Tug-o-War.
Warning/category: Trowa POV, circus-ness, post-war, odd Trowa, Ep Zero character, complete and utter lack of the other boys (except Quatre of course )
Pairs: 3-4, 3-12 ::gasp:: and more Cathy&Trowa-ness
Note: You'll need to know a little something about Trowa's Ep Zero to understand this one, so don't read this if you haven't read that... (or well, as long as you know who Midii is and the thing about the cross, you're all set). There is NO ref to Ep Zero, but Midii's here and there's significant symbollism to that manga. In other words, if you haven't read it, you won't understand this. ;) Sorry.
For the GW500 Challenge#32: "a contract."
The circus had a contract for the Eve Festival on L3, and after much demanding and prodding, Catherine succeeded on dragging me along for the ride. To be honest I hadn't done a show in at least six months, but I knew that there was nothing for me at Preventers, and the only place I'd actually found myself content was with the troupe. So I conceded and let her take me away from the cardboard box that was my apartment in the city of New York.
I'd be lying if I said that I missed it, but then I don't think anyone really enjoys that city very much at all. It's like LA on the flip side. People are born in NYC, make deals in NYC, find the devil in NYC... and if you're lucky you leave, you escape and you run to LA, the other place where people never belong and thus why it's something that some try to call home. It's always one or the other, an endless tide of tug-o-war. You're always born in one, just to die in the other. Through it all, it's probably a little beautiful, I'm sure.
But I wasn't born in America.
Alright, so I don't know where I was born, but no one does when you get to the heart of it. Cathy tells me that the fire was on Earth, and that she was born somewhere in Europe, so perhaps I am Earth-born, born in Europe too. Whatever the case, I know that I was not meant to die in LA or NYC because I've already been destined to die a very long time ago and it did not involve the mercy of a home.
Sad, isn't it?
Not really. I've had worse fates.
But anyway, it wasn't three days later that I found myself on the colony I had been once preordained to serve, the one in which I was raised to destroy, and the one that I stole for my own. L3 and I have a unique relationship. I've found family here and killed it here. I've found love here and lost it.
I hate L3 and it hates me too. We have a pact for our crossings. One must always serve to give pain to the other.
Life's a bitch sometimes, isn't it?
I know.
"Trowa if you don't wipe that impassive scowl off your face, I'm going to wipe it for you. With my fist."
I love Cathy's way with authority. She'd make a great Colonel Une. I smirk darkly at the thought, memories of a pain coming back to haunt me. For some reason, I enjoy it now. It's always like that.
They used to say that I was masochistic, but I just have a habit of melting into things and letting it suck my personality dry. When I find a demon, I let it eat me. I become one with it.
What is the point in fighting fear? Dorothy said once that it's a beautiful emotion. You shouldn't fight your necessities.
I shrug and don't answer, but she knew that I wouldn't and wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me in for a sideways embrace as her strange gray eyes scan the area for something to fling a knife at. She looks at me with a glitter of sincerity in her eyes, and she smiles a soft thing. She's always gentle with me, despite the fact that I tower over her have enough strength to twist a man's body in seven different ways.
Not that I'd try it, mind you, but it is nice to know these things when you're surrounded by the enemy and any one of them could know you, see you, and discover that you're not really who you play to be.
But I've never gotten caught. I should be an actor.
"You have to relax, you're stiff as a board and we go on in less than an hour." Then, as if a switch was flipped, she grins evilly and winks. Her arm around my shoulder tightens for a second before that same grin carries the devil in its track, and I wait for the double-meaning taunt. Knowing her, it was coming and it was going to hurt pretty badly. "...then again," she says, her voice soft. "...your act doesn't require the loose, now does it?"
The loose.
No, I've never really needed the loose.
Shame.
She walks off in the direction of the trailers without another word, getting ready to change. I know, somewhere deep inside, that she was challenging me. She always did that, in hopes that the so-called Trowa Barton could really be classified as a human being.
But that doesn't really matter now. She knows that I won't change. I don't do that, it's not in my nature to change things.
No. I become things.
Sighing a whispered curse to the fake colony air--I really hate L3--I make off for my own trailer and change into my costume. When it comes time to put the half-mask over my face, I hesitate and look into the vanity, scowling at myself in an odd way. I don't scowl often, but I've been doing it a lot lately. I guess it's easy to get pissed off when you're pissed off at nothing every wake moment of the day. I don't know.
I'm just really fucking tired.
But I'm not saying that I hate myself, because I don't. I don't know what I think about myself, I think nothing really, I just am. But I am pissed off at the fact that I'm pissed off at nothing, because somehow I'm supposed to be angry, a feeling inside me knows that. I'm supposed to hate it, hate myself and my life. I'm sure that I am, that I should feel it. I think I did before, long before, and I was normal back then.
Should I be normal?
But I feel nothing and in that nothing, I am pissed off. Pissed off at nothing.
It's a strange thing to know, but then, I've always been a bit strange. They've told me that before. Several times.
Hm.
Perhaps it's just nothing.
Anyway, the show started and my act was the second to final. They were saving the grand stand for last, and it had nothing to do with me. They hired a lion tamer for a damn fool's trick, and even though I know the beasts better than that idiot could know a day in his life, I was told to sit back and wait and watch the show and do my job. Cathy was on my side, of course, but the ringmaster never was my friend.
He doesn't like me. He's such a bastard.
But I don't know. I don't know much of anything as I wait in my suit and contemplate this anger raging inside of me. I wasn't happy in Preventer, I wasn't happy with Quatre, and I'm not happy here. Maybe I'm not meant to be happy.
But no, I know that I'm just looking for something and I've forgotten what it is. Who it is. Where it is. I am looking something, aren't I? Or am I just waiting for it to come to me?
I'm waiting.
About time, I say. I've done enough looking for three Conquistadors and a Christian missionary. I don't need to look anymore. No point. I've looked everywhere.
"Trowa? Are you okay? You've been acting a bit weird lately."
Cathy's at my side again and she's all ready for our act. Her eyes are genuinely concerned, and I'm a bit touched by that, but all I do is shrug ever so slightly and half smile a limp little thing. I never did like smiling.
But then, they'd always beat it out of me first, so I guess it makes sense.
Damn.
She puts a delicate hand on my shoulder and probes deeper into the dark. "You sure you're alright?"
Fine as a john with a free whore. I smile a bit more, trying to look sincere (you didn't seriously think I could be who I am without a talent for acting, did you?) and I nod. She seems to take the bait and stares out at the audience through the curtain.
I follow her gaze, my eyes roving the crowd from under a thick fall of hair. And then I see her.
She's older now, I know. She's different, her hair is shorter and her eyes are more confidant... but I know her when I see her. And then, me--Mr. Stone himself--gasps with shock. Yes, I know it's her. I'm not misunderstood. You see, when you have the kind of photographic memory that I do, it's hard to forget a face, especially one responsible for the most nightmares in a quarter of my life.
In fact, the only face worse than hers is probably Quatre's. Can't forget that face. Can't forget either one.
Isn't it strange that every time I fall in love--whether I realize it or no--the lover I love always manages to kill me and my mind? Like I said, I am a masochist.
"Trowa? What's wrong?"
I ignore her, lost in that face driven from the past. The woman that I am staring at turns to me, as if feeling my gaze and she does the oddest thing.
She pulls out a cross around her neck and swings it in front of her, at me, taunting. But no... her eyes are sorrowful, her tears a wall of rage. She is screaming inside, I know it.
I can feel her voice in my head.
She is beautiful now. Her golden locks are long and wild, curly at the base like an unkempt animal, but flat on the way down, just building into these curls. Her hair is long, reaching down to her waist, and the color is almost as light as the sun. It seems a deep golden, but it so pale it gives the illusion of a fragile face. Her eyes are the deepest blue with demons in the shadows that speak of tortured forgiveness, a desire to wrap around me, a desire to steal my soul and take me for her own.
She is very sad.
She wants me to forgive her.
I don't care about the act suddenly. I don't care about the show. I walk away and Cathy shrieks at my back and but I only shake my head and walk around the curtain, slipping through the door passed the guards and into the audience.
She is standing there, waiting for me.
And she smiles. Not cruelly, not happy. Just a smile.
"Nanashi," she says, endearing. I flinch because I haven't heard that name in so many years, and the pain that was forgotten is now ravishing me full force. She notices, but pulls the cross from around her neck--a little black cross--and slips into my palm. I didn't even realize that I was holding my hand out, wanting it back.
Her eyes glitter and she sniffles back a sob. I can feel Cathy watching me, and the heavy crowd around us is trying hard not to pry. But I know, the curiosity is killing them.
Shame.
"You're just like me," she says, her voice nonexistent.
I sigh heavily and close my palm into a fist around the cross, feeling it dig into my skin. I stare into her eyes--big and beautiful, like sea-foam...--and I utter the first word that I had spoken in three days.
"Midii." I hardly noticed.
This time she can't hold it back and she sobs, the tears streaming down her face. She grabs the fist holding the cross and squeezes it. "Forgive me?"
I can't believe she asked me that.
Did she really just ask me that?
I flash back to the war, to the moment those memories came flooding back to me, and that look in Quatre's eyes, that questioning of forgiveness. I forgave him. I never blamed him.
I forgave him.
Why couldn't I forgive her?
I shook my head. I've done enough forgiving.
But then she sobs again and wipes her nose with her sleeve. Her eyes are now red and strained. I feel sorry, but then I don't. I don't feel anything.
Even the anger is gone.
"That's all I wanted to know. I'm staying at the Morrison Hotel until Thursday. Room 303."
And she walked away. She was gone again, just like that. I was still holding that damn cross.
I shuddered a long sigh and turned around. Cathy was staring me with confusion and something like hurt in her eyes. I think she understood part of the conversation. I might have told her something once, I don't know, don't remember.
It doesn't matter. I'm not looking anymore.
I think it finally found me.