~ Skeletons in the Closet ~
Part1
By Zero's Wings
Typical Morning
-or-
Opium Oil Paintings
Relena sat up in her bed, unable to sleep. Her skin was still shining with sweat. Her breaths were shallow and abrupt. Her sheets were suddenly hot and uncomfortable. She twisted her legs around, letting her small feet dangle out below the blanket. Heero stirred next to her, awoken by her restlessness.
"What is it?" he asked groggily.
"Oh, nothing," she replied. "It's just…do you ever have one of those terrifying moments of self-awareness? One of those moments where you wake up, and you realize that you're looking through a pair of eyes from some dark void inside a skull, and you are existing as that person. You are living their life and affecting people all around you."
Relena paused, catching her breath. Thinking back, it had been a wonderful night. Dinner at an expensive restaurant, champagne back at his apartment, and then right into the bedroom. We couldn't keep our hands off each other, she recalled, blushing slightly. So why do all these morbid thoughts come to me now? She sighed, and then decided to continue.
"But then the scary question comes. How do you know it's all real? How do you know that when that body dies, you won't just be sucked back into that void forever? And most of all, how do you know that you're even affecting anything, or anyone? The people around you might not even be real, just figments of your imagination. Or you're caught in someone else's dream, and you don't even know if you're real. I mean, how do I know that I'm real, that this bed is real, that…" she turned to Heero, her eyes a glistening sapphire, "…how do I know…that you're real?"
A thin smile passed over Heero's face.
"I'll show you."
*****
The sun rose up, covering the earth in its bright morning glow. The Sanc Kingdom emerged from the darkness of the night, alive once more with its dew soaked fields and rolling hills and dipping valleys. Birds sung and clouds formed light and puffy in the sky. It was a perfect day.
Heero's eyes opened slowly, his vision returned in a haze. He rolled over and drew the linen covers away from his half-naked body. Morning had come sooner than he had expected. He felt sad in a way, that glorious night had passed by so rapidly. It was almost like a blur in his mind. But then all the events became fresh in his mind again when he saw Relena lying in bed next to him, all the covers pushed away from her slender, nude body. She sighed gently, and then leaned in and kissed his cheek.
"What time is it?" Heero asked, now fully awake. Relena looked at the alarm clock on her night stand. Her sleepy eyes widened and she suddenly became alert. The clock's green digital letters said 6:30.
"Oh my god!" she cried. "I'm going to be late for my meeting!" Relena slid out of bed and opened her closet door. Heero eyes traced up her back, absorbing every contour in her soft, powder-like skin as she slipped on a bathrobe.
"Forget that," he said in a wavering, somnolent voice. "Come back to bed."
"You know I can't," Relena chided him. "Why don't you get in the shower after me and come along? I'm sure the preventers would be happy to have your input." Heero grumbled and got out of bed. He rubbed his eyes and ambled into the bathroom after her.
While Relena showered, Heero shaved his face, wiping it clean of what had been the beginnings of a beard. He had not been able to shake that night where he revealed his past from his mind. All of those events, his awakening, his retribution, they seemed so close, almost tangible. He told Relena all of this as he shaved; figuring it was as good a time as any. But why now? he thought. Why am I sharing all of these morbid thoughts and memories with her now? She watched him the entire time through the foggy glass of the shower door. When Heero came to the part where he killed Emulat, he flinched and cut himself with his razor. He had never done that before. Annoyed, he wiped away the small drop or two of blood and continued.
When Heero finished his story, Relena turned off the shower faucet. She rushed out of the shower and, without so much as reaching for a towel, embraced Heero and kissed him forcefully. Having her wet, naked body pressed up against him felt so good.
"We've been under a lot of stress this past week," she said in a velvet-soft voice. "Duo getting shot at Howard's place, all of the new stuff going on at work…it's amazing that we've all survived unharmed."
"Duo was lucky that time. If his injury had been serious, there would've been no one to help him. We were out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It doesn't get any more isolated than those islands. That was their original appeal as a meeting place."
"We always seem to be getting lucky breaks," Relena said somberly. "Are you ever afraid that our luck will run out?"
Heero smiled and took her soft, delicate face up in his hands.
"I'll be all right as long as I'm with you," Heero said with an unfamiliar tenderness. Where did that come from? he wondered. Maybe I really am going soft. Relena smiled and her eyes watered a bit. She closed them briefly, and when she opened them back up, she was normal again. Heero saw a different person in those eyes, not his lover, but the girl he had learned to care about over the past few years. They pulled away from each other. Heero turned away from her, suddenly uncomfortable to be looking at her naked body. Neither laid eyes on the other again until they were both fully dressed.
Heero walked into the small kitchen/living room that composed the rest of his apartment. There were no windows at all; he didn't trust them. He used the blank wall space as an excuse to start an art collection. Heero hung his favorite painting next to the refrigerator. It was a collection of Greco-Roman figures jamming sharpened sticks into big fish. The visages of Abraham Lincoln and James Dean were blended in with the painting's abundant flares of black and orange. It was called Tuna Fishing. It was a Salvador Dali original, probably worth a fortune. Zechs gave it to him when he first moved in. Zechs called it a 'settling down' present. Heero still wasn't sure what to make of the macabre painting, but it had grown on him.
"When are you going to take that thing down?" Relena asked, regarding the painting with disgust.
"It was a present from your brother," he retorted.
"It's grotesque," she said, wrinkling her short, little nose. "I don't know what my brother was thinking giving it to you."
"I like it," Heero said with a little smile. He pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge and drank from it. Relena looked at him disapprovingly.
"We really have to get going," she said tersely. Heero put down the now empty carton and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
"Breakfast?"
"I'll pick something up on the way. Get my purse, will you?"
*****
Heero found the preventers meeting to be rather boring and uneventful. There was another crisis involving the instability of Mars for terraforming. Zechs and Noin had returned to Sanc after witnessing the first in a series of intense Martian storms. However, as long as the storms were raging, no one could communicate with the Mars team, and no one could go to or leave the planet. It was just wait-and-see; everyone was pretty much stuck where they were.
More interesting to Heero was the speech that Relena gave to a group of delegates from the various European nations. She addressed hundreds of people from a small podium with a white spotlight bearing down on her. Relena put forceful emotion into every word that left her mouth. There was fire in her words and in her eyes, Heero could see it even from his lofty balcony seat. He found that aggressive power very attractive. He was sure that it was what had attracted him to Relena in the first place.
Heero was waiting for Relena off-stage. She grinned at him, then went back around the curtain to greet the press. Heero saw real strength in her now; she could do things that he couldn't even imagine. I'm just a killer who was in the right place at the right time. She's the one who changed history. The fighting is over. I'm powerless now, but she'll continue to have an impact on the times. Heero felt genuinely lucky that Relena had stayed with him. He couldn't possibly imagine why she did so. I'm an antique. There's no use for me. I have no power over anything except my own life. Maybe she pities me.
Relena walked back behind the curtain. She looked tired. Heero put his arm around her.
"No matter how hard you try, you just can't get some people to accept peace," she said, sighing worriedly.
"Yes, I'm one of them. You're talking about the uprising in Croatia, though, right?" As he spoke, Relena looked up at him with a puzzled expression.
"What do you mean, you're one of them? Aren't you happy that we've finally achieved a state of universal tranquillity? All of mankind has decided to do away with weapons and come to an understanding, as one race, one nation."
"I heard your speech," he said, sounding ruder than he had meant to. "I just know that something is going to happen, and I'll make sure I'm ready for when it does."
"Have a little more faith in people," Relena said, giving him a cute little smile.
"Sorry. All my faith is in you." He was trying out a little romantic talk. As Duo said, sweet talk makes the difference between a quickie and an all-nighter. Heero wasn't so concerned with that, but he wanted to make himself a bit more appealing to Relena. He had settled down, the wars were over, and they were never coming back. Now, he could start to create some semblance of a normal life for himself, and some semblance of a human soul.
Relena was paged by Sally and told she had a bunch of press conferences set up for later this afternoon. They parted ways in that cramped backstage area. Relena blew him a kiss goodbye, and was then inundated by another hoard of reporters.
Heero walked to his apartment in a light drizzle of rain. He unlocked the large door with the number 88 tacked on it with big, shiny letters. He tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter beside him. As he approached the fridge to find himself a drink, Heero noticed that his vidphone was flashing its 'incoming call' light. He turned the screen off and picked up the phone.
"Hello, Heero Yuy. That is what you're still calling yourself, isn't it?"
"Who is this?" Heero asked in a volatile tone, reaching for the power switch.
"You know," the voice hissed. At that instant, Heero dropped the phone as though it had reached out and bitten him.
End part1
Author's Note: So what did you think? Love it? Hate it? I want to know!! How did it stack up to my other fics? What would you like to see happen? Email me please! I'm at js0502@exis.net Thanks a lot to all those who have given me support! ^_~