It's weird. L2 has no colour.
Don't get me wrong there is colour but no…colour. When I had to stay in an Earth city for the first time I was astounded by what I saw. There was colour everywhere! Splashes, stripes, spots of it everywhere! All over the walls for Christ's sake! In L2 all the buildings are grey. There might be different shades of grey but still…it's grey.
I guess that's why I like him. He can make colour. He can make any boring object or piece of scenery burst with colour. The first time I found him drawing he snapped his sketchbook shut and stalked off. Obviously overstepped my boundaries there.
After that small incident I decided I'd let him be and just wait. No matter what Wufei says I can wait when I want to. The prize has just got to be good enough and I figured I could wait for this. It turns out that my colour maker is just like my buddy Heero. Both like their solitude, unconsciously glare at anything that moves, have me pestering them daily and they have their own blond stalker who likes the colour pink.
Now, Quatre is nowhere near as hellish as Relena. Poor Heero will never be able to look at the colour pink the same way ever again. But back to Quatre…it's obvious to everyone that he has a bit of an obsession on our resident clown. Always asking Trowa to join him in a duet, asking him if he wants to chum him to the store, asking Trowa if he needs back up on a mission when Trowa only ever, and rarely, asks Heero or Wufei to be his back up.
I always run hot and cold with Quatre. Some days I want to smack him across the head and to yell at him to leave the poor guy alone and other days…you feel so damn sorry for him. He always has such a great look of hurt on his face when Trowa refuses him. There are days when I shut Trowa off if he's been particularly nasty to Quatre but I doubt he noticed my absence. He has the need of personal space a mile wide in diameter.
Trowa is all about space. So is Heero but not to the same degree as Trowa. Hell, even I'm a bit of a space freak. I must be the one to initiate the contact. I can't stand it when an unwanted stranger touches my arm, takes my hand or tries to hug me. But if you think that's bad you've not seen anything. Trowa just doesn't seem to like physical contact. Oh, when we have to hide in a crawl space and we end up pushed against each other it's fine. But if you say, pat him on the back, playfully nudge his shoulder he flinches. Not like he's in pain or afraid…just flinches. Like he's not used to touching someone or being touched.
Though, however much he hates physical contact he touches people nonetheless. Not physically but emotionally. He was there for Wufei when he was at his lowest, looked after Heero after self-detonating and he touched me. With colour.
Okay he never touched me with colour, not willingly. A couple of times when he went away on a mission I'd sneak into his room and look in his sketchbook. Most of the pictures were landscapes of the places he had traveled. Some sketches were of us, the pilots.
There was one of Heero which had obviously been drawn when he had been in a coma after self-detonating. He was in a bed; peaceful with bandages marring what could have been an innocent scene of a sleeping boy.
A portrait of Wufei's face seen through the flames of a campfire. Although there were bright reds, oranges and yellows flicking around his face the light never reached Wufei's dark contemplative eyes.
The one with Quatre surprised me the most. The picture was split in half with Quatre on the right drawn in bright colours and the left side coloured in deep swirling shadows. I could only snort in amusement at the portrait of Quatre. Quatre all white, silver and gold. Bright sky blue eyes shining with untouched happiness but…the dark shadows on the left made me pause.
It was Trowa. The lighter shadows highlighted a fall of hair and a slanted jaw line. The small bits of colour in the shadows were his eyes. Silently condemning, staring out of the picture with such fierceness I was surprised I hadn't seen them at the start.
I put the sketchbook away. I realised what Trowa felt and I was able to understand him more. Trowa felt he had nothing to give and what I was doing, taking from him without his knowing, was the worst thing I could possibly do. This small gift Trowa had was all he believed he had. A small hobby of sorts…and for me to take pleasure from it without permission just seemed like a breaking of great trust.
It had been a crappy week. Quatre had been driving me up the wall and old shit was being brought up on the news. Apparently Treize Khushrenada himself was visiting L2. To show the world what a caring loving bastard he really is. You want to know his particular destination on L2? Yep, my old home. The ruins of Maxwell church.
Wufei and Trowa were in the living room when it came on the television. I had just come down the stairs after listening to a self-absorbed Quatre. I didn't really hear what the red head on TV was saying but I was aware of Wufei looking back and forth, from me to the TV. Trowa just stared at me. Me? I'm not quite sure what happened exactly but I think I mumbled 'fucking bastard' and then I found myself sitting on the roof of our garage.
I wasn't angry. That was what hit me first. The second thing that hit me was the ache. How could he? How could he use the massacre of my home, the massacre that only happened because of his damn war and turn it into propaganda? I was starting to feel pissed.
I was about to storm off to my Gundam and head off to do something pretty stupid when I heard someone climb through the window behind me. Turning around I saw him casually standing beside the open window with his hands in his pockets. I wanted to smack that casual look off his face. I was pissed, when I'm pissed I tend to lose all rationality.
"What is it?" I think I snarled. Or it was a growl…it wasn't friendly in any case.
"Khushrenada never made it to the site. The streets' population mobbed him and his escort. They cancelled the memorial."
I deflated. The anger was gone again but the ache was still there. I sat down and stared at the roof I was sitting on. It was dark grey. Fucking grey. Seemed to sum up my mood right then.
It was only when he sat next to me that I remembered he hadn't left.
"Look Tro, can you just leave me alone for a minute?" I asked never taking my eyes away from the grey.
I heard him shifting and the crinkle of paper. A folded piece of white paper blocked my view of grey.
"What's this?" I asked, not moving to touch it. Kind of afraid that he might snatch it back.
"A thank you," he replied, simply.
"What have I done to deserve thanks?" I asked looking up.
"You.." He paused frowning and I was kind of worried that he'd changed his mind about giving me whatever the piece of paper was.
"You understand."
I think that's the nicest thing he's said to me.
"Dinner will be ready in ten minutes also," he said as he climbed through the window back into the house.
I nodded then looked down at my folded bit of paper. It wasn't flimsy normal pad paper but paper from his sketchbook. Smiling slightly I picked it up and unfolded it.
He had gifted me with colour.