Moments of Haven Part 124
Free Henry
"Step number one: install some seating."
Heero glanced over his shoulder to see Duo plopping himself down on the bed with his laptop. There did not appear to be any lack of seating here. "What are we talking about?"
"Outside." Duo waved his hand in the general direction of their backyard. "'Cuz I was just gonna start surfing the net a bit to look for info on the great outdoors when I thought, hey, I could get some really great inspiration if I sat out back while doing it. Our wireless covers the back porch, right? Except I step out there and realize there's nowhere to sit. Where's the fun in that?"
"What kind of seating did you have in mind?" He asked more as a distraction than anything else, to prompt Duo into talking to himself for a little while so he could finish up what he'd been doing on his computer before Duo walked in.
"Dunno, really. Wasn't thinking like a full blown patio or anything. Think we were talking about landscaping, not hardscaping."
"'Hardscaping'? Is that even a word?"
"Yup. I didn't even have to make it up or anything. It's like the brickwork or cement or pavers or whatever. You know, all the hard stuff. Huh, wonder if there's a softscaping, too. You've totally just distracted me. Seating. I was talking about seating. Nah, I was just thinking some furniture on the back porch area. A chair or two, maybe a little table. That's all."
"I don't think that requires 'installation'."
"Whatever. Why do you have to be so hung up on terminology today?"
There was nothing wrong with knowing what they were talking about. Heero arrived at a good stopping place in his work and swivelled his chair around to face his partner. "Sorry. Are we researching the backyard today?"
Duo held a miffed look for a second before shrugging. "Well, I was gonna start poking around. You can keep doing whatever it was you were doing. Didn't think you'd mind the company."
"I don't mind the company. But I think I'll join you."
He struck an exaggerated pose. "Yup, can't resist me, right?"
Heero snorted. "I just don't want you coming up with ideas on your own. Lord knows what the backyard would end up looking like."
Duo dropped the pose and stuck his tongue out instead. "Oh, like you're some kind of landscaping expert."
"Duo, as far as I can recall, your current design spec only goes far enough to indicate I should garden in the nude."
He blinked for a moment before recalling the relevant conversation and smirking. "You forgot the sunscreen part. It's a plan that addresses both visual appeal and safety concerns."
Heero shook his head with a certain fondness before getting out of his chair and heading to the bed. "Move over."
Duo scooted over as much as he could on the twin-sized bed, and then scooted back as much as he could as soon as Heero got himself settled and got the laptop situated so they both could see. "Okay, so I sort of started looking for inspiration pictures, but... it got kind of intimidating."
"Is this just going to be a repeat of when we started researching living rooms?"
"Yeah, but hopefully we can sort of compress all that dithering because this time we have a time limit. It's planting season, isn't it? We can't keep dragging on it this time or else we'll have to wait until next year. Last time, we were all worried about getting things wrong, but this time, I sort of figure, well, if we get things wrong, then no problem, because then everything will just sort of die off naturally and we'll have a clean slate to work with next year."
"There's a bright thought."
"Yup. So it wouldn't be like failing the first year, so much as... practice?"
"That means no getting attached to anything. No naming the plants this time."
"Hey, that's right! We've totally been able to keep Henry and Kain and Fido alive and healthy, right? How much harder could it be to take care of outdoor plants? This'll be a cinch!"
"No naming the plants," Heero repeated firmly.
Duo nudged him with his shoulder. "Are you implying you think we'll fail?"
"If plants didn't fail all the time, people wouldn't always be planting in the spring."
His expression fell for a few seconds before he brightened back up again. "Well, no, you only see people planting those little flower things. It's not like they're always planting new bushes or trees or anything. So maybe we just have to plant the right things! I'm sure there's a way to tell. Henry's several years old now, isn't he? He's doing great. Seems like we're always pruning him back, he's so damn healthy." He paused, then got a little wide-eyed. "Do you think he'd want to... yanno... move outside?"
"Is a hibiscus an outdoor plant?"
"I don't know!" Duo tapped the term into the search engine quickly. "Ms. S wouldn't have given him to us in a pot like that if he was an outdoor plant, would she? Christ, Heero, what if all this time, he's just been longing to be free?"
Heero pressed his lips together and didn't say all the things that came immediately to mind.
Duo quickly skimmed the first site he found. "Uhm, showy flowers, includes annuals, perennials, woody shrubs, and small trees? Is Henry really a small tree? What species do you think he is?"
"No clue."
"Great." He scrolled quickly through the rest of it. "Flowers, tea, national symbol... bah, useless! Okay, next page... alright, this looks good. 'Strictly Hibiscus'... Dammit, the page is dead. Okay, next page... What's with all this tropical and exotic hibiscus stuff? Since when do we have a tropical plant in our living room?"
"Maybe we don't have a tropical species."
"Australian... American... Chinese... what the hell. Who knew Henry had such an international family?"
"We could just ask Suzuhara-san..."
He got an elbow in the side for his suggestion. "No way. We adopted him, now he's our responsibility. Maybe I need to narrow my search. 'Hibiscus house plant', ha, take that... Ah, okay, see, this is much better. 'Hibiscus: Portrait of a House Plant'. See, that sounds great! Looks like people really do keep hibiscus -- hibisci? -- as house plants. That's a relief."
"We kept a hibiscus as a house plant. Don't we count?"
"Wait... this site says they usually treat hibiscus with a growth retardant before sale to keep the plant pot-sized for the first year. After that, it quickly heads... for the ceiling? It can be kept under control by regular pruning.... Wait, so that means that we keep them as house plants, but only by artificially limiting them? That's terrible! We need to do something!"
"...Why do you get irrational about the oddest things?"
Duo nailed him with a glare. "I am not being irrational!" The glare went to war with Heero's utterly placid expression and eventually retreated into a sullen pout. "It's just mean."
Heero kissed the side of his head. "If you want to release Henry back into the wild, I'll support you."
He leaned into Heero's side without willing it and pouted some more. "Are you patronizing me?"
"Only a little."
Duo tilted his head only enough to throw him a dark look.
Heero kissed the closest point on his head again. "I really would support you. If you think Henry would be happier outside, then we should put him outside. But I think we should research it, first. What if domesticated house plants don't know how to deal with the great outdoors anymore?"
Duo wiggled his fingers in the direction of his monitor. "Look at that plant, Heero. It's huge. With how often we're pruning Henry back, I bet he could be that huge, too. Huge, and beautiful, and just the way he was always meant to be. We have to try, Heero. We have to, or else I'm just going to get depressed just looking at him, thinking about how he's been pressed into domestic servitude against his will."
Heero rolled his eyes, but only because he was sure Duo couldn't see, and made sure his voice was only filled with sympathy and understanding before speaking. "We didn't know, Duo."
"Yeah, well now we do, so now we have to do something about it."
"You're not going to start... liberating house plants, are you?"
"Oh, shut up. You'd have wanted to 'liberate' him, too, if you'd thought of it first."
"This is why we're not naming the plants, Duo."
"Hey, you're the one who named Fido!"
"I don't worry about Fido. Cacti are forever."
Duo bent to kissing him, and only stopped when the laptop was about to fall off the bed.
OWARI
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