Author: hostilecrayon
Pairing: 1x2
Rating: PG
Warnings: Sap
Disclaimer: I love to poke and prod the GW boys, but that doesn't mean I own them. Gundam Wing is owned by Hajime Yatate and Yoshiyuki Tomino.
Notes: I couldn't leave it hanging all emo like that. I had way too much of an urge to write the next part. Plus, I want to try to catch up on some of the gw500 prompts I've missed. So, here we are, Part XIII of the Growing Up Mini-Series, written for the romance prompt for gw500. It's a bit on the long side for this series, but I think it's because I'm getting closer to being done with the series. But it's not quite finished yet - there's still a few parts to go. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I'll be sad when it's finished. Much love to everyone who's been following along!
Sunflowers
I would be grotesquely lying if I said his reaction didn't hurt me. It hurt a lot more than I was willing to admit. I told myself that I understood, and that I could endure it until he was ready, but the truth is, I didn't understand at all.
It was that truth that kept me from calling him for a week. I ignored his calls, and when Wufei inquired about the state of our relationship, I calmly told him that we were just in a cooling off period. The edge in my voice kept him from asking any further questions. I'd even taken to ignoring Quatre and Trowa's calls as well, but I was hard-pressed to avoid them in the office. Fortunately, the constant presence of agents running up and down the hallways kept them from talking freely, but that didn't stop the looks of compassion from Quatre, nor did it stop the cool calculating stare from Trowa.
When the weekend rolled around, I was more than just a little relieved. I was completely prepared to hole myself up in my room for the next two days, steering clear of Wufei's knowing eyes and his offers of tea to 'relax' me. It wasn't much of a surprise that Duo had at least told Quatre, and the news had spread like a wildfire through the group. For all I knew, he'd told each of them himself, and though not one of them had breathed a word about it to me, their behavior was obvious enough. There was no such thing as a secret in a group as close as ours, after all.
I made it home without incident and I had almost completed my mission of locking myself in my room and throwing away the key when I noticed the first oddity staring me in the face from my desk as I closed the door to my room. There was a rather large and colorful array of flowers in a crystal vase sitting serenely on my desk as if they belonged there. But looking around at the rest of my untouched room, they most certainly did not belong there, nestled between my laptop and my desk lamp. On instinct, I checked for a card, but there was none. I had more than a sneaking suspicion of where they'd come from, but I resolutely ignored them and went about my nightly routine as if they weren't there at all.
Later in the evening I felt my stomach rumbling and I went to seek out Wufei to see if he had dinner going or if I should just order out. When I didn't immediately find him, I went to see if he was in his room, but it seemed he wasn't home yet.
I went to the refrigerator for a soda and got my second surprise of the night. Sitting on the second shelf next to the Dr. Pepper was a container with a note lying on it. It only had one word scrawled across the pink post-it note: Heero. The tiny scrawl was one that I recognized all too well, and though my stomach was rumbling, I ignored the clear Tupperware container with homemade meatloaf, fresh asparagus spears and mashed red potatoes - a favorite meal of mine.
Instead, I punched in the number of my favorite Chinese food restaurant with more force than necessary. I rattled off my usual order and hung up the phone, refusing to think about the meal in the fridge and its connection to the yellow sunflowers, white lilies and orange carnations sitting on the desk in my room.
I decided to risk Wufei coming home and finding me disgruntled and sat in my favorite easy chair, hoping to rid myself of the oddities in the house. No sooner had I sat down though I started thinking about the last time I was sitting in the comfortable chair and I found myself rising quickly, stalking over to the patio and wrenching the door open. I stepped out onto the aging wood and rested my arms on the firm black iron railing, looking down on the ever-moving world below me. I let myself get lost in the flow of it all until the doorbell jarred me back to my own world, and I went to get my wallet.
I ignored the flowers again, grabbed the black leather wallet Duo had bought for me nearly two years before, pulled out some cash and dropped in unceremoniously on top of the pants I had fished it from. I opened the door to greet the delivery guy and saw that not only had my food arrived, but so had someone else. I paid him no mind, thinking him to be some sort of solicitor, and I nearly closed the door in his face, saying, "I don't want any," when he held out his hand to stop its progress.
"Heero Yuy?"
"What of it?" I snapped, in no mood to deal with this man, or any other, at the moment.
"I have a delivery for you." He held out a large parcel wrapped hastily in brown paper and covered in far too many stamps.
"I didn't order anything," I said flatly, moving to close the door again, but he was a tenacious bastard, thrusting his clipboard into the hand that wasn't clutching a bag of delicious-smelling Chinese food.
"Oh alright then. Who is this from, anyway?" I asked, setting down my food and signing messily. I had a feeling I knew exactly who it was from, and I wasn't all that sure I wanted confirmation. If my suspicions were correct, I felt more inclined to throw the parcel at the man rather than open it.
"My apologies, Mr. Yuy, but I am not privy to that information. He spoke politely, but his eyes gave him away. He knew exactly who it was from, but he'd probably been ordered not to tell me. I grunted more than thanked him, thrusting his clipboard back into his hands and firmly closing the door. I barely heard his courteous goodbye as I picked up my food, bringing it back to the table and digging in. I tucked the package carefully out of sight, hoping the whole "out of sight, out of mind" saying would hold true, but it was to no avail. All through dinner I wondered what could be in the box, curious despite myself.
I read a bit of a book I'd been reading, more as a distraction than anything else, but I found it hard to concentrate. I took a shower, brushed my teeth and boxed up my leftovers. But all this normal activity didn't keep the box from my mind, despite it being out of sight, and putting the leftover boxes of food in the fridge next to the untouched meal with the pink post-it note from whom I highly suspected had sent it and there was just no ignoring it any longer.
I fished the box out from under the table and shook it a little. It was not so much me trying to figure out what was in it as me stalling, but the sound gave me no clues as to what might lie inside and I was quickly running out of ways to keep from opening it.
I decided it would be easier to just do it quickly and get it over with. I ripped the paper off unceremoniously, which upon looking at it closer indeed had Duo's scrawl across it in the form of my address and flung open the box.
Whatever lay inside was covered by a crudely cut out piece of cardboard, upon which sat another note. This one was bigger than the post-it note in the fridge, but it still didn't have much written on it.
The tiny writing was the neatest I'd ever seen it, as if it had been written and rewritten so many times that the writer had memorized the contents before drafting the final copy.
"To Heero, my old war comrade, my closest friend and my most exceptional lover,
Enclosed is the collection I've built up over the last year or so, but never had any intention of sending. Call it an old habit, or perhaps a part of me that knew me better than I did, but I never did stop buying them. I probably should have sent them sooner, but it took me a while to write on them all. I hope you like them.
Duo
P.S. I hope you like the flowers. Sunflowers are so you."
I held my breath, knowing what was in the box but not daring the believe it. He couldn't have... over all that time? After everything that happened?
Captivated by the thin piece of cardboard keeping me from seeing the contents of the box, unsure what to think, how to feel, my fingers reached for it. I couldn't help myself; I closed my eyes, groping for the edges and pried away the thing that just may as well have been keeping me sane. After a few deep breaths, I let my fingers reach in, and my eyes opened, partly in shock of being right, and stared at the hundreds of postcards that lay in neat little stacks in the box. It was easily more than double the collection I had kept of his over the years.
With a great deal of apprehension and some grudging curiosity, I picked up the first glossy card depicting a puppy running happily through a field of tall grass and turned it over. Neatly printed next to the address line - which he had filled out, regardless of it being completely unnecessary - was the word 'friendship'. I reached back into the box again, a bit more eagerly, and started going through the huge box, taking my time to take each one in.
I'm not sure how long I sat there, reliving memories at the kitchen table. Wufei never did come home, and for that I am glad; though I had a sneaking suspicion that Duo had had something to do with that. Scenes of every different kind was held in my fingertips, one by one; beaches, people laughing, landscapes, small objects, everything you could thing of. And on the back of each, next to my address, was a short message; hopes, dreams, fears. When I had finally gone through them all, I noticed the suspiciously postcard shaped envelope sitting in the now empty box.
I opened it with trembling fingers, no longer knowing what to expect.
Inside was another postcard, this one emblazoned with a single red rose set on a backdrop of a black and white desk, and upon turning it over, saw that it, like the others, had a message next to my neatly printed address. But this message, unlike the others, took my breath away.
In bold black letters, calling to the very depths of my soul, was a single word. 'Love'.
It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.
I don't think I've ever dialed my phone so quickly. It wasn't even halfway through the first ring when Duo answered. "Heero..."
"Duo, I-"
But whatever I had to say was swallowed up by his next words. "Come over."
He didn't have to tell me twice.
OWARI
Back to hostilecrayon's Fanfictions Page