Title: The Round Table
Author: Daeleniel Shadowphyre
Feedback: darkone2813 at mindspring dot com
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Genre: General, Angst
Rating: G
Pairing: 1+2, 3+5
Summary: Quatre's dining room table was round.
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and related characters and themes belong to Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hajime Yatate, Bandai and Sunrise, and the Sotsu Agency. This is a non-profit work of fiction.
Notes: I was adamant that I would not write this. Honest, I was just going to pass this challenge by and ignore it, because it made my brain hurt. glares at Hexade Bloody challenge. So, yeah, ignoring it didn't work too well. glares at Inanna Bloody slave-drivers. Enjoy.
Dedication: To Hexade and Inanna-- I'm so much your minion it's not even funny.
Distribution: Ask, and ye shall receive.
Quatre's dining room table was round.
It was funny how important that detail seemed to be, sometimes. He remembered very clearly, back when he was hunting first for the apartment he now lived in and then for the furniture, that the dining room be large enough to accomodate ten people and the table for it must be round. He'd gotten it, too, although that was less surprising.
The table was well-worn by now, varnish chipping in places where someone was too rough with the cutlery, scratches and grooves marked at different places where plates had been haphazardly shoved out of the way as pen met paper to mark out diagrams or pinpoint an area on an unfolded map of some city or colony. That table was never just for eating, and everyone who saw it knew that without a doubt.
Places changed, of course. Whoever had been designated the cook for that "group night" always sat in the chair directly opposite the door, so the seating rotated accordingly. And even though they never had the same chair twice in a row, they did have unofficially assigned seats.
Whoever cooked was always the last to sit down, so the others always arranged themselves according to that seat. Duo always sat to the left of Heero. Trowa sat on Heero's other side with Wufei next to him to keep Wufei and Heero from arguing. Quatre sat between Wufei and Duo for much the same reason.
It worked well, having everyone sit adjacent of everyone else. Near but not pressingly so. Close without being trapped and suffocated. Quatre suspected that each of his friends had their own interpretation for the table and where they sat, and that was fine with him.
And if he occasionally felt a little uneasy when Duo started playing footsie with Heero, or when Trowa and Wufei would glance at each other and sort of smile, well... that was easily shoved back where he couldn't think about it. Because that was fine, too. He knew that Heero and Duo were in love, just as he knew about Wufei and Trowa dating. It was fine with him. Just fine.
Because Quatre didn't know what he'd do if it wasn't.
- Owari -