----------------------- Birthday Gift ~~ A Moment of Haven ~~ ----------------------- -- June 24th or so, AC 196 -- Duo was sitting in the kitchen analyzing a calendar when Heero walked in the door. Heero looked at the calendar, looked at the little pout of concentration on Duo's face, and decided he didn't need to ask. It was after dinner, and when Duo had nothing better to do, he sometimes did random things. Heero paid him no further attention, and did as he initially planned, digging through one of the kitchen drawers looking for a needle and thread to fix the curtains with. "Today's my birthday," Duo suddenly announced. Heero found what he was looking for, closed the drawer, and turned around to lean against the kitchen counter. "Oh," he responded calmly. "I didn't know." "Well, no reason you should have, seeing as how I didn't know myself until now," Duo answered brightly. Heero cocked his head to one side curiously. "How did you figure it out?" "What do you mean, figure it out?" "How did you figure out that today is your birthday," he clarified. "Oh. Well, I didn't. I mean, I just decided that today was going to be my birthday." Heero blinked. "I don't think you just can decide that for yourself." "Sure, why not? I mean, I've got to have one, right? And since I don't know when my original one was, I thought I might as well get myself a new one. See?" He gestured at the calendar, and Heero pushed off the counter and pulled out the second chair at the table, seating himself across from the braided one. Duo continued. "I chose today because I was doing some calculations, and I figured out that this is about as far from Christmas as one can get, 'cuz I wanted to minimize the time between presents and parties, see? So that's right around today." And here Heero had initially thought that he had done some calculations involving the position of the stars at the time of his birth or something equally impressive. Well, he supposed one method was as good as the next. It wasn't as if the actual date mattered much. "I'm sorry I didn't get you a gift," he apologized softly. "Well, I hardly gave you any warning, so I forgive you," Duo decided magnanimously. "It's only fair." Heero leaned his elbows on the table and bent over the calendar a few moments longer, first noting the fullness of the moon at this time, an old habit from needing to know the lighting conditions on night missions, and then eying the picture of the lighthouse chosen to represent June. Whatever did a lighthouse have to do with June? He rather thought something summery would have been more appropriate, not the drab, mostly gray and blue photograph, whose dreariness was broken only by the red stripes on the spire perched on the end of the rocky outcropping. When he glanced up, he caught Duo eyeing him peculiarly. "What?" "Well, I was just wondering...." He glanced away casually and avoided eye contact for a few moments before meeting the piercing blue of Heero's eyes again. Heero straightened, maintaining the eye contact and indicating a willingness to hear him out with a slight nod of his head. "There's a gift you could give me," Duo started. "I know it's not quite standard procedure to go asking for gifts, but something occurred to me, and since you don't have anything else in mind...?" He paused and waited for a response, then took Heero's expectant silence as assent. "Can you do me a favor?" Heero raised an eloquent eyebrow. "A favor isn't a gift." Duo nodded his head somewhat dismissively. "Yeah, well, I know. That's not the gift. I just want you to hear me out, and give the matter some consideration. It's not the sort of thing I'd want to make you feel obligated to do as a gift, so all I want is for you to actually think about it." Heero inclined his head slightly. "Fair enough." Duo took a slow breath before continuing. "When someone asks you to do something, or if you want to do something, don't say no unless you can find a good reason to say no. Don't say no simply because you can't think of a good reason to say yes." Heero's brow just barely crinkled as he considered the request. "How is that a favor to you?" he asked, sidestepping the issue and letting it simmer for the moment. "It's ... not really, I guess. More like a favor to you." Duo sighed a little sigh, his fingers on the table tangling themselves restlessly before he noticed, and folded his hands in his lap as he leaned back in the folding chair currently serving as dining table seating. It creaked loudly, just because it could. "I mean, I've seen you doing it. When people invite you to go do something, it almost seems like it's just an automatic reflex action for you to say no, and I just wonder if you ever really have a reason for saying no, or if you just say no because you're used to saying no." He looked at Heero a trifle nervously, hoping his words would be taken the right way. Heero, nearly as inscrutable as always, if your name isn't Duo, merely wore a contemplative look. Already uncomfortable with the short silence, Duo rushed to explain further. "I know, old habits are hard to break. But you gotta break them, still, and here you are, new place, fresh start... you really ought to consider doing new things, and breaking your old patterns and stuff... I mean, that's kinda like what the whole war was about, breaking the old patterns, and yeah, you've broken some old patterns, so in for a penny, in for a pound, might as well break some more, right?" He grinned hopefully. Heero continued to contemplate for a few moments more. "...So how is that a favor to you?" Duo let the anxious smile drop and shrugged carelessly, again refusing to make eye contact with his friend until after he had said what he needed to say. "Just looking out for you, buddy, that's all." He then met Heero's steady gaze unblinkingly once more, despite his apprehension about this going over well with his taciturn housemate. "Well? What do you say?" When Heero's eyes seemed to unfocus a bit as he thought about it, as if he were just looking in his direction, rather than looking at him, Duo hastily appended to his sentence. "... Well, actually, I guess you don't have to decide right now, or even tell me what you end up deciding...." A short silence. "Hn. Well, I can't think of a good reason to say no...." He blinked, and his eyes snapped back to focus on Duo. "...so I suppose I ought to say yes, huh?" Duo's expression failed to change for a brief second, before a small, almost hesitant, smile lifted his lips. "Well, then. Happy birthday to me, I guess." Heero's own lips barely twitched, but his eyes seemed to warm just a bit. "Happy birthday to you," he echoed quietly. _________________________________________ This piece of fiction is the intellectual property of the little turnip that could. The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property of someone else. The author can be con- tacted at jchew@myrealbox.com. This has been an entirely automated message. http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html last modified : 5/17/2001 00:59:34 PST