The climate and visual controls were always on the fritz on L2. This was the primary reason that the artificial sky was noonlike, despite the fact of it being six in the morning, and pouring the rain, even though the sun-image was radiating brightly.
The sun hitting the water, however, did initiate a rather stunning rainbow display on the sides of the man-made colony, which was a pleasure for apple-green eyes.
Nanashi, No-Name, Pilot 03, Trowa Barton, call him as you may, was seated high in the branches of a low-hanging tree, which was keeping him dry from the artificial rain. While the rainbow on the sides of the metal contraption was very stunning, it displeased him that he got up at such an early time to watch a sunrise that wasn't even there. Uncurling from his catlike position on the branch, he hoisted himself up to higher branches.
Along with sunrises, Trowa was also very partial to trees. He was native of L3, a rather dismal chunk of colony that only seemed to grow barbed wire fences with spikes like metal killer roses, and factories made of dirty gray ice. The visuals on L3 had been completely destructed, leaving the sky a blurry gray.
It was all rather depressing.
Shaking his head, Trowa parted the leafy foliage of the tree roughly - pushing the past away. He was offered a higher view this time - churches, prefabricated houses, schools, recreation buildings, baseball diamonds - typical modern surberbia at its finest. Over to his right, partially obscured by a junior high school, a few Sunday-morning attired children were kicking around a soccer ball on a patch of grass.
Nostalgia poked at his frigid heartstrings, melting them a bit.
"Trowa? Trowa, are you up there?"
Red galoshes beating against black pavement, churning through puddles. Yellow raincoat parting the rain like Moses. Bright blue-eyes clouded with worry, but the worry evaporated when Trowa was sighted, and cherry-pink lips pulled open across pearly white teeth in a greeting.
Trowa, not having an answer since Quatre had spotted him, didn't reply.
"Oy, Trowa!" Quatre cupped his hands around his mouth as he shouted up through the branches. "Aren't you wet?"
It took a few moments for what Quatre said to make it to Trowa's brain, he was so engrossed in watching the blonde's lips play across his teeth. And those hands... they had to be so soft.
"Talkative, I see." Quatre didn't seem too put off by Trowa's consistent silence - in fact; he probably would have been more worried if Trowa actually had answered. Grabbing the lowest branch, he pulled himself onto it, careful not to slip off due to his rubber boots. "You don't mind me coming up there, do you?"
"Not at all." Another little prick of warmth in his chest - it was nice, somebody actually wanting to sit with him. Not that he had ever exactly been avoided - but it was good to feel somewhat liked.
Especially somewhat liked by a certain Quatre Raberba Winner.
Trowa allowed himself a sliver of a smile as the blond struggled up through the branches. His feelings for the Arabian were carefully concealed in a plastic container of willpower, and locked in the deepest safes of his heart. The key had been discarded a long time ago, though new thoughts and fantasies - some sexual, some not - kept on creeping in. A new one began to form in his mind and it involved skinny dipping... that slim body, with its milk-pale skin must look so nice swimming...
"Whew!" Quatre plopped on the branch next to Trowa, leaning against the trunk. His flaxen hair was completely plastered to the sides of his face with moisture, and he removed his floppy yellow rain-hat to fan at his face. "I swear, it's hard to climb trees in boots."
Trowa's mouth curved up slightly again, thinking of that lithe body doing the butterfly stroke.
"Are you feeling all right?" Quatre dropped the hand containing the hat, to look at Trowa curiously. "I know you're quiet, and I'm not trying to be rude or anything... but is your throat sore, or something?"
"I'm fine, Quatre." Now mind-image-Quatre was doing the backstroke, the slight muscles on his sides rippling with the movement.
A line thinner than spun gossamer creased Quatre's brows. "Are you sure?" He started slapping the pockets of the yellow slicker, searching. "I'm sure I have something to suck on if you'd like..."
Trowa had to grasp onto the tree trunk to keep from falling off. The fantasy of naked-swimming Quatre was now replaced with a new one... 'something to suck on' had possibilities.
God damnit, get your mind out of the gutter, Barton! Trowa yelled at himself. You're a bloody pervert, do you know that?!
Yes, Trowa knew all too well. Quatre handed him a peppermint, beaming.
"I told you I had something."
Trowa fought the actual urge to laugh as he looked at the little red-and-white streaked piece of candy. "Thank you."
"What were you looking at?" asked Quatre. Trowa shrugged, his mouth full of peppermint, and pointed towards the small soccer field, with little figures running rampant over the green.
"Ever played soccer?" Trowa asked, rolling the candy to the other side of his mouth. With a firm hold on the tree, Quatre leaned forward while shaking his head.
"No, I was never really into sports, to my father's dismay..." A small flicker of sadness covered Quatre's features for a moment before leaving. He watched one of the players leap into the air and knock the ball away with his head - Quatre winced - while thinking.
Quatre knew that the past was a rather touchy subject for Trowa, so he considered for a bit before asking simply - "Did you?"
Trowa fiddled with the peppermint wrapper, making it crinkle, while nodding. "Yeah. When there was no work, some of the others would steal one of Sarah's stockings and stuff it full of rags and we'd kick it around on the pavement - I suppose it was a form of soccer."
More silence. "Sarah?" asked Quatre nervously.
Trowa looked at him for a moment, before realizing that he had never told any of them about Sarah. "Only woman in the mercenary group," Trowa explained, looking at the soccer players. "Did all the cooking." He dropped the clear cellophane wrapper, and watched it flutter to the ground. "Best damn mobile suit pilot I ever met. She was supposed to be the original pilot of Heavyarms."
"What happened to her?" Quatre asked the question quietly - afraid that if he spoke too loud, Trowa would stop.
"Died in a streetfight," Trowa said flatly, blocking out all emotions. Stone. I am stone. She was nothing. If she were alive, I'd have never made it of L3. Stone, stone stone. "Knife between the ribs."
Quatre's eager interest ebbed into sadness. "Trowa, I'm sorry," he said quietly. He wanted to touch the other pilot, comfort him, but he didn't think that Trowa would appreciate that very much, so he settled for looking sympathetic and clutching the branches of the tree so hard that his knuckles went white.
Trowa schooled his features to smoothness, and shrugged, not replying. Quatre's face fell slightly. He wanted Trowa to talk! It was so hard, evoking emotion out of the green-eyed pilot, and whenever Quatre came close, Trowa fell back inside his defenses again.
There was more silence for a few moments, listening to the rain fall onto the leaves and watching the soccer players run.
"Were you any good at it?" Quatre ventured.
"Good at what?"
"Soccer."
A bead of rain slid over the smooth strands of Trowa's bangs and dripped off. Quatre was subject to a piercing green gaze before he got his answer.
"I don't remember." Why do you want to know? Why do you even care? Why do you even bother? I am Trowa Barton, master pilot and survivor, but underneath I am Nanashi - nothing. What do you see in me?
Quatre turned to look sadly at the other pilot, who was looking out over the fields again. The Arabian swallowed. The rain had plastered Trowa's turtleneck even tighter to his body than normal - not leaving much to the imagination. The taller boy looked as if he had been carved by God himself - perfectly sculpted form, with strength flowing all over his body. He wasn't muscular like Heero, but he had a panther's grace, as shown when his back muscles stretched to grab another branch.
Oh, Trowa, why won't you talk? "That's too bad," Quatre said, deciding to change the subject. He smiled brightly at the slicked form of Trowa and playfully put his yellow rain-hat on Trowa's bangs. His hair stuck out so far that the yellow hat did little more than make him look silly. Trowa turned to him with an incredulous look on his face, arc-ing his visible eyebrow. Quatre giggled.
"You think this is funny?" Trowa asked neutrally.
"No," Quatre giggled, his blue eyes betraying more of his laughter than he was showing. "It's not funny at all."
There was a loud pig-like sound.
"Did you just snort?" Trowa asked, his lips curling upwards at the thought.
"No," Quatre squealed, covering his mouth with his hand. He snorted again with laughter. Trowa raised his eyebrow further.
"I see. Well, I remember, three months ago in Saudi Arabia, you admitting to me that you were... ticklish?"
Quatre stopped laughing immediately. "Trowa..." he said nervously, backing up farther into the tree, "not here! We'd both fall, and...ah...ahh...AHHH....STOP!"
With a predatory gaze flashing in bottle-green eyes, Trowa vaulted himself at the smaller figure and started digging his fingers in the sensitive skin near the crook of Quatre's arm. Quatre howled with the almost painfully pleasureful sensation, and shut his eyes, trying to gasp in air.
The tree groaned in complaint as dead branches were knocked from its grasp. The greenery shuddered and fell off as shavings of bark floated to the ground. Passerby stopped to stare at the vibrating tree, and the squeals and screams that radiated from it.
When Quatre was suitably begging and short breathed, Trowa finally let up. Quatre was laying below him on one of the thicker branches; his sweat and rain-slicked hair flying disheveled around the branch. Trowa was straddled on his waist, both to pin him in place and keep him from falling from the rather narrow platform.
When Trowa stopped tickling and looked at him, sitting on his waist, Quatre's breath came even shorter, looking at the tall figure above him.
It was at that moment that Quatre's rain slicker slid wetly off of his chest, leaving it flapping in the wind like a heavy flag. He was dressed in a white shirt, and soaked, giving Trowa a full view of his pale chest.
Trowa's body reacted instantly at the wanton image, and was terrified to move, lest he brush his arousal against Quatre's skin and embarrass the hell out of himself.
Below him, Quatre was having the same problems. The darkened, wet, sultry image of Trowa staring at him in what Quatre thought was an incredibly sexy manner was enough to set the blonde off.
Neither wanted to move, afraid that they would disgust the other. So neither of them took the lead and they sat there for a while, just staring at each other.
Quatre squirmed slightly. The slight movement rubbed the coarse material of Trowa's pants over his sensitive region and he nearly whimpered. "Trowa," Quatre said quietly, "my legs are asleep..."
"Sorry," Trowa said quickly. He rose himself over the Arabian, arms shaking with the effort it took. Damnit, he needed a cold shower, and he needed it now.
Trowa's strategy was a good one - keeping his body about five inches above the blonde while raising his hips up first. It kept his arousal from brushing anything and kept him from looking conspicuous. He nearly pulled it off, as well.
But he forgot to factor in the possibility that Quatre may have been aroused as well.
They brushed against each other, and the sensation pulled a full-throated groan from Quatre, and Trowa collapsed completely onto the other boy. The branch wobbled up and down dangerously, shaking water from leaves in torrents.
They were silent for a long time after that. "Trowa?" asked Quatre after a bit.
"Mmm?" Trowa asked, not removing his face from the blonde's chest.
"Do that again."
Trowa nearly fell off the branch. His head shot up from Quatre's chest, and he consequently knocked the back of his skull rather harshly on a limb a few feet above the one they were laying on. He stared at the other boy for a few moments before shaking his head. "No."
Quatre sat up so suddenly that Trowa slid backwards. "And why not?"
"Because you don't want this."
"I can't do what?!" Quatre's brows creased. "Excuse me, but just because I'm shorter than you does not mean that you can tell me what I do and do not want."
Trowa leaned back against the tree trunk, shutting his eyes. "You're the heir to the Winner fortune. You can't afford to be screwing around with a nameless thing like me. It'd ruin your family's reputation."
The anger washed away from Quatre's face. He reached out a hand and placed it on Trowa's cheek. Trowa opened his eye a little at the touch. "Trowa," Quatre said seriously, "names are nothing. They're what people call you by, and nothing else. Your name is not who you are. You are who you are, whether you have no name or nineteen of them, it doesn't matter. I'd still love you."
Trowa's eye widened slightly.
"Yes, I love you, no matter what you say. You are not a 'nameless thing', and if anybody ever tells you so, I will personally make sure they end up as a smudge at the bottom of Sandrock's feet."
Trowa's eye winced shut. Quatre couldn't really tell if he was crying or not, because the rain was still beating down. Quatre leaned forward and gathered the lanky pilot in a soft embrace. Hands closed around his waist, loving him back.
"Me too," Trowa said quietly.
"Touch me?" asked Quatre, leaning forward.
Trowa nuzzled forward, like the big cats he had helped raise. He purred like one as well, when Quatre nuzzled back. Pulling away, Trowa looked at the form of Quatre, smiling gently and rubbing up Trowa's turtleneck.
The best fantasy he could ever come up with could not compare with this moment right now.
"I love you," they both said in unison. Grinning, they both blindly lurched forward and found each other's lips for the first time.
And everything truly fell together in a cacophony of rain, rhythm, hazel-scented shampoo, musky sweat and peppermint sweet.
And, as the kiss started to deepen into insistent passion, the visuals on L2 finally decided to kick in, dowsing the entire colony in darkness, before the first rays of sunlight peeked onto the pseudo-horizon.
The sudden plunge into darkness alighted the piloting instincts in the two of them, and they tore apart, guns in hand, before they realized that it was just the L2 faithful again. After another moment of silence, they laughed at the absurdity of it all.
"What time is it?" inquired Quatre, watching a streak of orange drizzle across the horizon. Trowa looked at the glowing timepiece on his wrist.
"Nearing eleven in the morning." He looked at the sunrise, sighing. "They'll never get it right, will they."
Quatre shrugged, and righted himself on the tree branch, winding Trowa's arm around his waist. "Want to watch the sunrise with me?"
Trowa nodded, watching the stars wink out, and smiled.
# # #
Duo put down his binoculars and turned away from the window. "It's about damn time that those two got together," he announced, crawling back into bed.
"Hn," Heero growled, rolling over. "I can't believe you've been spying on them."
Duo grinned, slithering on top of Heero and relaxing on top of them. "Show a little emotion, buddy."
"You braided your hair," Heero's sleep-clouded eyes noted.
"In case you haven't noticed, I've been wearing it like that for a while now."
"But you don't wear it like that in bed."
Duo looked at the digital clock on the bedstead. "Hee-chan, it's nearing eleven thirty... we probably should be getting- umph!"
Heero, tired of the American's incessant chatter, pulled Duo down onto him and ceased his talking by capturing his lips effectively.
"In case you haven't noticed," Heero growled, "the sun is just rising, so technically, we have all damn day."
"Not complaining!" Duo said instantly, snapping the rubber band from his hair.
-=Owari=-