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It had been his favourite sweater.
Well. It was still Treize's favorite sweater, just in a slightly different way now. The color had washed out and gone a bit more toward a medium blue than a royal, and it complemented its wearer in an entirely different way. It was looser on Wufei than it was on himself, the sleeves a little longer.
He watched as Wufei pushed up the left one absentmindedly, then hummed and lifted his hand to turn a page.
Wufei made it even more of a favourite sweater, the way it hung on his shoulders, kept him warm over his tank, t-shirt, or button-down, though that was when they started a fire in the fireplace. He enjoyed... Luxuriating. He enjoyed time well-spent with someone so beloved, and so what if he was still smitten? Wufei was equally so, even if he was busy reading, and...
"You're thinking loudly again," he murmured, looking up from his book with a smile. It wasn't come hither. It was something better by far, at least in Treize's mind -- affection, adoration, a want that had to do with time spent curled up side by side.
"Mmm. My attention keeps wandering off." He had plenty of hobbies to keep him busy in the aftermath of what the public had settled on was some sort of PTSD-riddled aftermath. Working on interactive models of space battles. A couple of charities. Reading his way through an understanding of how to move in the world as it was now.
Treize could read the quirk of those eyebrows far more easily than most. Wufei reached for the bookmark he'd been using and slid the scrap of silk between the pages, setting it aside and turning his attention to Treize. "Oh? Is there something bothering you?" He was always to the point and sometimes bossy about it. If he thought Treize was unwell, bossiness was undoubtedly in the immediate future.
It made him smile.
Treize set his datapad aside as he got up from the wing-backed chair and grabbed the blanket from the spot beside Wufei, then sat down. "No, I just don't have a head for focus today."
"Ah." Dark eyes watched him for a moment, and then shifted. He turned against the arm of the sofa, shoving pillows around until it was comfortable. Leaning back, he tugged at Treize in invitation. "Then don't focus."
"Hmn, I don't want to interrupt your book." But the fire was warm, and he liked the way Wufei's wrist muscles turned.
"I've read it before." Another tug, but nothing that demanded. It was just something sweet, maple warm, a thumb stroking against his skin. "Come."
The way Wufei touched him was still hypnotic. He felt better, felt a tension ease from his shoulders as he turned to sprawl with Wufei. "I might be jealous of your sweater."
Wufei hummed. "That's funny. I was just distracted by your collar." One hand reached out, gently twitched at the button closest to his throat. "It's your sweater, in any case." Which seemed important to him, somehow.
"I'm enjoying how it feels on you." He leaned back a little to let Wufei pop his button open, while his hands settled at Wufei's back and side.
"Mmm. So do I." That thumb began a slow sweep against his collarbone, and he felt Wufei relax beneath him, the long, lean length of his legs clasping Treize as close as his arms did. "Hmmm. This is better than reading."
Treize closed his eyes and buried his nose against Wufei's hair for a moment, and exhaled. He wasn't diligent in therapy. Sometimes their world seemed quite unreal, but Wufei and his former sweater were quite real.
Quite real and a perfectly comfortable place to curl up with one another in front of the library fireplace and doze.
Wufei rather loved Earth holidays.
It wasn't as if they hadn't existed on L5; it was only that they had celebrated them in their own way, and Earth people were somehow more enthusiastic about the matter.
He did enjoy the enthusiasm.
Treize said it was necessary to fight the weather. February was when the cold, snow, and the enjoyment of frisking a horse through knee-high snow started to lose its joys.
This possibly explained the bright burst of red roses.
He never did feel the urge to come up with a reason for roses; Treize liked them, and the greenhouses were always full of them in almost every shade. The brides who came to the castle were also fond of them.
This, though.
This could only be described as a riotous explosion of flowers, the scent heady with a touch of green, so much so that it left him a bit dizzy as he walked further into the room, mouth parted. The snow outside on the balcony was fresh, frozen into a wet slick danger across the stones, the weak sunlight bouncing off of it and into the drawing room.
The drawing room was filled to the brim with roses.
They were red and coral, peach and blush, burgundy and ivory, and the two-toned white-to-dark-red ones.
Treize must have run out of vases. He must have needed to buy so many, and Wufei felt so.... So....
So soft about it. Like his entire body was covered with fluffy marshmallow creme on the inside, somehow, and it simultaneously made him ridiculously happy and utterly put out with himself, because the him of old would have been a great deal more annoyed, and now he just felt the smile creeping over his face.
They were so beautiful.
So soft to the touch, with a smell that brightened the room. Fresh-cut greenery and sweetness, almost a fruity depth that masked the smell of the steaks Treize was cooking.
Almost.
He was so ridiculous. How? How had he done it all while Wufei was busy taking a long bath? He hadn't even heard anything.
One last deep breath, and Wufei turned to walk into the kitchen, finding his (preposterous, utterly delightful) partner humming to himself as he cooked. "You," he said simply, stepping up behind to wrap his arms around Treize's waist and hook his chin over his shoulder.
"Hello." His voice was relaxed, and he tilted his head slightly to press against Wufei for a moment. He had a spoon in one hand and tongs in the other and was doing something with butter in the pan. "We needed more color to stave off the weather."
"Oh?" He couldn't help sounding amused. "I'm sure we did. It just seems like quite a lot of them for a random day in the middle of the month." Wufei did enjoy watching him cook. Wufei enjoyed watching him do many things.
"A random day in the middle of the month indeed. It's Saint Valentine's Day." He turned a little, but not enough to risk dinner.
Wufei knew what it was, but he couldn't help teasing Treize. Perhaps a little.
Possibly a lot.
"Huh, is he in that book of saints that you read as a child?" Because there had been one, and Treize had a strange fondness for Saint George and had since he was a child. Wufei was fairly certain dragons made him quite a few boys' favorites.
Even when you knew they weren't real, it just. Sparked something. Wufei was also quite fond of dragons, understandably. "Probably. He was supposedly martyred because he spoke out against a ban on soldiers marrying. That's my favourite version."
He couldn't help the smile that crept over his face. "Mmmm, marrying a soldier does seem to have its drawbacks, but I like to think there are significantly greater benefits."
"An unhealthy interest in physical fitness?" he guessed.
"I wouldn't have put it that way, although you most certainly do a great deal of running," Wufei agreed, hand pressed against Treize's belly now. He said it helped with his balance. "So tell me about this saint, the one whose day it is. And why that means roses."
The touch elicited a low, pleased hum from him. "Oh, it was a feast day in the pagan era for Lupercus, I think, and then got associated with the beheaded saint I mentioned. It's quite simply about love."
Which was something Wufei knew, sort of. It was lovely to hear Treize say these things aloud, though. "Mmmm, then the roses are because you love me." It was teasing, but again... nice to hear.
"Yes. And the cake." He used the tongs to flip the meat with care, and the sizzle was getting to that sort of dicey high concentration point.
That perked him right up, and Wufei let go of him at that point. "Cake? There's cake? Are there also cookies?" Because now that Treize had said cake, well. Plus, the smell of the steak was kind of amazing.
He liked the laugh Treize gave, followed by a tsk. "Cookies as well? Well, it's for the best, I anticipated that. They're tucked into the breadbox." Which Treize imostly used for storing baked goods.
Wufei always knew that they were there; he'd just declared them off-limits to himself unless Treize invited him to take them out, because otherwise he would eat all of them without remorse. "Oh, good. That's dessert sorted for tomorrow, then."
He lifted the pan off the hob, tilting it to spoon butter over the steaks, and turned the heat down. The smoke was just on the edge of triggering a smoke detector. "I'll bring these out if you want to grab the wineglasses?"
One more kiss, stolen, gentle on the side of Treize's jaw, and then he hummed agreement before setting off for the cabinet with the desired glassware.
If he also happened to be humming along to some ridiculous love song that Duo found to be a favorite as he did so, well. That couldn't be helped. It was, in fact, distinctly enjoyable.
The table was small, not at all what he had considered the Great Treize Khushrenada would have, but it was intimate and lovely to loiter over a meal with him. Or coffee. Or whatever it was he did with the oatmeal. Or steak, apparently.
It was a miracle when Treize came back with the red he'd been airing out, and no smoke detectors had gone off. "Dinner smells delicious." He didn't prefer reds, but when one lived with someone who had been drinking since well before any reasonable age, one learned to live with red wine. "Thank you, for..." Dinner. The roses.
For being himself.
The man was always singularly himself. He poured a glass for Wufei first and leaned in. "I love you."
The kiss was long and slow, lingering, the kind that Wufei loved best. Their lips lingered, and he didn't bother keeping in the sigh. "Happy saint's day." And if, perhaps, there was a box of Treize's favorite chocolates in the bedroom, well.
He would give them to him tomorrow, and allow him the joy of having introduced a new holiday today.
The thing about coming into the city in the winter and the early, muddy part of spring was that it was alive with locals desperate to do anything other than be stuck inside for another minute.
So he had taken Wufei to the orchestra.
They had played hits of yesteryear, classical reworks of modern hits, and some more well-known classical pieces from the Romantic era, as well. It was quite the amalgamation, but it didn't seem to bother Wufei one way or another. He was just excited to attend.
He had also told Treize that he could play the guzheng, and that he would be more than glad to play for him if one could be found. Treize likened it mentally to a sort of zither but had no idea how to properly source it. Something for him to look into, finding a proper one for Wufei.
Buying gifts for him was an incredibly enjoyable experience. Wufei always appreciated them, and the look on his face never failed to make Treize smile. It made him want to buy something else just as soon as he had gifted him with some new this or that. The thing was, it didn't seem to matter how expensive or cheap something was. Bring him a gold-covered crown? Pleased. Bring him cookies? Looked at with adoration.
Give him tickets to an orchestra event? Outright worshipped. It just felt good to go out and do things with his partner, without feeling hunted or haunted. To be alive.
And there was live music, some of it still bouncing around his head as he took Wufei's coat to hang it. It wasn't entirely surprising when Wufei began humming, but it was nice to be taken by the hand and led into a dance that he didn't recognize but could follow after a fashion.
He knew how to rock to the sound of a movement, how to glance down at Wufei's feet and step along with him in what seemed to be a sensible pattern. "What's this called?"
The name didn't mean much to him, but Wufei's smile did. "It's a variant of a more common dance from home." Home, which was gone, but which he shared with Treize in memory and voice. It always warmed him at the core and made him mournful for a world he had never known. "You're doing well. Thank you."
"We had formal training. I can still hear a metronome in my head." He hummed the notes along with Wufei, picking it up again, veering a little so they didn't clip the table.
It would be a shame for all of the roses to be dashed upon the marble floor, and even more of a shame to stop the dancing as they hummed together, singing quietly in the vestibule.
Wufei's laugh was quiet, pleased. "Yes. The same for me."
"We should do this more often." Whether he meant the concert or the dancing, Treize wasn't sure himself. Wufei was warm and close and relaxed, the subtle flex of his arm to nudge Treize a little here and there as they danced.
It was so perfectly full of contentment, just to move with him. To be with him.
May they have many more moments.
Just like this.