September 1, 2000
For mothers.
Much thanks to our lovely beta reader!
It's always worst before nightfall. The constant hum and drum of the cars zooming by on their European engines, the screaming of children and the flashing of the night lights from the clubs rocking with the force of the bass. I know the feeling, that longing for something to drown out everything, sound, sight, taste, touch.
This loneliness comes. I wrap it around me like a blanket, wear it as a prize fur coat. I glare into the light of the swinging moon above, wonder what it would be like to be on the other side of that brightness, gazing up into the stars, content and full.
I hear footsteps down the hall, and I hold my breath, feeling foolish, feeling vindicated. No one comes to visit the war maiden once the toy guns have been put away. It is too late, too dark, the neighborhood rough. I feel safe in my anonymity here. There is a knock at the door; I jump in my chair by the window, feeling every nerve white out for a moment in shock.
"Who's there?" I call. The hoarseness of my own voice catches me by surprise; I grab the open bottle of wine, ignoring the warm, flat taste, and choke down a gulp, wetting my throat insignificantly.
"Heero Yuy." The hero of the colonies.
That catches me by surprise. Before I can decide not to, I cross the room in three strides and throw the door open. He hovers over me, grown long and lean, his eyes wide and sharp. "Dorothy," he says politely, if disinterested.
"Come in," say I, etiquette courses with Mother taking over in place of any real mental function. "Have a drink." I want to laugh as his gaze flits around the room, coming to rest on the dozen or so bottles of expensive Merlot. "What brings you here, Heero?"
He stretches out on the couch, letting long legs dangle off the seat. "I wonder," he says dryly. "Relena wants to know why you haven't been returning her calls. Or her pages. Or her e-mails. Or her"--he swallows a smile--"candy-grams."
"Relena-sama does not need me," I snap, clasping my hands together demurely in my lap.
"You're a fool," he says simply, reaching out to touch my eyebrows. "They are real," he says with a reverence like that of the shroud of Christ. "So many things about you seem contrived, but..."
I don't need to sit here in my own apartment and be insulted, and I tell him so. He just looks at me.
"You're lonely."
"I am not!" I feel myself bristling, and have to bite my tongue to keep from making a sharp comment about the young American pilot who left him after the war. My hands clench tighter.
"You are. Relena needs you, looks up to you. Don't play the fool's role in this passing peace." His eyes darken just so, lilting so the light hits them in a way that makes the pupils look like small galaxies.
"She needs a political advisor. You can buy advice." Does my own voice sound so plaintive, so desperate to his ears? "You can buy anything." It's all growing farther and farther away; I disconnect myself. It's easier to smile, to hide true emotions when the cord between one's humanity and the physical form is severed.
Before I even know what's happening, he leans forward and kisses me hard. At the same time, I feel my fingers tighten and a loud crack echoes through the room as my thumb breaks painfully. But his lips are on mine, his tongue lapping at the crescent parting of my lips. He pulls away, looking a bit uneasy.
"What the fuck was that for?"
"Are you floating anymore?" he asks, leaning forward slightly. I can still taste him on my lips. It's not unpleasant. I take a moment to assess my situation; and I can't say that I am. Or at least, I'm tethered to a stake now by a string, rather than filled with helium and let loose to ravage the clouds.
He rises as I think, looking down at me with a half-smile that is positively infuriating and endearing at the same time. "No," I admit.
"Get that looked at," he says, smiling slightly, knowing that I won't.
"I will," I promise, knowing he sees through the ugly lie. We walk to the door silently.
And I watch *her* Heero go, seeing the lanky, almost careless movement of his body as he pads down the hall. To see such a child trap something so primal and angry, like all the red heat of a volcano bottled into one willowy body, is almost unbearable.
I smile once more at the empty corridor, then close the door softly, hearing the latch click satisfactorily. Then I begin to clean up the bottles, the papers, the random corks. And as I work, it almost feels like I'm stripping away the dust off an antique. So ugly now, but maybe beautiful with a little care.
My hand hits something hard; it is a picture of Relena and I on the day of her coronation, walking down the hall. Faded; I can barely make out our faces on the yellow paper, yellow like old human skin.
Maybe we are more alike than either of us thought, than either of us wanted.
Ariana and Bianca
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