The Perfect Christmas
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, and I'm not making any money off of this.
Dedicated to Gracie
Heero hadn't gotten any gifts for Christmas.
Not that this was unexpected. He was, after all, the perfect soldier. He had been trained his entire life to be perfect, to have perfect control over every aspect of his life. His apartment was perfect – nothing was out of place, nothing was too gaudy or impractical. His Christmas was perfect, even without gifts from his friends. He didn't have a Christmas tree, though – it would have been too ostentatious, flashy. It would have been imperfect, and that was one thing that Heero could not have.
A loud banging on his door interrupted the perfect stillness of his apartment. Heero walked, in perfect silence, to the door and opened it, his face perfectly blank.
There stood Duo, his face broken by a wide grin, looking disheveled and wet – most definitely imperfect. Duo dusted the snow off his hair with his left hand and let himself inside, shutting the door behind him.
"Man, Heero, we need to get you some Christmas spirit!" Duo's voice shattered the perfect silence of his apartment. "Here, Heero, I have a present for you." A perfectly wrapped package was thrust into Heero's hands. "Ooh, tea! Can I have some?" Duo kicked off his boots and, not waiting for an answer, snatched the cup of the rapidly cooling liquid from the table and took a sip.
"Duo…" Heero looked down at the gift in his hands. He ran his finger over the edges, the perfectly matching ribbon, and the muted wrapping paper. "It's..."
"You haven't even opened it yet! You can't say anything about it." Duo smiled in amusement and set down the tea. "Open it, Heero."
Heero didn't. He instead stared at it for a long time, trying to find some sort of answer in the soft folds of the ribbon. He set the present down beside him and hugged Duo, who awkwardly placed his hands around the more built Japanese boy.
"Thank you," Heero whispered. And then, he did something he had not done for many, many years.
He began to cry. He wept over his life, the perfectly broken life that controlled him. Perfection was not this – perfection was not being alone, was not restricting his every twitch, was not not celebrating Christmas, was not this disgusting, sterile apartment he lived in. Heero was not perfect, his apartment was not perfect, nothing in his life was perfect.
Perfection was Duo – the one person who had thought to give Heero a gift. The only person who remembered the forgotten.
"Thank you so much, Duo." Heero's voice was quiet, carefully neutral – had a person other than the two of them heard him, he would not have been able to guess that Heero had been breaking in Duo's arms.
"Don't worry about it, Heero." Duo gently removed the younger boy from his arms and lightly kissed him on the forehead. "It's what friends are for."
Heero thought for a moment. He knew that he had had a crush on the American for quite some time, perhaps even during the war. But his quest for perfection had never allowed him to act upon his feelings. But now, since he had broken (since perfection had broken him, he should say), he decided that there was nothing to lose.
"I hope that … we can be more than friends." Heero was not an articulate speaker. In fact, he had been trained nearly his entire life to not speak. But he hoped that his words conveyed the message, and in case they hadn't, Heero leaned into Duo's arms again, not for reassurance but for a gentle kiss.
Duo stiffened and Heero pulled away, afraid. Perhaps he should have stayed faux perfect, perhaps this had been a mistake, perhaps, perhaps –
Duo wiped away the tearstains on Heero's face and grinned. "Don't be afraid, Heero. I was just unprepared. I love you too, Heero. I've loved you since we fought together in the war. But come on. You have a present waiting for you."
Heero finally allowed himself a tiny smile. He was not perfect, but he didn't care – the moment felt perfect, and that was all that mattered.