My soul is in a box shackled
to the earth. Oh, the humanity! That being said…
Desires of the Heart
Chapter Seven
By zapenstap
Relena had been thinking long and deep about Heero Yuy, in distances and depths she had never thought or felt before. She sat silent and stared at the mid distance, listening to her heart beat and letting her mind wander wherever it willed. It wandered in circles around him, idly, intently, and she tried not to think that she was in love. She had to keep her head. Her heart was like a bird fluttering in her hand and she held it close, however quickly its heart beat and it wings struggled to break free. She held it tight to keep it safe. It wasn’t safe to fly yet.
He hadn’t called, but she was still sure he would. This morning she had had no doubts, but now it was getting late. Her workday was over, she had just her shower, the sun was setting and she was thinking about dinner. In a way, she was almost glad he didn’t call too quickly. After all, he was Heero and instinctively she knew that this whole affair was more difficult for him than it was for her. If he had been too eager she might have been suspicious.
The phone ringing interrupted her thoughts. She knew it was him without having to pick it up. She could just tell. There was the air of expectation, of course, but she would have known anyway.
She let the phone ring a few times as she crossed the room slowly in her pink cotton robe. Her hair was still a little wet from her shower, hanging in clean strings around her face, parted by her ears and shoulders. Her slippers, also fuzzy and pink, were soft under the soles of her feet, and warm for her toes. Under her robe she wore nothing, and that made her self-conscious as she answered the phone, though there was no reason for it.
“Hello?”
“Relena?”
She smiled, though he couldn’t see it. “Hi…”
“I’m outside your house. I’ll be at your door in a few minutes.”
Relena almost dropped the phone in shock. If she had been mildly self-conscious a moment ago she was flaming scarlet now. She stammered a response that was less intelligible than the plaintive cries of a kitten and clutched her robe about her frame, completely at a loss for words. “Heero,” she gasped out at last. “I’m not ready to go anywhere. My hair is wet. I’m not dressed…”
“I’ll wait for you,” he cut in simply, as if her protest hardly registered as a problem. She realized at once that Heero didn’t recognize his arrival without warning as a breach in propriety. He wasn’t well versed in social customs and parameters.
He hung up without a goodbye.
Relena stared at the phone in her hand as if she held an object she had never seen before. Then she shook herself, set down the receiver and flew up to her room as if she had sprouted wings. When he said he would wait, did he mean in his car for her to come out or on her doorstep or in her living room?
Once in her
room she opened her drawers and hastily and clumsily pulled on socks and
underwear and a bra. She had just
snapped the bra behind her back when she heard a knock at her door downstairs. Wild-eyed, Relena tossed her robe back around
her shoulders, feeling only a little more secure, and tied it tight around her
middle.
Once she was at least covered by her robe, her hair still wet, with no make up on her face and no shoes on her feet, Relena padded softly downstairs and opened her front door slowly and shame-facedly.
“Heero,” she began. “I’m not ready yet. You’ll have to wait in the living room.”
He was well dressed. It made her furious. He wasn’t dressed for a formal banquet, but he wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dress pants that had clearly been creased and ironed. Relena felt herself flushing red to hairline as she apologetically opened the door and let him step on her wood floors with his black, polished shoes.
He had his hands in his pockets. When she finally raised her head, he was just standing there, looking at her in what she wore as if he didn’t notice it, or hardly thought it the least bit unusual or unexpected.
“Are you going to get ready?” he asked after a few moments, hardly any expression on his face at all. He didn’t avert his eyes from her, or say anything to make her feel either less or more comfortable. His eyes were sharp and focused. He noticed everything, but it was like he thought nothing particular about it. Under his steady gaze, Relena felt naked, and then remembered how little she actually wore.
She almost fled back up to her room.
In a record
time of ten minutes, the former princess of the
Heero caught her arm just above the elbow, steadying her, and she flushed again, though now she wasn’t sure of the reason. She felt his hand on her arm, the palm cool against her skin, the contact strangely satisfying. As she steadied herself, she took the opportunity to curiously touch his shoulder with her fingers. Her hand lingered on his forearm as she positioned her purse over her shoulder. Her eyes kept darting around the room, never quite landing on him.
“Let’s go,” he said, and she had to release his arm as he took a step forward and away from her.
She followed a pace behind, locking her front door on her way out, and trotted carefully down to the car. Heero opened her door for her, not in a showy way, but just as if it was expected. He did it without thinking about it or expecting to be thanked. As he did, he touched the small of her back with his left hand and gently guided her to sit down. She did, flushed and amazed that Heero had the sense to behave like a gentleman in this instance as if it came naturally, but showed no sense of propriety in almost anything else.
When they were on the road, Relena studied the sunset, watching the sun sink slowly behind the hills like a ball of molten fire just too heavy to remain aloft. As it sank the atmosphere exploded from the impact and shades of fiery red and orange bled across the sky.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier,” Heero said quietly, staring straight ahead. He drove with both hands on the wheel, as if that were the only way to drive, all ten fingers gripping the circular hoop with an efficient dexterity. “I was out doing something and your house was on the way. I thought it would make sense to just pick you up. Where do you want to go for dinner? Have you eaten yet?”
Relena could only stare at him. The setting sun washed his skin with a golden radiance and his hair shrouded his face like a silhouette, making his profile sharp and crafted and exact to the last detail. The violence and beauty of the sunset was reflected in his eyes. “No,” she said slowly. “I haven’t.”
“I know a place by the park,” he said in his subdued tones, almost as if he were talking to himself. “Would you like to go there? We can walk around afterwards.”
She accepted, but the significance of wandering alone with him in the park at night did not escape her. Her hands felt suddenly cold, but her cheeks flooded with warmth. Afraid she must look positively pink, she looked away and watched as the scenery glided past her eyes and blurred outside the passenger window.
Heero was pensive during dinner and didn’t speak much, but Relena didn’t mind. He wasn’t thoughtless, but there was a distance about him that was cool in manner, self-contained and unsure. She wondered if he was having second thoughts about her, but then why had he swung by and taken her out again? Maybe he was adjusting, or deciding. Her hands still felt cold.
After they finished eating, Heero paid for everything while Relena sat very still, her hands clutching her purse. When the waiter returned with his card, Heero gestured for her to get up.
“This way,” he directed as she silently followed him outside.
The park was just behind the restaurant and side by side they strolled around in the grass, climbing steadily up a slope to a view that looked out over the city on the edge of the ocean.
The night was clear and chill and full of stars. They gleamed like pinpricks of white fire burning in the sky, each one a sun burning too far away for her human imagination to comprehend. All clustered together in her sky, did each one gleam for other people to survive by, or merely for her to speculate at their combined and mysterious beauty?
Relena knew she was asking herself rhetorical questions because she did not want to think about the concrete ones. She was fully conscious of Heero being near. It was beautiful here and they were alone, but she could not get her mind to work past that novelty. He was present and that was all. Ideas of Heero trying to kiss her or hold her or do any of the things that most young people did in parks when alone at night seemed so far-fetched, even out of the question. There were barriers between them, a respect for a relationship that had never been clouded by personal motive and desire. And yet his presence still comforted her. She always felt more fulfilled and complete when he was around, but it was as if that was enough; she should never want or expect anything more. And yet…she found herself wanting to be physically closer.
“It’s really beautiful here,” Relena murmured, venturing out a few steps on her own to break the closeness and take the pressure off. The grass was soft and spongy beneath her shoes and the breeze blew across her cheeks and face like the finger touches of angels. She stared out over the city, watching the waves lap up on the beach at a distance as the wind tossed her hair first into her eyes and then streamlined it away from her face as she turned her head. She knew it would get tangled. She hardly noticed the cold.
From behind, Heero’s hand reached suddenly around her waist and she shivered, starting slightly. She wasn’t sure when he had approached, but the contact threatened to break the barrier she imagined between them. The touch was light. She could barely feel his hand at all, but as his hand settled just above the curve of her left hip, her left hand crossed over her body to hold him there. He stepped closer and she felt him looming behind her, larger and stronger and harder than she had thought. Her eyes stared straight ahead of her, her stomach trembling under his hand. She felt his head leaning close to her so that his breath blew warm and gentle across her neck and cheeks. A thought struck her that if she turned her head, she would be able to kiss him, but she didn’t. The very idea was terrifying. Yet Heero’s right hand touched her hair, his fingers threading lightly through it, and the sensation was so pleasant and so lulling that she closed her eyes and managed to stop trembling. When he spoke, it was in a whisper, for her ears alone.
“It’s strange,” he said so softly she barely understood him. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, but when I’m around you I feel as if I ought to be somewhere else.” He hesitated. His hands were still on her body and in her hair, softly touching her. He didn’t seem to know what he was doing, but she wanted more of it. “I don’t know what to think.”
Relena wanted to sink into the ground or melt backward into him. She had her eyes closed still and couldn’t open them. A sense of pleasure was coursing through her, full and soft and steady, yet so powerful she could hardly contain it. Heero’s absent-minded touches were setting it off, stroking to life feelings she didn’t know she had. She was like a cat about to purr. Those feelings flickered inside her like the wings of butterflies brushing her soul, causing her to feel nauseous and sensuous at the same time. The soft and heated burning of desire glowed like an ember.
She realized with surprise just how much she really wanted him to kiss and hold her. But she didn’t have the energy to open her eyes, much less turn around, and Heero wasn’t moving. If he wasn’t going to kiss her she at least wished he would hold her tightly. His hand moving through her hair was so relaxing and so sensitive she wanted to disappear into the feeling.
The feeling abated suddenly and she opened her eyes, feeling a sense of loss draining out of her as his hands left her and she came aware of herself independent from him. The wind blew about her with a touch more chill than she noticed before and she clutched her shoulder to keep the warmth in.
Heero was looking out over the city now, quiet and contemplative. Whatever he was thinking couldn’t visually be seen, but Relena couldn’t help trying. Was he looking at the stars or the sea?
Though she couldn’t say why, it was at that moment that Relena knew for sure that this was what she wanted. She remembered all the other guys in her past, remembered how they had meant nothing to her, and suddenly understood that Heero was special. She always wanted him to be near. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have romantic feelings for other people. She wasn’t going to say that Heero was the only man in the universe to possess this soul force that was so magnetic to her, but if there were others they were rare, very rare. She didn’t have to be close to him to know that something was there, something that made her tremble inside when she thought about him. In an instant she imagined him in her life forever, as her lover, her husband, her support emotionally and physically, not sure whether she should cultivate such thoughts or dash them away.
He turned to look at her and she approached him as if it were a summons, malleable by his eyes alone. He turned his head as she drew close, but when she stopped within inches of him he looked back at her and her heart began pounding. She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth, and knew the darting of her eyes must give her away. She had never before noticed how long and full his lashes were as she found herself glancing at them momentarily. Swallowing, she looked away.
She wanted to put her hands on his waist and feel his body to make sure he was real and solid and tangible. And she wanted him to kiss her more desperately than ever, but a twinge of doubt remained. Perhaps she was wrong. And perhaps he didn’t feel the same way about her. They had been through so much, and so much had changed and was changing. As much as she wanted him close she also wanted him to remain constant and she was afraid too much change would drive him away from her for good. He simply couldn’t be as well-adjusted as he was pretending, not after the part he had played in a war that, for him, has lasted a lifetime.
He touched her cheek suddenly and she lifted her head, surprised to feel something like tears in her eyes.
“Heero,” she whispered.
They stood inches apart, facing each other with their spines straight and their feet firmly planted. Relena’s hands were clenched into fists at her side now. Heero stood like an impassible structure with one hand casually lifted to her face, raising her head so that she was looking him in the eye. His eyes were stationary, his expression unreadable, his body posture self contained and unexpressive. Relena’s heart pounded in her chest with a dull thud that echoed in her ears.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she told him, and grasped lightly onto the wrist that was beside her cheek with her closest hand. “I want to keep seeing you, and I don’t want you to run.”
Relena studied his face, tracing the lines and structures to find a clue to how he was going to respond. It was rare that she was able to predict what he was going to say. It all remained buried inside of him. She couldn’t even read it in his eyes. Sometimes, she could feel his thoughts, though, like a resonating of emotion. But the words were always a mystery until he spoke them.
“I’m not going to go anywhere,” he said.
She believed him.
In response, she leaned her cheek against his hand in relief and gratitude. He watched her with searching eyes, scanning her face, her small nose and cheekbones, her pale blue eyes and creamy skin. As she felt the coolness of her hand against her flesh she wished he would kiss her, kiss her right now, under the gleaming starlight on a hilltop that overlooked the city, with sincere words and something like promises exchanged between them. She envisioned it in her mind, his leaning close, capturing her lips, igniting to flame the ember that burned low.
“I should take you home,” he said.
Closing her eyes, she smothered her disappointment and said nothing.
Just was she was about to pull away and walk back with him to the car, she felt his arms encircle her body roughly and suddenly, his hands digging into her sweater and clutching her tight. She allowed herself to be pulled close to him, her head falling sideway against his chest, inhaling his scent and feeling him surround her simultaneously. She cuddled close, not asking questions to which she would find no answers. He hugged her and she took a moment to take in the material feel of him, a body that was not perfectly formed yet felt perfect to her. Pressed up against him he seemed more vulnerable than she expected, and for a flash she felt that getting really close to him was possible.
When he released her she took his hand and he clasped it, leading her back to his car by the handhold without a sound. She opened the car door herself this time, not thinking even to let him do it, and sat in the passenger’s seat. Heero circled around back and then got in beside her. When they were driving, Relena took his free hand again. She was surprised when he caressed her fingers, and wondered if he would kiss her on her doorstep, but when he pulled up to her house he remained in the car as she got out and let herself in.