At half past one that morning, Relena Peacecraft could be found sitting on the floor of her stylish apartment, eating chips and salsa, drinking margaritas, and watching "Giligan's Island" on Nick at Nite. This, sadly, was a vast improvement from her usual situation at half past one in the morning, which was either crying herself to sleep or dreaming about Heero. That night when she couldn't get to sleep, she decided against the crying and for the picante sauce.
It had been a long day for her, but she wasn't tired. She rolled her eyes at this thought and reached for her margarita. It was on the coffee table, which she had pushed aside, so that she could sit directly in front of the television. She had everything she would need for her late night binge out in the living room with her: a pitcher full of margarita (true, it couldn't be frozen this way, but she was going for quantity, not quality), a plate of salt to roll the rim of her glass in (you can only sacrifice so much quality), a very large bag of chips, and a rather large bowl of salsa.
"Eating Mexican tonight, are we?" came an unmistakable, and not entirely unwanted, masculine voice from behind her.
Despite her deeply felt shock, she managed to reply quickly, "it should be Polynesian, but the Professor hasn't invented a strong enough drink to go with fried pineapple." Only then did she turn to face her companion and ask, "what the hell are you doing here, Heero?"
In mock offense, "I would never miss 'Giligan's Island' and margaritas with you , Princess."
"Oh, shut up! You sound like Duo. Pour yourself a drink. Glasses are over the sink."
The brief exchange left both participants in concealed surprise.
'When did he get a life? Must be hanging out with Duo too much.'
'When did she get a backbone? Must be hanging out with Hilde too much.'
As Heero sat down on the floor with a sigh, Relena passed him a plate of salt. "So what is this one about?" Heero asked with genuine interest.
Turning to face him while she answered, "well, the Skipper saved Maryanne, and Giligan—" She trailed off when she saw Heero licking the rim of his glass, and she inadvertently stuck her tongue out longingly.
Heero finished rolling his glass in the salt and noticed that Relena had stopped talking. He faced her, smiled, and said, "pass the pitcher, would you, Fido? And pull your tongue back in while you're at it."
"Bite me." She climbed to her knees and reached for the pitcher on the coffee table, slightly lifting her left foot in her efforts. Heero smirked slightly, grabbed her foot and bit it lightly. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! What do you think you're doing?!"
"But, Princess, you said 'bite me.' I never thought you were that kinky," Heero said with a lascivious smirk to a wide-eyed Relena.
"Ass." She shoved the pitcher into his hands and faced the TV again. "So now Giligan wants to be a hero, but all of the Skipper's plans suck."
A slightly dejected Heero poured himself a margarita and topped off Relena's glass. "To the Skipper," he said.
"And Giligan."
"The millionaire," Heero began to sing.
"His wife," Relena continued in her best baritone.
"The movie star," Heero dismally attempted the high notes.
"And all the rest," they both concluded. "Cheers!"
They drank and watched the rest of the show. No words were exchanged, just laughter. When the final notes of the concluding theme song sounded, Heero reached for the remote and switched the off the TV. Resting his elbow on the couch, he turned to Relena. "You do realize that we're acting like normal people."
"Yes, all except for the part where you broke into my apartment. What's going on? Why have you changed so much? The breaking and entering is to be expected, but what about the rest?"
"You can blame it all on Duo and Hilde. I've been staying with them since a little while after the attempted munchkin coup d'état."
Relena laughed at this. "Isn't it more aptly named the attempted coup d'état of the evil little gnome?" Then they both laughed. "Well, I think it's time for you to go. I mean, what would the neighbors say?" Relena asked, pretending to be taken aghast.
"They would say, 'thank God! That frustrated little bitch finally got some!'"
Relena gasped and launched a half-hearted assault on Heero, trying not to laugh. She failed in both endeavors, and the two ended up a giggling heap of arms and legs on the floor of Relena's apartment. When the finally regained composure and personal space, Relena sat up on the couch, and Heero sat on his knees at her feet.
Relena stroked his head like a dog and asked, "so, Fido, did Duo teach you how to drop a few hints, or did you really just want to watch Giligan?"
Sitting up on his knees and lightly caressing her cheek, Heero answered a question with a question, "what do you think, Princess?"
"Would you stop calling me 'Princess'?"
"Why?"
"Are you still a soldier?"
"Isn't this a time of peace where soldiers aren't needed?"
"And do I call you 'soldier'?"
"Why would you?"
"Then why do you call me 'Princess'?"
"I'm sorry. I never thought of it like that."
Relena decided to break the serious moment. She smiled and said, "two statements. Thirty—Love."
"What?"
"Don't you know how to play at questions?"
"What?"
Relena laughed. "Repetitiveness. Forty—Love. Can't you do better than that?"
"Huh?"
"Grunts don't count. Game to Relena. And I thought the Perfect Soldier couldn't lose."
"Fifteen—Love. Relena, do you still love me?"
Relena was shocked. She forgot how to speak, let alone play at questions. "Yes," she finally managed.
"Thirty—Love. You know that I love you, right?"
Still not thinking, Relena responded with a goofy grin. "I do now."
"Forty—Love. So, will you marry me?" Heero asked, rising to one knee.
Completely overjoyed, Relena leaped into his arms, screaming, "yes! Yes, yes, yesss, yes! I will! I will! I will!" She proceeded to cover his face with kisses.
Bowled over, Heero laughed, as he declared, "game, set, and match to Heero! Now that that's over with: I love you, Relena. You have made me the happiest man alive." At this Relena stopped covering her newly acquired fiancé in kisses and pulled back to observe him.
"Do you mean it? No running off God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what with God-knows-whom?" she earnestly implored.
Sitting up, Heero said, "I mean it. I'm here to stay. No more leaving you behind." The two lovers began to close the gap between their faces.
Relena watched Heero's lips come closer and closer to hers. When she couldn't wait any longer, she closed her eyes and whispered, "I love you so much."
Just as she finished, his lips brushed against hers hesitantly, and they separated slightly. Before Heero's lips' return, every thought she ever had floods into Relena's mind. Then all is forgotten when their lips finally unite in a celestial kiss. Love, passion, beauty, lust. The two beings transcend briefly into a world apart. They find their nation of two. When they surface for air, neither can move, speak, or even think on anything beside the joy awakening inside. They pull away to admire what is now theirs.
Relena blossomed for Heero in that one moment, becoming the incarnation of everything to him. He had forever wed his unutterable vision to her perishable breath, but instead of resenting her for trapping him so, he loved her even more. While he thought of how much he loved her, he 'was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I heard somewhere a long time ago.' He smirked remembering Fitzgerald's words and trying to remember his own. The phrase that started to form in his mouth; it danced back and forth on the tip of his tongue. 'But they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was incommunicable forever.' All he knew was that Relena was his.
All this while, Relena was thinking too. She was almost on the verge of tears, as she watched that almost remembered thing dance through Heero's eyes, and she understood it. A tear ran down her face as she closed her eyes and turned to her own thoughts. She wanted to crawl inside Heero's skin and be safe forever, to lay her head on his heart and fall asleep to its lullaby, to always be in him, dark and warm. She could have sworn angels were sitting in her ears, singing. She gasped.
Watching Relena gasp and shudder once, Heero thought she looked like a saint. A saint in prayer, who had just heard the voice of God himself. Out of deference to God, Heero remained silent for a moment more, then he spoke.
"Come on, sweet cheeks. I can't sit here and watch you cry all day." 'Yes, I could.' "Let's go to bed," he concluded, lifting Relena over his shoulder and heading toward her bedroom.
"'Sweet cheeks,' is it?"
"You didn't like 'Princess'."
"Statement. Fifteen—Love," Relena laughed.
Heero unceremoniously dumped her on the bed and jumped on next to her. "Oh shut up and kiss me already."
"Yes sir, General Yuy, sir," Relena said. She saluted and kissed Heero on his smiling lips.
"Ah, Princess, you make an even better soldier than I. I think I'd like to see you out of uniform, and that's an order."
"Mmm, yes sir, General Yuy, sir," Relena purred.
Author's notes: This is the very first fanfic I ever wrote. At heart, I'm really a bigger Heero/Relena fan than I am a Quatre/Dorothy fan. ::curls up into a ball to avoid being beaten or pelted with fruit:: Sorry. Like I was saying, this is my very first fanfic, so it's not very good. The style and tense change a few times, and I borrow clips and phrases from other people (specifically, Tom Stoppard, Kurt Vonnegut, and F. Scott Fitzgerald). I make no claim of ownership of their ideas, or Gundam Wing and its characters, or Giligan's Island. Well, I'll stop talking now and let y'all get on to reviewing. I know that's what you were fixing to do before I started babbling—
Stern Chibi Laura: [pops up] Shut up already! And go to bed! [disappears]
[To Stern Chibi Laura] Right you are. [To the readers] Go review now, and y'all come back now, ya hear?!
