20 Sep 2002
Title: Beyond the Limit of the World
Author: Lilias (Liliascrescens @ cs.com)<--remove spaces
Pairings: 1+2+R, 1xR
Rating: R
What to expect: Shounen-ai, hetero-ai, lime of the boy/girl variety. Takes place in the canon universe, but set so far past the series and EW that it can be considered speculative future.
Disclaimer: The boys and the girl belong to Sunrise, the Sotsu Agency, and Bandai, and I intend no infringement upon their rights. Epigraphs are the property of their respective authors and/or publishers (where copyrights haven't expired altogether), and are wildly out of context.
But Arthur, looking downward as he past, Felt the light of her eyes into his life Smite on the sudden--Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Idylls of the King: "The Coming of Arthur." 55-57.
Heero was halfway through his weight training session the next morning when he heard a delicate throat-clearing noise behind him, and looked up at the mirrored wall to see Relena hesitating in the doorway. She appeared uncharacteristically flustered, twisting a pair of mittens in her hands and looking everywhere but at him. He tried not to smile.
"I was just about to go on my walk, and I didn't know if you wanted to go too, or--"
Heero let the weights drop with a muted clang. "Aa. You shouldn't go by yourself."
"Well, I thought you'd say that. But you don't have to cut short your, um, exercise--" She stumbled over the word, almost blushing. "I can always find someone from Security to go with me."
"I was about to stop anyway." Heero mopped his face and neck with a towel, his movements efficient but unhurried.
"Oh. If you're sure--?" Her eyes were fixed on some point above his head.
"I'm sure. It'll take me a minute to get something warmer," he said, gesturing to his thin shorts and tank top, "but I'll be ready to go as soon as I change."
Recovering herself, Relena straightened up primly. "I'll wait up by the front entrance, then, if that's all right." Her measured steps patted a dignified rhythm along the hall until she had passed through the double doors at its end--but then Relena took the stairs at a run, and Heero had to laugh.
She was standing just inside the entrance when Heero came up the basement steps, tugging a hooded sweatshirt over his head. She had to use both hands to drag the heavy front door open, but he let her handle it on her own; such slight exertion would do her no harm, and it certainly couldn't hurt for her to regain some of the independence she had lost.
Heero knew he had passed some sort of test when she beamed up at him from the front step. The door-opening was evidently a bone of some contention with her regular walking partner.
It was a chilly morning; spring might be just around the corner, but there was still enough snap in the air to turn breath into smoke. Not much was stirring on the grounds of the Peacecraft complex, except a few hardy joggers and a goose or two. At the edge of the grounds, the river curled like a silver snake between the bare-limbed willows; the morning sun completed the illusion, glinting off the ripples like the flash of scales.
Tucking his hands into the front pocket of his sweatshirt, Heero looked down at her. "Where do you usually go?"
Relena pointed a mittened hand toward the water. "Down the river path to the colonnade, past the memorial gardens, and then back up along the lime-walk."
Heero raised an eyebrow; it was a long walk, almost a four-mile loop. "You go that far?"
"At first we just went to the river and back. Very slowly. But I've gotten a lot stronger, and now we can do the whole thing in an hour and a half--in an hour, if we hurry." Relena looked very pleased with herself.
"All right. Let's go; I have a meeting in--" He extracted a hand to check his watch.
"Three hours--I know." She was already heading down the steps. "It's not going to take nearly that long, I promise!"
They moved off at a brisk pace, not quite in step with one another as they crossed the grass to the asphalt jogging path that ran along the river.
Heero thought that perhaps they were supposed to be chatting, but could think of nothing to say. Relena wasn't offering conversation either, tramping along beside him in companionable silence, so maybe it was all right.
They had always been good at this, he reflected; even all those years ago, when they could only be a danger to one another, there had been something comfortable, even sustaining, about the silences between them. It was interesting, that a person whose existence had brought him so much stress could also be the most restful company he knew.
His hands were becoming uncomfortably warm in his pocket, so he dragged them out into the chilly air. One swinging arm immediately bumped into Relena's, and their fingers tangled for a moment before falling apart again. He glanced up just in time to catch her eyes before she looked away, and she smiled at him.
Maybe he didn't hate this after all.
By the time they made their way back along the avenue of linden trees, they had found no less than six separate topics of conversation--though Heero suspected Relena had brought up that fluid dynamics problem only because she thought it would interest him. In fact, as Heero headed off to his nine o'clock meeting, it occurred to him to wonder why he had faced this experience with so much trepidation. Nothing to it, he concluded rather smugly, feeling the familiar edgy tingle of a mission proceeding according to plan. This might even be fun.
As the next two weeks ambled by, the pattern became comfortable. The morning walk was followed by lunch in her office (or in his, if the looming piles of paper on her desk made eating hazardous). Most evenings were spent watching vids, or battling over a card table (Relena was surprisingly adept at poker), or curled into opposite ends of her sofa, reading. It was more or less the same routine they had all settled into during the months of her recovery, with one very vocal, Maxwell-sized difference--and even without Duo to run interference, things seemed to be going fine.
In fact, things were perhaps too comfortable. They seemed to have stalled at the almost-more-than-friends stage, and Heero was forced to conclude that it was his fault. After her initial awkwardness, Relena seemed to have no problem with their new intimacy. But every time they were alone together, Heero felt himself holding back: taking her elbow instead of her hand, kissing her forehead instead of her lips, touching her shoulder instead of taking her into his arms. It was infuriating, but he had no idea how to change his mental settings to permit closer contact.
On Tuesday of the third week, fate--in the form of a broken paving stone--decided to intervene. Their walk came to an unexpected end only about a quarter of a mile from the house; hearing a startled gasp, Heero turned to see Relena balanced on one foot, gingerly testing the other ankle.
"What happened?" Heero went to one knee beside her, pulling off her boot.
"I put my foot down wrong, I think. Maybe there was an uneven place? I didn't notice anything until my leg went all sideways."
He slid her foot out of its sock so he could check for swelling, turning the ankle very gently to one side, then the other. "Does this hurt?"
"No." Relena winced. "But that does." She shifted awkwardly on her good foot, and had to clutch his shoulder for balance.
Heero tried to concentrate on the motion, not the aesthetics, of the delicately-arched foot cradled in his palm. It wasn't especially easy--even her feet were smooth, and so warm, the toes curling away from his cold fingers in protest. He was acutely aware of her hand on his shoulder, the pressure of her leg against his side; both were warm, but the strands of golden hair that slid to tickle his nape were as cool as the crisp air. And her hair smelled so good, like green things growing--
"What's the verdict?"
Her voice brought him back to himself, though Heero still spent a moment blinking at her foot before he trusted himself to speak.
"Slight sprain of the anterior talofibular ligament." Heero shook out her sock and began tugging it back onto her foot, following it with the small brown boot.
"And the translation of that would be--?"
He glanced up at her sideways, not turning his head. "You put your foot down wrong."
"Oh, very helpful." Relena swatted at him with her mitten. When the motion upset her precarious balance, she started to topple over--but her cry of surprise was cut off in mid-yelp when Heero rose smoothly to his feet, gathering her up in both arms.
"Is it that serious? Will I never walk again?" She batted her eyelashes in extravagant alarm, then started laughing at her own silliness. "Seriously, put me down!"
"Better safe than sorry." Adjusting his burden, Heero started back toward the residential wing.
"Quite the Galahad, aren't we?" Relena reluctantly settled in to be carted home.
Heero made a noncommittal noise, pretending to concentrate on navigating the path. It was more difficult than he had anticipated; with Relena's arm around his neck, her body was tipped against his, making every little shifting motion an accidental caress. She couldn't know what this did to him. After all, he had always been scrupulously careful not to let her see.
"Must you look so grim?"
He risked a look down to find Relena watching him with a half-smile on her lips.
"If I'm that heavy," she continued, "we can stop and rest."
He raised an eyebrow at this clear affront to his pride. "I think I can manage."
Back in Relena's quarters, Heero deposited her on the sofa and disappeared into her tiny kitchen. She struggled out of her coat, tossing it toward one of the armchairs, and leaned down to wrestle with her boots.
When Heero came back, ice pack in hand, she shrank back against the pillows. "It's barely even twisted!"
"Ice and elevation," Heero advised patiently.
"Aaugh! It's cold!" She wrinkled up her face, trying not to jerk away.
"That's the point."
Still grumbling, Relena endured the application of the ice pack and let herself be repositioned on the couch with two cushions under the afflicted ankle. "How long do I have to sit like this? I have work to do, Heero."
"I'll bring you your briefcase, if you want." He poked the pillows to make sure they were securely placed. "You're not going anywhere until that swelling goes down."
"Oh, all right," Relena conceded. "But I'll need my little computer, if you get a chance? And I ought to have the phone, I suppose."
"In a minute." Heero knelt by the fireplace, adjusting the dampers until the smouldering logs flared again. Then he stood up, dusting off his knees, and turned back in time to catch her yawning. One side of his mouth lifted in a shadow of a smile. "Need a blanket?"
"No, thank you," she insisted, stifling another yawn. "If I get any more comfortable, I will be napping."
When he came back with her briefcase and computer bag some minutes later, Relena was sound asleep. It looked like sleep had overtaken her without warning; she hadn't changed position, not even to nestle more comfortably into the pillows, but had simply closed her eyes and gone limp where he left her. Her chest rose and fell with the regular rhythm of deep slumber. She must have been exhausted, he realized. As far as her recovery had come, she was still rebuilding her reserves.
Heero set the bags down as quietly as he could, and then dropped into one of the armchairs that flanked the fire. From this vantage point, he let his eyes run over her with leisurely indulgence; no hindrances to his gaze, not here. Not now.
He had been watching her for so many years that the sight of her held no element of surprise, only a satisfying feeling of recognition, of completion. Each visual detail was a component to be matched against the familiar pattern in his head, like bright pieces of glass fitting into their allotted places in a mosaic. Her cheek is shaped like this--her throat, like that. Her hair is this color or that one, depending on the light; her eyes, on the other hand, are always the same. If consulted, he could have supplied the wavelength for that precise shade of blue; it was one of two colors that he consciously recognized as beautiful.
The curve from shoulder to waist, and out again to hip, had changed slightly in the time he had known her. She was slightly taller, too; and because of these changes, the shape she held in his mind was a sort of palimpsest of her various past shapes, each silhouette overlaid with the one that had succeeded it. Different, but the same. And all of it carefully filed away in memory, detail by detail.
The painstaking itemization was an old habit--a checklist of sorts, a way to reassure himself that she was still intact. Watching her breathe was as vital a ritual for him as telling beads on a rosary might be for another. She lives, it told him. You can keep living, because she lives.
But he had always been watching her from a distance, back then. And even when his long-range binoculars had been sharp enough to pick up the slightest flutter of a pulse, it hadn't been like the almost unbearable intimacy of this sunlit room. The urge to reach out, to confirm the information of sight with every other sense, left him tense with indecision; even while part of him was more than ready to set that fire, there was something about her slumber that filled him with a feeling close to reverence.
That she could sleep so deeply, knowing he was coming back--she had never feared him, even when it might have been wise, but this was different. This was the security of a shared home, a shared life; perhaps Duo was right, and the rest was only a little step further on a path they were already traveling together. And perhaps it was time to find out, after all.
Before he had time to act on his conclusion, he looked up to find her blinking sleepily at him.
"Mm. Hello."
"Good morning." He schooled his features into calm immobility, trying not to alarm her with his new determination. Slowly, he reminded himself. There was an order to these things.
Relena yawned like a cat and rubbed at her eyes. "Oh, no. How long was I sleeping?"
"Not long," he lied, casually positioning himself between her and the clock. "Anyway, you needed to rest."
"I can rest when I get that report finished." She squirmed, trying to sit up, and sent all her pillows tumbling to the floor. "That settles it," she announced in exasperation, stretching to reach at least one. "I am the clumsiest person in the world."
Heero dropped into a crouch next to the sofa and began to reconstruct the heap of cushions. "Iie. They jumped."
Relena only rolled her eyes, trying to hold her injured ankle still. "Whatever you say, Heero."
Her laughing gaze turned to a silent question when he didn't respond, and her breathing went shallow as she looked up to meet the intensity of his eyes.
Remotely surprised at his own daring, Heero slid one hand under her hair to support her while he placed the last pillow beneath her head. Almost of its own volition, his hand lingered there after the cushion was settled. The warm, secret curve of her neck, almost always concealed under her long hair, fascinated him with its deceptive vulnerability--beneath the tender skin lay supple muscle and confident bone, grace permitted by strength.
Relena held very still, watching him. Heero didn't realize she was holding her breath until she gave a quick little gasp, gathering air in one short, shuddering breath. His eyes went to her parted lips--so close, now. If he leaned forward just a bit farther--
She stretched up to meet him, sliding her arms around his neck as he kissed her. The fresh scent of the outdoor air lingered on her cheek, but her mouth was warm and sweet. Without breaking the kiss, Heero turned enough to ease onto the sofa, one arm still behind her while the other braced his weight against the back of the couch. Relena shifted to make room, drawing him closer; he felt her sigh of satisfaction against his cheek as he reluctantly brought his full weight down upon her.
The contact sent a slow shudder through him, and he closed his eyes. This was what he had known all along, what he had been so afraid of: that this heat would take him over if he allowed a single spark to live. That if he reached out even once, he wouldn't ever be able to let go.
She was still kissing him, pressing parted lips against the pulse at his throat. He pulled back, breathing hard, and made to rise--but Relena was gripping the front of his shirt, and she wasn't letting go. She shook her head, tugging slightly.
It would hurt her fingers if he pulled back, Heero rationalized. His shirt might rip, too, and it was still perfectly serviceable.
Then Relena shifted, bending her knees to take him between her parted thighs, and all thought abandoned him. Heero gave in with a stifled groan of surrender, bending to take her mouth again. Relena's hands slipped under his shirt, smoothing over the planes of his chest before moving on to curl against his back. Her touch was maddeningly light, but deliciously confident, and he couldn't hold still as long as she continued to caress him. She was moving under him, too, arching and twisting in an increasingly urgent rhythm. The heat was rising again, bringing with it an insistent tingling.
A strangely localized tingling.
Heero lifted his head. "Your phone," he said, in a choked voice he barely recognized as his own.
She blinked up at him, repeating dazedly, "Phone."
He sat up, working one hand into his pants pocket to retrieve the buzzing handset, and passed it to her. Before she could stop him again, Heero dragged himself up and escaped to the other side of the room.
A protest dying on her lips, Relena stared down at the phone for a numb moment before locating the 'talk' function. "Hello? Hello, Ambassador." She struggled to sit up, shoving her tumbled hair back from her face. "No, I'm quite well--thank you for asking."
By the window, Heero tucked his shirt back in with quick, ruthless motions. It wasn't supposed to happen like this: so sudden, so frantic. He could think of at least five conversations they needed to have before things got physically intense. There were things she needed to know about the past. About him. At no point did his plan call for him to leap on her like a ravening animal.
"I believe everything is in place for next week's meeting," she was continuing, her voice crisp with barely-veiled impatience. "But I'm not actually in my office at the moment, you see, so it might be best if I called you back. Yes. You as well. Goodbye."
There was a pause, and then a sharp clatter against the wall to his left. Heero glanced down to find the offending phone on the floor at his feet, miraculously still in one piece.
Relena was half-standing, her unhurt foot on the floor and the other knee on the sofa. "If that thing rings again, stomp on it."
"You didn't have to answer it," he pointed out.
She made a face. "All right--if that phone rings again, don't give it to me unless you're sure I'm clear-headed enough to stomp on it myself!"
Heero shoved one hand through his hair--hopefully not in an attempt to tidy it, since the motion only contributed to its disarray. "I have to go, anyway."
"But--" Disappointment and concern warred briefly across Relena's features, before she settled on a brisk smile. "Right. Your nine o'clock meeting."
"Aa." Heero was fighting his own battle--against the chilly realization that he had just made everything worse. He made a valiant effort to salvage the situation. "I'll--can I come back? Later."
The brave smile turned warm and genuine. "I'll be here. After all, I believe I'm under orders not to move."
"You'd better not." His gruffness was only partly manufactured. "Or I'll come back with more ice."
Her answering laughter followed him down the hall as he made his retreat.
--tbc--
(:./lilias/beyond2)
