Secret Santa present for Pimpmastapopo for the GW Secret Santa Exchange. There are naughty shenanigans in parts...ho ho ho!
December. April. July. October.
In these months, he promised to find her, no matter where she chose to be.
She'd given herself to him freely, the lull and overpowering relief of a war ended transporting them into a place detached from reality, like they were living in a world of their own design with nobody and nothing to taint it. He was as novel to the experience as she, and neither of them really knew what to do or what to expect. They were sixteen, and despite being so much older in every other way, that night she had truly felt her age. He was surprisingly gentle, despite his awkwardness, despite hers, and he found completion with a long deep sigh against her neck before pressing his lips to her skin in his descent to a thoroughly restful sleep.
But it had to end, inevitably, and before falling asleep in his arms on the dawn of a new year, drifting off to the gentle flutter of snow settling on her windowsill, he'd made his promise, set in stone.
"I have things to take care of. But…there's your birthday. If you'll have me."
She would, and didn't doubt him for a moment. When she woke she did so with a smile on her face, and a glow to her skin not unnoticed by her staff. She felt more, somehow, walking a little taller and conscious of the way her clothes fit her curves, the way her hair shimmered and the way men looked at her. She went through her life, attended meetings, gave speeches, did paperwork as though he was there, watching her and it felt simultaneously thrilling and safe.
Her birthday was an affair that was not entirely her own, and her host colony that week had predictably arranged for a gala that she neither asked for nor particularly wanted. She knew that was unfair; they had gone through such troubles on her behalf, but Heero's promise still echoed in her mind, and of the warm fan of his breath mingling with hers as he pressed his forehead to hers cradling him between her thighs. Selfishly, she wanted him to rescue her, and she wandered drifting through the corridors of X-3089's administrative building with a slight sway to her hips, a little bit of mascara on her usually naked eyes, heart thrumming as she hoped to seduce a shadow.
When the day had passed without encounter, disappointment weighed on her shoulders, and gone was the tall walk of the last three months. She entered the elevator and pressed for her suite on the upper floors of the overly grand hotel. Her hosts had spared no expense for her, and she accepted it with a guilty humility knowing that others in attendance, those far more experienced than herself but with none of the celebrity, were situated a good few floors beneath her.
She absently watched the LED display count up as she ascended, and an old tune that had been in the back of her mind for the last week resurfaced in a soft hum. She wasn't aware of her hair being pulled away from over her shoulder until something wet and warm found purchase on the juncture of her neck, a warm scent caressing her as a pair of rough, calloused hands smoothed tenderly over her arms to settle on the curve of her hips.
Was it possible, she wondered, for every nerve to feel so alive when the rest of her was so utterly boneless?
"You look different," he remarked, mumbling into her hair as she leaned back against him, completely indifferent to their location. The lift would open to her suite, and her heart quickened with the implications of such privacy. She felt every bit the misbehaving teenager, her security detail set to check on her at any moment, cameras poised at strategic intervals. But then, this was Heero.
"How so?" she inquired, a jolt of something sinful and electric settling between her thighs as his hands pressed her rear against the proof of his own anticipation. After only a handful of moments in each other's arms, over the course of one whirlwind week, and her body had learned to anticipate him so easily. The lack of shame that came with that knowledge should have alarmed her, but she always had lived by what was good and right. This is one of those things, and nobody would tell her otherwise.
"Is that makeup?" She could hear the teasing lilt to his tone, otherwise buried beneath the rich depths of his voice that others may not have noticed. If others were there to notice.
"Only a little," she admitted, feeling a little silly for the effort she had made in lieu of his absence. A promise was a promise. "But you noticed, so it's achieved its function."
His response was a soft murmur she didn't quite catch before his mouth descended back onto her neck, rolling her hips back to meet his own in a way that sent her heartbeat directly south.
At that moment, Relena knew the time for a catch up chat would be a long while coming and when the doors opened up to her luxuriously furnished suite, all thought was driven from her as a strong hand cupped the back of her head and lips crushed instantly against her own, pulling breathy moans from her so full of lust she could scarcely register them as her own.
The awkwardness of their first week together had all but dissipated into memory, and that night she had to turn her head into the pillow to mask the sudden and surprising cry that came forth as her body succumbed to the release of heat and lightning all over her body. Her first orgasm left her fatigued in a way that was far from unpleasant, and as she curled up against him, leg slung over his and head on the padding of his toned chest, she swore she saw the hint of a self-satisfied smirk on his handsome features.
The next morning, she avoided eye contact with the maid as she sliced a segment of pink grapefruit from its cluster at the small tea table by the balcony. However brave she had been feeling the night prior, all sense of shame had returned to her, their little reality once again fading into a dream. She wondered briefly if she would dare conduct such activities if the partner in question was anybody other than him. She was, after all, unmarried and although in Brussels she was a legal adult, in this colony she was techincally underage.
Heero, apparently, had a metabolism that would be the envy of every woman on earth, and devoured a healthy stack of everything. While she could understand he was still growing and what she knew of his previous lifestyle was incredibly active, she wondered what he was doing now to justify the feast.
Apparently, he'd caught her watching, pink fruit suspended on a fork before her lips, and he offered to fill in the blanks.
"I'm used to this," he explained, setting down his spoon in a bowl of what used to be porridge, "I'm still adjusting, I guess."
Relena nodded, blushing a little at being caught staring, and finally put the morsel in her mouth, savouring the sour tang of fresh citric juice. It had only been four months. It would be silly to assume that he could have made any significant change between the last war and now. A slight frown pulled at her lips at the reminder; adapting to a time of peace would be infinitely harder for him than for her.
"Don't," he spoke suddenly, reprimand in his voice as he regarded her from across the table, "Don't look at me like that."
That startled her. "Like what?" He seemed genuinely irritated, but it softened somewhat at her inquest, instead holding her gaze with a sincere plight.
"Don't pity me."
Her breath caught in her throat as she processed his words, eyes never leaving his, looking into his deep blue in an effort to understand him.
Don't pity me.
And then she knew. In that world that was his and hers, she became somebody else, somebody that was his, somebody perfect in the eyes of the only person she wanted to be perfect for, despite how far from it she came in stark reality. By pitying him, she was denying him that same, cathartic transformation.
So she smiled, taking another slice of fruit between her lips. His features softened instantly, and he fell back into the easy silence that was theirs, before leaning over and kissing a bead of escaped juice from the corner of her lips.
Despite a much shorter wait, July came a lot longer than she had hoped but she supposed that was the point. Time slowed for the eager.
She found him waiting for her in her chartered car to the French Alps, a weekend retreat she had planned for herself in what she thought was complete secrecy. She silently vowed, amused, that she would one day learn his methods.
Wherever he'd been the last couple of months, it had left him with a visible tan and the stark cobalt of his eyes against it made him exotically attractive. Blue eyes were a genetic rarity in the Japanese genome, and it left her to ponder all manner of theories about his birth. But she would never ask him; as much as he allowed her the probe and ask and talk about things he clearly wouldn't permit with anyone else, much to her secret delight, there were boundaries she knew would take a long time to cross as the circumstances of his birth was one of them.
"Is it me or have you gotten taller?" She queried, noticing that having sat next to him in the back of the sleek black sedan his head now raised above hers by at least a couple of inches.
"Looks that way," he answered, handing her a Styrofoam cup of coffee from a place near her office, "Milk and two sugars?"
"You remembered," she smiled, oddly touched by the fact that he would remember such an insignificant thing from their breakfast in April, "Even my secretary hasn't grasped that tidbit yet. You truly are a prodigy."
The slight turn to the corner of his lips lit up his face in a way only the brightest smile could on any other and her heart fluttered. Heero smiling was something she was sure very few had witnessed, and she found herself oddly possessive of it, as though it were a treasure she would keep and polish and bring out its lustre. That she could induce it made her feel unashamedly proud.
"I think it's the first time I've enjoyed being called that," he mused, leaning towards her and placing a single, lingering kiss on the sensitive skin by her ear. "Why aren't you wearing your belt?" he chastised softly, before taking the lobe into his mouth and nipping on it slightly in punishment.
Her body reacted instantly, fanning an ember she hadn't known had started, and she shifted nervously as a toned, tanned arm came around her shoulder and pulled her to him. Not ready for the sudden movement, she toppled gracelessly to the side, feeling the rough scratch of denim hit the side of her face.
When she realised she had landed face first in his lap, she immediately moved to right herself but a large hand smoothing firmly over her shoulder stopped her. With heat flushing her face she surmised that he had intended for her to end up in this position, and after shifting slightly to make herself decent, she soon settled, curling up across the back seats and basking in a penetrative warmth that was entirely too comfortable.
"You haven't been sleeping well," he accused and she saw very little point in arguing. His hand began tracing light patterns on the bare skin below the back of her hairline. "Drinking that much coffee is a temporary fix, not a lifestyle."
Relena knew he didn't intend to make her feel as such, but for the first time since she was quite young she felt the distinctly unpleasantness of being told off. It was like a glass of cold water.
"You keep telling me you're fine. You're not fine." He continued, and she trained her eyes on the denim net to her face. She knew what he was getting at and she rightly felt ashamed for it. "You need to stop lying to me. And you need to stop assuming what I do and do not want to deal with."
There it was. Considering their interactions were limited to messages where possible, and one-sided surveillance where it wasn't Heero was as astute as ever. Silence buzzed in her ears, the noise from the road somehow louder as she thought up a decent defence, coming up dry. He was right of course. It wasn't fair of her to put on a face for him, to selectively decide what he did and didn't see, especially when he clearly cared about her wellbeing. And most especially when any spare thought she had to give was to him and his own wellbeing. Was he well? Was he happy in this strange peaceful world he didn't know? Was he coping with life outside of conflict?
She was a hypocrite.
Quite unsure of what so say, she was grateful when the hand dancing lightly on her skin moved up to pull the hair out of her face. Looking into his eyes had always been a secret joy of hers and no moreso than in that moment. The mixture of forgiveness, understanding and a smile that made her heart ache brought warmth singing back through her being.
"I'll cut back on the coffee if you tell me one interesting thing you've done since April." She challenged, rolling over to look up at him from the soft cushioning of his jeans. She could feel herself relaxing and it was like she was feeling it for the first time. Had she truly been so tightly wound?
"Fine. But you'll sleep your way to the summit."
She nodded her agreement, an easy smile making its way to her face. His hand began brushing her bangs back from her forehead, pushing over the crown of her head and a pleasant tingle began there. She had a feeling she'd be sleeping whether she wanted to or not.
Giving a deep sigh of content, she consented to his terms, the easiest agreement she'd made all year.
"I have a job." He said simply, and it sounded so foreign as though he didn't really believe it himself.
"And I thought we'd agreed to be honest," she jibed.
"Of a sort." He elaborated. "A job isn't quite the right word. I work when I want to and for who I want."
"Freelance." She offered. "What's your trade?" She wanted to focus on this new development, give it the time it truly deserved. This was a massive step. But the feeling of her arms and legs getting comfortably settled into her position was becoming overpowering. Had she truly wanted to sleep so badly?
Heero must have seen the way her eyes became heavier, or the way she wanted to lead her head to the side and stay there. "Tomorrow. I'll tell you everything."
The words were like a trigger, putting to rest the last vestiges of her desire to be awake. When she woke up the next morning, it was to a large bed, crisp cold mountain air breezing over the tops of breasts she hadn't known were bare to the world and the delightful pressure, like electricity, of her lover's mouth keeping them warm.
October came as quickly as she did when Heero pulled her out of the blue into a spare conference room at the Brussels parliamentary building.
She was expecting him to show up but certainly not at her place of work and certainly not with this greeting of choice.
She didn't have time to formulate a question, let alone a challenge his behaviour, and the second his mouth found that place on her neck she lost any desire to.
Three months was a long time, and the reaction between her thighs was instant, an ache building there that she needed soothed more than she needed to breathe.
Without thought or care to the world just outside a double door, Heero pulled the material of her panties down and bunched her skirt up around her waist, filling her in one swift movement the instant she was free.
His sigh against her neck was deep and almost desperate, and gave her just a moment to adjust her hastily made position before he pulled out again, stoking the heat building rapidly at where they were joined.
He cupped her soft rear suspended between him and the wall, pounding deep and hard, brushing the swollen nub above her sex and making delighted moans strangle in her throat as she remembered their location.
His breath came hot and heavy against her ear and neck, a man completely lost to the sensation of her tightness around him, and when he bit her there, snapping his hips up hard against a sensationally erotic spot inside she tumbled into sin with him, only barely having the sense to cover her own mouth before she cried to the rhythm of her pulsating sex.
The air was cool against her skin as she came down from where he'd flown her, and the heat and almost beastly impatience he'd had before had all but dissipated into lazy open mouthed kisses.
He rested his head against her shoulder, almost looking as though he wanted to sleep, and as much as she wanted to let him and live in the moment a short while longer, her curiosity got the better of her.
"One usually says hello first," she joked, and she felt him stir against his resting place on her shoulder.
In his defence, past the sex-hazed satisfaction and her distinct sense that he was feeling a little smug, he looked rightfully humbled. He straightened himself to give her a little breathing space and so he could look her properly for the first time in months.
"Skirts suit you." He said, simply, as though it was a perfect justification for his actions. Knowing it was all she would get out of him on the subject she chuckled.
"If you say so, but I'm a little cold without it."
As though sense had finally returned to him, he released his hold on her hips, allowing her to use her somewhat jellified legs for what felt like the first time in days.
She quickly righted her hair and her clothing, but as much as she looked like Relena Darlian, very important person and world leader, in that moment the evidence leaking down the inside of her thighs told a very different story. She blushed furiously; how was she supposed to continue her day and look people in the eye feeling like a ravaged nymphomiac?
"Your diary's clear this afternoon," he answered for her, before she had the time to spiral down that thought train. "I'm not completely out of my mind."
Relena sighed her relief and rested against the wall behind her. As thrilling as the experience had been, it had come rather out of nowhere. It wasn't like him at all to take unnecessary risks, and while he had taken into account some modicum of common sense when he chose to assault her in one of the busiest and least private buildings in the world, he held himself in a way that suggested he knew he'd behaved irrationally.
"Are you going to tell me what that was about?" She queried, and just as he looked as though he was about to brush the question off completely, he chose to combat her question with one of his own.
"Do you ever think about how young we are?"
He asked the question in all seriousness, and if she was honest, it wasn't the question itself that was alarming. She'd often had that thought herself. But it was strange to her that he of all people should ask it. They had never really considered their age as a factor in anything they did.
They had both fought two wars, in very different ways, and in doing so had never had the thought 'I'm too young for this'. War had matured them quickly, and when they came out the other end of it the world had changed for them. In the estate she called home, they had only each other to talk to about everything that had happened, because only the other understood the full extent of it. How strange it was to go from life on the highest possible setting and then the world calming down almost to a still around them as the new year approached.
It as a week of refreshing honesty and openness. She told him about how she knew her future would be forever shared with a world she was now charged with shaping into a better one. He told her about how he was afraid of feeling useless in the days, weeks and years to come in a world that didn't need him. She told him that she was afraid all of the amazing people she had come to know would fade into the background and she'd be left to fight her battle alone. He told her not to make the same mistakes he had in believing she had to.
She told him that she thought they meant more to each other than could defined in any simple way.
He decided to show her instead.
Were they too young for what they'd done? Maybe. But by that reasoning, their entire lives to date would have been lived incorrectly, and she didn't believe that for a second.
"Yes," she finally answered, "but I don't view it as a bad thing."
He nodded, and she could feel an unnatural hesitation about him. Something was truly bothering him, and her concern for him grew.
"You will spend the rest of your life growing up faster than you need to. There's no escaping that." He told her, taking a seat in the chair closes to him in a way she knew was to distance himself. "But there's no reason you should miss out on everything else."
She had an inkling of where he was going with this and she raised her hand to stop him before he continued his line of reasoning. It was typical of him really, to downplay his own worth in preparation of the need to sacrifice what little he thought he had for something better. It was something he suffered from greatly, she had come to understand, an amazing lack of self-value as a result of a life preparing to be discarded.
She wouldn't allow herself to be sad for him. He would hate that. So she smiled dryly at him instead.
"You've been watching daytime TV, haven't you?" She accused, and when she saw him look away entirely unimpressed with how seriously she wasn't taking his concerns, she knew she'd hit the mark.
"Heero, I'm 17 and in the spotlight. For the rest of my natural born life, for as long as my ring finger remains bare, the unscrupulous ladies and gentlemen of the press with theorise about every man I so much as stand within an arm's reach of. I will, occasionally, smile or talk to some of these men and, yes, some of them will be very attractive and very eligible, even by my mother's standards. The gentleman I've been photographed next to so frequently over the last fortnight in particular is charming, sweet and actually very fun to be around. Very useful in an administrative sense, as well."
He rolled his eyes, wishing to whatever powers that be had had just kept his mouth shut, but when her lips found the centre of his forehead and he looked up into her bright cerulean orbs, all joking and light-hearted jest at his expense cleared in favour of something cleaner and pure.
"He's not you."
Heero would vehemently deny he had blushed in that moment, but it was a memory Relena would go on to treasure.
December was a strange time for them.
There was something of an echo in the background, almost an anticipation that something, somewhere, would tip them back into a reality they had fought hard to make a thing of the past.
Heero walked down the streets of the colony he had made his home and he couldn't deny that the feeling wasn't just something in his own paranoid mind. The people of L1-4629 while going through their yearly rituals of window shopping, and public drinking, and eating far too much had an uneasy hesitation about them, as though it was wrong to be doing so.
This time a year ago, a long war had ended. Two years ago, thousands had lost their lives. There wasn't single living person who hadn't been touched by the war and Heero wasn't alone in believing that it was surreal to behave as though this year it would be back to business as normal.
Public figures, celebrities and politicians alike, had danced artfully around the subject. They had given honours where honours were due, paid respects to the dead, celebrated the children born into a post-war boom and called upon people to remember their loved ones and celebrate a life of peacetime joy.
And they entirely missed the point.
He unlocked his apartment, and found her still curled up under the duvet he'd left her in, hot chocolate in hand (no doubt with a sneaky espresso shot in) and a black and white film on the screen playing a song he'd heard a hundred times this week.
"It's a furnace in here," he commented, turning down the thermostat. "Why do you need a blanket?"
She looked back at him from her place on his sofa and put her mug down on the side table. "It's a comfort thing," she explained, "something soft to hide in. Though, the effect is somewhat spoiled by the lack of snow."
"It's a colony," he stated bluntly, "there was never going to be snow." He pulled back the duvet and took the other side of the sofa, moving her legs briefly before resting them on top of his own.
Heero hadn't prepared very well at all for her visit. His living space was Spartan by most people's standards. He didn't really cook, choosing to grab whatever he could on the way to wherever he was going most of the time. He had a bed, so that was something going in his favour, but his open plan living area had a sofa a TV and pointedly no Christmas decorations.
Relena had remedied that within a few hours and he was surprised with how much a tree and a few bits of mutli-coloured metallic plastic here and there transformed his purpose-built flat into something resembling a home.
He hadn't really considered it before, but he would need to make concessions on that front if he wanted to be close to her in any meaningful way. Any long-term way. She was a Christian, not just by way of upbringing or by the loose sense most Europeans defined themselves, but in the conscious way. She attended service, she met her obligations to her community and to those in need, and she stood fast in the belief that there was something greater than all of them, willing them to live good lives. He was an atheist, pure and simple. He couldn't bring himself to believe in something he couldn't quantify or qualify, especially something that if indeed had existed, would leave a world to suffer in the ways he'd witnessed. If God had the power to help them and chose not to, it was not a God he wanted to know.
But this same belief had shaped her into the woman she was. He couldn't believe that was a bad thing.
"What did you find out at the spaceport?" She asked him, turning down the volume on another jolly jingle. "Any idea on when the next flights are running?"
"Not for a few days," he replied, reaching into the plastic bag he'd bought back with him and bringing out a bag of foil-wrapped chocolates she'd insisted were something of a tradition this time of year. "The bay is still damaged and nobody knows what caused it to malfunction."
Relena sighed. She was supposed to be on another colony by now, preparing to give her Christmas Day address to the people of the ESUN. She felt guilty, he knew. If she hadn't taken a detour in her travels to see him, she would already be where he needed to be and she wouldn't be shirking her responsibilities.
Heero, if he was honest, didn't share her guilt. When the hull breach had happened, he could almost have said a thank you to the supposedly non-existent powers that be. He didn't want her to leave.
And, for all he would never be able to explain why, he didn't want to face this day alone.
"I spent forever on that speech," she lamented, sipping her chocolate and reaching over for the bag of goodies.
"I don't want you to take this personally, but I'm sure one speech is much like the other. There's been more than a few today." He popped one of the candies in his mouth and was surprised to find the nutty caramel was quite to his taste. He stole the mug from her hands and took a sip of her chocolate with it, just to see her indignation.
But instead, he was met with silence as she stared at the sweet wrapper she was fiddling with in her hands.
"Heero…none of this feels right." She said it softly, as though she was afraid to say it, as though doing so would break the festive illusion they'd build for themselves and set them on a path they shouldn't go down.
She was right, of course. People everywhere were getting on with it as though nothing else at all mattered.
But it did matter. All of it. Yes, people had died and yes people remembered them. Yes, they were living in peace and yes that was important to appreciate.
But nobody chose to remember why they were here in the first place.
It was a very collective and very convenient amnesia that bothered him and he was secretly glad that it bothered her too.
They were here because people forgot about the horrors of war. Glorified it even. And here they were, survivors of a horrible war, forgetting about it and soon, as time turned and turned again, they would glorify it once more.
It was wrong.
The TV sang eerily through the silence between them.
He wasn't sure what to say, or if he should say anything at all. He was glad in a way that somebody else understood what he was feeling. He couldn't verbalise it to anybody else, and that she had chosen to do it for him took a pressure off he didn't realise had been weighing him down.
He could see that she was disturbed by it all. And perhaps he was wrong to brush off her need to make her public address so callously. If anybody at all could induce people to give conscience to the occasion it was her.
"I think you should give your speech." He suggested and Relena's brow furrowed, confused.
"If anybody can miraculously fix a shuttle bay and get me to L5 in less than an hour, it would be you. But I honestly think that's within even your capabilities, Heero Yuy."
Heero smiled knowingly, feeling a sense of purpose that cut through his earlier malaise. She seemed to get caught up in it as well, wondering what on earth he was so smug about.
"There's more than one way to accomplish everything."
That night, with the tree she had laboriously decorated and the lights he had strung up around the bay window as a backdrop, she gave her address to every broadcasting signal available courtesy of Heero's trusty laptop.
She listened as Heero's neighbours fussed about where she seemed to be broadcasting from.
She addressed the people of the ESUN with the grace of a queen and the wisdom of somebody much older than she. She reminded them that Christmas has always been about remembering struggle, and the good things that come from it in the end. She wished the world a happier tomorrow, and the strength to always live by what they feel is good and right.
She told the world that although they may live very far apart from those they love, they may not see each other often, the feelings that connect them are the foundation on which the peace they enjoy today is built.
She looked at him as she closed her final line, signalling him to end the broadcast. She loved him, all at once, with that look that it should have frightened him. She told him in no uncertain terms, with eyes and smiles and simply being there, that he was hers for as long as he would have her.
And she still kept the duvet on.