Elevator Love_Closure part 7
By Tralla

Contains: 1+4+1 and 1x4x1 mini

It's been a little over a month since the accident and the blonde's father has been moved to the mansion. While his health has improved enough for homecare, it was made clear that his industrious lifestyle is something that will permanently have to be shelved. And, with that matter determined, it's clear that the blonde can no longer casually cut ties with him.

The development has led to strange behaviors on the blonde's part, stranger than usual. I'm no longer concerned with getting complete access to his quarters; he's been haunting mine, consistently. If he didn't own everything at my disposal as well as the surrounding acres, he'd be a freeloader…a freeloader who's in bed beside me still half-slumbering even though the sun has been up for five hours.

I'm not unaffected by his lethargy. It must be residual morning daze that's making my thoughts lax, making them indulgent as I watch him feebly attempt to shake off sleep. And, with this indulgence, my mind strays into rarely trodden territory. It's dangerous to continue watching him.

I've found myself stirred just by little things on his face, tiny flaws from the accident that remind me that he isn't invulnerable; he can be harmed; he can be shaped by circumstances; he's not always in control. The understanding only hit home with the arrival of those physical indications. Staring at those faint healed marks on his cheek, tracing them with my finger makes me want to promise things I shouldn't, things like letting up on being an asshole for just a day to give him anything he wants.

His lips are moving. He's murmuring something.

"Heero...you're on my arm."

He sounded annoyed. I take it all back. I'm not promising anything.

We were invited over for dinner at the Marquis's estate and now we're being courteous guests by purchasing wine for the occasion. While the blonde is fraternizing with the wine dealer in the bowels of the shop, I'm at the front waiting obediently. My time isn't empty. I'm ruminating over what he's planning to purchase: nonalcoholic wine; wine that is deceitful enough to fool the taste buds. Only he would go to someone's dinner party bearing false booze. I shouldn't be surprised. He's only doing what's natural for him: passing off an imitation for the real thing.

"You're muttering, Heero." I look back at him as he adds, "You've been doing that off and on all day."

My irritation hasn't abated. He'd snuck up behind me and I hadn't even noticed until he decided to share his unsolicited observations. I look at what is in his arms. My gaze goes to the case of wine bottles and then back to his face. He's frowning, but I haven't earned his distaste. He's looking past me.

He hands me the case as he says, "You'll want to get to the car."

I follow his gaze. There are photographers and news crews and they're across the street. Even from where I am, I can tell that they're eager, purposeful. I'm prevented from dwelling on their appearance. I'm being verbally ousted from the shop.

"If we leave together, you'll get pulled into it."

As I expected, my retreat from the store was without incident. To the media, I'm a regular customer who has somewhere else to be. What I hadn't expected was that there would be trouble waiting for me at the car. I found Raberba leaning against it. After a cursory glance in my direction, his attention is elsewhere. I can take a guess at the reason for his dismissal.

I put down the case of wine at my feet and, as I stand, I reclaim his attention with a pointed question. "Where's your underling?"

He looks my way and gives me a frown. He doesn't approve of my word choice, but he responds anyway. "With you and Quatre walking about, wouldn't it be unwise to have an almost identical pair haunting the same area? Jiro has chosen to be inconspicuous."

"He's not inconspicuous."

Raberba inspects me before responding, "If you're referring to Catherine's prior knowledge of him, I have an answer. It's because of Wing."

"Wing?"

"I'm sure you've seen it. It's one of Duo's pets. He built it for Triton years ago, and every year he gives it an upgrade. It's not something he trusts to be sent through commercial means. As a result, and because of his absence from Quatre's estate, Catherine would bring it to him. And, on the last trip, she came in contact with Jiro."

Now that he's done with the explanation, he's giving me an intentionally bored expression, as though I'm squandering his time. I'm not finished with him. "What are you doing here?"

"Like you, I'm waiting for Quatre." He's staring. "You look suspicious, Heero."

"The timing of your appearance and the fact that you're leaning on our car--"

"_His_ car, Heero." He stands up. "There was only one car that was passed over to you, and you crashed it."

"You set that up."

"I wasn't the one behind the wheel."

I look away, but he's still talking. He'd actually walked forward to peer at me before saying, "I haven't ever seen that particular series of expressions on anyone. Knowing what I am, this countenance is still troublesome for you."

He's still peering at me. Apparently, to him, I'm a walking curiosity. When I ignore him, he backs away and says, "It's just a suggestion, but you can make things easier for yourself by refraining from acting or speaking in a provocative fashion. Otherwise, it's perfectly within my right to give discourteous responses."

While sounding conciliatory, he'd managed an explanation of his behavior and warned me not to bait him. The utterance doesn't change anything on my end. He's still a menace, and I won't be pushed around. But, instead of acting on my ire, I settle for a resentful silence.

It's not too long before the blonde arrives. He looks tired and slightly bemused, as though he's trying to make sense of the last fifteen minutes. But that expression is replaced by a look of deliberation as he stops ten feet from his droid. He soon reveals the reason for his change in demeanor.

"Raberba, did you know about--"

"It was necessary."

"Having the media swarm…was necessary," murmurs the blonde while sounding unconvinced.

"I apologize," responds Raberba while looking contrite. "I needed a genuinely surprised reaction from you. I also understood that you would be able to manage a series of apt responses under the circumstances."

The blonde has progressed from looking unconvinced to uneasy. "Why did you…"

"I provided your whereabouts as recompense for keeping them from accosting you earlier, as in right after one of your hospital visits."

It takes a few seconds for the blonde to accept what he's heard. He'd closed his eyes for the duration of that time, but as he opens them he says, "Thank you. It's good to have it over with."

Raberba provides another tidbit of his exploits. "I've already written a statement thanking the public for their support. And, as a result of a suggestion from Trowa, I have asked Wufei to be your and your father's spokesperson. He has agreed."

There's another response from the blonde. He's thanking Raberba again, but he's keeping his distance. There are none of the signs of physical appreciation I've seen him dole out in the past weeks. He's pissed off and masking it behind a smile and kind words. He's wasting his time. Both of his listeners know him well enough to see through the smokescreen, and now Raberba is making an attempt to save his privileged standing.

He approaches the blonde and reaches out to touch him on the arm as he says, "I do everything…with the goal of…making things easier for you…in the long run."

He'd used a soft, tentative tone with the blonde. Remaining here is a mistake. I interrupt them. "We'll be late if we don't head out."

After a long and mostly silent drive, the blonde and I have arrived at the Marquis's estate. We're both standing outside of the car in front of the mansion waiting to be greeted. In the wait, there's something on the lines of a Morse code communication passing between us via the car's roof. We each have a hand resting on it.

There's a tap from his side of the car. And now a tap from mine. We're both on the same level of irritation, for different reasons involving Raberba. I glance over at the blonde. He looks ready to get back into the car and opt for an escape from the impending festivities. As the mansion's front doors open, he adopts an agreeable expression. His urge to cut and run has been halted.

Two people step outside. The first person is the Marquis's wife and she has the kid with her. She greets us. The blonde is delivered a hug and I'm given a warm smile. She begins to chat us up rather than invite us in, but I'm distracted from the blather. I'm being scrutinized by the kid. I give him my own sinister gaze and am trumped. That look…when he gets older, it's going to be a problem. It's going to become the kind of stare that strips people effortlessly.

I move my attention to something less freakish.

His mother is still talking and I get why she's kept us at the mansion's entrance as she says, "Since the weather is unseasonably warm, we're moving dinner outside." There's a smile from her. It's oddly encouraging. "You'll have some time to walk around…unless you would like to help set up the tent."

The blonde looks my way and takes in my expression before responding, "We're feeling stiff from the car ride. We'll walk around for a bit."

After retrieving the wine from the car and passing it off to the Marquis's wife, we'd set off. It is warmer than usual, but randomly windy. Every once in a while the landscape is disturbed as we walk. In the course of our wandering, the blonde has been pointing out various things on the Marquis's property. Apparently, he's very familiar with the grounds, and now he's stopped by a gazebo and looks ready to give a commentary on it. But he doesn't. As he faces me, I watch him. His gaze is following something and that something just landed on me.

He reaches out to deal with the interloping object. He just picked a leaf off my shoulder, but his hand replaced the leaf. I have unresolved issues connected with that particular grip. He'd fired me twice with that hold.

"You look wary," he whispers.

Under his inspection, I finally give a reply. "I'm not the forgetful type."

Apparently, he is because he's not catching on to what I'm getting at. Not that it matters. He just brought his other hand to my other shoulder. He's massaging me and he's up to something.

There's another whisper from him. "You're tense."

I'm waiting for the real reason for his tactile manipulation, and I get it as he says, "You can still back out."

Either he's giving me one last opportunity to escape the upcoming social drudgery, or he doesn't want me around, doesn't want me to see the kind of life he'd left behind, the kind of life that preceded our meeting.

I give him a response. "It took nearly two hours to get here."

"And you don't want to feel that you've wasted your time...or, at least, you're striving to give that impression."

In response to my frown, I get a smile from him. It's the first genuine one I've seen in weeks. It's unnerving to realize how important it was to see it. And there's more that adds to my disquiet. There's something familiar and furtive creeping over me. It's what it feels like to have him completely breach my personal space.

The feeling of him closing in…It's a good dose of warm anxiety that comes with his scent, with his touch, with the warm firmness of his buttock in my grasp. I just lifted his trapped cheek and I like his response. He just licked the side of my mouth and then delivered a press of his lips to the cooling area. And now I have his wet heat as he sucks on my lips. He was toying with temperature just for me.

My hands are under his jacket, on his waist, pulling on his shirt to get under it to touch him more intimately. It's a successful endeavor that allows me to give into my lust for his skin, to give into the desire to caress and then palm the muscles of his back. And now I want to strip him down and waylay him with oral attention all over.

My left hand descends to give another squeeze to his rear. It's tight, pert, and mine, but something sneaks in to thwart my zeal. When it comes to satisfying him, I'm good, but I'm not a miracle worker. I won't be able to feast on him at the pace I'd like. There's someplace to go, someplace we have to be soon. There are people to deal with and inane prattling to tolerate. Unnecessary, frustrating distractions keep cropping up. And now I've just caused one.

"You bit me." His voice came out as a surprised rasp.

I frown. Apparently, I'm a biter when stirred up by angst.

He steps back. I watch him. He's running his tongue over his bottom lip to check if I broke skin, to taste for traces of blood. He looks contemplative, which is worse than having him intentionally try to tempt me.

I want to be that lip of his, passive under the laps of his tongue.

But I'm denied. Something just caught his attention and he's looking past me at it. I join him in his scrutiny.

It's the kid. He's a long distance away and hasn't noticed us. He's walking. From his gait, he's doing something he isn't supposed to. Over his shoulder, he'd just casually looked behind him. Then he did the same thing over the other shoulder before resuming his stroll. Normal kids don't stroll. I can think of one person who wasn't a normal kid.

"You're giving me a very strange look," notes the blonde while giving me one in return.

After a few seconds, my 'strange' expression is ignored and he starts talking about his mini clone.

"With them moving dinner outside, he probably used the distraction at the house to wander off." He looks back at me. "The maze is in that direction. I'm certain he wouldn't be allowed there."

Of course, he can guess what the kid is up to. They share a sneaky MO.

He's tucking his shirt back into his pants and looking grudgingly dutiful. I know I'm still giving him that same suspicious look as he says, "I'll bring him back to the house. In the mean time--"

"You want me to walk around and keep myself entertained."

There's a small smile from him as he adds, "It's just a suggestion."

I frown. Suggestion. I've come to loathe that word.

After the blonde departed, I'd managed to wander somewhere unanticipated. The Marquis's property is large as well as diverse. Now around me, there are columns, the kind that would be in a Greek temple. I continue walking. They look like a work in progress. The "temple" is incomplete. I stop in my tracks. It was first a feeling and now I have confirmation. Someone is watching me, and now that someone speaks.

"Are you Heero Yuy?"

A female voice. I turn around. There's a young woman speaking from behind a column. I don't move closer to investigate. I'm not used to adults playing hide-and-seek, nor do I want to endorse such a juvenile endeavor. I don't give a reply, but, as I keep my position, I suddenly realize that there's no wind. There's nothing to distract my aural perception. I hear the light shifting of clothing. I can see more of her and now I understand her behavior, somewhat. Despite the alto of her voice, her features are doll-like, almost like those of a child. Her appearance has bled over into her comportment. She hasn't completely revealed herself; she's peeking out from behind the column.

"You're Heero," she says in a whisper.

Apparently, my non-reply was enough of an answer. And, apparently, it was an invitation for an introduction.

"I'm Relena, Milliardo's sister." She rests her hand on the column as she says, "Brother mentioned you. He said you were Quatre's traveling companion." She leaves the column. "Is that all?"

"No."

"Good. Then there is a less repulsive reason why Dorothy has latched onto his cousin. It wasn't just greed for someone with his uncanny resemblance. There was pain." She's looking at me intently. "Catherine said that you have a twin."

She has a creepy stare, just like the kid. Maybe a reply will keep her away. "I don't think of him as a twin."

"You see yourself as I different. I can understand. I don't like being compared to my brother, even when I can acknowledge similarities. For instance, our enduring fascination with homoerotic relations."

I must have misheard her, but I don't have time to dwell on the possibility. She's moving...retreating back to the column. I wonder if this is how the blonde gets his kicks. He was eager to have me walk around knowing that I'd run into a sideshow. He's probably watching me and chuckling to himself from somewhere in the brush. I look around. As I'm surveying the area, the creepy girl suddenly speaks again and what she says cuts off my search for an escape route.

"Probably...out of all the people you know...Brother and I..."

I turn around, and she reveals more of herself as she continues, "Brother and I are the only ones who weren't acquired." She fully steps away from the column. "We've known Quatre since we were children, yet he still manages to surprise us with new, stirring secrets. Most recently, a convenient cousin and now a mysterious...lover."

I look back at her and her impish expression. She seems pleased with herself. I'm unimpressed. It was a decent intro, theatrical at best, but I'm waiting for more. I think I've found a snitch.

Part 8a