Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Different Circumstance (Arc) ❯ #5 - Burned ( Chapter 5 )

Heero hesitated, knuckles poised three inches over the solid wooden door. He hadn't called beforehand today, hadn't said anything about coming by.

 

It had been a normal day at work. Well, as normal as things could get with the company well on its way to getting back on its feet, which meant that he'd spent the whole day in the boardroom, chairing endless meetings, as well as met what felt like the entire population of his sales and marketing department. He'd not managed to eat lunch, or dinner either; his stomach had noisily protested through the rather mindless drive here in the fading sunshine, to Wufei's apartment.

 

He shouldn't be here at all.

 

Before he'd left for work this morning, Heero had paused outside his son's bedroom door, and, with only a slight hesitation, walked in. How long since he'd stepped in here? The walls were plastered with colorful posters, and three parts of an encyclopedia set were strewn over the deskchair and the floor. Bits of cardboard and glitter speckled a corner of the room, and a carefully capped, half-filled bottle of glue sat like a miniature lighthouse amidst the mess.

 

He'd set his briefcase carefully and quietly against the edge of one small plastic table, and crossed the room to the bed. Quatre seemed to have grown in the days—or had it been weeks, months?—that Heero hadn't seen him, sprawled out over the bed with the covers kicked up over his chest and one leg. The light blond hair was darkening slightly to the color of honey, after his mother's, and there was a stronger set to the childish features that Heero had never noticed before. Who was this stranger in his house? On a whim, he'd leaned down and tucked the boy back in, smoothing the curls over the high forehead. Then he'd turned, and left the alien room.

 

His priorities had been twisted. Things were all wrong. Heero's hand faltered, as did his bravado and the stirrings of desire that always led him on, like a puppet on strings at the thought of Wufei.

 

The door opened suddenly, and caught by surprise, Heero stepped back.

 

A young man stared back at him, expressionless. Long, wet, dark brown hair covered the entire right side of a thin, sculpted face. A half-buttoned white shirt was striking against the triangle of olive skin, where thin links of a gold chain gleamed around a slender but muscled neck. Belatedly, Heero noticed the dressy silver cuff links, a briefcase that smelt and looked unmistakably like luxurious supple leather, and the polished shoes. The obviously expensive blood-red tie, looped loosely around the collar but thrown back over one shoulder.

 

A familiar face, one that had been on the news recently, and Heero growled inwardly for not having recognized it immediately.

 

Introverted, silent and reclusive, this was the new poster boy of unfortunate circumstance, only son and heir of the recently deceased oil magnate Dekim Barton, whom the media had christened the Oil Emperor for as long as Heero could remember. Trowa Barton.

 

They continued staring at each other, and it was only then that it hit Heero, with all the force of a sledgehammer, that Trowa would have to have been living under a rock for the past half a year to not recognize him in return.

 

Without a word, Trowa finally moved, shouldering past Heero into the corridor. Heero didn't miss the infinitesimal pause, the hesitation as Trowa tensed as if to look back over his shoulder. But neither of them said a word, and Heero didn't watch as the other man disappeared into the elevator and out of his life. Somehow, the dread at being caught here, recognized here, was absent. What, then? Was he angry? Jealous? Not wholly. It was nothing more tangible than a gut feeling, but Heero suddenly felt a wave of pity for the young Barton, feeling that doubled up in almost tragically comic irony, and made him feel like laughing aloud at himself. Media spotlights, false fronts, playthings of society, and the warm arms of a particular comfort. They were both men who were ensnared and burned by the same things.

 

“Missed me, did you?” A quiet, carefully noncommittal voice in front of him, that instinctively warned him not to ask questions, told him that if he kicked up a fuss then the door would be slammed in his face. It didn't tell him in the slightest whether or not he'd been forgiven. Heero wasn't quite sure himself what exactly it was that needed forgiving, but he relaxed and decided to tell the truth anyway.

 

Because if he couldn't be honest to anyone in his life, then he was at least going to be honest to Wufei. Wufei, who scorched him alive, whose lips and words and arms made him burn and tremble.

 

“I did.”