Ok! Here's Lurid and Eryniell's beautiful story! You have one last warning:
this story does contain slash, 1x3 and 2x4! We hope you like it! It's hard
work, when you live nowhere near each other! ^___^ Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Eryniell and I do not own any of the Gundam's or the characters.
We DO own quatre's mansion and his house keys, and also Heero's car.
Take me away…
to a place where the pain
can never reach me,
and those who seek me
will never hurt me again.
-Lurid
Quatre Winner stood in his living room, clutching the phone in his shaking hand. He waited impatiently as the phone rang, murmuring,
"Come on, pick up...please, pick up..." Finally he heard the familiar voice he had been waiting for.
"Hello, Heero Yuy speaking."
"Heero, hi!" Quatre responded. "Thank Allah you're home! Listen, can you come over to my house, please?"
"What's wrong?" Heero's voice asked from the other end of the phone.
"It's Trowa. He's hiding from me." Quatre said, his eyes flitting nervously around the room, still searching for Trowa.
"We were eating dinner and he started to think that I was trying to poison him and he ran away and I can't find him anywhere!"
"All right. Stay calm, I'll be right over, and Quatre?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't worry....we'll find him." Heero stated in a soothing tone, very uncharacteristic of his usual emotionless facade.
"Thanks. Thanks so much," Quatre said gratefully. "See you soon."
"Bye."
Fifteen minutes later, Heero had left his small apartment and driven through the city and down the gently curving country road that led to Quatre's mansion home. He drove down the circular driveway, pulling to a stop in front of the front porch. Heero got out of his black jeep, locked it, and made his way up the driveway, gravel crunching beneath his feet.
His white sneakers thudded softly on the smooth stone steps as he approached Quatre's front door. A flutter of movement to his right attracted Heero's attention and he looked over to see a blonde head disappear behind flowing white curtains. He reached forward to ring the bell just in case, but was not surprised when the door burst open before he touched the doorbell, revealing a very harassed-looking Quatre.
"Heero! You're here!" he exclaimed, grabbing Heero's hand, unceremoniously and pulling him inside.
"Yeah," Heero confirmed, watching as Quatre slipped the ring of keys back into the pocket of his khaki pants. "Any progress?" Heero said as Quatre ushered him into the living room.
He slipped off his jacket and draped it over the back of Quatre's pale blue couch as the Arabian boy responded, wringing his hands worriedly. "No, I still can't find him anywhere."
"Hmm…" Heero muttered, hands on his hips as he surveyed the room, trying to think of how they should go about doing this.
"I locked all the doors that lead outside, so I know he's in here somewhere. I just don't know where," Quatre told the Japanese boy, his pale blue eyes brimming with sparkling tears. Heero, a bit taken aback by the display of such emotion, horrified at the possibility that Quatre might actually start crying and he would be forced to awkwardly comfort the boy. He wasn't much good at comforting unless it was Trowa in his arms. So he took the alternative option and started listing possible ways of locating Trowa. He was silent for a moment, then he started in his usual business-like tone, "We have to do this right. Let's start in the basement and work our way up."
"O-okay," Quatre agreed, rubbing the unshed tears of frustration out of his eyes. He moved around Heero and walked down the hall to the basement door. Opening it, he started down the carpeted steps, Heero following behind him.
Down in the basement, Heero and Quatre started at the back, working their way back towards the stairs as they methodically searched for Trowa.
"Trowa, where are you? Trowa! I'm not going to hurt you, I swear!" Quatre shouted, his voice laced with distress, as they looked through the laundry room.
"Trowa!" Heero called softly, moving out into the hallway, they began searching in the storage room across the hall, carefully checking behind piles of boxes and other various objects. "Come on out. Neither I nor Quatre have any intention of hurting you."
* * *
Trowa was still hiding, curled up and shaking in the dark. He hated the dark, but the bad men were coming for him again and he needed to hide. And he hated being alone, but he knew Quatre would come and rescue him. He just knew it. Quatre would never leave him here… because Quatre is my friend, Trowa thought to himself. Just like… He tried to remember the boy's name, but all that he seemed to be able to remember was a pair of Prussian blue eyes, soft brown hair, a rarely seen but beautiful sparkling white smile…
* * *
"So," Quatre started timidly, trying to make conversation. "Are you ready to take Trowa back to your place yet?"
"Tired of him already, are you?" Heero commented sarcastically from behind a stack of boxes labeled "Christmas decorations".
"No!" Quatre exclaimed defensively. He glanced over at Heero, who was staring at him skeptically. "Well, yes…" he admitted slowly, but upon hearing Heero's soft laughter next to him, switched back to a defensive tone again. "I mean, no! No, I'm not tired of him. It's just that I think you're probably better at handling these kinds of situations. I get all flustered and I don't know if what I'm doing and saying is helping him or just scaring him even more," Quatre admitted.
"The trick is to watch his eyes," Heero said as they finished checking the last rooms in the basement. "A person's eyes will tell you everything if they're not intentionally masking their emotions."
Quatre nodded thoughtfully at this as Heero called out one last time, "Trowa! This is Heero. We're not going to hurt you. Please come out."
When there was no response, Quatre blew out a frustrated sigh. "We've looked everywhere down here. Maybe he's upstairs?" he suggested, starting lightly up the stairs in his white socks.
"Let's go look." Heero said, heading up the stairs after him. "And to answer your earlier question, yes, I am ready to take Trowa back to my house if you want me to. I cleaned up, I have the couch bed in my living room, and I've made arrangements to stay at home for at least the next three weeks. So he can come to my house anytime."
"Okay."
"Let's check in the kitchen, first." Quatre nodded and took them to the kitchen. Heero wandered around opening cabinets and looking under things.
"Trowa? Are you in here?" Quatre said, lifting the tablecloth and looking beneath the long dining table. "Trowa, please come out!"
"I think we should split up. It would make the work much faster. You take the guest bedrooms, I'll take the library and the living room." Heero said, noticing Quatre becoming panicked again.
"Alright." Quatre said, his voice cracking and Heero watched his shoulders shaking as he left the room. He sighed and started off down the hallway, glancing quickly into the living room to make sure there was no place to hide in there. Then he walked down the hall to do a quick scan of the piano room. Finding no one in there, he was about to check the dining room, when, on a sudden impulse, he stopped in front of the closet between the two rooms. The door was not quite closed, hanging open about an inch wide. Opening it, Heero found several levels of shelves packed with various household objects, but noticed that nothing sat on the floor under the bottom shelf. Slowly he bent down, reaching his hand under the shelf to see if anything -or anyone- was under there.
"Ouch! Damn!" He quickly withdrew his hand, examining his left hand, rubbing at several small marks on his fingers that were now slowly turning purple. Then louder, he called, "Quatre! I've found him!" Heero examined his left hand, rubbing at several small marks on his fingers that were now slowly turning purple. "He bit me…"
Seconds later, Quatre appeared in the hallway, asking, "You found him?! Where?"
"In this closet," Heero said, getting down on his hands and knees. "He's under the bottom shelf."
Quatre bent down next to Heero and, as he saw Trowa curled up under the shelf, murmured, "By Allah, Trowa, how on Earth did you get under there?" As Trowa saw Quatre, his eyes widened in fear and he frantically tried to scoot farther back into the closet, whimpering. "Trowa, come on out of there," Quatre said gently. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."
Trowa tried to shake his head in refusal but only succeeded in slamming his head into the wooden shelf above him. "Ah…!" he gasped in pain, putting his hand up to his head.
Quatre backed off, feeling immensely guilty at having hurt Trowa, and looked pleadingly over at Heero, desperation clearly written on his features. "Help…"
"Move over…" Heero ordered, lying down on his stomach to be able to see Trowa better. Quatre stood and started to pace back and forth in the hallway behind
"Trowa…come on, now… Quatre is trying to help and so am I…there is no one here who is trying to hurt you…come on out…" He reached his hand out to Trowa, his eyes full of concern.
"No…" Trowa whispered fearfully, his whole body trembling. "Make the bad man go away…"
"…You want him to go away?" Heero asked, his brow furrowing as he pointed over his shoulder at Quatre. Heero said, his brow furrowing.
"Uh-huh. Make him leave…he hurts me…"
Heero turned his head to look at Quatre, who had stopped pacing and stood staring with a pained expression on his face. "Quatre, maybe you should go over into the living room for awhile. Just until he calms down.
"Me?" Quatre repeated, sounding offended. "But I-- …okay." And he stalked reluctantly off to the living room.
Heero turned back around, reaching towards Trowa again. "Is that better? Can you come out, now?"
Trowa looked around apprehensively. "He's gone?"
"Yes, you're fine… come out," Heero coaxed him out, moving back and sitting up to allow Trowa to get out of the closet. "Come on…"
Trowa slowly crawled out from under the shelf and sat down against the wall, shaking uncontrollably.
That's it for now! Next chapter coming soon. Please read and review! Arigatou!