05-Oct-2004
Title: Michaelangelo
Author: Solitude1056
Rating: PG-13 for mild language
Warning: angst in the classic philosophical sense
Pairing: 1+R but it ain't all goodness.
Note: This is a rather odd little one-shot, a bit angsty. I may move it over to the angst category in the contest, but I'm not sure yet. It bit me on the way through West Virginia, after pondering the story I told a friend I'd write if (if) she graduates from school. MS knows who she is, and although this is a one-shot, it's also sort of a prologue to that story, but can stand on its own.
(No, folks, it's okay - I will not be starting another story until I finish Tetractys! I'm just trying to get myself back in writing mode after almost a month's break.)
It was an impromptu thing, the sort of thing that Heero hadn't planned but seemed like something to do at the time. Relena's university was a hundred miles away, and would take all day if he started before dawn, but he'd been awake after completing a physics paper.
Biking along the backcountry roads was always a pleasure, especially as the sun rose over the rolling fields. Cows lowed over the fence at him as he sped past, coasting down one hill and putting on a burst of speed to get up the next. It was time to think, to be silent, and to indulge in a little bit of fantasy about Relena's surprised and pleased reaction when he pulled up to her dormitory.
Three years they'd been dating, and he still felt like he barely knew her, and sometimes it frightened him that she felt so distant. Everyone was a long way away, and although he'd always kept to himself, he'd never been far from someone he could call an ally. The one time he'd been on his own was in his plummet to earth, but almost as quickly as he got his bearings there were other Gundam pilots. Once again he had something, someone, a distant if tenuous awareness that formed the limits of his personal space.
He still saw them, about as often as he saw Relena, really; they had their own careers or educations. It was more often during summer, but even then everyone was busy traveling or visiting. Relena had interned every summer with the ESUN, planning to fill the hereditary role left empty by her father's death. After the first summer bored while she rushed from task to task, Heero had interned at a scientific research company, rather than be reminded of how little time Relena had for him. He'd consoled himself with the knowledge that one day, they'd go home together every night, and all the separation would be a thing of the past.
Heero glanced at the road sign and hung a right onto the broad highway, stretching his muscles into the long, easy pace that would take him seventy-five miles east into Relena's university town. He could have driven, but it he relished these silent passages, although he'd never actually biked all the way.
Sometimes when he'd driven, he was worried she wouldn't be there when he arrived, or that when she said she'd come to visit, that she'd never get there. Or that when he opened the door, it wouldn't be her, but the stranger he always felt her to be. Heero rarely allowed himself regrets, but sometimes he was tempted to open his mouth, ask again why they'd agreed to wait. He wasn't sure why, but something instinctive pushed him, challenged him, taunted him with the irrational notion that perhaps, if they had sex, he would finally know her - could hold, touch, reach that place inside her that always seemed to be dancing away from him.
No one answered the door when he knocked. He stood in the hallway, his small backpack over his shoulder, wondering whether he should try the door. He did, finally, but it was locked, and he studied the message board on her door, hoping for a clue. Perhaps she was studying, but her school's library was as massive as his. It'd take him two hours to find her, and it was already nine o'clock at night. He felt exhausted and filthy, and wanted to shower before inviting her for a late dinner.
Maybe she was already at dinner, he thought, and turned around to head out to the front of her dorm. The university's dining hall wasn't far away; he'd check there, first.
"Heero?" One of the girls on the hall recognized him, and smiled cheerfully. "You're looking for Lennie?"
"Lennie?" Heero blinked, taking a second. "Relena," he corrected the girl. He was sure Relena wouldn't appreciate such an informal nickname.
"Yeah, she's over at the pub with some friends," the girl replied, thumbing in the pub's general direction. "Post-study party or something."
"Thanks."
Heero shifted the bag to the other shoulder and headed down the stairs, signing out at the front desk with a polite nod to the security guard. The pub was at the Student Union. They'd been there the last time he'd visited, and she'd teased him about ordering a drink. He'd declined, and they'd left soon after.
At the door to the pub, Heero could see his reflection in the dark glass. He was taller now, with broader shoulders and longer legs. His shirt stuck to his frame, and he tugged at it, peeling the sweat-damp material from his chest. His biking shorts were mud-splattered from an early morning puddle; his hair was tangled from sweat and dirt and wind. He didn't bother to straighten himself up, figuring Relena had seen him far worse.
Inside the pub he stepped to the side, reviewing the interior first rather than striking out and wandering the tables. In the end, he'd looked past Relena twice before realizing it was her.
She'd cut her hair in the two months since they'd seen each other, and he studied the way the short bob framed her face. She kept tucking a strand behind her ears, and she was laughing loudly, her head thrown back. There was a bottle in front of her; she didn't sip but drank quickly, thirstily, and set the empty bottle down with a snap.
Relena stood up, saying something to her companions, and Heero stepped halfway behind a column, hiding. She was wearing jeans, sandals, and a thin tanktop; the translucent cardigan-like top barely hid anything. It was such a light, breezy thing to wear, hardly the serious or tailored kind of thing he was used to seeing on her. She looked young, and beautiful, and graceful, and suddenly he could only back away, out of the pub. He felt dirty, and tired, and not nearly impressive enough to stand next to her.
Outside, the cool spring air cut across his bare arms, and he struggled with the urge to get on his bike and return to his own school. He'd thought he'd known her, had understood her, and she, him. But that chasm he felt sometimes was there again, a million miles wide, and the ache in his chest was back, tightening as his heart taunted him.
Relena was changing, and he didn't like it. He'd seen all the little signs, and ignored them all, but he'd never seen her when she wasn't expecting him. He wondered how much she'd been pretending to be the same person who'd agreed to date him, at age seventeen. He wondered how long she'd not been that person anymore. He wondered how it was he'd never noticed, and whether he was the only one.
He stood by his bicycle for a long time, fiddling with the lock.
In the end, he waited outside her dormitory, trying to appear casual while he sprawled across a bench, a paperback book in his hands. It was Plato; he'd brought it in case he decided to stop halfway, read, and then go home. It had remained abandoned in his bag while he continued to push towards her university, and now it lay in his hands, clenched tightly but still unread.
"Heero?" Relena's voice was stunned. Was that annoyance? Or just surprise?
Heero managed a smile, and put the book in his bag, standing up. The school's clock, high up on the building over Relena's shoulder, said it was almost eleven o'clock. He'd been pretending to read for two hours.
"Holy fuck," Relena breathed. "It is you. What are you doing here? Why didn't you call me? Or come find me?"
Heero couldn't think of what to say, a bit startled to hear Relena cuss. Two of the girls with Relena looked at the couple, and shrugged to each other.
"We're heading on," one of them said, and punched Relena lightly in the upper arm. "You're coming? More the merrier."
"That's the theory," Relena whispered, her eyes never leaving Heero's. "If I can, I'll be there."
"Seventeen, not seventy-one, Lennie!"
The second girl laughed, and the two walked off, arm-in-arm, chuckling about something. The phrase made Relena flush. Heero frowned.
"They call you Lennie," he said, and it was the first thing that came to his mind. He frowned deeper; that wasn't what he'd meant to say.
"It's a nickname." Relena looked around, then down at the bag on the bench. "Did you drive? Or... "
"I biked."
"Guess maybe you want a shower? Have you eaten?"
"Yes," Heero said, and both were lies. He didn't want to stay long, suddenly. He didn't want to peel off his clothes with only a door to separate him from this stranger.
She was standing so far away. She only looked like the person he knew when he let his eyes close half-way, blurring the edges, the sharpness in her cheekbones, the high curve of her breasts, the shadows under her collarbones.
"Oh, okay," Relena said, then took him by the hand. Her fingers were cool and dry. "Come on in, get cleaned up. What's the occasion for the visit?"
"Just... " He stared down at their hands, and let himself be guided along. "Felt like it."
"Impulsive?" Relena smiled over her shoulder at him, unlocking the dormitory's side door. "You?"
"I can be," he protested, easing back into their repartee. The awkward moment was fading, he felt, and he relaxed just a little.
Down the hall, up the stairs, around the corner to her room: she unlocked the door and stepped inside ahead of him, and he trailed her, looking around the room with bewildered eyes. There were flyers for parties stuck to a bulletin board, and postcards along the edge, from someone who wasn't him. There were books scattered on the bed, haphazard, and her computer was blinking with email messages. Relena waved her hand at the bathroom, and slipped into the chair by her desk.
"I've got to check email," she said, not even looking up. "Take a shower, we'll go out."
Heero nodded, stepping into the private bathroom Relena shared with her roommates. He closed the door behind him, listening to the sounds of her keyboard clattering. Her door opened and closed, and he tensed, picking up the voice of one of her roommates, and two other girls he didn't recognize.
"Heero's here," the roommate - Suzanne? - said. "Bethie told me she saw him."
"Yeah, he's taking a shower." Relena chuckled. "Biked here."
"She said he was filthy," another voice said. Bedsprings creaked. "Hose him off and bring him to the party."
"Hell, no," Relena said. "Not really Heero's scene. Besides, Marty would have a shit fit."
Heero frowned at the door. Relena was going to use him as the excuse not to attend? For a moment, he didn't mind if she chose that course, but then something small and uncomfortable whispered in his head. What did she use as an excuse the rest of the time? She didn't like loud parties; she'd always said they were too much of a bother. Hadn't she? When was the last time she'd said that? When was the last time they'd attended a party together?
He turned on the water, drowning out the sounds of women laughing loudly, teasing phrases scattered with obscenities and lewd jokes. Heero stripped off his clothes and stepped under the spray, adjusting it to a cooler temperature. He used a little of Relena's shampoo to wash his hair, scrubbed down, and stepped from the shower. Her green towel hung on the backdoor, and he toweled off roughly before changing into the jeans and t-shirt he'd brought.
The room was quiet when he pushed the door open. Relena had her feet up on the desk, and was paging through some magazine with a girl on the cover, half-dressed, looking like she was two seconds from flashing the camera. SPAZZ, announced the magazine's title.
"What's that?" Heero nodded towards the magazine, and pushed a few books out of the way to settle on the bed near Relena.
She shrugged and tossed it onto the bed beside him, stretching with her arms over her head. He glanced sideways, skimming the article titles. Club Kids in Bermuda. DJ Tiesto in Tahiti. Finnish Beat Rocks. He frowned, and fingered the edge of the magazine, flipping it over so the girl on the cover wasn't leering at him any longer. Relena noticed, and arched an eyebrow.
"Heero," she said, and it wasn't her usual light, teasing tone. "I think... Look, I'm glad you came to visit though it's a bit unexpected, but maybe it's a good thing you did."
"It is?" Heero tucked his biking gear into his backpack, and gave her a puzzled look.
Relena chewed on her lower lip for a moment, and nodded, managing a smile. It looked sad, and out of place.
"Relena? Is something wrong?" Heero caught his breath, worried. "Have... has... " He trailed off, not sure what he'd ask.
"We graduate in a month," Relena said, rather unnecessarily, Heero thought. He nodded, and she sighed, twisting in her chair to take his hands in hers. "Heero, what does that mean to you?"
"We get jobs in Sanq, where we'll work for--"
"Not as a 'we', Heero." She squeezed his hands tightly, then dropped them, and leaned back with a sigh. She didn't look his way, but stared at the flyers on her bulletin board. "Heero, I love you. You know that, right?"
"Yes," Heero said, but hesitantly. He knew it, but he didn't always feel it. He wasn't sure what it would feel like, but he'd heard love made people scared and anxious, and he was often like that around Relena. He was always a little bit worried about her, and wanting someone to be safe was part of love, or so he'd figured.
"Right," she said, but didn't repeat it back to him. "Do you know me, though?"
"Know... " He shook his head abruptly. "I don't understand what you're getting at."
"Only because you don't want to," she replied. "I'm not that girl you knew, Heero. I'm sorry. I don't want to be on the pedestal anymore, but I know you don't like who I'm beco--"
"All this?" Heero looked around at the room, the posters, the magazines, her haircut, the translucent overshirt draped across the back of her chair. "It's not you, Relena."
"Maybe it isn't," she shot back. "But you're not the one to decide that for me."
"I wouldn't do that," he protested. "I like you the way you are."
"And I don't," Relena said.
"But you're--"
"Twenty-two years old and overdue for stepping down," she replied, and stood up. "I'll walk you outside. I'm sorry. I've been wanting to say this since winter break, but I didn't know a good way."
Heero stood up as well. His chest felt tight, and he clutched his bag tightly. "I don't understand."
"Yeah, I know," Relena whispered, and kissed him on the cheek. "That's kind of the problem, Heero."
Heero got back to his residence hall by noon the next day; biking hadn't been as difficult as he'd feared. The full moon had lit the highway under his wheels, fading into an early fog burned off by the dawning sun. He'd been a few miles from the school, barely noting the glittering stars overhead, before it dawned on him, solid and heavy and straight to the pit of his stomach: Relena wasn't just sending him home, whatever 'home' might be. She had sent him away.
From mile eleven to mile sixty-three, he'd struggled with the memories of the past four years. Weren't they supposed to be together? He'd never thought he'd have a future, and then he found he'd have one, and it seemed so simple, so easy, so planned out. What had he done wrong, that had made her dissatisfied with him?
From mile sixty-four to mile ninety-two, he berated himself. Perhaps he should have visited her more often, not neglected her for a month at a time while buried in physics projects or the advanced calculus team competitions. Maybe he should have listened with friends counseled sending flowers or chocolates or jewelry. He'd thought Relena too practical for that, too mature to need such silly things, and he'd squashed the impulse each time.
Mile ninety-three to the last hundred feet to his dormitory, and he knew whatever he'd had was gone. She had changed, was changing, and he hadn't. He'd frozen, somehow, and this wasn't the good thing he'd thought it to be. Was he supposed to change? How? What was he supposed to become? Was he not good enough, as he was?
The answer to the last question was simple, and he scowled to cover the hurt he was sure must be evident to any bystanders.
He hopped off the bike, stretching in the cool-down, and hoisted the bike to his shoulder, kicking open the residence hall's back door. Two philosopher majors had to leap out of his way, but he ignored them, exhausted, hungry, and not sure whether he wanted to punch a wall or just kick himself.
Relena was everything... and he wasn't. That's all it came down to, it seemed.
Hefting the bike into the rack under his loft bed, Heero toed off his sneakers and collapsed onto the bed. His vid-phone was blinking; a message for him, and he absently hit the button, letting it play. Duo's face appeared in the screen, and one eyebrow went up, then the screen went dark. Heero rolled his eyes. None of them were keen to leave a message longer than thirty seconds, although being traced and tracked was a fear of the past.
His fingers hovered over the vid-phone's keypad, and he hit the speed dial to return Duo's call. The phone rang two times, then three, and there was a clattering sound as the phone was answered and knocked off onto the floor. Mumbled cussing could be heard, then a light clicked on and Duo was squinting at the phone.
"Where's the fire... oh, Heero. Right." Duo yawned, showing a lot of teeth, and scrubbed at his bangs. They stood up even more, and he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Great timing. I just fell asleep... uh, five hours ago. You're wrecking my beauty sleep here."
"Relena dumped me," Heero said.
"And?" Duo yawned again.
Heero frowned. "We're not together anymore."
"Okay." Duo shrugged. "She finally came to her senses, hunh."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just that you two are like... " Duo waved one hand, and yawned again, but didn't bother to cover his mouth. "Y'know. Kids. Puppy love. Doesn't last, man. Get over it."
"I can't just get over it." Heero scowled, feeling his heart clench. He wasn't sure why he'd called Duo. "Never mind."
"Heero, for someone who sure went off half-cocked during enough missions--"
"--Like you're one to talk," Heero growled.
"Exactly," Duo replied, unruffled. "Which means I can't understand why you seemed to have decided at such a young age that you've got it all figured out."
"I never said I did." Heero snorted. "She's doing all this stuff that isn't like her. Drinking. Cussing. Dressing like... " He frowned, uncertain.
"You act like life is a done deal, but sounds like Relena's wiser than that." Duo sighed melodramatically. "When was the last time you really asked yourself who you are? You've stayed in one mental place for four years, while the rest of us traveled. About time she kicked you in the head and told you to catch up."
"She didn't--"
"Figure of speech," Duo said, cutting him off. "Come on, soul-searching is the name of the age."
"That's your game, not mine."
Duo leaned in close, his deep blue eyes sparking from the low light by his vid-phone. He grinned; it wasn't the sweetest expression, but cruel. "Take a lesson from me, then."
The line went dead, and Heero was left staring at a black screen. He ran over the conversation in his head, uncertain. His fingers hovered over the keypad again, and he dialed without being consciously aware of what he was doing.
"Yeah." The honey tenor was instantly recognizable, as was the dark screen indicating the vid-phone was off. A second later, as Heero's number filtered into the vid-phone's display, the screen came on, revealing Trowa. "Yuy."
"Barton." Heero stared at the other man, and didn't say anything. He couldn't. Duo's words, though honest, were salt on wounds he was only beginning to feel. "Relena," Heero managed.
Trowa nodded.
"I graduate in a month," Heero choked out.
"I'll be on L3 by then," Trowa said. "Summering on that side of the Lagrange system. Come by when you're done with school."
Heero nodded, and shut down the connection, then rolled over on his back, pillowing his head in his clasped hands, and stared up at the ceiling. Trowa had put him back together, once before. He wasn't sure he wanted to ask Trowa to do it again, but if anyone knew how to let him be while he figured things out, it would be Trowa.
He got up, and gathered up his physics books. One more month, six exams, and then he'd be on his way to L3. It wasn't the most propitious location to begin, but he had only his instincts to follow, and not much else.
Maybe there he would discover what Relena hadn't found.
The End
(:./sol/michaelangelo)
