Moments of Haven Part 86
X'mas AC198 - Part XV

Oh, she'd hardly had a scrap of peace all day long, and she was loving every moment of it, but she needed a few seconds to rest, catch her breath, catalog all of the things she had seen and heard today. She wandered quietly over to the sofa and slouched down into it with a sigh.

Heero didn't quite cooperate with her plans. She had about a minute's solitude before he spied her sitting alone by herself. There was another minute before he steathily detached himself from the rest of the group and drifted to her side. "Have we tired you out already?"

She shrugged winsomely and diverted attention to the others. "What are they going on about now?"

"Duo challenged Trowa to a knife-throwing contest." Her eyes widened, but he explained with a bland levity. "He said Trowa's only good at being the target. Trowa doesn't agree. I think we're lucky that no one brought any knives with them. Throwing knives, that is."

"I... see." She surveyed the five of them, trying to divine who had brought the non-throwing knives, but she gave the task up as impossible. Who could tell, with this group? It could even have been all of them. "Then what are they still arguing about?"

"They're trying to come up with a suitable alternative, given the supplies we have on hand." Sitting down on the coffee table in front of her, he glanced over his shoulder with a hint of concern. "I'm hoping no one remembers that dartboard we saw tucked into one of the closets."

Relena suddenly hoped that someone did remember. She was sure the proceedings from that point would get quite lively. And it would probably be safer than trying to rig up some sort of target from scraps around the house. "Who do you think would win?"

Heero turned back to her with a raised eyebrow. He hadn't thought Relena would take an interest in the casual challenges that were slung around the house day in and day out. "...I don't think I can answer that question without some bias."

"So? Be biased."

Did he have to? He didn't like it when outside factors influenced his judgment. Taking a moment to contemplate the matter, he found a decent enough reason to support his pre-determined conclusion. "Well, I've never seen Trowa work with knives, and I have seen Duo."

"So your vote would be on Duo, then." As if that were any surprise at all.

"That's only fair. I'm told he supported me in my games of chess against Quatre." At least, he thought he had been told that. He remembered being somewhat drunk and half-asleep at the time.

She'd heard a little bit about this chess game, and how it came after a poker game. The night had been recalled with a fond snicker that no one had seen fit to explain to her. "Is this what you all have been doing this last week or so? Competing with each other, one way or another?"

He shrugged. "We're competitive people, even in casual discussion." He waved his hand over his shoulder at the others, where they were discussing the merits of throwing pine cones in lieu of cutlery. "We've watched some movies, played some..." No, wait, the video games and the board games had all been rather competitive. "We've gone outside."

"Yes, the walking through the woods?" The boys had mentioned them several times. She was glad it wasn't snowing yet. She could well imagine the competition to be had if the boys were all on skis. And good lord, just thinking about the snowball fights gave her a frightened little shiver down her spine. "I'll have to go out tomorrow and take a tour."

"You might not want to linger at the lake," Heero advised her. "There's been some talk of someone finally testing the water's temperature."

"It'd probably be quite cold, wouldn't it?" she asked, puzzled. "Quatre mentioned how chilly it gets at night."

Heero nodded amiably. "Quite cold. You probably wouldn't want to find out firsthand. Have you gotten an extra blanket yet?"

She had barely finished processing the threat of an impromptu swim before he had changed subjects, but her diplomat's skills were sharp enough to adjust without batting an eyelash. "Not yet. Quatre told me how the blanket situation has worked out, though. I'm told you would probably be happy to give up your extra blanket."

"Of course." Duo would offer token resistance to the idea, of course, just enough to make sure Heero would make the 'sacrifice' worth it. The price was far from terrible. "Which room are you in?"

She smiled. "I took the one next to Duo's room."

"Ah. And by 'Duo's room', I assume you mean, not my room?"

"Hmm, now why do I get the feeling that I may never see Duo walking into 'his' room?"

Heero's response was a neutral sound, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

She laughed, wanting it to come out warmly, but instead there was a strong undertone of giddy delight. "I saw the two of you coming back today," she teased, hooking the index fingers of her two hands together.

Catching the sign with a flicker of his eyes, he shrugged casually, but that crinkle of amusement was still present on his face. "Palms. They get hot."

"And that 'distraction'? The one that kept him from taking good pictures? Were you responsible for that?"

He struggled to keep the corners of his lips down. "He was distracting himself." Well, admittedly, Heero had been fairly distracting, but Duo's mouth had been right there on his, giving as good as it got, so he wasn't going to accept the blame of it all by himself. And Duo should have known better than to attempt taking pictures of them distracting themselves, anyway. Had he truly thought he'd be left with enough presence of mind to aim the camera accurately, once they really got started?

"Sounds like the woods can be quite a fun place."

This time, Heero fought to keep the corners of his lips from turning down. Not for her, they wouldn't be. "It's more... meditative, I think. Things are simple there." Provided one wasn't, say, hiding out in the woods while waiting for one's pursuers to lose one's scent. "There's no need to worry about all of these... 'city' things."

"Meditative?" It was far too easy for her to enjoy herself talking to him. "You and Duo 'distracting' each other is 'meditative'?"

He wanted to frown, but found that he could not. Failing that, he tilted his head down slightly, just enough to hopefully mask that quirk of his lips he just couldn't suppress. "Maybe."

Unfortunately for him, the cant of his head just made him look mischievous, and even a little roguish. Yes, it thrilled her to see her friend -- so much more than just a friend -- so happy, but goodness, it could thrill her in quite another way if she would allow it to. With the iron determination that had carried her through the war, she channeled that tingle into a barely lady-like grin.

Before she could make another innocuous comment, Duo called out to them. "Heero, do you remember seeing a dartboard somewhere around here?"

Heero winked at her before blanking his expression and turning around. "Dartboard? Where?"

Duo threw his hands up in exasperation. "Well, if I knew where, I wouldn't be asking you, now would I?"

"I just meant, a clue would be nice. In the house, you mean?"

"Where else would I have seen a dartboard?"

"I don't know. One of those antique shops down in the village?"

The suggestion made Duo pause and think about it for a moment before he shook his head. "No, I think it was in the house."

Quatre slapped his arm. "Forget it, Duo. None of us remembers this supposed dartboard of yours."

"I swear there was a dartboard here somewhere."

"If there were a dartboard, don't you think it would be on a wall? And there'd probably be holes in that wall. And I don't remember seeing anything like that around the house, either."

Satisfied that the conversation had been successfully diverted, Heero turned back to Relena, to find that her smile had not abated.

She nudged his leg with her foot. "That was mean of you."

"Trust me," he responded dryly. "It was an act of mercy."

"For whom?"

"All of us. Some questions, it's just better not to know the answer."

"Even though you think he would win?"

"That has nothing to do with it." He wasn't so completely besotted with Duo that he thought confirmation of his faith was more important than a little peace. He always fought hard for peace, after all, and faith required no confirmation. "Besides, the debate is probably more interesting than the settlement of the debate."

"I know!" Duo exclaimed. "You cut firewood outside before, didn't you? That means there's an axe!"

Heero blinked, then winced. "A little too interesting, perhaps," he murmured, standing up. "Excuse me for a moment."

Relena watched him as he went back to Duo's side to deliver a gentle reprimand, his hand sneaking up Duo's back to tug lightly on the braid that dangled there. Amidst reminders that the axe would be no better balanced for throwing than the knives on hand were, and debate over the feasibility of chopping firewood by hurling the blade through the air rather than swinging it demurely, she saw them maintain some connection to each other. She couldn't tell what it was, precisely. Heero's hand had dropped back into a resting position, but its ghost seemed to linger, its touch grounding Duo as he made his case. A pang of wistfulness hit her, and she sighed.

"That's it," Quatre scolded. "It's a time out for you, young man!"

"What?"

He pointed Duo toward the sofa. "You sit yourself down and think long and hard about what is and isn't appropriate when it comes to target practice, and when you've finally come to the right conclusions, then you can come back and finish this."

"Oh, who's going to decide what's 'right', huh?" Duo complained. "You are so on Trowa's side."

"Sit!"

Duo sniffed haughtily, but did as he was told, plopping himself down with obvious discontent on the cushion beside Relena's. He continued to pout for another ten seconds or so while the others tried to guide the conversation back to something more sane, but then he broke into a grin and turned to his neighbor. "Hey, princess. So, what are you in for?"

Relena stared at him for a moment before rolling her eyes. "Boys."

"You're in for boys? Ooh, did Heero catch you with one or something?"

She wished. Well, no, she didn't wish that Heero could catch her with someone, because that someone probably wouldn't last very long, but she did wish that there was someone to be caught with. "If he had, I think you would have heard it across the room."

Duo chuckled. "Yup, that's true enough. He takes this protection gig seriously, you know."

Crossing her arms grumpily, she slid a centimeter lower in her seat. "I want to renegotiate the terms of that contract."

"Heh, I doubt it's open to discussion."

She uncurled enough to turn and bat her lashes at him. "You have some sway with Heero, don't you? Surely you can put in a good word for me."

The tilt of Duo's lips turned into a smirk. "What makes you think I'm on your side, princess?"

Oh. Phooey. She'd forgotten about that. "Well, then. I'm sure one of the others can help me out."

"Uh, those three?" He held his silence long enough to draw her attention to the argument over pine cones that Heero had just unwittingly renewed. "Good luck with that."

On second thought, she had to agree, though for different reasons. "You're right. Those three have been a little strange to me all day, if you ask me. You'd think they'd never seen a girl before or something."

A joke was poised on the tip of his tongue, but Duo swallowed it in favor of a moment of relative seriousness. "Yeah, you think so, too?" There had been some strange, awkward moments during some of the conversations over the course of the day. "But hey, maybe it's true. If they're this slick when they're around a girl they know, I wouldn't be surprised if they never had seen a girl before. Or, you know, hung out with a girl before."

It wasn't as if she were wearing something incredibly feminine or anything. Just a sweater and jeans. And she didn't think her mannerisms were so terribly girly. So there was no excuse for them to be odd, no reason that they shouldn't be able to think of her as just 'one of the guys'. "Hmpf, well, you and Heero have been perfectly normal to me today, and you two haven't ever seen a girl before, either."

While he could have mentioned that he had seen some girls back in that wretched probational high school they'd been stuck in, there was one more blatant defense to be used here. "Yeah, but, we've seen boys, so that more than makes up for it. We're cool, and they're not."

"Well, they're quite allowed to practice with me."

"Yep, practice makes perfect and all that." He snickered, deciding that sometimes, the direct approach was the best way to deal with things. "Yo, guys!" he called out. "How come you all have been all lame with the talking today, hm?"

At least that put an end to the pine cone question. For now. "Could you clarify that a bit, Maxwell?" Wufei asked.

"Lena here wants to know if any of you have ever seen a girl before." He blithely ignored Relena's jab in his side with her elbow. "'Cuz seriously, you guys have dropped the conversational ball one too many times today."

Heero raised his hand. "Am I included in this?"

"Nah, you're good." He withheld a snort of amusement when Heero took a large step away from the others to separate himself from the condemned. "But the rest of you guys, really, tell me you aren't as pathetic as it sounds."

"I have twenty-nine sisters, Duo!" Quatre defended himself indignantly. "Don't tell me I've never seen a girl before!"

"Yeah, but it's not like you hang out with them all the time."

"That's not the point."

Maybe it wasn't, but Duo awarded himself a point anyway. "And yeah, Trowa, I know you got the Catherine and all, but she's got knives and she knows how to use 'em, so she doesn't really count."

"Would you like me to tell her you said that?" Trowa asked mildly.

A moment's thought had Duo backpedaling. "Hey, not saying she's not a girl or anything. Just meant she's in a class of her own, that's all."

"Despite the knives, she's quite feminine," Heero assured him. He blinked back when Duo blinked at him. "She wears a leotard a lot of the time."

The blinking turned into wide-eyed horror. "Ewww, were you checking her out all that time you were with them?"

"No! ...It's hard not to notice. I mean, I just... And she cooks, and..." He turned to Trowa for support, but found nothing but a completely unhelpful expression there. "Never mind."

"Yeah, you better never mind," Duo huffed. "And Trowa still has no excuse."

Wufei cleared his throat, willing to try and put an end to this before Maxwell started speculating on his experience with women next. "I don't think anything has to do with the fact that Relena is female, Maxwell."

"Nothing at all? You mean you haven't noticed she's a girl all this time?"

Relena sank another centimeter farther into the sofa, prompting Heero to take a step forward, but her glare at him made him stop.

Quatre noticed her discomfort and attempted to dispel it. In his experience, it was never wise to forget that a girl was a girl, no matter how much they insisted they wanted to be treated that way. "I'm sure we all realize that she's a girl, Duo, but that has nothing to do with why we've been..."

"Aha!" They'd sort of been expecting Duo to rise out of his seat in triumph, but instead it was Relena that sat up straight and pointed a victorious finger at them. "So you have been acting strange! And I thought I was just imagining it."

Thwarted in his attempts to gain physical proximity to the object of his protection, that in no way prevented Heero from turning toward the others with a stern expression. "What's the matter?"

Sensing that Quatre had prepared a harmless little fudging of the truth, Wufei decided that that would only prolong the discussion, and perhaps a more liberal application of the truth was called for. "There are just some things that maybe we're not certain we ought to be discussing in front of ladies."

"Ha!" This time, it was Duo. "Ladies, girls, same thing!"

"They are not," Relena protested in an aside.

Heero looked at Wufei, caught the flicker of a glance between him and Duo, and the lightbulb of understanding clicked on. "Ah. I see."

Duo focused his attention on his partner. "What do you see?"

"We haven't told her."

"Told her what?" Heero leveled an expectant look at him, but it took several seconds for Duo to interpret it. "Oh, that."

"What do you mean, 'that'?" Relena interrupted, glancing between the two of them. "What 'that'?"

"Umm, well...."

The others braced themselves for impact at a safe distance, but Heero closed in on her, as if a shorter distance could lessen the blow. "We haven't mentioned to you that the others caught us kissing on the sofa one day."

The tense silence lasted only a few heartbeats before Relena snatched up a pillow and whapped Duo with it since he was the only one in range. "They what?!"

"Hey!" Duo jumped out of his seat and ran for cover behind Heero. "It's not my fault!"

"That's not fair!" she cried.

Thinking that he could be a gentleman, Quatre took a step forward to try and comfort the female. "Now, Relena..."

"I demand that you kiss each other right now!"

"Uh..." That wasn't at all what he had expected.

It wasn't at all what Duo had expected, either. "What?!"

She stood and planted her hands on her hips aggressively. "The others got to see you kiss, so it's only fair that I get to, too!"

"We aren't like dancing kissing monkeys, ready to kiss on command!" Well, kiss on Heero's command, maybe...

"I've been trying to catch you two at it for quite some time now, and when something finally happens, I'm not here to see it. It's not fair, I tell you. They weren't even trying!"

Wufei seemed the only one of them willing to put words to the obvious implication. "You know?"

"Know what?" she grumbled irritably.

"That the two of them are..." He wiggled his fingers vaguely at Heero and Duo.

"Together? Of course."

"Of course?" Quatre repeated, turning to Heero and Duo accusingly. "Oh, for goodness' sake, you could have said something, instead of having us pussyfooting around her all day. And why did she know when we didn't?"

Duo decided to sidestep that little question. "Why would you be pussyfooting around her all day? Have you guys completely forgotten how to talk about anything other than me and him? It shouldn't even have come up, should it?"

"Oh, it comes up, alright, starting with what bedrooms she can choose from, and going downhill from there!"

"You could have just assigned her one."

Relena swung her pillow at Heero's side. "You're missing the point here. I want to see you two kiss."

Duo caught the pillow the next time she tried to hit them and pulled it out of her grasp. "Nuh-uh, no way, princess. Not gonna happen."

"You let them see."

"It's not like we were showing off for them or anything! They just walked into the room at the wrong time."

Quatre had a thing or two to say about that. "No, you two were kissing in the wrong room at the wrong time."

Heero let out a quick puff of breath in annoyance. Well, when there was a war being waged on two fronts, the logical thing to do was make it a war on one front. He borrowed the pillow from Duo, held it up at head level, and then kissed him behind it. It didn't last long, but he made it more than just a token peck on the lips, asking Duo to please just stop contributing to the escalation of things. A couple of seconds later, the pillow was lowered. "Satisfied?"

The incredulous look on Relena's face was answer enough. "Of course not! You were hiding behind a pillow."

"Argh!" Duo shouted in frustration. He snagged the pillow and tossed it at her, using that as a distraction while he took Heero by the hand and pulled him toward the door. "Run for it!"

Later, Duo would call it a tactical retreat.

TBC...

 

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