Stolen

I walk down the empty hallway, bare feet making barely audible padding sound as I move. It is late, I'm not sure what time, but I just got up to use the bathroom. I'm feeling the strange grogginess of not quite getting enough sleep. The time of night where you wake up in a daze and feel the need to eat something, simply because it’s the worst time to do it. Now as I head back to my room, I hear music faintly coming from one of the doors. I slow as I pass it, calculating in my tired mind how far I’ve walked down the hallway and realizing it’s Maxwell’s room.

I stop, against my usual actions, and listen. I realize now that besides the music, I can hear him singing along with it. His voice is soft, so low that you wouldn’t hear it unless you were right outside the door, which I happen to be for reasons unknown to myself. Possibly from the state of mind I'm in, the state of mind of having not gotten enough sleep yet, and you want to eat simply because of the late hour.

I lean against the wall beside his door, obviously content to eavesdrop for a while. Though I wonder if it’s considered eavesdropping when the one being eavesdropped on is only singing, not divulging information, or having a conversation. I stare tiredly at the wall opposite me, shrugging to myself, an action outside of my usual attitude. In a waking mindset, I would never do something so asinine and redundant as shrugging to a thought in my own head, whether someone was around to see it or not.

I must admit I like him better this way. In daylight hours, in front of people, he’s loud, boisterous, obnoxious, joking, teasing, pestering... the list goes on. Now that he’s alone in his room at this late hour, he’s simply singing along with his music. Not loud annoying rock music, as one would expect. Not loud annoying rock music with the volume turned down. It’s... what would one call it? Soft rock? He babbles endlessly about such things, music genres, but I can’t seem to recall any of it.

I realize I can pick out the lyrics, along with the tone of his voice.

We watch the season
Pull up it’s own stakes
And catch the last weekend
Of the last week
Before the gold and the glamour have been replaced
Another sun soaked season fades away

You have stolen my heart
You have stolen my heart

Invitation only
Grant Farewells
Crash the best one
Of the best ones
Clear liquor and cloudy eyed
Too early to say goodnight

You have stolen my heart
You have stolen my heart

His voice sounds oddly choked as he sings. I know well that during the night, when you’re tired and more relaxed, there’s less of a grasp on your emotions. Maybe the song is making him sad.

Once more I try to question myself as to why I'm leaning here, no, I'm sitting now, next to his door, listening to him sing. Intruding on a personal moment, something obviously not meant to be heard. Maybe it’s because he never reveals this side of him. He is a happy person, most of the time. But when he’s not, he still acts like he is. He puts on a false front. If you strike him, he bleeds on the inside, and grins through it all.

Maybe I'm sitting here because now that I’ve been offered a peek of the pages, I'm flipping through, just enough to see a little more about what is Duo Maxwell. I'm naturally an inquisitive person, I admit. Testament to my desire to be a scholar as a child. Maybe I still will be, if I survive the war.

And from the ballroom floor
We are in celebration
One good stretch before our hibernation
Our dreams assured and we all
Will sleep well
Sleep Well

Sleep Well
Sleep Well
Sleep Well

you have stolen
you have stolen my
you have stolen my heart

Now, a curious sound. A choked combination of laughter and sadness. It is heavy in his throat, and suddenly he’s fighting for air as his singing trembles, almost as if he’s fighting back tears. Maybe he is.

Watch you spin around
In your highest heels
You are the best one
Of the best ones
We
All
Look
Like
We
Feel

It is oddly easy to picture him behind that door. It could be anyone else, easily, anyone but Maxwell. But I can see in my mind’s eye, a scrawny, no... thin boy, sitting at his desk, laptop open and playing music he shouldn’t have, being a soldier. But even though he’s a soldier, he’s also a child, so it’s not so strange. A new song starts, another soft, quiet melody. But suddenly things change. As he starts singing again, it sounds closer, and for some reason, I can picture him sitting on the floor, next to the door, right on the other side of the wall from me.

His voice is softer now, but it’s clear. He’s less than a foot away from me now, nothing separating us but a wall, mental and emotional boundaries. Neither would open the door, even though they would opt to be normal teenagers. But we’re soldiers. Soldiers don’t show weakness in war. Which is why we resign ourselves to keeping the door shut, all five of us. Behind each door lies a twisted knot of problems, memories, haunted pasts and a hell of a lot of emotional baggage.

Yuy, trained to be the ‘Perfect Soldier.’ Never to feel, never to laugh or cry.

Maxwell, orphan of L2, most likely the colony with the worst living conditions you would ever find where people are supposed to ‘live.’ God knows to what extent his past goes.

Barton, another orphan, but raised by mercenaries. Learning to keep quiet if he wanted to live, learning to be the ‘no name.’

Winner, heir to a fortune, but an odd, strangled past of test-tube sisters, now dead parents, and the sting of killing people in a war that someone like him should never have to participate in.

And me. A dead wife, a dead colony, the field of flowers gone, even after she died to protect it.

We’re all ‘royally screwed up,’ to borrow one of Maxwell’s terms. At our age, we’ve seen and done more than most people have ever seen or done in their entire lives. More than anyone should have to. It’s what you would call old eyes. We’re young on the outside, but each set of eyes, cobalt blue, indigo, forest green, aquamarine, jet black, each set has seen enough to make us ancient. Wise beyond our years, but so tainted, so corrupted.

For all my thoughts, another song has started, and I still sit and listen to him sing. I still don’t know why. Maybe to find some ounce of comfort during this time of war. Something to distract me. Somehow, maybe to share in mutual comfort. I don’t know how, but I think he knows I'm listening. And if that’s true, it’s no small sign of trust that he continues to sing.

As the last song ends, a silence fills the space between us. I hear a shuffling on the other side of the door, but I still hear his light breathing. He’s still there. The near silent whine of the laptop dies down, and I hear it fold shut with a ‘click.’ There is nothing for another few minutes. Still I sit out in the hall, despite the fact that he’s not singing anymore. Still he sits in his room, would be back to back with me if it weren’t for the wall between us. Finally, he shifts, and I hear his quiet voice. Only for me to hear.

“Goodnight, ‘Fei.”

I sit for a long moment, unsure of what to do, until finally I do what my heart tells me is right. Just this once.

“Goodnight, Maxwell.”

We both stand at the same time and walk away, him to his bed, and me back to my room. It has been an odd night, and I'm eager to go back to sleep, although I wonder if my mind will later tell me this has all been a dream. I'm not sure how to feel about that, but I think I want to remember it. Even though I know things will go back to normal tomorrow, as if this odd event never happened. It will be back to the teasing, more traded insults, more of him not taking my threats seriously, and more of me not taking him seriously.

As I get back into bed, I ignore my body’s needy whine to eat, simply because of the late hour. It’s not healthy to eat late at night.

And I still must wonder, how he knew I was sitting outside of his room.

Even more so, I must wonder why he chose to let me listen.

- - - -

It actually was three in the morning as I wrote this. Just a little introspective piece on Wufei. We always see him in his own soldier mode, hot headed, closed off, snappy. But what about at night, when he gets up for a few minutes to use the bathroom. In those few unguarded minutes, what is Chang Wufei?

And I actually got the idea for this when I was listening to music. That very song in this story, actually. I had an odd moment of laughing, and wanting to cry at the same time, while I was singing. I always get very introspective at night with my music.

And if you haven’t figured it out by now, Duo is my favorite character, closely followed by Fei. So you’ll see a lot of them when I write GWing fiction.