Disclaimers: What do you mean, I don't
own
Gundam Wing!?! Injustice! *sighs* I also don't own the
wonderful traditional Irish song "After the Ball". *runs off with katana
waving in air*
After the Ball
1/1
By Ekaterinn Ciel Duval
Quatre watched the couples
in fine aristocratic dress dance up and down the red and gold ballroom
below. From the second floor balcony, he could hear the rustle the
dresses and the suits made as their owners waltzed to the beautiful music
and plotted against each other. Politics. he thought, amused.
It's always politics. He placed his glass of red wine on
a table nearby. Despite the religious restrictions, Quatre drank
a little now. He found that, especially at social functions like
this, a bit of alcohol helped dull the pain of being alone in a crowd of
people. Oh, he could be down there, carrying on with the rest of
the peacocks and having the girls flock to him because, after all, he was
the young eligible heir of a massive fortune. But he didn't
wish it. There was only one person Quatre desired a dance with and
he, of course, wasn't here. Quatre didn't really mind. Really.
They had all built their own separate lives in the months after the horror
of the final battle with Libra. There had been no promises, no guilt
when each went their own way. There had never really been any before.
War was war and peace is peace. They had both understood that.
But without Trowa, all Quatre could be grateful for was the rare chance
to be truly alone with himself as himself, and not as as diplomat or a
politician.
As Quatre enjoyed the solitude,
he became gradually aware of a quiet, solid presence in the shadows at
the back behind him. But even as he started and begun to turn around,
Quatre already knew who it was...
Biting back a yelp of surprise,
Quatre jumped when a dark-haired enigma appeared in front of him.
"Oh, hi Trowa." he said with a sigh of relief, his hand moving away from
where his gun was. "You really shouldn't just appear at people like
that."
The green-eyed boy blinked
and Quatre become uncomfortably aware of how close Trowa was standing to
him "I'm sorry, Quatre."
"Don't worry about it."
Quatre smiled his warmest smile at this strange creature who made his heart
beat so fast. "You just startled me, that's all." As he looked
into the depths that were Trowa's eyes, Quatre frantically tried to keep
from blushing. It didn't work.
Hesitantly, Trowa brought
his hand up to Quatre's face and gently touched it. Quatre shivered.
"You're red." Trowa said in a curious, and yet somehow plaintive tone.
Quatre couldn't help it,
he blushed even more. "Yeah..."
"Is it...is it because
of me?" Trowa said softly, almost incredulously. Those deep green
eyes were suddenly full of longing and repressed loneliness. With
one eye still firmly on Quatre, he examined his hand upon the other pilot's
cheek, as if unsure what exactly do with it.
Quatre breathed deeply,
full of sudden joy and revelation. He had the answer that he had
cried to Allah for. He had found it in Trowa's eyes. And so,
before the other boy could decide to move his hand from the Arab's cheek,
Quatre grabbed hold of it and did something he had been dreaming of ever
since he first met the mysterious pilot.
He leaned in and kissed
Trowa.
"Hello, Trowa." Quatre spoke
easily, smiling his first true smile in weeks as he surveyed his past lover.
Trowa had done well for himself in the months after the war. He still
favored greens and browns, but he was wearing a well-cut shirt now and
khakis instead of his formerly habitual turtleneck and military pants.
Quatre could read less tension in him, though the former Heavyarms pilot
still had some that was oddly restrained at the moment. He hasn't
killed since the war and he's glad of it. But he's afraid he's going
to have to kill again soon. The blond empath realized.
Why
would that be? Quatre was puzzled, but shrugged it off in favor
of just enjoying the presence of his green-eyed love again. "It's
been too long." he told Trowa simply, knowing that questions like How have
you been? and Where are you living now? were unnecessary between them.
They had always thrived on unspoken communication, a fact that annoyed
Duo excessively when he made his frequent attempts to teach Heero to say
more than "Hn." or "Baka.".
As the orchestra started up
with a new waltz, Trowa opened his arms in response. "Shall we dance?"
he asked, his voice as rich as velvet as it always was before. Not
hesitating, Quatre slid into Trowa's arms as if he had never left.
When he heard the sharp intake of Trowa's breath as their skin touched
for the first time in too many months, Quatre realized that Trowa needed
this.
And by Allah, so do I. Their bodies pressed together, and they moved
slowly to the music. Dancing step after step in perfect unison, they
learned to lose themselves in the tangle of each other again
So do
I.
"What do you mean, you never
learned how to dance?" Quatre asked as he stared at Trowa disbelievingly.
A shrug of the shoulders.
"It was never a part of my training."
Quatre looked nonplused.
"But I thought...I mean, you're in a circus troupe right?"
A glint of rare humor came
into his lover's eyes. "I don't recall it have been said that having
knives thrown at you constitutes dancing."
Quatre giggled at that
despite himself. "Okay, you win." His smile turned mischievous.
"But now I get to teach you how to dance...because I, of course, am a very
fine dancer."
Trowa raised an eyebrow
and outstretched a hand for Quatre to take. "If you insist."
The Arab pilot took the
warm hand and pulled Trowa closer to him, close enough to hear his heart
beating. His voice was scarcely more than a whisper. "I do
so insist."
The waltz ended, as all waltzes
must end, and they broke away from each other. For a long moment,
the one time lovers looked at each other, content to be in each other's
presence once more. Softly, softly, Quatre murmured something into
the silence, never once taking his eyes off of Trowa. It was a snatch
of an old song that had become popular lately among the aristocratic circles
in which Quatre now tread. It had been stuck in his mind lately,
for no reason that he could fathom. Somehow, it just felt right to
breathe it now.
"After the ball is over,
Just at the break of dawn.
After the dance is ended
and all the stars are gone.
Many the hearts that's aching
If you could read them all.
Many the fond hope that's vanished,
After the ball."
And suddenly Quatre knew.
Now was the time to make his case, now was the time to speak
the truth. His heart was telling him so and it was high past time
he listened to it. Quatre leaned forward and grabbed the hands of
a very startled Trowa. "Trowa, listen." he entreated the former pilot
softly. "The war is over, but there's no need to let everything that
was good and comforting get lost in the memories of the pain and the bloodshed.
The war is over, but that is no reason to let our hearts be hurt nor let
our hopes be vanished. I see that now." Staring deeply in Trowa's
surprised eyes, Quatre prayed that he saw it too. "We need
each other, Trowa. You can read the truth in the way we moved with
each other. And so..and so if I asked you to stay..." Quatre drew
in a deep breath and prepared to ask a question that he had first asked
so long ago. "...would you promise me forever?"
"Look at them. They
spin like faraway beauties in the darkness. Like something eternal."
Quatre said softly as he pointed at the stars in the night sky, still wondrous
at seeing those points of lights from the Earth. He could feel Trowa
smiling at him and so he turned to face his lover, lying on the soft grass
beside him. Moving his hand, Quatre gently stroked Trowa's soft hair.
"You're so beautiful." the Arab said in quiet awe. "I love you."
Trowa took Quatre's hand
in his own and softly kissed it. "I love you too."
They laid, face to face,
in perfect silence for a while, taking comfort in that wordless way of
theirs. And then Quatre, with a hint of wishfulness in his voice,
asked "Will you promise me forever? Like the stars?"
Trowa stopped breathing
for a moment. "No." There was incredible sadness in his dark
eyes. "I can only promise you tonight." And Quatre just looked
at him. And accepted it.
Trowa looked down at the
grass, ashamed at speaking the truth. But then he felt Quatre's forgiving
arms around him and he allowed himself to be held by the lover he knew
he did not deserve. They laid curled up, holding each other, hands
placed firmly against each other's backs, for a long time. Later,
there was more than holding, more than simply touching. And somehow,
in the morning, it was all okay.
Trowa changed the position
of his hands so that they held Quatre's, instead of the other way around,
and squeezed them tight, as if he was afraid he would never get to hold
them again. "No." he said in a strained whisper, his eyes bright
with unshed tears. The tension Quatre had seen in him earlier was no longer
restrained. "I cannot even promise you tonight." He dropped
Quatre's hands and allowed his own to fall to his sides. Seeing the
hurt in Quatre's sea-blue eyes, Trowa turned his head away, ashamed at
having spoken the truth once again. "It's like this, Quatre." he
said quietly, staring at the wall. "The war may be over, but people
are still dancing." He finally looked at his love's pale face again.
"I just wanted to warn you." he finished brokenly.
Quatre looked at him with
concern. Gently, he kissed both of Trowa's cheeks where tears had
began to fall, tasting the saltiness on his tongue. Then he placed
a soft kiss on Trowa's lips and stepped away. "Do what you have to
do." he said, simply and quietly, through his eyes begged Trowa to tell
him more, to let him help.
Trowa half-smiled a thank
you for the unexpected understanding and moved towards the Arab once again.
"Just be careful, Quatre. In the months ahead, be careful." he said,
a little more in control this time. "I don't want to lose you."
He planted a chaste kiss on his only love's forehead. Quatre closed
his eyes in quiet acceptance.
When he opened them, Trowa
was gone.
~Fin~
