A Not So Very Good Meal by Maaya
Standard disclaimers apply
Heero POV
Sally Po is not a good cook. She might be one of the
strongest and most determined women I have ever met, and also one
of the bravest and most understanding. She can fight in mobile-suits
and use a gun almost as well as I. Her knowledge of battle-tactics
can rival Quatre’s and she is very kind.
But she cannot cook a decent meal if her life depended on it.
That is why I was a little . . . doubtful when she announced that
she would cook when she invited herself to nurse me back to health
after a rather nasty cold. Duo had a Preventer-assignment and was
away with Wufei, probably on the plane to California right now.
I admit being a little jealous of the two of them. At Wufei because
he was with Duo, who was the one I wanted with me the most right now
and at Duo because he was going to California. It was warm there right
now. Warm as in . . . not cold. Not this god-awful coldness I was
experiencing at home.
I had, for once, managed to catch the flu and had been very sick.
Duo had been looking after me, but finally couldn’t get out
more vacation days from Lady Une, and had to accept a mission. So
he had managed to get Sally to promise to look after me and get some
food into me while he was away.
It was a gesture of caring and love on his part, I admit that, but
he has probably never been unfortunate to eat Sally’s cooking,
because he would then have let me make the food myself.
“Hey, Heero! Where do you store the rice?” Sally’s
voice reached me from the kitchen.
I tried to answer, I really did, but my sore-and-phlegm-filled throat
decided it didn’t want to cooperate. What had been supposed
to be ‘check the lowest shelf behind the cereals’ became
a low gurgling I can’t describe even if I wanted to. So I stood
up from the cough with the plan of going and showing her.
It turned out to not be a good idea. I had been on my back for days
and had just yesterday graduated from the bed to the couch. The dizziness
disappeared in time to let me see Sally poke her head out from the
kitchen.
“Heero! You’re not supposed to be standing yet!”
She snapped without anger, just concern, and walked over to help me
sit down without missing the couch. “Duo will kill me if he
comes back and find you worse off than when he left you.” I
snorted, but I think it sounded like a sniffle because she handed
me the pack of paper tissues from the coffee table.
“Hey, you alright?” That had to be the stupidest question
I had heard in a very long time and swallowed the phlegm to say just
that. But when I surprisingly succeeded and found I could actually
talk without sounding like a bathtub when the water is sucked into
the drain, I instead took the opportunity to tell her where the rice
was. “Check the lowest shelf, behind the cereals.”
“Huh?” She looked at me, surprised.
“What?” I tried to answer, but my throat was suddenly
uncooperative again.
“Whhkice?” She gave me another strange look for my trouble.
“Heero, do you have any throat lozenges?” I shook my head.
“I’ll run down to the shop and buy you some.” She
finally did find the rice and made a chicken-stew that I usually like,
if it hadn’t been Sally to make it, will say. The fact that
I couldn’t feel the taste of anything actually helped this time,
but it didn’t do anything about the fact that she had somehow
managed to make what usually had a pleasantly, creamy consistency
into something more . . . watery.
She settled in an armchair beside the couch and picked in her meal.
“So, Heero.” She said. Well, more like . . . prodded or
something. I gave her a troubled look, but she ignored it, continuing.
“So, tell me; how are things going with you and Duo?”
I choked on the piece of chicken I had been chewing on for some time.
“Wha-what?” Was what I managed through coughs and teary
eyes.
She looked amused.
“Don’t give me that look, Heero. I’m dying of curiosity
here! Duo hasn’t filled me in with *anything* and you are both
so damned . . . secretive about your relationship. I know girls at
the office are just dying to see you kiss, or even just hold hands.”
I opted to not comment right now, even though I *did* want to protest.
It was the wrong choice though.
“Have you . . . you know . . . done it yet? Had sex?”
Once again, I choked; out of surprise or Sally’s cooking I do
not know. It was probably a little bit of both.
“Why do you want to know that?”
“We’re running a bet at the office.” She confessed,
but didn’t sound very remorseful. “Please Heero, if Dorothy
looses she will wear a pink and baby-blue dress with rosettes to the
next meeting with Une.” The mental image was disturbing and
strangely pleasant.
“What did she bet?” Her face lit up.
“We had different options; that you hadn’t done it yet,
that you did it the first time before Christmas this year or last
year and that you did it after Christmas this year or last year.”
Taking up a notebook from her jacket-pocket, she flipped it open and
searched until she found the right place, which she read before continuing.
“Doro was the only one to believe you did it after Christmas
this year.”
“What did you guess?”
“Before Christmas, last year.” She huffed. “I remember
the day when both you and Duo were late and both had those huge shit-eating
grins on your faces.
“I don’t grin.”
“You did!”
“I don’t.”
“You did . . . oh, forget about it! Was I right?”
I hated to admit it but . . . Yes.”
“I’m never wrong.” Smirking, she leaned back in
the armchair and took her first forkful of stew. I took a perverse
satisfaction in seeing her choke on the taste and took the opportunity
to ask *her* some embarrassing things.
“So Sally - have you done it with Wufei yet?”
“What?!”
***
The End
***
Pathetically PWP-ish. But hey – I was bored!
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