Title: Home
Author: Karina
Rating: PG
Pairing: Duo + Wu Fei
Notes: Challenge 210. Baby Series 4 #86. Takes place the day after Future Outlook.
Spoilers: None
Warnings:
Many thanks to ShenLong Deb for her work betaing this set of fics.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the Characters from the series but the baby is mine.
Title: Home
Duo glanced at his companion, his smile widening as the seconds ticked by. He said nothing, choosing to watch as dark eyes ran over the lines and angles of the architecture, over the ornate fretwork, gilded highlights and marble statues. Lingering on the awesome sweep of the grand staircase that Duo had such painful memories of.
Wu Fei, finally, sighed. "Home."
The single word, softly murmured, summed up Duo's feelings well enough. When had this building that was, in all honesty an eyesore, become home? It was fake, false, labelled the palace and in truth it was the remnants of a greedy man's extravagance. Well, it was that in Duo's opinion, but somehow, suddenly he was seeing it with new eyes. It took Wu Fei uttering that one simple four letter word, in just that particular tone, to make him look again at the pretentious architecture and see something more.
When had his feelings for the place morphed from distaste to... the warmth that said he belonged here?
It was a welcoming warmth, a breath of fresh air wafting past, beckoning him onward. Calling him home.
He'd never had a place do that to him... For him. Not even the Maxwell orphanage had called him home. Maybe Wu Fei too had suddenly realised that this reconstruction from a madman's whimsy had become a solid base for him. A welcoming place. A place he wished to come back to and felt comfortable at a deep, personal level.
But it was not the building so much as the people that lent it that single, short, wonderful label. HOME.
What an overused tag, that word. Home. Over used, misunderstood. Honestly understood by few. Only those who had lost literally everything, or who had never had it to begin with, could truly understand the connotations of that particular four letter word. Suddenly it existed within a heart and mind, no longer simply a word given lip service. Home was nothing as simple as stones and mortar, plaster and gold leaf. It was so much more, and all of that 'more' revolved around the people it sheltered.
Write the word on a slip of paper and tie it to a building and what did you have? A tag with a word on it and a simple building, be it architecturally stunning or ugly in the extreme. Nothing more. But populate that building with people who meant something to you on a very personal level and everything changed.
"Chang Wu Fei."
The deep voice with that deliciously sexy velvet flaw was unmistakable, as was the tall figure slowly descending the grand staircase. Pale hair slid over a broad shoulder, blue eyes, clear as the finest crystal, deep as the Arctic ice shelf, looked at them with warmth that belied the cold imaging. Milliardo Peacecraft inclined his head, ignoring the flock of officials and aides dancing attendance on him to offer up the smallest of honest smiles.
"Welcome home."
End
Karina Robertson