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raletha, okaasan, and windsorblue. Under it all, we remain romantics despite the times.
As We Grow Old II -- conclusion
Trowa's Days
rating: MA
pairing: 3/4, of course.
warnings: (pre-story) violence, language, lemon.
note: scenes are not chronological.
Being the better days in a life. Sort of.
[continued from part I]
Mid-mission ritual: check the time, count the seconds. When leaving, he'd pause to memorize the clock's time, then pause the merest bit longer, wishing Quatre would catch him by the shirt and drag him down, kiss him breathless, shove his hand down Trowa's pants and jerk him off ruthlessly, cheerfully, madly, like the way he did sometimes when he thought Trowa was concentrating just a little too hard on a crossword puzzle. But that never happened after any sudden phone calls with an unknown voice on the line stating the current alert-code. Nine days, six hours, and thirty-eight minutes since he'd leaned over to kiss Quatre's bare shoulder.
It was cold comfort when he and Duo ended up trapped between opposing forces, literally back-to-back, and down to two magazines -- with dire mutterings from Duo that if they made it out, he was nailing an extra magazine to Trowa's forehead. Next thing they knew, the firefight had stopped. They weren't sure whether the enemy had decided to wait them out, starve them out, were busy training a bazooka on their location, or had gotten bored and gone off bowling... so sitting tight was all they could do. In the breathless silence, Duo's mucles against his back were a welcome, grounding warmth.
Like so many other times, Trowa struggled against the frustration: if this was the time things had to go sour, he'd would've wanted one last chance to show Quatre how much he meant to Trowa, how much Trowa owed him, admired him, desired him, needed him... It wasn't that Quatre didn't care, but that wasn't the kind of person Quatre was, to need that reassurance. He had a strength of will, of vision, and if Trowa lost his faith, he could at least take shelter in knowing that Quatre had determined he'd come home.
Sometimes, it seemed to Trowa, that once Quatre had decided something would be so, for the world to go against that crystal-pure absolute that the earth must also summarily stop on its axis, the rivers run backwards, the moon fly into the sun. Trowa held onto that, when he'd been reduced to gunshots and body counts and exit routes, when he stood on the verge of retreating through twenty years back to the mercenary-child hiding within him. He could walk into this nightmare, because Quatre knew he would walk out again.
And therefore, it would be so.
Duo was checking his ammunition. "What's your count?"
"One and a half."
"Pathetic, Barton."
Trowa's turn to grunt, then. He never intended to run out, seriously, and if he got one more annual joke-award from his fellow SAC's about it, he was going to tell Quatre. Then, he knew, they'd be sorry. It made him feel warm inside, and he must've relaxed, because Duo tensed suddenly.
"This is why," he said.
"Why what?"
"I think Heero's wrong." He laughed, in that bitterly quiet way he had that always left Trowa uncertain whether it was a joke, and just who the joke was supposed to be on, if so.
He bit, anyway. "About?"
"Short goodbyes."
"Hm?" A whole world in that sound, from years of shared battles.
Duo didn't nudge him, just leaned back a little harder. "Your spine's bony."
Trowa grunted, heartbeats passing, and nothing to do but wait. For someone who could be so rash, Duo's patience could match Trowa's when he set his mind to it -- or had no other options. Then Trowa realized the meaning in Duo's vague words.
"All I get," he'd admitted. "Until I'm back."
"Shit." Duo made a disgusted sound; the barrel of one of his guns dipped, tapping against the concrete. "If we have to go down, at least one of us should've gotten some first."
"I certainly hope you're not offering."
The only reply was a startled snort... followed by a muffled sound that made no sense until Trowa carefully craned his neck, catching a glimpse of Duo laughing silently, fingers gripping his gun but the back of his wrist shoved into his mouth to quiet the sound. Not hysterical post-battle adrenaline, nor the caustic laugther that often grated on Trowa's nerves, but genuine glee. Trowa glanced around, saw no motion through the bullet-holes of the garage's metal doors, heard no footsteps, and turned around just enough to give Duo a puzzled, annoyed look.
He just laughed harder, until Trowa frowned and reached out to take Duo's last magazine. In a flash, Duo had his hand on the precious object, clutching it to his chest like a small boy. His lips twitched, then he started to chuckle again. Trowa just stared.
Finally Duo quieted, giving Trowa a look of pure amusement. "Oh, come on! You just know if we were found taken out while in flagrante delicto, the others would drop dead from shock. Anyone insisting you 'n me could get along for more than thirty seconds, let alone long enough to get naked, would probably get immediately stamped, certified, and sent off to the loony bin for hallucinating."
Trowa considered that, and in the peculiar moment of a dusty, blood-stained, gun-torn desert evening, he began to chuckle, imagining Quatre's face, then Heero's. They'd definitely be convinced it was a setup. Wufei would be right behind them. He stifled the first chuckle, but couldn't for the second, and soon he was leaning back against Duo, laughing with his own hand shoved into his mouth. Duo elbowed him, grunted, and soon was laughing as well.
Heero found them there not long afterwards, his team almost done cleaning the streets with tear gas and retrieving the trapped members of Duo's and Trowa's teams. But not the two leaders, who were stretched out almost full-length across a garage floor, both shaking from head to toe with the effort of keeping silent. Trowa rolled over on his back to see Heero staring down at them open-mouthed. Then Heero shook himself and offered them both a wary hand up. He hefted them to their feet and looked them over, bewilderment written clear across his handsome, dust-covered features. Trowa tried to keep a straight face, and only partially made it, while Duo made a huffing sound and wiped tears from his eyes.
Heero's brows came down, and he studied them both for another full minute. "My team will need to know if you've been exposed to any unknown substances," he finally said.
"Say what?" Duo elbowed Trowa, who snorted, tried to save, and failed, breaking into a grin. Duo poked Heero in the chest, and grinned just as widely. "What makes you think we're on anything? Maybe we're high on life, ever think about that, soldier-boy?"
Heero blinked, and Trowa could see the wheels turning before the last cog slipped neatly into place. "Drugs," Heero said, half to himself. "Definitely drugs."
It changed little between Duo and Trowa, though neither made any effort, at that. It was sort of their understanding; their rivalry was part of the dynamic, and there was no reason messing with something that worked, for the most part. But Trowa never forgot that he wasn't the only one who wondered, sometimes, if leaving with only the barest kiss to a shoulder might someday not be enough.
- # - # - # -
Trowa had been halfway through his best attempt at a succinct, coherent update, when Wufei abruptly shoved him in the chest. Trowa's knees buckled. When his elbow hit the shuttle bay console on the way down, he nearly cried out, curling over himself as the pain flashed through every nerve. Wufei knelt down beside him, hand on Trowa's shoulder.
"Barton," Wufei stated, and set a long-fingered, gun-calloused hand on Trowa's head, one of the few affectionate gestures he ever allowed himself. "Fever," he said, maybe to Trowa, maybe to one of his team. "Get Kessler up here. We'll need his help, and have Heero's adjunct check the rest of Barton's team. Find out if they were exposed to anything."
Trowa got to his feet with Wufei's and Kessler's help, and wiped his forehead again. His shirt was drenched in sweat, but he wouldn't pass out. The thought stuck in his head was a simple, unhappy one: if only he had enough money to buy a vineyard.
"Better things to spend money on," came Wufei's amused tone.
"No." Trowa licked his lips, wishing it weren't so hot in the shuttle bay. "I'd ship it all home ahead of me."
"Ah." Wufei's smirk appeared in Trowa's line of sight. "It might take three vineyards, Barton. How much do you have saved up?"
"Knew you'd help," Trowa said, teeth clenched at another wave of nausea-tinged pain. "Make sure he drinks it all..."
"I'm not taking on Quatre." Wufei stood. "I'm many things, but never suicidal." He nodded to someone Trowa couldn't see. "Get that in him, before we take off. Keep me posted."
"Get what?" Trowa struggled, then a needle-prick in his arm made him go still. He glared up at Wufei, who just stared back.
"Antibiotics."
Trowa relaxed, minutely.
"And a sedative."
"What--" Trowa tried to lunge, but his throat was too dry to yell, he couldn't get enough air, and the sudden ease in his muscles told him, faintly, that the shot had to have been one part antibiotics, and eighty parts sedative. He barely had a chance to complain and the floor was rushing back up to meet him.
The last thing he heard was Wufei's voice in his ear, soft enough that only Trowa would hear him. "Relax, Barton. Winner will never hear a word of this from me."
- # - # - # -
Trowa climbed into the van with his team, done with the last of the need-to-know details with his on-base peer. The man had relayed a baffling -- to the man, at least -- message of "death and justice out." It told Trowa several things. One, Duo and Wufei had gotten their teams out. Two, Duo had sent the message. Wufei would never refer to himself as justice, despite personifing it for the rest of them. Wufei would've sent a message more like, "noise and silence out." Though, Trowa had once caught Wufei laboriously writing the encoding for a message, in a mental state best described as damn near punch-happy. They'd completed the mission by the narrowest of margins, and Wufei's brain must've taken a hike from relief. Trowa had, fortunately, intercepted the relay message; decoded, to Trowa's shock and amusement, it read "eyes and ears are open, and mouth is about to get his ever-loving shit kicked in."
THe'd always wondered how the Contact Agent would have translated that one into a message suitable for family ears. His own relay message, this time, had been less poetic: "three and one are free." Back at headquarters, Noin might not always grasp the nuances of their peculiar messages, but she at least could place them against expected locations and sources. She'd pass along an update to the Contact Agent, even if it took Heero's explanation to let her know that the "one" meant his loaner-member.
Sometimes, technology amazed Trowa, and sometimes, it bothered him that it could not be more complete. In this godforsaken empty country the sky stretched so far that once, as a younger man, he'd stood on the helm of his Gundam and stared open-mouthed at the wreath of stars over his head. In this lonely place, years later, he whispered a few words, accepted a clasp on his shoulder, and joined his silent, tired team. Soon, maybe even right now, that unnamed man at the isolated outpost would enter the algorithm, turning Trowa's whisper into numbers and random symbols littering the airwaves, to be downloaded into Noin's secure line. She'd decode and decide whether to relay again; if so, the Contact Agent would receive another message, and in turn call Quatre, one of many names on the list. And Quatre, Trowa hoped, could in turn decode it further to its bare bones, and hear Trowa's whisper, and the true meaning of every message Trowa would ever, could ever, send.
Please, wait for me, I'll be there soon.
- # - # - # -
Every now and then Trowa was tempted to have a shirt made that said, phone widower. Except for perhaps twice, three times, there hadn't been a point when Quatre's cellphone wasn't within reaching distance. Dinnertime, Quatre would at least politely thank the person and suggest a better time to speak, and he'd never interrupted sex to actually answer the phone, though he would check the caller ID. It had been a reluctant compromise, pleasing neither, after one more argument, that time after they'd tumbled off the sofa to engage in youthful antics against the coffee table -- and Quatre had nearly missed a hugely important conference call with three political leaders on two colonies, trying to talk them into granting a reconstruction project to WEI. Trowa had tried very hard to feel remorseful, but he couldn't help feeling angry and hurt that he'd be so easily pushed aside. It didn't make sense, he knew, it wasn't logical, but there it was.
He did what he could, and when he couldn't, he escaped, knowing Quatre probably didn't notice his departure, might even display a flash of surprise when Trowa returned, that moment of, wait, did you go somewhere? Trowa had never been certain how he felt about that, but he decided on amusement as an acceptable default. If his lover tended to get wrapped up in something, then it was to be expected that he'd come back to reality with an abrupt, uneasy snap, blinking his eyes in confusion as the world returned to its noisy, demanding status around him.
And then there were the times that called for desperate measures -- well, Trowa amended, not desperate so much as simply distracting. Their second off-planet trip together, this time to L4 and the world Trowa had come to think of as Winnerdom. Quatre didn't need a bodyguard on Earth, where he could blend into the crowd as well as any other tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, college-aged young man. On L4, the people seemed bred with radar for Quatre, and although none would dream of hurting Quatre, they'd certainly claw over and through each other just to get a moment to talk to the man, shake his hand, ask him about jobs, about WEI's plans. It got to the point that Trowa wondered whether old man Winner had planned the final child as a walking, breathing, company diplomat; if he'd had twenty-nine sons, it would've been a daughter in Quatre's role, on the grounds of just plain standing out as one so different from the rest, those interchangeable, endless, sibling-faces.
But that was just speculation, and the result was the discovery that Trowa would rather shave his legs with a tweezer and lemon juice than suffer another trip to L4. He'd never worked so hard, even in the first few years of covering Relena's security detail when Wufei switched over to Inspections work. Relena's fans were either up close and wanting to hug her -- or they were stationed on top of a building and thinking of entirely different kinds of touch. The L4 denizens were just... crazed, in Trowa's opinion. Yet if he so much as sprained someone's pinky trying to get them to back off, it meant a heated look from Quatre that promised a correcting comment, later. For some reason, Quatre seemed to think that eighty people, all defenseless on their own against someone of Trowa's skills -- or Quatre's, really -- would remain defenseless when it was eighty of them together. Mob mentality simply made no sense to Quatre.
Neither did a sister mentality, or for that matter, a day-off mentality. Trowa sighed and closed the office door behind him, watching Quatre behind the desk, staring intently at a computer screen. Quatre didn't even look up, just waved his fingers in an off-handed gesture; he probably thought Trowa was one of his sister's assistants, delivering more paperwork. The line was strong between Quatre's brows, his hair in his face, one hand caught at his tie, most likely about to tug it loose but halting halfway. Something on the computer must've caught Quatre's attention, and, too, likely he'd remembered he was still 'at work' and couldn't go about disheveled. Trowa frowned. He'd rather hoped for a permenantly disheveled look; that fit his expectations of a vacation. This certainly didn't.
"This wasn't what I had in mind," he said, hiding his annoyed-amused flicker when Quatre jumped, blue eyes refocusing on Trowa, then darting back to the screen. Trowa fought to keep the scowl off his face. "This should be a break, not more of the same."
"I know," Quatre said, and gave Trowa a rueful smile. "I apologize, but it's just that... as long as I'm here..." He shrugged, wry, and clicked the keyboard a few times. "Hold on," he muttered, and it wasn't the computer he was speaking to.
Trowa pursed his lips, and took stock of the clearly positioned security cameras in the corners. He'd noted the building's security when they'd arrived, making himself available for the guards, and taking advantage of the introductions to get a good look at the office setups. There should be one more camera, hidden, right... Trowa smiled to himself, not looking at the camera directly. The room's one blind spot was by the door, which made sense; with the door open, the hallway camera would catch the five-foot-square area. Trowa discreetly locked the door behind him, muffling the tumblers' click with his body. Quatre didn't notice, nor did he look up at the sound of a zipper coming undone.
"I had hopes we'd never leave the hotel room," he admitted, and didn't bother to hide the hitch in his voice as he shoved down slacks, then boxers, to bring out his half-hard cock. A few tugs, it grew harder, and he began to stroke, leaning back to tilt his hips forward, head resting on the door as he stared at Quatre, waiting for the moment of recognition. He unbuttoned his shirt with his free hand, letting it fall open while he stroked himself, long, with light fingers, a quick swirl of palm against his cock-head, the way Quatre always did it.
"We can't lock ourselves in, and besides, tomorrow I wanted to go by the shopping district," Quatre said, not looking up. He was typing at the same time, gaze darting around the screen in way that told Trowa there were at least six open screens. That was Quatre's idea of taking it easy, on a computer system. On a bad day, he'd have thirty open, and still not get flustered between them. Uncanny, and exasperating when Trowa knew that attention needed to be on him. No, when Trowa needed that attention.
"We can shop at--" Trowa reached the last button, pulling his shirt free, and ran fingers up his chest to circle his nipple. He groaned, softly, right hand freezing around the base of his cock. He shivered, fingers relaxing, then started stroking again. So hard, precum leaking to be slathered down his cock, just enough sticky-good friction to make his knees go weak. He continued, "home, anyway."
"But I've not seen the place since the ribbon cutting. I know I promised, but there's plenty of--" Quatre's voice cut off, and Trowa chose that moment to tilt his head back further, eyes closing halfway as he sank two fingers into his mouth. One, two, three, and he almost smiled around the fingers, at Quatre's soft, bewildered, a little worried, a little annoyed, a whole lot of turned-on: "What are you doing?"
Trowa let his fingers fall from his mouth with a wet sucking sound. "Taking a vacation." He circled his nipples with one finger, then put his saliva-slick hand to his cock, and began to stroke faster, hips kicking to shove himself through the damp, warm tunnel. He shoved his pants down further, cupping his balls, fingers rolling them together, then apart. The sensations flooded through his system, overlaid with Quatre's stunned expression. "Someone has to," Trowa said, but the complaint became a moan when he bent a little to reach behind his balls, pressing his finger against tender, sensitive skin, nerve endings sending firework-sparks through his muscles.
"Trowa," came a soft moan. "But the..." A nod of Quatre's head, just enough to indicate the cameras.
"Blind spot." Trowa toed off one shoe, then the other, and let his slacks and boxers fall to the floor. He stepped out of them, and Quatre half came out of his seat, fingers gripping the desk edge. "You can stay there, though. Wouldn't want to interrupt your--" A hard squeeze, and he wished he'd not tossed his pants down so fast, didn't he have lube in there, somewhere? No matter, he'd bear it. He pressed harder, eyes closing, and forgot what he'd meant to say.
A second later, sounds came all at once: creak of a chair, rush of air, and a quiet moan, and suddenly he was pressed flat up against the door, Quatre's body covering his. Hand caught around his dick and held in place by Quatre's hips, the most Trowa could do was give a nudge with his fingers to Quatre's answering erection. Quatre's mouth tightened, one brow arching.
"There'd better be a blind spot," Quatre almost snarled, "because I won't have anyone else seeing you like this."
Trowa just smiled, arching his back enough to tilt his hips forward; it drove his knuckles a bit more into Quatre's groin. Then he pulled away, getting the barest room to twist his hand and cup Quatre instead, trying to massage and catch the zipper at the same time. Not the most graceful, but it took the edge off Quatre's jealousy, and the dangerous glare resolved into the beginnings of a wolfish bedroom smile.
"The things you--" Quatre lunged forward right as Trowa got his hand down Quatre's pants, and for a few moments it was nothing but lips and tongue, teeth clacking but Quatre's fingers pressed into Trowa's hips, digging, pulling him forward to grind against Quatre's freed erection. Cock on cock, and Trowa could barely breathe, hips thrusting, mind gone except for the sensation of Quatre's skin, teeth, tongue, fingers, cock. Quatre pulled away, lips glistening, eyes wide in shock or delight. "No one makes me feel like this."
"Unh," Trowa managed to say, satisfied. He brought up a leg, catching Quatre around the hips to pull him close, and remembered words. "Show me." Slim fingers found the line between his ass, teasing over the skin, and Trowa shivered, suddenly unable to do anything but cling to Quatre, one hand fisting in Quatre's shirt, the other tight around his cock, barely moving except for the shudders of Quatre's hips, pushing against Trowa's palm. Quatre grunted, stretching to reach, and a finger dug in -- Trowa instinctively angled to push down, spine curling. It sent his head thumping against the door, but he had some part of Quatre inside him, and he wanted more, craved more. Quatre swallowed his moan, pulled his hand away, then prodded at Trowa's leg.
"Move, just a second," Quatre said, and raised Trowa's leg higher, running light fingertips down the underside of the thigh, and back up again. A rattle of keys, loose change, and then a rip of paper-plastic. Trowa focused long enough to brush his lips over Quatre's cheek, to his ear, to suck at an earlobe. Quatre groaned, muttered something, and then both hands were busy under Trowa's leg, cuffs brushing his skin. Quatre sighed, then, hands making quick work of his preparation, and then his angled his head to catch Trowa's mouth, tongue stabbing into Trowa at the same instant as two fingers shoved hard into Trowa's ass.
Trowa barely caught the sharp cry, body tilting, held in place by Quatre's weight. He shuddered around the invasion, biting his lip and barely recognizing Quatre's tongue was running back and forth across the lip, pushing at his mouth. He gasped, and Quatre took advantage of his, kissing him harder, pushing past his defenses even as his fingers pried Trowa open, insisted, persistent, rough callouses catching on the tender skin but Trowa ached for that delicious friction. The stabbing pain faded into a blissful mix of faint pain and growing pleasure, a wet fullness moving into him in time with Quatre's cock rubbing along his belly, side-by-side with his own, caught between them.
"You feel, fuck," Quatre gasped, composure gone. His cheeks were flushed, eyes bright, a smear of wet across his mouth and cheek, utterly disheveled despite his tie still perfect, shirt hardly wrinkled except where he'd rolled up the sleeves, and where the starched cotton crumpled between their bodies. Trowa wanted it gone but his body obeyed no command except the one urging him to set his balance against the door and bring his other leg up. As always, Quatre's eyes widened, then narrowed, grin distinctly wolfish now, as Trowa folded up his right leg, agilely maneuvering it up free of Quatre's supporting arms on his ass -- and then unfolded the leg over Quatre's shoulder, leaving him hung, crushed between the door and Quatre, and his lover was never one to hesitate at an opening. Fingers jerked free and then a cock rammed home into Trowa, shirt sliding against the door to catch on sweat-soaked skin as he was shoved upwards an inch, two, three, by Quatre staking ground beneath them, legs planted wide.
Trowa instinctively reached upward, groping for the doorframe with one hand, and caught it with his fingertips. His other hand gripped Quatre by the back of his neck; he'd reach for a kiss but that balance was precarious. All he could do was hang, open-mouthed, impaled, delightfully pinioned, a sweetly-desired pain striking his core with each jolt of Quatre's hips against him, balls slapping his ass at the pinnacle, Quatre's cock driving deeper and deeper until Trowa's eyes rolled back in his head. He no longer registered any sounds, except to keep them as soft as he could, stifling -- if barely -- a keening sound as the pleasure swirled through his body, every muscle tensing.
"Fuck, oh, fuck," Quatre repeated, head falling back. His shoulder muscles bunched beneath Trowa's knee. His fingers clawed at Trowa's ass, holding him spread, clawing skin until two fingers met and pressed at the perimeter of the muscle-ring, prying Trowa open even further. Trowa rode through the moment of disorientation at the additional stretch, inner muscles twinging, welcoming the relief of the fingers holding him open -- just that last bit that Quatre's cock could finally, comfortably, fully, fit.
The vestiges of pain receded, pleasure cresting across Trowa's skin with each slide home of Quatre's cock. The force pushed Trowa up the door just a bit, with the drive into him, then let him down in a smooth pulling away. Each time he expected longer, but Quatre was no more than halfway out before he rammed back up again. A methodical rhythm, syncopated against Trowa's heartbeat, sudden-hard and soothing-slow. Quatre's whispers were the harmony, matched by Trowa's inarticulate cries. Fire licked through every nerve, rippling at the outer edges of orgasm, leaving him trembling and in agony for the completion.
"God, I want--" Quatre chanted, hoarse. "Inside you, it's--" His eyes focused, brilliantly blue and unbearably so, catching Trowa and skewering him to the wall as forcefully as any cock or fingers or tongue. For that single moment, Quatre saw Trowa, and only Trowa, and that look alone was enough to have Trowa half-glad of the weight upon him, half in terror, unable to flee and not sure whether he really wanted to, and maybe Quatre understood because that look always had a slight curl of sad smile. It felt, to Trowa, sometimes... as though in that single heartbeat, poised on the edge of explosion, that Quatre could see him, into him, through layers of flesh and bone and years of dirt and injury and fear and loneliness to the real Trowa, had taken aim, and with one final strike would decimate Trowa completely.
He longed for it, ached for it, needed that revelation, even as it terrified him, so he closed his eyes, turning his head away, and tensed every muscle, fighting to tighten himself. Whether to shut Quatre out or to hold him securely within and never let go, he didn't know, didn't want to consider. It was enough to hear Quatre's choked moan drawing out into a gasp, feel Quatre's body freeze against him, cock throbbing in Trowa's ass. Hot breath beat on Trowa's skin. Quatre's body shivered, lurching into Trowa awkwardly, the orgasm's last shudders.
Only then did Trowa slant his gaze to Quatre's face. His lover's eyes closed, heavy-lidded; his body relaxed, mouth gentling, brow smoothing, the release peeling away all that hid Quatre. It was Trowa's one wish, to have Quatre's eyes open so he could see, too, into his lover in return. Any thoughts on that were swept away in the next breath, body's awareness returning to the forefront, cock and ass and tongue and hips and fingers and legs and gut all throbbing uselessly, helplessly, demanding release.
Quatre leaned forward, risking their balance to catch the corner of Trowa's mouth with a sloppy kiss, and then situated himself, regaining his hold. His cock remained deep in Trowa's ass; he'd leave it there as long as he could, he always did, but doubly so when Trowa had so thoroughly provoked Quatre's most significant kink. Even though it was only Trowa's own hand, it was almost as if Quatre were driven to erase the history of any touch on Trowa's body other than Quatre's. Trowa managed a strained smile, groaning against the sweet shift and slide of Quatre's cock nestled within him, one hand cradling his ass, the other slipping between them to grasp Trowa's cock. He shivered, eyes opening a slit to see Quatre's grin, pleased, sated, victorious, even.
"Wanna see you," Quatre coaxed, "wanna be in you forever, see you..." His thumb caught the underside of Trowa's cock, pulling at the skin, fingers dancing over the cock-head to spread the weeping precum and then another strong, hard stroke, knuckles ramming into Trowa's tensed stomach muscles. "Come on, come on, feel you..."
He couldn't resist any longer, not with that intensity on him, inside him, wrapped around him. With a groan, Trowa gave way, tipping himself purposefully over into orgasm. He spasmed, for a split-second afraid he'd lost his hold on the doorframe and Quatre, that they'd tumbled down and would fall forever, but awareness blew away as white-cold pleasure screamed through his body from his center to his outermost edge. His heart hammered, riding the pleasure; his lungs caught and released, turning his gasping sob into a hiccuped sound of relief. He gripped Quatre's arm, half-clinging, legs shaking while the aftershocks rode his system. It all left him breathless, and naked in a way that had nothing to do with wearing only a shirt while held up against an office door by Quatre's weight and strength alone.
Trowa came to, to see Quatre licking a finger, before smearing his hand over Trowa's chest; an awkward proposition in that position, but the brush of finger on nipple, the light scratch of a fingernail, and Trowa arched again. The touch made a shadowy echo of his orgasm wash over him again, leaving him poised, back arched just so for Quatre to pump his hips a few more times. The motion had Trowa biting his lip and wishing he had leverage, when all he could do was shake uncontrollably, trapped between Quatre's cock rubbing against so many nerve endings, and the reintroduced pain-twinge of muscles stretched far too much, too fast, to accomodate something of Quatre's size.
The main act ended, as it often did, with Quatre's rueful chuckle that became a soft moan -- tinged with longing or regret, it seemed, maybe -- as Quatre pulled out. Trowa let Quatre guide his left leg down to the floor, but kept his other leg over Quatre's shoulder, holding him fully open while Quatre pressed against him, fingers pushing in deep, massaging the worn muscle ring, prodding into him, prompting more of the shadow-orgasms to run through Trowa's body, even as his mouth sucked on Trowa's, teasing his tongue, licking along his teeth, lips mashed and bruised, so wet and warm.
Five minutes, ten minutes, Trowa never knew, he couldn't track heartbeats with Quatre's tongue in his mouth and little pearl buttons teasing his skin and starched cotton abrading his nipples while Quatre coaxed another aftershock from his body, then a second, then a third, until Trowa longed to beg for mercy, to regain his sense for enough time to demand Quatre explain. Why must he do that, why did he do that, what made him want to do that, when it was only Trowa's pleasure and not shared, and the returning unease pushed coherent, if unwanted, thoughts back into Trowa's head. He made a rough attempt at Quatre's chest, and the fingers moved from his ass, quicker than he could see, to catch him. Quatre moved his hand away, kissed the palm, kissed him again, and then gently let Trowa's other leg come down, steadying them both against the sudden urge to drop to the floor.
"Vacation," Quatre whispered. "If I'd realized that's what you meant by the word, I assure you, my plans would've been different." His breath eased over Trowa's skin, kissing a shoulder lightly, running his tongue up Trowa's neck -- and all the while his nimble fingers buttoned Trowa's shirt back up.
The best Trowa could manage was a smirk, both at Quatre's words and at the ever-present post-sex haze. It might've been more enjoyable, he considerd, if only Quatre didn't always seem so energized by sex. Trowa was ready to lie down and nap for at least an hour. Rest, and regain the energy he'd lost -- or given away -- before he could face the outside world, shields once again intact. He had no idea what had prompted him to do it in an office. He had a vague recollection of planning to tease Quatre and lure him back to the hotel, but he'd gotten carried away, and now Quatre was looking for something to clean them both off. Trowa solved that by sliding down to a heap on the floor and using his boxers. Unfortunately, sitting on the floor in a tangle of limbs -- even if all his own -- made putting his slacks on rather difficult.
Quatre's smiled was both amused and tender, assisting Trowa into the slacks. He tossed the stained boxers over to the desk. "I'll never see how you can go without," he commented, and gave Trowa a hand up.
"Did it for long enough." Trowa swayed, caught a chaste kiss. "We're out of the blind-spot," he warned, in Quatre's ear.
"That's okay. I don't mind prying eyes for what's next." Quatre's laugh was a gentle, teasing thing, and he guided Trowa backwards until Trowa's knees hit the sofa. Pushed down, Trowa sat, and Quatre kept pushing until Trowa half-lay across the cushions, head in the crook between sofa-arm and back. "You sleep for a bit, and then we'll go for dinner."
"Dinner," Trowa mumbled, lids heavy. "But we're... what time is..." The room was warm, strange; it had felt cool when he'd first walked in. He hoped he'd not cracked the doorframe's moulding. Where were his boxers? Quatre's fingers smoothed across his shirt, circled a nipple through fabric, and Trowa instinctively relaxed, eyes closing again despite words still forcing themselves out. "Are you gonna..."
"Shhh, I've got just a bit of work, then we can go," Quatre assured him. A quick kiss on Trowa's cheek, and then footsteps audible enough on muffling carpet to tell Trowa that Quatre had done it on purpose. A clatter of the laptop keyboard, creak of desk chair, the click of the briefcase opening and shutting, all minute signals that Quatre was nearby, that Trowa could sleep in a strange environment.
Trowa contemplated finding enough energy to rearrange himself so he could sleep on his preferred left side without having to face the sofa-back to do it. But the haze won out, so he rolled onto his side, cheek against the sofa-arm, and tried to ignore the wish to have Quatre be as sleepy-sated, to sleep beside him, share that glowing warmth... just once. He wanted Quatre to stay, to never close his eyes again, to be there for Trowa to fall into him and remain there.
And in this groggy euphoric state, if somewere were ever to ask, in this place Trowa might keep his refuge in Quatre as a means to answer without fear, to finally confess. He could mark his life as truly beginning at fifteen, upon his first sight of Quatre and sensing only that this man could, would, change Trowa's life. All his growing for the years since had been a struggle to accept, or deny, that one person could have such power over him. Stay or go, it never changed that all he was, he was for Quatre, and all he had, he'd give to Quatre, and all he'd ever be, he'd be only with Quatre.
Someone had joked once, intending cruelty, that Trowa was no more than a former mercenary; with so little to offer, his world must necessarily revolve around Quatre, and any glory be only a reflected grandeur. It was only between the moments after gaining -- and losing -- the reminder of his place within Quatre, and the moments before sinking into sleep -- that Trowa dared admit the truth.
His world didn't revolve around Quatre. His world was Quatre.
raletha, okaasan, and windsorblue. Under it all, we remain romantics despite the times.As We Grow Old II -- conclusion
Trowa's Days
rating: MA
pairing: 3/4, of course.
warnings: (pre-story) violence, language, lemon.
note: scenes are not chronological.
Being the better days in a life. Sort of.
[continued from part I]
Mid-mission ritual: check the time, count the seconds. When leaving, he'd pause to memorize the clock's time, then pause the merest bit longer, wishing Quatre would catch him by the shirt and drag him down, kiss him breathless, shove his hand down Trowa's pants and jerk him off ruthlessly, cheerfully, madly, like the way he did sometimes when he thought Trowa was concentrating just a little too hard on a crossword puzzle. But that never happened after any sudden phone calls with an unknown voice on the line stating the current alert-code. Nine days, six hours, and thirty-eight minutes since he'd leaned over to kiss Quatre's bare shoulder.
It was cold comfort when he and Duo ended up trapped between opposing forces, literally back-to-back, and down to two magazines -- with dire mutterings from Duo that if they made it out, he was nailing an extra magazine to Trowa's forehead. Next thing they knew, the firefight had stopped. They weren't sure whether the enemy had decided to wait them out, starve them out, were busy training a bazooka on their location, or had gotten bored and gone off bowling... so sitting tight was all they could do. In the breathless silence, Duo's mucles against his back were a welcome, grounding warmth.
Like so many other times, Trowa struggled against the frustration: if this was the time things had to go sour, he'd would've wanted one last chance to show Quatre how much he meant to Trowa, how much Trowa owed him, admired him, desired him, needed him... It wasn't that Quatre didn't care, but that wasn't the kind of person Quatre was, to need that reassurance. He had a strength of will, of vision, and if Trowa lost his faith, he could at least take shelter in knowing that Quatre had determined he'd come home.
Sometimes, it seemed to Trowa, that once Quatre had decided something would be so, for the world to go against that crystal-pure absolute that the earth must also summarily stop on its axis, the rivers run backwards, the moon fly into the sun. Trowa held onto that, when he'd been reduced to gunshots and body counts and exit routes, when he stood on the verge of retreating through twenty years back to the mercenary-child hiding within him. He could walk into this nightmare, because Quatre knew he would walk out again.
And therefore, it would be so.
Duo was checking his ammunition. "What's your count?"
"One and a half."
"Pathetic, Barton."
Trowa's turn to grunt, then. He never intended to run out, seriously, and if he got one more annual joke-award from his fellow SAC's about it, he was going to tell Quatre. Then, he knew, they'd be sorry. It made him feel warm inside, and he must've relaxed, because Duo tensed suddenly.
"This is why," he said.
"Why what?"
"I think Heero's wrong." He laughed, in that bitterly quiet way he had that always left Trowa uncertain whether it was a joke, and just who the joke was supposed to be on, if so.
He bit, anyway. "About?"
"Short goodbyes."
"Hm?" A whole world in that sound, from years of shared battles.
Duo didn't nudge him, just leaned back a little harder. "Your spine's bony."
Trowa grunted, heartbeats passing, and nothing to do but wait. For someone who could be so rash, Duo's patience could match Trowa's when he set his mind to it -- or had no other options. Then Trowa realized the meaning in Duo's vague words.
"All I get," he'd admitted. "Until I'm back."
"Shit." Duo made a disgusted sound; the barrel of one of his guns dipped, tapping against the concrete. "If we have to go down, at least one of us should've gotten some first."
"I certainly hope you're not offering."
The only reply was a startled snort... followed by a muffled sound that made no sense until Trowa carefully craned his neck, catching a glimpse of Duo laughing silently, fingers gripping his gun but the back of his wrist shoved into his mouth to quiet the sound. Not hysterical post-battle adrenaline, nor the caustic laugther that often grated on Trowa's nerves, but genuine glee. Trowa glanced around, saw no motion through the bullet-holes of the garage's metal doors, heard no footsteps, and turned around just enough to give Duo a puzzled, annoyed look.
He just laughed harder, until Trowa frowned and reached out to take Duo's last magazine. In a flash, Duo had his hand on the precious object, clutching it to his chest like a small boy. His lips twitched, then he started to chuckle again. Trowa just stared.
Finally Duo quieted, giving Trowa a look of pure amusement. "Oh, come on! You just know if we were found taken out while in flagrante delicto, the others would drop dead from shock. Anyone insisting you 'n me could get along for more than thirty seconds, let alone long enough to get naked, would probably get immediately stamped, certified, and sent off to the loony bin for hallucinating."
Trowa considered that, and in the peculiar moment of a dusty, blood-stained, gun-torn desert evening, he began to chuckle, imagining Quatre's face, then Heero's. They'd definitely be convinced it was a setup. Wufei would be right behind them. He stifled the first chuckle, but couldn't for the second, and soon he was leaning back against Duo, laughing with his own hand shoved into his mouth. Duo elbowed him, grunted, and soon was laughing as well.
Heero found them there not long afterwards, his team almost done cleaning the streets with tear gas and retrieving the trapped members of Duo's and Trowa's teams. But not the two leaders, who were stretched out almost full-length across a garage floor, both shaking from head to toe with the effort of keeping silent. Trowa rolled over on his back to see Heero staring down at them open-mouthed. Then Heero shook himself and offered them both a wary hand up. He hefted them to their feet and looked them over, bewilderment written clear across his handsome, dust-covered features. Trowa tried to keep a straight face, and only partially made it, while Duo made a huffing sound and wiped tears from his eyes.
Heero's brows came down, and he studied them both for another full minute. "My team will need to know if you've been exposed to any unknown substances," he finally said.
"Say what?" Duo elbowed Trowa, who snorted, tried to save, and failed, breaking into a grin. Duo poked Heero in the chest, and grinned just as widely. "What makes you think we're on anything? Maybe we're high on life, ever think about that, soldier-boy?"
Heero blinked, and Trowa could see the wheels turning before the last cog slipped neatly into place. "Drugs," Heero said, half to himself. "Definitely drugs."
It changed little between Duo and Trowa, though neither made any effort, at that. It was sort of their understanding; their rivalry was part of the dynamic, and there was no reason messing with something that worked, for the most part. But Trowa never forgot that he wasn't the only one who wondered, sometimes, if leaving with only the barest kiss to a shoulder might someday not be enough.
Trowa had been halfway through his best attempt at a succinct, coherent update, when Wufei abruptly shoved him in the chest. Trowa's knees buckled. When his elbow hit the shuttle bay console on the way down, he nearly cried out, curling over himself as the pain flashed through every nerve. Wufei knelt down beside him, hand on Trowa's shoulder.
"Barton," Wufei stated, and set a long-fingered, gun-calloused hand on Trowa's head, one of the few affectionate gestures he ever allowed himself. "Fever," he said, maybe to Trowa, maybe to one of his team. "Get Kessler up here. We'll need his help, and have Heero's adjunct check the rest of Barton's team. Find out if they were exposed to anything."
Trowa got to his feet with Wufei's and Kessler's help, and wiped his forehead again. His shirt was drenched in sweat, but he wouldn't pass out. The thought stuck in his head was a simple, unhappy one: if only he had enough money to buy a vineyard.
"Better things to spend money on," came Wufei's amused tone.
"No." Trowa licked his lips, wishing it weren't so hot in the shuttle bay. "I'd ship it all home ahead of me."
"Ah." Wufei's smirk appeared in Trowa's line of sight. "It might take three vineyards, Barton. How much do you have saved up?"
"Knew you'd help," Trowa said, teeth clenched at another wave of nausea-tinged pain. "Make sure he drinks it all..."
"I'm not taking on Quatre." Wufei stood. "I'm many things, but never suicidal." He nodded to someone Trowa couldn't see. "Get that in him, before we take off. Keep me posted."
"Get what?" Trowa struggled, then a needle-prick in his arm made him go still. He glared up at Wufei, who just stared back.
"Antibiotics."
Trowa relaxed, minutely.
"And a sedative."
"What--" Trowa tried to lunge, but his throat was too dry to yell, he couldn't get enough air, and the sudden ease in his muscles told him, faintly, that the shot had to have been one part antibiotics, and eighty parts sedative. He barely had a chance to complain and the floor was rushing back up to meet him.
The last thing he heard was Wufei's voice in his ear, soft enough that only Trowa would hear him. "Relax, Barton. Winner will never hear a word of this from me."
Trowa climbed into the van with his team, done with the last of the need-to-know details with his on-base peer. The man had relayed a baffling -- to the man, at least -- message of "death and justice out." It told Trowa several things. One, Duo and Wufei had gotten their teams out. Two, Duo had sent the message. Wufei would never refer to himself as justice, despite personifing it for the rest of them. Wufei would've sent a message more like, "noise and silence out." Though, Trowa had once caught Wufei laboriously writing the encoding for a message, in a mental state best described as damn near punch-happy. They'd completed the mission by the narrowest of margins, and Wufei's brain must've taken a hike from relief. Trowa had, fortunately, intercepted the relay message; decoded, to Trowa's shock and amusement, it read "eyes and ears are open, and mouth is about to get his ever-loving shit kicked in."
THe'd always wondered how the Contact Agent would have translated that one into a message suitable for family ears. His own relay message, this time, had been less poetic: "three and one are free." Back at headquarters, Noin might not always grasp the nuances of their peculiar messages, but she at least could place them against expected locations and sources. She'd pass along an update to the Contact Agent, even if it took Heero's explanation to let her know that the "one" meant his loaner-member.
Sometimes, technology amazed Trowa, and sometimes, it bothered him that it could not be more complete. In this godforsaken empty country the sky stretched so far that once, as a younger man, he'd stood on the helm of his Gundam and stared open-mouthed at the wreath of stars over his head. In this lonely place, years later, he whispered a few words, accepted a clasp on his shoulder, and joined his silent, tired team. Soon, maybe even right now, that unnamed man at the isolated outpost would enter the algorithm, turning Trowa's whisper into numbers and random symbols littering the airwaves, to be downloaded into Noin's secure line. She'd decode and decide whether to relay again; if so, the Contact Agent would receive another message, and in turn call Quatre, one of many names on the list. And Quatre, Trowa hoped, could in turn decode it further to its bare bones, and hear Trowa's whisper, and the true meaning of every message Trowa would ever, could ever, send.
Please, wait for me, I'll be there soon.
Every now and then Trowa was tempted to have a shirt made that said, phone widower. Except for perhaps twice, three times, there hadn't been a point when Quatre's cellphone wasn't within reaching distance. Dinnertime, Quatre would at least politely thank the person and suggest a better time to speak, and he'd never interrupted sex to actually answer the phone, though he would check the caller ID. It had been a reluctant compromise, pleasing neither, after one more argument, that time after they'd tumbled off the sofa to engage in youthful antics against the coffee table -- and Quatre had nearly missed a hugely important conference call with three political leaders on two colonies, trying to talk them into granting a reconstruction project to WEI. Trowa had tried very hard to feel remorseful, but he couldn't help feeling angry and hurt that he'd be so easily pushed aside. It didn't make sense, he knew, it wasn't logical, but there it was.
He did what he could, and when he couldn't, he escaped, knowing Quatre probably didn't notice his departure, might even display a flash of surprise when Trowa returned, that moment of, wait, did you go somewhere? Trowa had never been certain how he felt about that, but he decided on amusement as an acceptable default. If his lover tended to get wrapped up in something, then it was to be expected that he'd come back to reality with an abrupt, uneasy snap, blinking his eyes in confusion as the world returned to its noisy, demanding status around him.
And then there were the times that called for desperate measures -- well, Trowa amended, not desperate so much as simply distracting. Their second off-planet trip together, this time to L4 and the world Trowa had come to think of as Winnerdom. Quatre didn't need a bodyguard on Earth, where he could blend into the crowd as well as any other tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, college-aged young man. On L4, the people seemed bred with radar for Quatre, and although none would dream of hurting Quatre, they'd certainly claw over and through each other just to get a moment to talk to the man, shake his hand, ask him about jobs, about WEI's plans. It got to the point that Trowa wondered whether old man Winner had planned the final child as a walking, breathing, company diplomat; if he'd had twenty-nine sons, it would've been a daughter in Quatre's role, on the grounds of just plain standing out as one so different from the rest, those interchangeable, endless, sibling-faces.
But that was just speculation, and the result was the discovery that Trowa would rather shave his legs with a tweezer and lemon juice than suffer another trip to L4. He'd never worked so hard, even in the first few years of covering Relena's security detail when Wufei switched over to Inspections work. Relena's fans were either up close and wanting to hug her -- or they were stationed on top of a building and thinking of entirely different kinds of touch. The L4 denizens were just... crazed, in Trowa's opinion. Yet if he so much as sprained someone's pinky trying to get them to back off, it meant a heated look from Quatre that promised a correcting comment, later. For some reason, Quatre seemed to think that eighty people, all defenseless on their own against someone of Trowa's skills -- or Quatre's, really -- would remain defenseless when it was eighty of them together. Mob mentality simply made no sense to Quatre.
Neither did a sister mentality, or for that matter, a day-off mentality. Trowa sighed and closed the office door behind him, watching Quatre behind the desk, staring intently at a computer screen. Quatre didn't even look up, just waved his fingers in an off-handed gesture; he probably thought Trowa was one of his sister's assistants, delivering more paperwork. The line was strong between Quatre's brows, his hair in his face, one hand caught at his tie, most likely about to tug it loose but halting halfway. Something on the computer must've caught Quatre's attention, and, too, likely he'd remembered he was still 'at work' and couldn't go about disheveled. Trowa frowned. He'd rather hoped for a permenantly disheveled look; that fit his expectations of a vacation. This certainly didn't.
"This wasn't what I had in mind," he said, hiding his annoyed-amused flicker when Quatre jumped, blue eyes refocusing on Trowa, then darting back to the screen. Trowa fought to keep the scowl off his face. "This should be a break, not more of the same."
"I know," Quatre said, and gave Trowa a rueful smile. "I apologize, but it's just that... as long as I'm here..." He shrugged, wry, and clicked the keyboard a few times. "Hold on," he muttered, and it wasn't the computer he was speaking to.
Trowa pursed his lips, and took stock of the clearly positioned security cameras in the corners. He'd noted the building's security when they'd arrived, making himself available for the guards, and taking advantage of the introductions to get a good look at the office setups. There should be one more camera, hidden, right... Trowa smiled to himself, not looking at the camera directly. The room's one blind spot was by the door, which made sense; with the door open, the hallway camera would catch the five-foot-square area. Trowa discreetly locked the door behind him, muffling the tumblers' click with his body. Quatre didn't notice, nor did he look up at the sound of a zipper coming undone.
"I had hopes we'd never leave the hotel room," he admitted, and didn't bother to hide the hitch in his voice as he shoved down slacks, then boxers, to bring out his half-hard cock. A few tugs, it grew harder, and he began to stroke, leaning back to tilt his hips forward, head resting on the door as he stared at Quatre, waiting for the moment of recognition. He unbuttoned his shirt with his free hand, letting it fall open while he stroked himself, long, with light fingers, a quick swirl of palm against his cock-head, the way Quatre always did it.
"We can't lock ourselves in, and besides, tomorrow I wanted to go by the shopping district," Quatre said, not looking up. He was typing at the same time, gaze darting around the screen in way that told Trowa there were at least six open screens. That was Quatre's idea of taking it easy, on a computer system. On a bad day, he'd have thirty open, and still not get flustered between them. Uncanny, and exasperating when Trowa knew that attention needed to be on him. No, when Trowa needed that attention.
"We can shop at--" Trowa reached the last button, pulling his shirt free, and ran fingers up his chest to circle his nipple. He groaned, softly, right hand freezing around the base of his cock. He shivered, fingers relaxing, then started stroking again. So hard, precum leaking to be slathered down his cock, just enough sticky-good friction to make his knees go weak. He continued, "home, anyway."
"But I've not seen the place since the ribbon cutting. I know I promised, but there's plenty of--" Quatre's voice cut off, and Trowa chose that moment to tilt his head back further, eyes closing halfway as he sank two fingers into his mouth. One, two, three, and he almost smiled around the fingers, at Quatre's soft, bewildered, a little worried, a little annoyed, a whole lot of turned-on: "What are you doing?"
Trowa let his fingers fall from his mouth with a wet sucking sound. "Taking a vacation." He circled his nipples with one finger, then put his saliva-slick hand to his cock, and began to stroke faster, hips kicking to shove himself through the damp, warm tunnel. He shoved his pants down further, cupping his balls, fingers rolling them together, then apart. The sensations flooded through his system, overlaid with Quatre's stunned expression. "Someone has to," Trowa said, but the complaint became a moan when he bent a little to reach behind his balls, pressing his finger against tender, sensitive skin, nerve endings sending firework-sparks through his muscles.
"Trowa," came a soft moan. "But the..." A nod of Quatre's head, just enough to indicate the cameras.
"Blind spot." Trowa toed off one shoe, then the other, and let his slacks and boxers fall to the floor. He stepped out of them, and Quatre half came out of his seat, fingers gripping the desk edge. "You can stay there, though. Wouldn't want to interrupt your--" A hard squeeze, and he wished he'd not tossed his pants down so fast, didn't he have lube in there, somewhere? No matter, he'd bear it. He pressed harder, eyes closing, and forgot what he'd meant to say.
A second later, sounds came all at once: creak of a chair, rush of air, and a quiet moan, and suddenly he was pressed flat up against the door, Quatre's body covering his. Hand caught around his dick and held in place by Quatre's hips, the most Trowa could do was give a nudge with his fingers to Quatre's answering erection. Quatre's mouth tightened, one brow arching.
"There'd better be a blind spot," Quatre almost snarled, "because I won't have anyone else seeing you like this."
Trowa just smiled, arching his back enough to tilt his hips forward; it drove his knuckles a bit more into Quatre's groin. Then he pulled away, getting the barest room to twist his hand and cup Quatre instead, trying to massage and catch the zipper at the same time. Not the most graceful, but it took the edge off Quatre's jealousy, and the dangerous glare resolved into the beginnings of a wolfish bedroom smile.
"The things you--" Quatre lunged forward right as Trowa got his hand down Quatre's pants, and for a few moments it was nothing but lips and tongue, teeth clacking but Quatre's fingers pressed into Trowa's hips, digging, pulling him forward to grind against Quatre's freed erection. Cock on cock, and Trowa could barely breathe, hips thrusting, mind gone except for the sensation of Quatre's skin, teeth, tongue, fingers, cock. Quatre pulled away, lips glistening, eyes wide in shock or delight. "No one makes me feel like this."
"Unh," Trowa managed to say, satisfied. He brought up a leg, catching Quatre around the hips to pull him close, and remembered words. "Show me." Slim fingers found the line between his ass, teasing over the skin, and Trowa shivered, suddenly unable to do anything but cling to Quatre, one hand fisting in Quatre's shirt, the other tight around his cock, barely moving except for the shudders of Quatre's hips, pushing against Trowa's palm. Quatre grunted, stretching to reach, and a finger dug in -- Trowa instinctively angled to push down, spine curling. It sent his head thumping against the door, but he had some part of Quatre inside him, and he wanted more, craved more. Quatre swallowed his moan, pulled his hand away, then prodded at Trowa's leg.
"Move, just a second," Quatre said, and raised Trowa's leg higher, running light fingertips down the underside of the thigh, and back up again. A rattle of keys, loose change, and then a rip of paper-plastic. Trowa focused long enough to brush his lips over Quatre's cheek, to his ear, to suck at an earlobe. Quatre groaned, muttered something, and then both hands were busy under Trowa's leg, cuffs brushing his skin. Quatre sighed, then, hands making quick work of his preparation, and then his angled his head to catch Trowa's mouth, tongue stabbing into Trowa at the same instant as two fingers shoved hard into Trowa's ass.
Trowa barely caught the sharp cry, body tilting, held in place by Quatre's weight. He shuddered around the invasion, biting his lip and barely recognizing Quatre's tongue was running back and forth across the lip, pushing at his mouth. He gasped, and Quatre took advantage of his, kissing him harder, pushing past his defenses even as his fingers pried Trowa open, insisted, persistent, rough callouses catching on the tender skin but Trowa ached for that delicious friction. The stabbing pain faded into a blissful mix of faint pain and growing pleasure, a wet fullness moving into him in time with Quatre's cock rubbing along his belly, side-by-side with his own, caught between them.
"You feel, fuck," Quatre gasped, composure gone. His cheeks were flushed, eyes bright, a smear of wet across his mouth and cheek, utterly disheveled despite his tie still perfect, shirt hardly wrinkled except where he'd rolled up the sleeves, and where the starched cotton crumpled between their bodies. Trowa wanted it gone but his body obeyed no command except the one urging him to set his balance against the door and bring his other leg up. As always, Quatre's eyes widened, then narrowed, grin distinctly wolfish now, as Trowa folded up his right leg, agilely maneuvering it up free of Quatre's supporting arms on his ass -- and then unfolded the leg over Quatre's shoulder, leaving him hung, crushed between the door and Quatre, and his lover was never one to hesitate at an opening. Fingers jerked free and then a cock rammed home into Trowa, shirt sliding against the door to catch on sweat-soaked skin as he was shoved upwards an inch, two, three, by Quatre staking ground beneath them, legs planted wide.
Trowa instinctively reached upward, groping for the doorframe with one hand, and caught it with his fingertips. His other hand gripped Quatre by the back of his neck; he'd reach for a kiss but that balance was precarious. All he could do was hang, open-mouthed, impaled, delightfully pinioned, a sweetly-desired pain striking his core with each jolt of Quatre's hips against him, balls slapping his ass at the pinnacle, Quatre's cock driving deeper and deeper until Trowa's eyes rolled back in his head. He no longer registered any sounds, except to keep them as soft as he could, stifling -- if barely -- a keening sound as the pleasure swirled through his body, every muscle tensing.
"Fuck, oh, fuck," Quatre repeated, head falling back. His shoulder muscles bunched beneath Trowa's knee. His fingers clawed at Trowa's ass, holding him spread, clawing skin until two fingers met and pressed at the perimeter of the muscle-ring, prying Trowa open even further. Trowa rode through the moment of disorientation at the additional stretch, inner muscles twinging, welcoming the relief of the fingers holding him open -- just that last bit that Quatre's cock could finally, comfortably, fully, fit.
The vestiges of pain receded, pleasure cresting across Trowa's skin with each slide home of Quatre's cock. The force pushed Trowa up the door just a bit, with the drive into him, then let him down in a smooth pulling away. Each time he expected longer, but Quatre was no more than halfway out before he rammed back up again. A methodical rhythm, syncopated against Trowa's heartbeat, sudden-hard and soothing-slow. Quatre's whispers were the harmony, matched by Trowa's inarticulate cries. Fire licked through every nerve, rippling at the outer edges of orgasm, leaving him trembling and in agony for the completion.
"God, I want--" Quatre chanted, hoarse. "Inside you, it's--" His eyes focused, brilliantly blue and unbearably so, catching Trowa and skewering him to the wall as forcefully as any cock or fingers or tongue. For that single moment, Quatre saw Trowa, and only Trowa, and that look alone was enough to have Trowa half-glad of the weight upon him, half in terror, unable to flee and not sure whether he really wanted to, and maybe Quatre understood because that look always had a slight curl of sad smile. It felt, to Trowa, sometimes... as though in that single heartbeat, poised on the edge of explosion, that Quatre could see him, into him, through layers of flesh and bone and years of dirt and injury and fear and loneliness to the real Trowa, had taken aim, and with one final strike would decimate Trowa completely.
He longed for it, ached for it, needed that revelation, even as it terrified him, so he closed his eyes, turning his head away, and tensed every muscle, fighting to tighten himself. Whether to shut Quatre out or to hold him securely within and never let go, he didn't know, didn't want to consider. It was enough to hear Quatre's choked moan drawing out into a gasp, feel Quatre's body freeze against him, cock throbbing in Trowa's ass. Hot breath beat on Trowa's skin. Quatre's body shivered, lurching into Trowa awkwardly, the orgasm's last shudders.
Only then did Trowa slant his gaze to Quatre's face. His lover's eyes closed, heavy-lidded; his body relaxed, mouth gentling, brow smoothing, the release peeling away all that hid Quatre. It was Trowa's one wish, to have Quatre's eyes open so he could see, too, into his lover in return. Any thoughts on that were swept away in the next breath, body's awareness returning to the forefront, cock and ass and tongue and hips and fingers and legs and gut all throbbing uselessly, helplessly, demanding release.
Quatre leaned forward, risking their balance to catch the corner of Trowa's mouth with a sloppy kiss, and then situated himself, regaining his hold. His cock remained deep in Trowa's ass; he'd leave it there as long as he could, he always did, but doubly so when Trowa had so thoroughly provoked Quatre's most significant kink. Even though it was only Trowa's own hand, it was almost as if Quatre were driven to erase the history of any touch on Trowa's body other than Quatre's. Trowa managed a strained smile, groaning against the sweet shift and slide of Quatre's cock nestled within him, one hand cradling his ass, the other slipping between them to grasp Trowa's cock. He shivered, eyes opening a slit to see Quatre's grin, pleased, sated, victorious, even.
"Wanna see you," Quatre coaxed, "wanna be in you forever, see you..." His thumb caught the underside of Trowa's cock, pulling at the skin, fingers dancing over the cock-head to spread the weeping precum and then another strong, hard stroke, knuckles ramming into Trowa's tensed stomach muscles. "Come on, come on, feel you..."
He couldn't resist any longer, not with that intensity on him, inside him, wrapped around him. With a groan, Trowa gave way, tipping himself purposefully over into orgasm. He spasmed, for a split-second afraid he'd lost his hold on the doorframe and Quatre, that they'd tumbled down and would fall forever, but awareness blew away as white-cold pleasure screamed through his body from his center to his outermost edge. His heart hammered, riding the pleasure; his lungs caught and released, turning his gasping sob into a hiccuped sound of relief. He gripped Quatre's arm, half-clinging, legs shaking while the aftershocks rode his system. It all left him breathless, and naked in a way that had nothing to do with wearing only a shirt while held up against an office door by Quatre's weight and strength alone.
Trowa came to, to see Quatre licking a finger, before smearing his hand over Trowa's chest; an awkward proposition in that position, but the brush of finger on nipple, the light scratch of a fingernail, and Trowa arched again. The touch made a shadowy echo of his orgasm wash over him again, leaving him poised, back arched just so for Quatre to pump his hips a few more times. The motion had Trowa biting his lip and wishing he had leverage, when all he could do was shake uncontrollably, trapped between Quatre's cock rubbing against so many nerve endings, and the reintroduced pain-twinge of muscles stretched far too much, too fast, to accomodate something of Quatre's size.
The main act ended, as it often did, with Quatre's rueful chuckle that became a soft moan -- tinged with longing or regret, it seemed, maybe -- as Quatre pulled out. Trowa let Quatre guide his left leg down to the floor, but kept his other leg over Quatre's shoulder, holding him fully open while Quatre pressed against him, fingers pushing in deep, massaging the worn muscle ring, prodding into him, prompting more of the shadow-orgasms to run through Trowa's body, even as his mouth sucked on Trowa's, teasing his tongue, licking along his teeth, lips mashed and bruised, so wet and warm.
Five minutes, ten minutes, Trowa never knew, he couldn't track heartbeats with Quatre's tongue in his mouth and little pearl buttons teasing his skin and starched cotton abrading his nipples while Quatre coaxed another aftershock from his body, then a second, then a third, until Trowa longed to beg for mercy, to regain his sense for enough time to demand Quatre explain. Why must he do that, why did he do that, what made him want to do that, when it was only Trowa's pleasure and not shared, and the returning unease pushed coherent, if unwanted, thoughts back into Trowa's head. He made a rough attempt at Quatre's chest, and the fingers moved from his ass, quicker than he could see, to catch him. Quatre moved his hand away, kissed the palm, kissed him again, and then gently let Trowa's other leg come down, steadying them both against the sudden urge to drop to the floor.
"Vacation," Quatre whispered. "If I'd realized that's what you meant by the word, I assure you, my plans would've been different." His breath eased over Trowa's skin, kissing a shoulder lightly, running his tongue up Trowa's neck -- and all the while his nimble fingers buttoned Trowa's shirt back up.
The best Trowa could manage was a smirk, both at Quatre's words and at the ever-present post-sex haze. It might've been more enjoyable, he considerd, if only Quatre didn't always seem so energized by sex. Trowa was ready to lie down and nap for at least an hour. Rest, and regain the energy he'd lost -- or given away -- before he could face the outside world, shields once again intact. He had no idea what had prompted him to do it in an office. He had a vague recollection of planning to tease Quatre and lure him back to the hotel, but he'd gotten carried away, and now Quatre was looking for something to clean them both off. Trowa solved that by sliding down to a heap on the floor and using his boxers. Unfortunately, sitting on the floor in a tangle of limbs -- even if all his own -- made putting his slacks on rather difficult.
Quatre's smiled was both amused and tender, assisting Trowa into the slacks. He tossed the stained boxers over to the desk. "I'll never see how you can go without," he commented, and gave Trowa a hand up.
"Did it for long enough." Trowa swayed, caught a chaste kiss. "We're out of the blind-spot," he warned, in Quatre's ear.
"That's okay. I don't mind prying eyes for what's next." Quatre's laugh was a gentle, teasing thing, and he guided Trowa backwards until Trowa's knees hit the sofa. Pushed down, Trowa sat, and Quatre kept pushing until Trowa half-lay across the cushions, head in the crook between sofa-arm and back. "You sleep for a bit, and then we'll go for dinner."
"Dinner," Trowa mumbled, lids heavy. "But we're... what time is..." The room was warm, strange; it had felt cool when he'd first walked in. He hoped he'd not cracked the doorframe's moulding. Where were his boxers? Quatre's fingers smoothed across his shirt, circled a nipple through fabric, and Trowa instinctively relaxed, eyes closing again despite words still forcing themselves out. "Are you gonna..."
"Shhh, I've got just a bit of work, then we can go," Quatre assured him. A quick kiss on Trowa's cheek, and then footsteps audible enough on muffling carpet to tell Trowa that Quatre had done it on purpose. A clatter of the laptop keyboard, creak of desk chair, the click of the briefcase opening and shutting, all minute signals that Quatre was nearby, that Trowa could sleep in a strange environment.
Trowa contemplated finding enough energy to rearrange himself so he could sleep on his preferred left side without having to face the sofa-back to do it. But the haze won out, so he rolled onto his side, cheek against the sofa-arm, and tried to ignore the wish to have Quatre be as sleepy-sated, to sleep beside him, share that glowing warmth... just once. He wanted Quatre to stay, to never close his eyes again, to be there for Trowa to fall into him and remain there.
And in this groggy euphoric state, if somewere were ever to ask, in this place Trowa might keep his refuge in Quatre as a means to answer without fear, to finally confess. He could mark his life as truly beginning at fifteen, upon his first sight of Quatre and sensing only that this man could, would, change Trowa's life. All his growing for the years since had been a struggle to accept, or deny, that one person could have such power over him. Stay or go, it never changed that all he was, he was for Quatre, and all he had, he'd give to Quatre, and all he'd ever be, he'd be only with Quatre.
Someone had joked once, intending cruelty, that Trowa was no more than a former mercenary; with so little to offer, his world must necessarily revolve around Quatre, and any glory be only a reflected grandeur. It was only between the moments after gaining -- and losing -- the reminder of his place within Quatre, and the moments before sinking into sleep -- that Trowa dared admit the truth.
His world didn't revolve around Quatre. His world was Quatre.
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Date: 17 Jul 2007 06:36 pm (UTC)Trowa's story, along with Quatre's, is so real--romantic, yes--but a kind of real that makes it bittersweet and not sappy. And I think bittersweet is the best we can ever hope for in real life.
And I love the dynamic between Trowa and Duo. They seem like siblings who argue like crazy but just watch what happens when an outsider tries to hurt one of them. ^_^ I'm also still chuckling at Wufei writing that coding.
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Date: 18 Jul 2007 05:21 pm (UTC)A truer encapsulation of my opinion of the Trowa/Duo dynamic was never spoken. ;-)
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Date: 18 Jul 2007 01:41 pm (UTC)Ultimately I think it's the sense of intimacy with the consciousness of the characters that I found so extraordinary. You've written Trowa (and Quatre in the other half of this) with such depth and dimension and empathy, and portrayed their entire consciousness. There's a tremendous sense of intimacy for me as the reader, of having this amazingly close relationship with Trowa (and previously Quatre) as I read. It's heady and breathtaking and completely beautiful. Not to mention rare, even in published fiction.
On a more base note, the sex was amazingly hot (but also intensely psychologically intimate and all the more erotic & beautiful for it ♥)
I think I've fallen in love with Trowa and Quatre all over again after reading this. Thank you, Sol. A million thank you's.
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Date: 18 Jul 2007 05:23 pm (UTC)On a more serious note, thank you. It's good to hear I hit the mark, especially after a momentary indecision over whether I should just take the easy way out & write something comedic instead.
And given that I don't think I'm constitutionally capable of writing a non-sour lemon, it's good to hear that the psychological elements didn't overpower the intended sexiness.
A thousand you're welcomes, and a million thank you's right back atcha for encouraging me.
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Date: 26 Jul 2007 09:26 pm (UTC)I think my mind breaks a little every time you write.
But that's a good break.
I would not want it in any other way.
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Date: 8 Mar 2010 05:48 pm (UTC)