Feels Like Home
By Shikata ga nai
~*~
Heero nervously adjusted his white bow tie as he and Sylvia walked in the front door of the mansion. She was wearing a sparkly, black, strapless dress with no back, and it looked very good on her. They were barely past the foyer when they were swept up in a crowd of people and tinsel and lights and canapés. As Sylvia hobnobbed with friends of her grandmother, Heero had a glass of champagne pushed into one hand and a mini quiche put in the other.
The live band was excellent, playing a mix of numbers, and Heero danced with Sylvia several times, as well as other women between the ages of 18 and 50, who'd had their eyes on him since they saw him walk in the door. The champagne flowed freely, and there was always more food to be pushed on him. The evening passed in a swirl of lights and sparkles and laughter.
At one-thirty in the morning, a parade of taxis stood at the front gates of the mansion. Heero and Sylvia took one home. As they sat in the back and watched snowflakes swirl in the streetlights, Sylvia yawned and asked him if he'd had a good time. It had genuinely been one of the best evenings of Heero's life.
The cab got them home (it and the others had been paid for already by the party's hosts--they were fabulously rich), and they stumbled tiredly through the front door of her apartment. They'd both had plenty of the champagne. Sylvia tried to balance to take off her black high heels, but wobbled and kind of collapsed into Heero, who was still aware enough to catch her in his arms.
"Oof. Sorry," she said, but she didn't move. Neither did he.
Heero didn't sleep on the couch that night.
***
By the end of the next week, Heero had moved his things from their corner of the living room into his half of Sylvia's closet. They attended a New Year's Party hosted by one of Sylvia's friends as an official couple. At midnight, she led him onto the balcony and they shared a New Year's kiss that promised many more to come.
At the beginning of February, Heero woke up early one Sunday morning and was pleasantly surprised, as he always was, to find her sleeping peacefully beside him, proving that this wasn't a dream. After more than a year of searching, he'd found a life. And he liked it. He shifted to his side and gently traced the curve of her shoulder with a finger. She moved a little under his touch, but didn't wake up. Satisfied and happy, he went back to sleep.
In August, Heero was still content with things the way they were. He preferred focussing on the 'now', rather than giving a lot of thought to the 'later'. Naturally, he was a little shocked one day to find a bridal magazine sitting among the stack of Time, People and National Geographic on the coffee table. Oh, dear god, he thought as he stared at it like it was trying to bite him. He had never seen this coming. Perhaps, if he'd thought about it, he would have realized it was an eventuality, but he hadn't, and he didn't know what to do.
He sat down on the couch and put his head in his hands. Calm down, he thought. There could be a perfectly logical, safe explanation for the presence of a bridal magazine on the coffee table. Maybe she has a friend, or a distant cousin, who's getting married. Then he shook his head and groaned. Highly unlikely. She probably would have said something to him if that were true. Planning her own wedding, on the other hand...if she was waiting for him to ask her, she wouldn't say anything.
Heero got up, put the magazine back where he'd found it, and left the room. He was a rational, methodical person, and he liked to do things that made sense. It was time to start making sure that he wanted to marry Sylvia.
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