The Game of Hide and Seek (Part Twenty-Five)
There was a horrible, incessant poke being delivered to his side, forcing him to move away from the disturbance. He was fairly sure that it was still far too early in the morning to be up and about. The last time he blinked an eye open, he noticed that the sun was not even up.
"Five more minutes," Trowa murmured into his pillow. Absolutely nothing would deter him from sleeping another three or so hours. It was a Saturday after all and it was his God given right to sleep in.
"You promised him, remember? Now get up!"
Trowa turned to his back, away from the pillow he'd grabbed on to with his arms. There was no better wake up call than that. After all, he did promise Duo that he would go with the other to some orphanage that morning. There was something about delivering groceries, giving money, playing with kids and all that, but what he was really interested in was the part about doing Quatre a favor as so explicitly stated by Duo. Somehow, Quatre found his hands full with helping his niece pick a dress for a dance she was going to that night. Quatre couldn't go, so Duo needed a replacement.
"Heero, maybe you should go alone."
Of course, Trowa was not so naive. He noticed that Duo was really into his new boyfriend, the reason why he had invited Trowa in the first place. He knew Trowa didn't drive but that Heero did. If Trowa came, Heero would have to come on the account that they'd have no transportation. Duo did get a little sly sometimes and a bit underhanded. Too bad Heero was with Trowa and not him.
"What, are you too good for charity work?"
Trowa pursed his lips. Heero had a way of forcing him to do things, just like the way he forced the two of them together into their pseudo-relationship. Maybe it wasn't completely fake, but the way Trowa had found himself in a relationship in the span of thirty-six hours was a little suspicious. He felt like he'd been manipulated somehow. Nevertheless, Heero was a great guy and Trowa was not one to let great guys get away. Quatre had been the only exception.
"Fine, fine, I'm getting up," Trowa muttered. When he'd volunteered (or rather, when he'd been coerced) to help, he was not informed that he had to be up by five-thirty. He didn't know that Quatre and Duo did charity work at six on a Saturday morning. They could have picked a better time. Duo didn't look at all like the type to be up and running in the wee hours of the morning when he'd been dancing and drinking the night before. Quatre was a different story. He could imagine the guy running from sun up 'til sun down non-stop.
"Hurry up, we still have to pick Duo up," Heero said, picking up discarded pieces of clothing along the way. Trowa, still disgruntled from his disturbed sleep, kicked a few of them further away from Heero's reach. It was a meager form of revenge but still revenge nonetheless.
"Damn, why do you have to be such a little kid? You're like Quatre on one of his temper tantrums."
"Wait, temper tantrums?" Trowa inquired, poking his head out of the bathroom door. With a toothbrush attached to his mouth, the question was a bit hard to understand.
"Get back in there and in the shower. I've been waiting for you to wake up all morning," Heero replied, exasperated. He continued cleaning up around Trowa's room. Several clothes were deposited in the hamper before Trowa's bed began to look relatively neat. "I've already told you a dozen times before," Heero continued. "Quatre's a little brat, the devil incarnate."
"Uh uh, I don't think so," Trowa half yelled from the showers. The spray of water was making his responses difficult to hear, but he kept going because he knew that Heero would hear him anyway. The other man had an uncanny sense of hearing, just like the way he had an uncanny sense of where to be at the right time to get perfect shots of popular people. Because of that, his camera was never three feet away from him. That was something to keep in mind if they ever got into an argument.
"Trowa..."
Trowa was surprised when the shower curtain was violently pulled open, so that he felt a cold gush of wind touch his drenched skin. The only viable option was to pull the curtain toward himself to protect his skin from both the cold and the straying eyes.
"I don't know which Quatre you're talking about, but the Quatre I know is the most selfish person I know," Heero said as a matter of fact. The intense blue of his eyes showed his determination and a bit of his annoyance. It forced Trowa to agree with him on at least some level.
"Ok, so maybe he was a brat. He may have changed, you know," Trowa defended. To him, Quatre would always be perfect, always be good. If only he could explicate his claims as well as Heero always did.
"There's no changing your mind, is there?" Heero asked before leaving the bathroom.
Trowa did not answer because that much was obvious. He did feel a little dejected whenever the Quatre topic came up. In spite of everything, he still thought about Quatre on occasion and not having seen the other for almost three months was a little too much. He was hoping that the always busy man would show up at the orphanage after having miraculously finished shopping with his niece. He knew it was unlikely, but he could at least hope.
oOo
The ride from Duo's place to the orphanage had been longer than expected. Trowa was a little too delighted when they arrived at their destination because he was uncomfortable around Duo. Duo was forward, a little too forward for his tastes. It was obvious that he was attracted to Heero with the way he always reached for the other. Trowa had been shoved to the back seat without as much as a protest from him. Perhaps he needed to be a little more vocal. But then, it made him feel a little better that Heero never responded to any of Duo's advances.
"I'm here!" Duo screamed to the top of his lungs when he exited the vehicle. A number of dogs started barking and a few alley cats hissed with annoyance. Trowa looked around just to make sure that they did not end up waking up the entire neighborhood.
"Do you have to be so loud?" Heero asked. He sounded a bit irritated himself. He probably lacked sleep.
Before Duo could respond, they were greeted by an open door filled with different sized children squeezing into any space left open by a kind looking nun. She looked genuinely delighted at their arrival, but as soon as the kids figured out that Duo brought along the wrong person, war started to break out.
"Where's Uncle Quatre?" a few demanded. A pint-sized girl started to examine Trowa. It made him uneasy, especially when the little girl was joined by a few others.
"Why don't you fix your hair?" a boy barely reaching his hip questioned. He gave Trowa a disgusted look, to which Trowa shied away. Nobody had been so blunt before. The scrutiny of the children was certainly something not to be trifled with.
"Everyone, pipe down," the nun from earlier commanded while Duo started to pick them up one by one and deliver them to the inside of the house. It seemed to be a lost cause since the ones who'd made it to the inside of the house ran back out the door.
"These are Quatre's friends so you should treat them the same way you treat Quatre," the nun added. "Quatre would be very disappointed if he found out that you were disrespecting them."
"Especially that one," a tiny voice interrupted.
Trowa paused when he realized that a finger was being pointed at him and it wasn't just anyone pointing at him. It was a little girl with the deadliest set of eyebrows he had ever seen.
"Dot, you aren't targeting Trowa by any chance, are you?" Duo asked as he warily approached the little girl. Her chubby finger continued to pinpoint Trowa like an arrow dead set on its target. Dot did not answer and merely snubbed everyone before making her way to the inside of the house with as much dignity as a queen to her throne. Trowa heaved a sigh of relief.
The girl's words seemed to be the catalyst that prompted the rest of the children to behave and follow her inside. The nun immediately made sure that he was alright and assured him that all her wards were good children, if a bit eccentric at times. Trowa nodded at everything she said and followed the rest of them. It was not until they reached the front door that Duo pulled him aside. Heero decided to stay behind as well.
"Watch out for the kid," Duo warned, indicating the girl with the pointed eyebrows. "She stabbed Quatre with a fork once."
To that, Heero laughed. It was a striking contrast to the look of pure horror on Trowa's face.
"What?" Trowa said, hoping that it had been a plastic fork and hoping that she didn't turn on him next.
"I'm serious, man. The kid took a metal fork and stabbed Quatre's lower leg, right in the muscle."
Trowa winced before giving Heero a look of reprimand. Heero had no choice but to stop laughing although he still looked amused by the story of Quatre's demise.
"That must have hurt," Trowa said, shaking his head.
"Are you crazy? Of course it did! But Quatre didn't even wince, just pulled the thing out and wrapped the wound with his tie. Look, I know you guys don't have as high a tolerance to pain as Quatre does so I suggest that you watch yourselves around the kid."
"I like the kid already," Heero said, smiling as he made his way to the inside the house.
However, Trowa still felt a little wary, especially since he'd been turned into the next target as Duo had suggested earlier. Like the normal living, he wasn't quite ecstatic about experiencing pain. He wanted to make sure that he'd leave the place with all his muscles in tact. With wide eyes, he followed the rest of his companions and almost toppled over when he was surrounded my multitudes of little people.
"Good. I have buffers," Trowa said as he watched all his unaware bodyguards attach themselves to him.
For the most part of the morning, Trowa did nothing but read until his eyes bled of the tales of cows, and sheep, and various crows consuming pie. By the time he had finished every story in his chosen book, Mother Goose was crying with the way he'd butchered her character's voices. Nevertheless, he was able to calm himself down. The infamous child, Dot as she was called, was lying low giving him reason to be a bit more carefree. He did enjoy the energy that came from the children and imagined Quatre in his place. After all, it was Quatre's place he was taking over. It made him smile imagining Quatre reading with all the silly voices.
"Trowa, do me a favor and get the groceries from the trunk of the car," Heero said, interrupting his musings.
"Uh, sure," Trowa said quickly, catching himself before he started daydreaming again.
It seemed that Quatre was a very easy source of distraction. As much as he wanted to stop, he couldn't. He supposed that Duo was right when he said that Quatre was someone who was hard to get over. He was always there, lingering at the back of his mind. Sure, he was with Heero now and Quatre had turned him down more than once before, but there was at least a little bit of hope that Quatre would change his mind someday.
"Yeah, like that will ever happen," Trowa muttered, swinging Heero's keys in his index finger as he made his way to the parked car.
"Maybe it could happen if you wish hard enough."
Trowa jumped, unsure of where the voice was coming from. It had been the second time that day and it was really beginning to scare him.
"Trowa Barton, I presume," the little voice said, forcing him to look down. At the length of his waist, he saw a strikingly little girl run her hands through golden strands the same color as Quatre's. The hair was long and combed as was the definitive eyebrows that broke its path halfway down the line.
"I, uh... Yes, that would be me," Trowa answered uneasily. He'd been more scared earlier. Now, he was just intimidated. Despite looking around nine, the girl spoke and carried herself like an adult.
"Dorothy Catalonia although everyone calls me Dot. I'm pleased to meet you," she continued with the same air of regality. "Quatre has told me a lot about you."
Trowa's uncertainty turned into curiosity. Quatre talking about him was a great honor.
"Really?" Trowa asked, wondering just what Quatre told her about him.
"Really," she echoed. "You are quite handsome."
Trowa tried to control himself. It was a little embarrassing to blush in front of this child.
"I can tell that he likes you."
"He... talks to you about me?"
Little Dot gave him a light laugh, flinging her long hair backwards in the process. She seemed amused by his sincerity, in the way he was so uncertain and yet giddy with secret delight.
"You're all he talks about," Dot answered him. Trowa felt his stomach flutter. It may have been his lack breakfast, but then again, it may have been something else. "It wouldn't hurt you to visit him, you know. He misses you."
"Did he really say all that?" Trowa asked with surprise. He'd thought that Quatre thought of him as a useless distraction who concocted vaccines for his sisters. At least that was the message he got whenever Quatre refused him.
"No. But it's obvious whenever he talks about you," Dot answered. She giggled, finally letting out the little girl in her, making her look more her age.
"Wait, I have to know... did you really stab him?"
Trowa took a chance. The girl who seemed familiar with Quatre surely did not do as Duo had said. Although she looked threatening, she seemed too dignified for such an act. She seemed so smart too, like the type that would be beyond such brutality. Besides, she was a kid. There was no way she could have done something that horrible.
"If you have to know, I did stab him."
The answer was so clear Trowa almost did not believe it.
"But why?"
"He was falling asleep," she answered. Her response was childlike and innocent. There was no malice in her tone of voice.
"He was falling asleep?" Trowa tried to confirm.
"He was running out of medicine."
Taking a step back, Trowa thought about it further. Medicine? The girl must have been talking about Q30ZO. He always knew there was something wrong with the formulation. A lack of it would paralyze its recipient for a certain period of time. For the little girl to snap Quatre out of it with a stab - it was a little overboard but it did do the trick.
"You knew?"
"I also know that he feels sorry," she continued.
"Excuse me?"
"He likes getting hurt because he's sorry for all the things he's done. He tells me that it's never enough and that he hopes that someday, he'll be forgiven and that you'll accept him for who he is."
Trowa was unsure whether the child knew what she was talking about. The words did, however, hit Trowa right in the gut. He felt shamed for not realizing it sooner. Of course, Quatre couldn't have possibly enjoyed all the brutality he witnessed in that hotel room that day. All the cuts and the bruises became so vividly painted in his mind. Quatre wanted to get hurt as his form of repentance. It may have been too extreme, but it was a plausible reason. From the first time he examined Quatre's eyes, all he could see was a shining pool of blue and green that was probably filled with feelings of guilt.
"Tro, what's taking so long? Need help with the groceries?" Duo arrived not five seconds later with Heero right behind him. "Woah, you didn't scare him off, did you, Dot?"
"Nope," Dot responded before merrily making her way to the inside of the house.
"Honestly, Heero, I think that kid's evil. Look. She spooked Trowa out. Now he won't snap out of it. Trowa? Hey, Trowa?"
"That must be it," Trowa said, unmindful of what his companions thought.
"What must be it?"
Quatre felt responsible and he was compensating for whatever it was he thought he lacked by disregarding himself. It was that simple and all that time, Trowa couldn't figure it out. He had to fix the problem somehow.
"I need to see Quatre," he blurted out. He knew Heero was with him but there was no reason for him to hide it. Heero knew how he adored Quatre. The question was - why did Heero not mind? Did Heero really not care about his adoration or did he have something else in mind. Perhaps he was being used to get back at Quatre for something. If so, Heero probably mentioned it offhandedly a few times before, but there was so much going on in his mind that he didn't even want to think about it.
"We'll try to find him Trowa. Snap out of it. I'll contact him as soon as we get back," Heero assured him. "Either that or he's roaming around that lab of yours anyway."
"Geez, this is so messed up," he heard Duo say. "You sure she didn't poison you or anything?"
Trowa shook his head, helping his two companions bring the groceries into the house. All the while there was only one thought on his mind - he really did miss Quatre a lot.