21 Feb 2001
This is a very late Valentine's fic--I actually posted it in a couple of places on time (i.e. last week ^_^;;), really I did! But I had been having second thoughts about harassing this list with more "Complicated" bits--not that I've been churning them out, or anything--until that little burst of messages talked me into hurling this at you too. So, um, here it is:
Category: sap
Pairing: 1+(2+R)
Rating: G
Warnings: references to shounen-ai and hetero-ai; saaaaaaap!
Disclaimer: I don't own the boy or his sweethearts. ^_^
Notes: Random holiday sappiness, takes place somewhere in the later
parts of the Comp arc. This thing was supposed to be a short, funny
bit of noise--watch the silly checkout lady make assumptions, ha ha--
but then I got all attached to Kelly, and here we have a strange
little ficlet that's lost its punchline.... Oh, well. ^_^;; Hope
you like it anyway! (And no, Kelly's boss wasn't a pop idol in her
previous life--why do you ask? ^_~)
Leaning heavily on the counter, Kelly tried surreptitiously to take her weight off her aching feet; it had been a long day, but in only half an hour she could finally shoo the last stragglers out of the store and lock up. Thirty more minutes--she'd be lucky to live that long. Honestly, it was like a war zone!
Not too surprising, really. At nine-thirty in the evening on the fourteenth of February, the railway station's little card-and-gift shop was a war zone, as desperate last-minute grabbers (no picking and choosing was being done, just snatching and paying, so it was hard to call them shoppers) flailed among the card-racks and candy displays. Wild-eyed and huffy, every last one of them--well, except for that one.
She'd noticed him when he first came in: young, not especially tall, dark-brown hair. The dark suit, the white shirt, the tie marked him as one of the after-work shoppers, but no stockbroker or middle- manager in the city moved like that. Like an athlete, or a dancer. A professional martial artist, maybe--or a rock star, traveling incognito? Or a spy.... Propping her chin on her hand, Kelly imagined all sorts of romantic adventures for Mr. Mysterious Valentine Shopper--until Mima, the manager, poked her meaningfully in the back and nodded toward the stockroom.
"Can you grab another case of those huggy-bear things, Kel? Selling like hotcakes, I swear."
"You're kidding. Those little fuzzballs are scary-looking." Kelly shook her head. "These people have no imagination whatsoever-- they're grabbing the first thing they see!"
Mima snorted. "Count your blessings, kiddo. Every creepy huggy-bear that goes out that door is another nickel in our pockets."
Rolling her eyes in reluctant agreement, Kelly went off to find the furry prizes, coming back to pile another heap of round-eared, heart- clutching, not-very-bear-like bears with the snuggle-bunnies and the stuffed gorillas. She was so busy cursing at the bears (and their tendency to pitch themselves head-first off the shelf) that at first she didn't even notice her mystery customer waiting calmly for her to finish.
So when she stood up, Kelly was not at all ready to find herself staring straight into a pair of patient blue eyes. Very, very pretty blue eyes.
/Wow.../ was about all Kelly's mind could manage, until she collected her wits enough to clear her throat and smile in what she hoped was a cheerfully professional manner. "Can I help you find something for--" she stole a discreet peek at his left hand. Darn. "--for your wife?"
"No. Thanks." Reaching past her to the shelf, he poked through the display. "I already got something for her."
"Oh." That was definitely the edge of a smile, and something told Kelly that it wasn't a common sight. She acknowledged a pang of envy--that smile was definitely intimate, reserved for someone else, somewhere else. Suddenly feeling like she was trespassing in a private place just by watching him, Kelly took refuge in helpfulness. "Your daughter, then? Or son?" He didn't exactly look old enough to have either, but he was digging through the plushies, after all.
"No children." Some accent Kelly couldn't quite identify--she was pretty sure it wasn't Chinese, but then she'd always had a terrible time placing Asian accents. Anyway, now that she looked more closely, he didn't seem interested in the stuffed gorillas themselves, but in the framed stained-glass panes behind them. He held one up inquiringly: "In the shop in the Chicago station, there was one like this, but more blue."
"There may be some more in the back--I'll check." Unaccountably pleased to be able to do Blue-Eyes a favor, Kelly bustled importantly past the line at the register on her way to the stockroom, undeterred by the customers' glares: after all, she was on a mission.
When she came back with an armload of cardboard boxes, he was standing at the front window of the store, looking expectantly up and down the concourse and glancing occasionally at his watch. Kelly ventured yet another question while she piled the cartons on the floor and got ready to dig through them. "Someone coming to get you, or are you catching a train out?"
"I'm waiting to be picked up." He rejected the first two prospects, shaking his head. "Not these, but almost. It had a tree, I think."
There were three more panes left to extract from their bubble-wrap, and the next-to-last turned out to be the right one--an eight-inch square of glass, painted in a design that managed to recall both a cathedral window and a poster by Mucha: a lovely little Tree of Life, its branches reaching to a painted indigo sky.
"Oh, that isnice. We have some votive candles--I bet it'd be pretty if you put one behind it so it could shine through--"
"He has candles already. Lots of them." Blue-Eyes answered absently, still focused on the pane in his hands. "Borderline pyromaniac." The secret little almost-smile was back.
Kelly's eyes widened in question, but he didn't seem to notice as he folded the puffy plastic back over the glass with exquisite care. "This one. And can you hurry? They'll be here any minute."
"Sure, sure." 'They.' Whatever could it mean? A wife, and then a-- not an Other Woman, but some mysterious pyro 'he' who liked candles, and stained glass, or maybe it was trees that he liked, but anyway.... It was a puzzle; just when she thought she had this guy figured out, he went all murky again. She sighed, heading for the counter. Not that it was any of her business.
The register was mercifully free--in fact, it was a good bit past closing time, so the store was pretty much deserted--and she was able to ring up his purchase quickly. And then he was gone, back out into the cavernous space of the station's atrium. Just another guy in a suit, except for that supernaturally smooth movement. Surely it wouldn't hurt to stare for just another minute. She could even pretend to be double-checking the lock on the shop's front door, and--
Then her eyes widened even farther as two figures broke from the crowd, waving excitedly to him--a slim blonde woman in a tailored skirt, and a rangy man whose most visible feature, at least from this distance, was his astonishingly long hair. They hurried to meet him, hand in hand, before smothering him in an enthusiastic hug. Complete with enthusastic kisses.
And then it all made sense--Kelly found herself grinning like an absolute fool.
"Well, we survived another V-Day. Yay us." Behind her, Mima heaved a sigh of relief. "Did that guy ever get around to choosing something?"
Kelly repressed a laugh. "Not exactly. I guess he got what he wanted in the end, though."
Mima looked at her strangely. "You do realize that made no sense."
"Yup." Kelly grinned at her boss, but declined to elaborate. And she smiled all the way home, warmed by the memory of that last glimpse--of the moment when she saw the half-smile grow into a whole one, when Blue-Eyes headed off down the concourse with a valentine on each arm.
-end-
Gack. >_< I so do not like the end of this one, but I wanted to get it out the door while it was still cupid-day, so....
(:./lilias/lastminute)
