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"Greeting Cards"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Yaoi, funeral practices, AU, fluff Pairings: 1+4, 1x2x1, 3+H, 5xH, 3x4, 6x9 Summary: Each chapter is based on Heero’s
greeting cards and Duo's mortuary. "Greeting Cards " Chapter 7 -- June Bugs, part 2 I thought Saturday would never get here. But it did. The moment I got in his car, I was aware of his unmistakable scent. It was unlike any cologne I had ever smelled, not that I was overly familiar with men's beauty products. I breathed deeply, releasing the pent up tension I must have been holding on to since I had received the unwelcome call from Ty, and enjoyed the pleasure of Duo's company. I had, ever since my unfortunate time with Ty, developed better instincts, and Duo was thoroughly good, through and through. As proof, he did not awake me as I dozed off. I can't believe I did that now. I was not one to let down my guard that way, which must have signified how deeply I trusted him on a subconscious level. When I opened my eyes, we were torpedoing along the highway skirted with orchards and open, cultivated land and dotted with farmhouses. "This is the long way to Mrs. Claremont's house." "You might say that." I checked the time, as I often did to keep my life on schedule. We were half an hour into what should have been a five-minute ride. That is not to say that I did not enjoy the drive into the country. Duo pointed out the old family lots and recited history of the area. He turned off the main highway, bumped along a gravel road, and then parked. "This way." I followed him to the edge of an orchard. The flowers of spring had long gone and been replaced by bright, green leaves. Setting sun shot golden light through the openings overhead. "C'mon." The ground was damp, muddy in spots between the trees, so we hopped, sloshed, and slipped single file deeper and deeper into the orchard row. After a few minutes, we were lost in a world of lush greens, dappled light, and growing shadows. I nearly ran Duo down when he came to an abrupt halt and spun around to face me. "Whoa!" "You're the one that stopped without warning." "Yeah, guess so. Quiet, isn't it?" "Yes." Just us. My heart beat a tattoo on the inside of my ribcage. "There's a house on the other side. The trees mask it. I kept hoping it would come up for sale, and then it did." I waited for him to continue. He was staring into the trees. "What happened?" "Couldn't afford it. 'Sides, what would I need with an orchard to manage? I got enough on my plate as it is with the mortuary. Still, I like to visit. The folks that bought it are nice. They have two kids. They let me visit. Like this." "You come here alone often?" "No. Just for the quiet. It's on purpose. No one can see us or hear us. No one knows we are here or what we are doing." "Right." RIGHT! What are we doing here, I wanted to scream?! "So, anything you or I say can just stay here. When we leave, it's like it didn't happen. We never have to refer to it or what happened again. Just say it here and pretend we didn't the moment we leave. Okay?" "Maybe," I had no idea what he had in mind now. "You're not a murderer on the side trying to drum up business, are you?" He laughed, thankfully, realizing I was joking. "Fuck! Wouldn't Trowa get the shock of his life pulling off the sheet and finding your face... heh, heh... yeah, well..." His voice trailed off. He seemed nervous, running a hand through his bangs and stuffing it in his pocket to contain the movement. "I don't mean I have anything really bad to say or anything. Just, you know, like when there's something on your mind, something stuck there so that you can't think about anything without it getting in there somehow?" "Yes." That I understood. Duo was always on my mind. Stuck. "Good. So, I thought if there was something you wanted to say that wouldn't leave here unless we wanted it to, or something I wanted to say, then we could just get it over with and then I'd be able to get my work done. You know, I use very sharp knives at work, and if I lose track of what I'm doing, I could cut off a finger." He was giving me the opportunity to get something off my chest! I should own up to sending him the greeting cards. I leapt at the chance and my mind and brain warred a moment and blurted out, "I was wondering..." "Were you?" Oh, God. He looked so endearing with a stray wisp of hair teasing his lips. I wanted that. "If I could have a piece of your hair?" "Huh?" He was baffled completely and so was I. Had that really come out of my mouth? That the kind of revelation he meant! "Ah, sure. Kinda weird..." he said as he untied his braid and shook the past-the-ass hair out. "Where do you want to cut it?" "I'll do it," I said, choking with excitement, "so it won't show." There was a lot of hair. All I wanted to do was bury my face in it and his scent. I didn't think he would appreciate me doing that, though, so I opened a pocketknife and reached for a lank at the back, underneath. I embedded my hand in the most luxurious chestnut brown hair ever produced. It felt exactly as I imagined it would. With the fine tress in one hand and my knife in the other, I cut. His wide eyes tracked my movements as the blade swept past his neck. "Shoulda asked if you were some raving lunatic slasher," he muttered to mask his uncertainty and possibly his discomfort. "Too late." I smiled crookedly and enjoyed his shiver in response. With a blade that close to my neck, I might tremble, too. I showed him the hair and then twisted it into a ring, which I tucked into my shirt pocket. "Thanks." "Ah, sure. Ah, don't mention it." He frowned as he said it and pressed his mouth into one of those "perturbed' lines. I did draw people; Relena was wrong about that. Drawing faces meant studying them, and I was hyper-aware of the nuances of expressions. This is not to say that I knew what to say or do in response. I was socially inept, as I have said before, but it is worth repeating to underscore the importance of how this all played out. "You're not gonna do something kinky with that, are you? Or some kinda voodoo thing, you know, like to burn it and then I go up in smoke, too?" "No. Just a keepsake." I patted my pocket as if it held a treasure; at least I hoped my gesture looked that way to him. "Oh? Oh, okay. That all?" No, I'm not done. I have much more to tell you. I'm crazy about you, I'm certain of it! I want to kiss you! I wish you were mine! Do you like my cards? And I thought about saying at least some of those things, except that he grew more exasperated, which made me more uncertain. I had done that to him, of course. He had been happy up until my asking for his hair. He probably had a hair sensitivity issue and it had been too intimate a gesture on my part. Should I explain how, no matter what, I would cherish this lock and never let anything untoward happen to it and carry this piece of him with me forever? God, that made me sound pathetic. I scared me. Now he was expecting me to answer his question. I should try for sounding sane. I refrained from sounding desperate and settled for a composed answer. "For now, I guess." Wimp! Could I get any more incompetent at this? "My turn, then." "All right." "It bugs me that you introduced Quatre to your high class friends, but not me. I've got a bit of an inferiority complex already for reasons I'm not much interested in going into now or probably ever. Anyway, Quat told me all about Relena and Zechs, and he had a good time with you. I guess you showed him a good time and made him forget the sucky time he'd had with me." I could not get a word in edgewise, which was probably just as well considering the dim-witted things that I could say. "What I wanted to tell you was that Quat and I broke up. So, if you wanna ask him out the coast's clear." "Duo--?" I was talking to his back. He was on his way back to the hearse and if I didn't run, I would be wandering the orchard all night until someone found me. My luck it would be Relena, no, Milliardo on one of his midnight haunts. They would make me one of them. Wait! Duo just included me with them! I am not like them! I'm human! I ran and caught up with Duo at the edge of the grove. "Duo!" He stopped, holding up one hand. "I've left the orchard; case is closed." "But I didn't get a chance to explain." He cocked his head to the side, waiting. That is when the words stuck in my throat again. It was the only place I could think to take Quatre because I live there—that sounded deeply bad and wrong. I wanted to extract from him a confession of his feelings for you, and then-- what? Kill him? That made me sound like an insane man! Well, I probably was! My time was up. "Yeah, well. We gotta go or we'll be late for dinner. Not that I'm some anal-retentive asshole about being on time..." "I am," I confessed. Well, in spite of all my efforts not to spoil everything and blurt out an unintentional piece of incriminating information, I could demean myself rather well. "Neurotic." We had reached his car. "Oh, yeah? Well, I'm kinda that way about being professional and all at work, and Mrs. Claremont doesn't hold dinner. If we want it hot we'd better high-tail it over there." I stared out the window on the way back. I thought I had seen a FOR SALE sign on a side road. "Turn here and stop. Just for a second." "Better be. Oh, I hadn't noticed that sign. Good eyes, 'Ro. You see in the near-dark?" "Only vampires can, you must know that," I said. He chuckled. He probably didn't know what I knew. I took a flyer from the small box staked along a dirt drive. "We passed it on the way here and I noticed it. Says... there's a farm house and out buildings and acres of land." "Must be expensive. What'sit say? Shit!" "It's probably negotiable." "Unless they're doing half-price deals for morticians, it's out of my league. C'mon." "You think you can qualify for half this?" He had more money than I expected if it were true. "Maybe. The business is good. I have a lot of money in it. If I had a partner buy part of me out, I'd have some ready cash. I don't know. Probably all a stupid dream." "It isn't stupid to dream, but it might be to live in a dream world," I said. He grunted and strode back to the car, barely visible in the failing light. I folded the paper and stuck it into my pocket. I followed Duo to the car and rode in silence most the way. All the way, as it turned out. I was thinking over his money problems, avoiding all thoughts about what had gone on in the orchard for a change. I recognized the winding road to the hilltop cemetery we had visited before. "Maybe you could swing something by selling the land to the neighboring property owners?" Duo brightened. "That's a good point. I don't have time to be a farmer anyway. Okay, so I'm gonna park up at the cemetery and from there we can walk to the Claremonts' or run as it turns out." As he parked in the space marked 'funeral director" I asked, "So, why don't we park in front of the house?" "Think how it would look, a hearse. Most people, especially older ones, don't like how it stirs up interest." "It reminds people of how short life is." Then it all soaked in. Duo had told me he and Quatre had broken up. He was free! "Duo, I'm sorry you broke up. I hope--" "Not your fault." Duo reached into the back and pulled out a brown-paper-wrapped bottle of wine. "Gotta hurry now." I had no other choice but to follow. We dashed across the parking lot and down the narrow lane leading out the back gate. There were the dirt mounds, more than before, the discarded, plastic flowers, broken and mixed with the florist's foam and mud, grey in the twilight, and a Caterpillar backhoe looming in the shadows off to the side. We had had rain earlier in the week and clouds thereafter, leaving muddy spots where puddles had been. "Slow down, Duo! It's too dark. I don't know this path like the back of my hand." I skirted a pothole, slipped on the mud-caked road, caught myself before falling, and called out for Duo to slow down again. Seconds too late. "Fuck!" Duo wind-milled about and landed half in a rhododendron and half in the wild briar. I was at his side moments later, but could tell he was fine. The wine bottle nestled safely in the thick foliage. I gave him a hand up, grabbing one of his forearms since his hands were coated in muck, and then nabbed the wine with my free hand. "Shhh..." I stood still and listened. Rib-it, krek-ek, Rib-it, krek-ek, Rib-it, krek-ek... "Tree frogs!" Duo announced. Mercurial as ever, Duo stood, eyes closed, listening in wonder at the rising chorus. Lights from the house across the street gilded the outline of his face. I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. I actually stepped closer, but my movement must have reminded him of my presence and he came out of his trance. "Cool, eh? Heh, heh... good thing I still have my quick reactions. I haven't done fancy footwork like that since my soccer days." Interesting. "I played also." "Forward?" I nodded. "You, too?" "Sometimes, sometimes midfielder. I liked to cover the field and run all the time." "I can imagine that," I said, and I could! "I was never tall enough to be a goalie, but I thought it would be cool to snatch the opponents' victory out from under them like that." "Yeah, that would be cool." I didn't notice that my hand was gripping his bicep when Mrs. Claremont opened the door, getting us and taking the wine from my other hand. "Thank you dears for this. It is a celebration tonight. Chet, that's Mr. Claremont, is home from the hospital." "Need to wash up!" Duo cried out. I had to set him free then. He set out on his way to the bathroom. Mrs. Claremont led me to the same front room I'd visited before. "Hello." I shook Mr. Claremont's hand from where he rested in a wheel chair and sat on the edge of the couch. "Take off your coat and stay awhile," he told me. "And call me Chet. She's the missus, but I'm just plain Chet." "He thinks it make him seem more artistic." I handed her my jacket. "Informal," Chet corrected her as she opened the hall closet. "So, you are the Hiro Yuy. I imagined a little old wizened Japanese man bent over his rice paper making those cards." I looked past his wife, who was picking something off the floor, but Duo wasn't in sight. "That's right. It's a living. I thought your paintings were magnificent. The size... the skies make me feel as if I could step into one and be transported." I said the right thing. The "Hiro" topic was dropped and Chet was pleased to discuss his work until Duo joined us and we settled around the dining table. Duo told us about a case he and Trowa had solved for the police. He danced about the details but told the story in a very amusing way. You'd have thought he worked at the corner deli and not a mortuary by his glancing references to samples and parts. I limited my participation to skirting the subject of my work and turning it back on art, flowers, Duo, or the food. After dinner, Chet offered me for a private tour of his studio, rather pointedly leaving Duo and his wife out of the invitation. I must have smirked. I imagined the men going for a smoke and brandy, leaving the women to gossip in the parlor, and from the look Duo gave me, he had read my mind or thought the same thing. He looked particularly delectable miffed. What I had said about Chet's art had not been flattery. His largest work and the skies in particular were extraordinary. I helped move a few paintings and rearranged his brushes and paints so he could better reach them. "Has Duo told you about my meeting him, the first time?" Mr. Claremont asked. "No." I could not explain the little I actually did know about Duo or how few conversations of a personal nature he and I had ever had. We were friends and not secret-sharing ones. I meant to stop him from telling me the story, but I was not fast enough. I was also curious as hell. "Then he probably expects me to do it." He sighed, but smiled. "You don't have to—" Chet shook his head and began, "A few years ago, it was raining and cold, so it might have been in the winter or early spring. Not that it matters, but Mrs. Claremont would remember. "I took longer walks then... I visited old friends in the cemetery. My wife thought that was too dismal for her so I went alone. "This one day it saw a poor thing, a girl, I thought, mourning over a grave. It was near where I was going and she had no umbrella as the rain started to come down seriously. I paused to offer her mine to share and was surprised when a young man's face looked up to me." "Duo," I said for him. "Yes. He didn't look at all well, like someone who hadn't eaten properly for some time, so I invited him here. It took little convincing. He needed company, food, and a warm place to stay. "That evening it was important to take care of his most immediate needs. As you can see, I'm much taller, even when seated, but Mrs. Claremont insisted he be dry, so he wore a robe of mine and ate soup, while she washed his clothes. "We learned he was the mortician who had built the new funeral home. Oh, we had heard about him, even seen him once or twice before. Everyone raved about his kindness and thoughtfulness, but we had not had occasion to meet in a formal manner." "A good thing for most people," I said, and we both smiled. "He stayed with us a few days, regained his color, and told us his lover had died of an illness. He had some debts to settle and would have to change apartments. Of course, we told him he could stay with us as long as he needed. We have no children of our own, you see, and we was a pleasure to entertain, in spite of his grieving state." "How long did he stay with you?" "Not long at all. A couple weeks, and then on after he told us he was gay and his boyfriend, Solo, was the one that died. Yes, that Solo, the singer. It had been very secret, which is why Duo got none of man's estate when he died." "I didn't know Solo was buried here." "Not many do. He did it all, you know. The services, funeral. The family took the ashes, but Duo paid for and marked a grave, for himself I'm sure. No one visits that grave but Duo." "I can't imagine..." "Conducting the funeral for your own beloved? No, who could imagine such a terrible ordeal? But it was his job and no one knew about their relationship, so, there it is." "Yeah. Thanks...Chet." "Now you understand why we are so interested in you. He's got that sparkle in his eyes a person can't hide that when they are happy. You're an artist, you see that." I did, but I thought that was just Duo's special charm. To imagine him dull-eyed and listless, God, after being in charge of his secret-lover's funeral, having to grieve alone, move—it was too terrible to consider. "I can see you are a fine young man, Hiro Yuy. Bring him joy." "I'll try." I meant it; though, I did not have a plan for how I might do that. Just the start of one. "Good! We should be getting back before the missus thinks we got lost in the dark." I pushed and Chet rested quietly as we wheeled from the studio to the house. Duo and Mrs. Claremont were drying the dishes when we came in. "See? What did I tell you?" she said to Duo, who was grinning at their shared joke. "Yeah, as soon as the work's done, they come back. Chet? You always have good timing?" "That's my gift!" Chet laughed. It was time for Duo and me to go. Mrs. Claremont brought us our coat and jackets. When she handed me mine, she said, "A few things fell out of your pockets when I took it earlier. I put everything back, but I might not have put them in the right places. I just wanted you to know I wasn't snooping." "Thank you," I said. "I had a nice time and the dinner was very good." "The best restaurant in town!" Duo declared and with a few more laughs we left. At the end of the walkway leading to the street, I reached for his hand and linked fingers. I do not think I could have done it in the light of day. He didn't say anything for the longest time and then wiggled our clasped hands a little and asked, "Ah, Heero?" "I don't want you to skip off and fall again. I don't want to have to fish you out of the berry patch or creek in the dark. A-and I don't want to lose you." If he looked hard enough he could see my smile. "Okay." We walked hand-in-hand all the way to the cemetery. Lights lined the dry, clean-swept roadways, so there was no real danger necessitating the contact. I released his hand and we walked the rest of the way to his car in silence. When I go into the car, he turned to me, "Where to?" Oh. I knew what I had to do then. I had a plan. "It's June, you know." "Yeah, I manage a calendar of events at work all the time." I reached into my jacket pocket, found the envelope, and slipped it out. "This is for you." He stared at the card then up at me then back to the card before saying anything. "Special delivery? I can open it here? Now?" "Yes. You can open it." "I was wondering if one would show up. Getting kinda used to getting one of these, ya know? Real mystery." I watched him rip the seal and remove the card. "Heero, this is cool. What are the bugs flying around the roses?" "June bugs. They are common this time of year where I came from." "Oh yeah? You'll haveta tell me about that sometime. Later, though. How did ya get the iridescence on the bug wings?" "Paint over gold leaf." "Cool. Real gold. What's the special occasion though?" "None, really. June is for wedding cards, but under the circumstances I thought giving you one of those might be a little premature." Duo's response was perfect. A broad grin split his face. "No shit. Guess I should read what's inside." He was taking this all as well as I had hoped. I felt a suffocating veil had been lifted from my spirit. I did not think I could put myself into some kind of emotional lockdown if he refused me now. "Yes." I watched him read the lines, lips moving. "Want me to read it aloud?" he asked. Not that I didn't know each and every word, and the ones that had come before, been erased, reworked—but I wanted to hear him say them. "Yes." He cleared his throat and read: "Look again or love escapes your notice. Wait too long and it escapes your grasp." "It's from y—" "I've been sending these—" I began. I really wanted to explain. "You have?" "For a while. See—" "To me? What about the Val—?" Duo interrupted me again. "Not the Valentine. I mean, I did, but—" "But I just found it on the ground! How--?" "I make greeting cards for a living, but I lost it, but I meant to give it to you, but—" "But why—?" "Why on the ground?" "Me!" I finally worked up the courage to confess everything and we kept pouncing on one another's lines. Now I had lost my train of thought and Duo's too. "I'm lost. Where were we?" I asked. "Huh?" "Forget it." "No way!" He clutched the card in one hand and rested his weight on the other, leaning toward me. "Do you mean it? What it says here?" "Um, yeah. I wanted to meet you for the longest time, but I couldn't start. So, I did the cards. To tell you what I couldn't say aloud to your face. Then you had a boyfriend, so I shouldn't have pursued you at all." "You are so—" he began. "Cool, say cool." "Weird. But cool weird." "That's good?" "That's good." "Good." "Real good." We smiled at each other for a full minute. "So, ah, Heero? If I'm to take you home, I need to know where you live." I had learned a little something about Duo's past, so I guess it was time to share some of mine and explain my living arrangements. "Sanc Palace. I-I don't live there! I mean, I do, but it's only temporary. I have a room and studio space." "You're shitting me." "No, it's a strange arrangement, I know. I don't even pay rent." "Of course not." The conversation was actually very exciting; at least I felt this excitement fizzing inside me. We were really talking. I told him things I hadn't said to anyone else. All this stuff I'd been holding inside and it felt so good and he wasn't kicking me out of his car or giving me strange looks like he might push me out while driving away, maybe on a fast turn. I had seen that happen to someone in a movie once. "I saw that movie, too," I heard him say and then I realized I had said all that aloud too. "You did?" "I'm not dumping you because you live with the Peacecrafts free of charge. Hey, I might wanna get in on that myself!" He held up his hands in surrender and laughed. "Ha! Just kidding." He just charged the entire car with all this positive energy. Did he know how his eyes shone and his teeth, were they sparking? I wanted to run my tongue along those teeth and get a charge. He was the most exciting person in the universe and I was sitting inches away from him about to burst with feelings, and he was talking to me. "I just want to know why the palace? Well, that's not all I want to know but that's a good place to start. You know, I don't know a thing about you. You just appeared in the coffee shop and starting hanging out all the time." "It's all mixed up with my saving Relena Peacecraft from an attacker," I said. "I moved to Sanc and was staying in a hotel downtown and trying to find a studio. I passed the gallery area, looking, dreaming, when I saw a man stealing a girl's purse. I heard her cry first. He hit her. I chased him half a block and tackled him. He pulled a gun on me." "God! What did you do?" "Took it away and held it to his head until he pissed himself." Heero smiled. "Where'd you learn how to do that?" "Oh, long story. I'll tell you sometime." "Okay. You'd better, too." We smiled at each other for a few seconds. "So, the police were called and the purse returned." "The girl must have been grateful." "She was." I checked one more time. "Sure you don't want to come in and meet the occupants?" "Not any more. Not tonight, anyway." "Oh, okay. Well." I turned back and kissed him. I was not much, hardly a kiss, a swipe, but it was lip-to-lip contact, and fast. What I had wanted to pull off was a lingering good-bye kiss, but he did not kiss back so cut it short. "What was that about?" he asked. Was the kiss too sudden? Did I shock him? Was there real electricity? I had to say something, and I had already decided not to hide how I felt. What good would that do now? I was too far along to give up or pretend I didn't care or to back out. I could feel a connection between us. I could sense energy, sometimes negative, like with Ty coming at me through the phone, only with Duo it was positive. Right at that moment, I could feel energy exploding around me in all directions. "Heero, that wasn't some accidental contact." With one hand on the door handle, I would have taken off then, but Duo latched onto my shoulder with a viselike grip, keeping me in place. Duo acted like a conduit for all that crackling power and we made that special connection. I knew exactly what to say. "What we had was like a date tonight, and I just touched you and kissed you and now... I feel like you're mine." I stared into his eyes, glittering in the low light and knew the timing was right. I thought too much about energy and time. I thought too much at the wrong times and wasted a lot of energy. As sure about everything that I was, I still had to ask for that reassurance that we were thinking along the same wavelength, "Are you?" He smiled and my heart leapt. "Sure." What a relief! I smiled back. "I think I'll finally get some sleep tonight." "Sweet dreams then." "You, too." "Oh," he said as his smile drew wicked and his eye glinted with amusement, "I'll dream, but they won't be sweet ones, more along the lines of... hot." I would not sleep a wink thinking about that.
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