A Use for Old Christmas Cards
A Gundam Wing Fan Fiction by The
Manwell
It all started exactly one month ago.
And what, you might ask, is “it”? Um, yeah, I’m still trying to figure that
out, myself.
I know; I know... already this story is sounding like a
dud, but stick with me for a few more paragraphs and we’ll see if it gets any
more interesting. In fact, it’s probably
a bad idea for me to be scribbling this down (on the backs of old Christmas
cards, no less) after the amount of alcohol I’ve had this evening but... well,
what else are you supposed to use old
Christmas cards for? I’ve never really
been clear on that. I mean, is it rude
to throw them away? But who’s going to
know in the event that you do? I’ve
never had any friends who’d asked after the health of their Christmas cards the
following March... Actually, I’ve never
had that many friends at all. And all of
them know better than to send me a card for a holiday I don’t celebrate.
I pause and flip open the glittery pre-articulated happy greeting
card and note Une’s signature. Ah, so this is what this year’s cards from
the administration look like. Yeah, as
you can probably guess, I usually don’t bother to read them. I wouldn’t – normally – bother to open
them. But then, that would be Duo’s
fault. He’d seen the small pile of
festively-colored envelopes on the kitchen table and had declared I should prop
them up along the mantle over my apartment’s finicky gas fireplace. I’d snorted.
[Translation: Okay, whatever, Duo.] So he’d opened them for me and... decorated my living room.
Yet another example of the Maxwell’s mysterious and bizarre nesting
habits...
But I digress... I think.
I mean, I’m not sure where I’d been going with this in the first place
but – oh, yes: I remember. One month
ago, right? “It,”
right? Okay, then.
Another Valentine’s Day. Yippee.
But seriously, I had plans.
Well, Duo and I had plans involving a seemingly endless supply of
Despite (or, debatably, because of) the day, I was laughing
at Duo’s running commentary, snorting beer over one of his bedraggled throw
pillows. Then he was threatening to sic
a radioactive alien frog on me if I didn’t buy him a new one because sure as
God made little green apples, beer that had frolicked in my sinuses was not going to be dry-cleanable. Does it make me a sick, pathetic person if I
say this was the best time I could ever remember having?
It was right after that when it happened. I looked up through watery eyes, my cheeks
and sides aching with mirth, and was hit with the full force of...
something. I’m not even sure what it was exactly. His smile? His energy? His friendship? God, I have no clue. But I looked at him and suddenly I could see
it... Us. I could see us. Together. It was like a second pair of eyelids I’d
never realized I possessed had blinked open and I could marvel at the potential
for what we might come to mean for each other.
I was breathless. I was
floored. I was... damn near drooling beer
on the stupid throw pillow.
Not many people would have a life-evolving epiphany in the
middle of Radioactive Frogs from Mars, but then, I’ve never been a conventional
sort of guy.
So what was I supposed to do then? I mean, after the glow of it had done its
sparkling floorshow routine and I floated back down to Duo’s couch with psychedelic
green light from the TV reflecting off of our eyes?
I did what anyone whose brain had just turned to mush would
do.
I kissed him.
It, ah, could have been better, sure. He could have participated. But then, I could have had better
timing. On the plus side, he didn’t murder
me.
Duo just looked at me, expression blank and said my name in
that tone of his. That
I’m-not-100%-sure-I-know-what-just-happened-here-but-when-I-figure-it-out-I-reserve-the-right-to-kick-your-ass
tone. I wouldn’t be surprised if
you’ve never heard it; he doesn’t use it very often.
So, basically, I’d just fucked myself but good.
I, um, I’m not exactly
sure what I mumbled after that. Something. I
guess. I just let the giant frogs on the
TV screen chase me out of the room. The
next thing I knew, I was back at my place, staring at a blank television and
wondering what the fuck had been in my beer.
I wasn’t drunk and I hadn’t been
drunk, either. I had no excuse for why
I’d just kissed one of my closest friends.
I was a moron.
I deserved to eat shit and die.
It would taste really bad, but at least I wouldn’t have to
face him at the office tomorrow.
I was starting to wonder if people really could die from eating shit – at least
shit that hadn’t been pooped out of some sort of radioactive freak amphibian –
when someone knocked on my door.
Maybe they’d know the answer to my question.
I yanked open the door and there stood Duo. Just... looking at me. Again.
I was feeling a little off-balance. That’s my defense for allowing these words to
pop out of my mouth: “If you came over here to stare at me some more, I’ll just
give you a photo and be done with it.”
He blinked at me and then offered up a sarcastic
smile. “Can I get it signed?”
I choked back a bark of laughter. I could feel Hysteria pulling on my sleeve
and sidling toward the Flaming Death rollercoaster ride. Nope. So not going there.
“So...” Duo began again, still braced on the threshold,
“Was there a reason for why you took off after declaring your undying
non-hate?”
What? “What?” I am so
original.
He sighed. “I think
you muttered something about frogs and goat cheese and never being able to hate
me.”
This was news to me.
“Uh, really?”
His eyes narrowed and I found myself fidgeting. But just a little.
“Heero,” he said, “why did you kiss me?”
Er, why had I? Because I’d experienced a brief glimpse of a
reality in which we were lovers and were blissfully happy on top of that? Oh, shit.
I’d actually bought into a Happily Ever After. Proof positive that I was
suffering from some sort of malignant brain disorder. I told him, “Um...”
He shook his head, ran a hand through his bangs, and looked
at me again. With a heavy sigh, he said flatly, “Shit man,
you gave me a kiss on Valentine’s Day.”
It would have been nice if he’d sounded a little happier
about it.
He continued with a dark glower, “So now I’m gonna have to
reciprocate on White Day. Fuck!”
He’s such a romantic.
Not many people would know it look at him, though. Totally in the closet, this
one.
He looked disgruntled and sexy and I wanted to kiss him
again but I figured he’d kill me if I upped his debt to two kisses instead of
just that single crappy one.
“Argh,” he articulated, clearly
not happy with me at all. “Perfect.
Just great.”
He pointed a single, sexy finger at me.
“I hope you’re happy.” And with
that he’d walked away.
I felt kind of bad for ruining our Valentine’s Day. And I felt even worse for possibly ruining
our partnership at work. I just about
wanted to toss myself off the roof of the apartment complex when I contemplated
all the negative effects this could have on our friendship.
Yup.
But I was looking forward to White Day now and that was a genuine first for me.
So I was both relieved and disappointed when I went in to
work the next day and Duo acted like he always had, joked like he always did,
and poked me in the back of the head to get my attention as usual. His easy-going manner kind of got me thinking
that maybe... just maybe he hadn’t really minded my kissing him as badly as
he’d let on. Maybe he was just trying to
get back at me for shocking him for
once.
But, then again, maybe not.
If his gaze ever lingered in my direction, I didn’t feel
it. If he ever looked at me with a
desirous, predatory gleam in his eyes, I didn’t catch it. In fact, as the month of days ticked away I
was winding tighter and tighter until I thought the next person who asked to
cut in ahead of me in line for the copy machine would get run through with a
spare ink cartridge. No easy feat, that.
A month. An entire month of Duo pretending I’d never
kissed him. And entire
month of me wondering if he was going to kiss me back. An entire, eternal month
of... waiting.
Sounds supremely stupid, doesn’t it? An entire month of waiting
to be kissed... or to not be kissed. I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know if I should
even bring it up. Should I
apologize? That damn Happily Ever After
was still blowing raspberries at me from the edge of my field of vision so I
couldn’t really offer any sincerity to an apology.
And then it was March fourteenth. White Day.
Oh... shit.
So, I bought beer.
But the imagined feel of his lips against mine had me
bringing my fingertips up to trace my mouth.
God. Could I be anymore pathetic?
Well, not sober, that’s for damn sure.
So, Duo or no Duo, I started in on the
And then, after an hour, I started writing on the backs of
this last season’s Christmas cards.
So, that pretty much brings you up to speed, doesn’t
it? I don’t really have to go into any
more detail than that do I? We’ll not
talk about the sleepless nights and the death glares at the copy machine and
the pleading gazes I directed at Duo’s back at every available
opportunity. Nope. Not talking about those at all.
I set my pen down and flex my hand. It’s started to cramp from trying to write so
damn small but I’m almost out of room here.
I eye all five cards spread out over the coffee table with a weary sort
of foreboding doom. Any chance I might
have had to pull myself up by the bootstraps and shake off this stupid fantasy
has been beaten off by my singular obsession with reliving the whole, pathetic
incident.
On Christmas cards, no less.
Seasons greetings from Une,
Relena, Noin, Sally, and Sylvia Noventa
all pay homage to a life that’s been turned upside down by an evening spent
mocking extraterrestrial, nuclear amphibians with the most amazing man I’ve
ever met.
I have I used the word “pathetic” too often yet? Maybe I can squeeze it in here a few more
times? Yes, there’s just enough room
for...
I almost snap my pen in half when someone knocks on my
door.
Can people die of anxiety?
Is it possible for your blood to get confused about which direction it’s
supposed to be going? Is that what
causes burst arteries and apoplexy?
But I open the door anyway.
I mean, did you doubt that I would?
Once again, Duo stands on my threshold looking sexy. But he doesn’t look irritated this time. In fact, he’s smiling at me and it’s one of
his nice smiles. Not one of his Spanish Inquisition ones.
“You know, Heero,” he begins, glancing down at the carpet
presumably to collect his thoughts. And maybe to check me out.
Hey, I can hope can’t I? “This
last month gave me some time to think about it and...”
And? I feel my brows
hitch upward in an obvious inquiry but he doesn’t say anything. I draw in a breath. I intend to use it for speaking. But then Duo looks up at me and I find myself
using it for something else instead.
Here, standing in my doorway in front of God, the
neighbors, and Mrs. Sanderson’s Pekinese, Duo kisses me.
Wow.
There are lips and tongue and teeth... and his hands hold
my face at the perfect angle for all of it.
I’m kind of dazed when he leans away.
Through the warm, fuzzy pleasantness, I get the impression that he’s
waiting for a reaction.
Ah, well. I can’t
let him down now, can I?
“Yours was better than mine,” I admit between shallow
pants.
His watchful expression melts away. He gives me that crooked grin of his and
replies, “Well, aren’t you lucky that I’m going to give you a chance to make
that up to me?”
“I’m not going to have to wait another damn month am
I?” Clearly, I’ve got my priorities
straight.
He chuckles.
“No. But I would like to at least
make it to the couch.”
A man of high standards. I like that.
We do end up making it to the couch... after a couple of, er, “rest stops” along the way. And we do end up enjoying the comforts of
said couch for a good, long time. And
after that, Duo picks up my Christmas cards and reads my assortment of
scribbles. He makes fun of me for ogling
him behind his back and I kick him... as nicely as possible of course.
“You know,” he tells me thoughtfully. “You’ve still got a little room left on this
one.”
I eye the space he’s pointing to and smile. I reach across the gulf between the couch and
the coffee table and scoop up my abandoned pen.
Feeling rather magnanimous at the moment, I hold it out to him and
direct, “You finish it then.”
And I can’t help it when the words he chooses strike me as
weirdly ironic. I mean, after all of
this, who wouldn’t laugh at the messy scrawl Duo places under my meandering,
hopeless rant:
“And they lived happily ever after.”
Yup. That Maxwell is most certainly a romantic.
The End! (Thank
God.)