Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, which is a registered trademark of Sotsu Agency Co., LTD. TM & Sunrise & under license by Bandai.
A/N- Welcome to the third installment in the Gift of the Magi flashfic series! This was written for the gw500 LJ community's weekly prompts; this week's prompt was "pet." The Pitfalls of Eavesdropping can be read as a thematic companion to Welcome Home and Confessions in an Ink Blot, but also stands alone.
The Pitfalls of Eavesdropping
by Terra
It was just before sunrise when he suddenly awoke. Wrenching open his eyes, Zechs remained still, staring up at the ceiling for one, two, three thudding heartbeats before he convinced himself it wasn't a dream. He had heard Noin's voice, drifting into the bedroom from outside, declaring: "I don't know how much more of this I can take, Relena."
"Living together with Zechs is tough enough without having to worry about him, too. You know — he doesn't let me out of his sight. He follows me everywhere," continued Noin's disgruntled voice. "Just look at me. It's afternoon for you but the sun hasn't even risen over here yet. He kept thrashing around and now I'm sneaking off to make whiny phone calls."
Zechs bristled. He could remember letting Noin out of his sight just that morning. He wasn't always covertly spying or eavesdropping on her. "He doesn't respect any boundaries, either," she was saying, "and then I get annoyed and snappy and you know how moody that makes Zechs. He has good and bad days. If I'm lucky, all he does is mope around the house on the bad ones, getting on everyone's nerves."
He frowned. He did not mope. Grown men – like him, he mentally added – did not mope. He and Noin were going to talk, he vowed. Since when did Noin prefer to confide in his sister over him? Their shanty only had four rooms; Relena was millions of miles away but he was literally a shout away most of the time.
He heard Noin laugh. "Then there's Zechs mouthing off about this and that godforsaken planet," she paused as she listened to Relena's response, "well — that's true. I know I should be more patient; it can't be easy for from him to adjust to this environment. But I'm not a saint. I just want to hit him with a newspaper sometimes," he could hear the smile in her voice, "but that's probably abuse, right?"
He stiffened. He was so impossible to live with that Noin wanted to hit him? True, he remembered complaining on occasion when his anonymity frustrated him. He missed the efficiency of the old days now that he was only a rank-and-file employee, hiding out on a backwater Martian settlement with the rest of Earth's refugees and dregs of society. But dead men couldn't issue orders and expect them to be obeyed.
"I know — I know. I should train him. Make him better-behaved. Work my womanly wiles or some such."
Zechs slammed open the bedroom door. "Listen here," he said. "No one is training me to be—" he cut himself off when Noin looked up from the vidphone, startled, her eyes wide. Her hand froze from lazily petting Lightning Count, their frequently misbehaved wolfhound, and her housewarming gift for him, who watched them with sleepy eyes from her lap.
"Never mind," he muttered. "Carry on."
Zechs slammed the door shut and hoped that she hadn't seen his face. Grown men did not blush.
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A/N- Exactly 500 words! And it sure wasn't easy paring it down to that length. Well, it is the gw500 community. It's about time I started following the rules. As always, I look forward to any comments and constructive criticisms you want to share. Thanks so much for reading!