undeservedly forgiving it chased away all those morbid images of what could have been, "You all right?"

Athrun could only nod against his hair, swallow hard, and tighten his grip. He wasn't going to lose Kira. Not now. Not after all they had to go through to get here. . . .

"Then just let go," Kira said, "It's okay," and Athrun could hear his smile in it. He could feel his own heart breaking. Again.

He just doesn't want this to stop.

Because if he comes, it means this will all be over, that he'll have to go back and play politics, play tin soldier in a war he didn't start, hell, he didn't even want it, but some crazy, genocidal fuck who lost his daughter in Bloody Valentine—just like you lost your mother, Athrun reminds himself—had to go and drag his father into it, just couldn't let him stay buried, no, just had to remind Athrun that he's got blood in this, he's in it for the long haul, and is it so wrong that sometimes he just wishes someone would either take him out or just send him the hell home. . . .

What home? To Cagalli's side, or her brother's heat buried inside him, and his mouth, oh God, his breath so hot on Athrun's shoulder? Because he doesn't know anymore, just knows he can't have both and he can't stop time, he can't do this forever, can't hold back forever, but damn it all he just got here, and—

"It's okay," Kira's telling him, and as he says so tears are rolling down his own cheeks.

Athrun had been chewing his lip raw, but he didn't even feel it, just that vague taste of copper on his tongue, and through it all Kira's scent, in his sweat, burning itself into Athrun's memory, on his breath, his kisses against Athrun's ear as he came inside Athrun, hot and steady, with the most carnal whimper, breathing Athrun's name like the most intimate confession, and then he was holding Athrun so tight as they rocked together Athrun felt he might have broken if he weren't coming himself, all at disorientingly once like a full glass knocked over, and gripping Kira so tight because if he didn't he might drown.

But he only wishes it were so easy, to just let the flood waters of everything they've been through, everything they've done just wash over his head. It's just that Kira won't let him. He's the only thing holding Athrun up.

"Oh, Kira . . ." Athrun growls under each catch of breath, shuddering with the release and just wishing he could pass out or his heart would just stop from beating this fast because, "dammit, Kira. . . ."

He doesn't deserve this much.

He didn't deserve the cool fingers brushing the sweat-dampened hair out of his eyes, and tracing the lines of his tears down the side of his face. And Kira, compassionate Kira, wouldn't acknowledge their existence out loud even though he must have felt their wetness on his fingers before he pillowed his head on Athrun's shoulder.

It was all Athrun could do not to hate him—hate him for taking him in after all the dogfights, the deaths, the mutual murder attempts, all because Kira needed Athrun so much more than all that. And for growing up so much more than him since the last time they were able to say their good-byes to one another as innocents.

If innocents they had ever been.

And he hated Kira so much it hurt for letting him go in the first place, for just standing there holding that stupid bird—that damn bird Athrun had spent so many sleepless nights on just so he could see that smile on Kira's face when it landed in his palm—when Kira must have known he might as well have been holding Athrun's heart. He must have known, there was no way he could not have known, that Athrun loved him so much.

But, damn it all, neither of them ever wanted to be a soldier.

Because there was a time, just for a moment, back before the war or Bloody Valentine or GENESIS, when Athrun's biggest concern was being thankful Kira was behind him. The way he lay, curled up tight on top of the afghan with his arms around Athrun's middle, his cheek pressed against the thick weave of Athrun's school uniform jacket and knees fitting the inside of Athrun's, Kira could not see what effect his proximity had on his friend.

Did he even know how great it felt—and how much harder he was making this on Athrun because of it?

Meanwhile the cherry blossoms rained down outside the window, white against the perfect blue of the sky in Copernicus, and utterly indifferent to Athrun's suffering.

"I wish you didn't have to leave," Kira said softly next to his ear.

The sincerity in his voice only worsened Athrun's guilt.

"So do I," Athrun says, pulling his shirt back over his head as he sits on the far edge of the mattress.

Conscious that at his back, facing the other way, Kira is picking his trousers off the floor, putting them on one leg at a time. And conscious that, unless he makes his escape soon for the highway and the wind off the sea blowing through the car, the sweat-darkened roots at their temples or the scent of one on the other's skin might give them away.

But the truth is, Athrun never wants to leave.

He doesn't want to think about the drive back to the city, or pretending like what happened didn't to Kira's sister. Doesn't want to think about returning to the PLANTs—because he knows that's where he's going, either tomorrow or the next day, and they both know what will happen then. But Athrun doesn't have a choice. That's the path this cursed destiny of his has chosen for him.

Of course, if he said that out loud, Kira would tell him he's wrong. He'd tell Athrun he has a choice. He'd deny that they could ever meet as enemies on the battlefield again, not after what's already happened.

And maybe, in some way, that's just as hard to face.

But that's all he's been able to think of lately, the what-ifs, the where-did-I-go-wrongs. The things-I-should-have-saids. It's always so easy to see the mistakes others make, especially the person closest to you.

The person you find yourself forgiving even when he hurts you, when he kills the ones you love—or maybe just feel bad about not loving as much as they deserved—when he just ends up making everything so much more goddamned complicated than it already needs to be.

The person it hurts the most to take shit from, even when you know he's right.

Because you know he's right, and just once you think it would be so much easier if he were dead wrong.

He has so many things to say to Kira when he sees him, and yet none of that really matters right now as Athrun looks out at the sea. All of that will come later, he knows, but right now all he can bear to think of is how great it will be to simply look into Kira's eyes and read all the love that is in his soul in them no matter what Athrun says, no matter how bad he fucks up, and to simply see his smiling face again.

Even though somehow he knows it's a little late for that.

Athrun always has that fear that maybe this time the schism between them will be so great—like the accumulation of years—it can't be bridged, can't be mended, but this time he really doubts it's possible.

Because no matter how many times they do this, the wounds he sustains will always heal. The evidence will just wash away when they're done, and the pleasure will have faded long before either of them would have liked it to. You don't get do-overs in life, Athrun understands this, and what they had was about as close as they were going to get.

But there was a time, just for a moment in the darkness of Kira's quarters aboard the Archangel, when—finally—they were on the same side, nobody's side, and they knew everything was going to turn out all right, no matter what happened now.

And there wasn't anything that needed to be said, because there weren't any words that could fix what was already broken. They'd only ruin what little they had left.