Sometime in April
By Misanagi
Fandom: GW
Pairing: 1x4
Rating: PG
Summary: About the small things that sometimes go unnoticed.
Word Count: 527
Thanks to Anne for the quick beta.
Notes: For Anne. (Written for the LJ drabble meme.)
Heero watched a small yellow leaf fall slowly from one of the trees. It drifted for a while in the soft wind before finally landing on the road. Quatre hadn't noticed it. He was too absorbed in looking at the scenery in front of him to notice a lonely leaf.
Quatre always noticed all the little things, but somehow he had managed to miss the leaf. Maybe the magnificent mountain in the horizon and the orange sun hiding behind it were more powerful that the vision of a small leaf. It was the way humans were; they were attracted to the bright and shiny things and sometimes forgot that what was hidden in the shadows could be just as beautiful.
Quatre had stopped walking and Heero turned his back on the sunset to see what was keeping him. The blond was just standing in the middle of the road, his eyes down, and below him, just beside his right foot, was the yellow leaf.
Slowly, Quatre bent down and picked up the leaf with his index finger and thumb. He stared at it for a while and then looked up at the tall green trees bordering the road. After a moment, he let the leaf fall again, and walked over to Heero.
"What?" Quatre asked, when he saw that Heero wasn't moving.
"You noticed," Heero replied simply and continued walking down the road.
Quatre walked with him and after a while, he stopped again. "This looks like a good place," he said, gesturing to a small clearing beside the road.
Heero nodded and they sat in the shadow of a tree, looking at the setting sun.
"What did you want to talk to me about?" Quatre asked, moments later.
Heero put his arms around the blond, forcing Quatre to lean against him. "I love you." The words were delivered slowly and in a simple way, but Heero was sure that it was enough for Quatre.
The blond turned around and pressed a small kiss on Heero's lips. "I know."
Heero blinked. He had been with Quatre for months and, even though the blond had said the words to him every day, Heero hadn't been able to say them in return. After all this time, he had thought that Quatre would say something else, that he would be surprised.
"You didn't need to say it for me to know it." Quatre was smiling at Heero and he was running his hand slowly through Heero's hair. "It was sometime in April when I knew for sure, and it was as though you had shouted it to the heavens. You stopped hiding from me. I was able to see the real you, and you weren't afraid to show yourself to me."
"But I thought it was bigger than that," whispered Heero, puzzled. "That I had to actually say the words for it to be true."
Quatre just kissed him in reply.
As Heero closed his eyes, ignoring the beautiful sunset, he remembered the small yellow leaf, and understood that Quatre didn't just notice the small things, but that for him, they shone as brightly as the sun.
- The End