019
Title: A Father’s Hands
Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing
Author: Jaelee
Rating: G
Pairing/Characters: Mariemaia, Treize, Une, Dekim
Words: 509
Author’s Note: Different kind of writing for me. Not related to any past Mariemaia fics, at least that I can tell.
I lie awake at night and I think of your hands.
What did they feel like? What did they look like? Of course I know the answers; they looked like how they’re pictured. They felt like any other hands I’m sure; sweaty in the summer and cold in the winter. But what were they like?
Were they callused? I’ve been told over and over again that you fenced and did target shooting, surely that requires labor. Where were the calluses? Are they in the same place as mine? No, they can’t have been because mine are from holding reigns too tightly without gloves, from tennis racquets and field hockey sticks. They aren’t from swords and guns and mobile suit controls. Mine are ordinary, yours, I’ve been told, are as extraordinary as you were.
I bite my nails though Lady Une would kill me if she knew. It’s not all of them, just my left pinky nail, and only when I’m bored and can’t concentrate. All through class then of course. Dorothy saw me do it once, at a function held by Miss Relena. Everyone there was old enough to be my grandfather (though Dekim would never stand to hear that you realize) except for a handful of course. She had simply stared at me and then shook her head. I remember she told me that I must have inherited it from my mother, but did I? Did I really because I like to think it’s a connection to you.
Would you have lifted me high and made me fly when I was still little? Would you have tickled my sides and the back of my neck until I dissolved into carefree giggles? Would your hands have been gentle or harsh? Instead of invoking laughter, would they invoke crying? Would they hurt as you slapped me in punishment? Would you hit, or would that have been below your station in life? Would the hands that killed have taught me how to live, shaped me into someone worthy of our last name?
Do you have that same freckle on the back of your right pointer? Are they always just slightly below normal temperature for one reason or another? Were they long and slender, or slightly chubby? Mine are slender, and the tips are hard because Lady Une enrolled me in piano lessons. Did you play an instrument as well? She won’t tell me and I won’t ask. That happens a lot around here, see? We try and protect each other.
As I stare at my hands, I wonder if any part of you is in them like Dekim told me, like Dorothy denied. But you see, the harder I stare, the fuzzier the picture is and the less I can be certain. I don’t like not being certain; I want to be in charge of something in my life. Fingers and palms, wrists and knuckles, they seem the easiest to understand, am I wrong?
I lie awake at night, and I think about the hands I never knew as a child.
On an entirely unrelated note (yet it is on the same line of thought) I think I need new icons. These are beginning to bore me. ::sigh::