for my sis, who wanted some character depth.
...
a wonderful part of the mess that we made
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relena had been wearing pink plastic high-heels and cheap imitation rings; and the triviality of such an observation lingered as an unwelcome aftertaste of the questionable booze and trowa's loathsome smoking.
it was not that heero liked to be annoyed by so much of what went on around him, but there were many sensations that (still) caught him unaware which he (still!) only knew to translate into annoyance, sadly. And so, Wu Fei ditching them for movies with his girlfriend was annoying, the thought of the reek that would linger in his car was annoying; and he was pretty sure he was thus annoying himself, a thought which annoyed him, too.
he vaguely questioned his ability to wreck vicious circles.
as the default designated driver, he only had to drop duo off before he could (finally) head home, and he found himself speeding past red lights and stop signs in an otherwise alarming careless fashion, just because he could. and, well, he being who he was (even if he'd had a few drinks), and it being 3 am, it was not as if it meant any actual danger.
duo snored, sprawled on the backseat like he owned it, and heero was thankful that he'd been out almost as soon as he'd started the car. Dropping trowa by his place had been fairly uneventful if for his eerie drunkenish humming of some nondescript latin pop song; and heero wanted the air that came with just hearing the engine and the tires on the concrete (albeit disrupted by the former 02 pilot's snoring, but if he could tune out duo while he spoke, tuning him out while he slept was a piece of cake).
(another disruption was his annoyance at the memory-like visions of the night that kept flash-flooding his mind: relena's ridiculous heels, quatre's eccentric taste for saltysweet devilish concoctions, and his very own lack of reluctance to take duo up on the dancing challenge after his third shot of vodka).
he'd owned him, though. duo would have to hang his head in shame for a week, at least.
the night smelled like brewing dew and dusty stars. the avenue seemed to stretch to the horizon- the rows of lights bordering it were like endless runway lights; bottled up in his chest was the feeling that he maybe longed to take flight, again.
(another image of the night: dorothy's indecently short skirt and quatre's gentlemanly cornering her somewhere away from the group- her coy yet sincere blushing.) (and duo and trowa and him, on high stools and in silence, toasting to bros before hoes with perfect stoicism).
he consumed time and space far too quickly, yet it was not alien to him.
it was good to be out late at night because it reminded him of home, or, well, that place where he was most at ease; where it was also cold, silent, dark, and full of stars... so, so many stars. And he liked it. Them. Both; the feeling, the memory. He tarried slightly when he got off the car (he inhaled deeply and the air was pure and delightful) and it felt like too soon when he was opening the back door to nudge duo out, no questions asked. And duo, looking around in a sleepy daze (that never overrode his alertness), groggily zig-zagged the grassy path to his house, not before patting him on the back and pretending that the dancing competition had never happened.
a slight smile flickered on heero's lips.
he was satisfied- although amidst his usual war-themed dreams, he knew he'd see horrible pink shoes later when he went to sleep. Peace was worth it, and every time he felt like punching someone in the face for whatever reason, or annoyed for lack of a better word, or if he (by chance, because he no longer looked) caught sight of any of his many scars, that same thought came to his mind, over and over: peace- it was worth it.
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heero seems like the kind of guy who would drunkenly accept duo's challenge to dance to some sexy ricky martin song; and win.