By Kasage Starrunner
Series: Gundam Wing
Genre: ????
Pairing: 3x4
Rating: ???Notes: This fic was inspired by the section of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio entitled "Hands". It is a brief chapter that centers around a former schoolteacher, who because of his hands was accused of molesting and driven, under the new name Wing Biddlebaum (an older man), who has many conversations with the reporter George Williard (and possible would-be relationship). The conversation in the garden and Trowa's history is based off a passage in that section. The book is the loose basis for this piece. It does take different turns. Also, I do not own Gundam Wing, or Quatre, or Trowa--unfortunately.
Hands
He had elegant hands. Fragile fingers extended from pearl-like knuckles under a layer of naturally tan, silken skin. He nails were mica, fluted like architecture over the tips of those sensitive wandering digits. They were like a musician's, not calloused as a guitar player, but gentle, like a flautist or pianist.
The hands were often in motion, often fluttering about in conversation, like so many wings extending from the branches of their perch. The arms, those branches, were barely there but for the hands.
They were Trowa's hands. Trowa Barton. They were strange, moving hands for a mysterious, enigmatic owner. The small town admired him for his hands. They picked crops fast. They admired him for his mystery, for he was their mystery--a proud piece of gossip. Whether he knew if they talked about him was unknown. He rarely spoke--a silent nodded, a gesture--his hands talked more than anything.
Trowa Barton hated his delicate, moving, gentle hands. He hated them more than the devil and wished they were blunt and callous--normal. Hands shoved in his trouser pockets, he walked down the street, and even in his own home he hid them. His face he hid as well, green eyes glinting from behind a curtain of auburn hair.
The women gossiped: "Did he have something to hide?"
If they'd asked him, he'd likely have only shoved his hands further into his pockets as a response.
A blonde boy stepped up upon the verandah, tucking his sullied papers and pen into the bag at his side. Sweat beaded on his face like dew and dripped down his skin underneath his collar. He coughed into his hands, uncertain of his intrusion. The long, feminine nails clicked, like a typewriter, and he fidgeted nervously.
In his fidget, a pale white hand traced the seams of his shirt, the buttons. The elegant fingers paused at his chest, feeling the slight reverberation of his heart beating rapidly.
/Breath, Quatre. It's not like this is a story.\
It felt, though like an intrusion. Even the most important front page stories of the newspaper didn't give him, Quatre R. Winner, the jitters. He wanted to turn and walk away, but guessed that the sharp green eyes behind the autumn curtain had already spied him, sweat bathing on the veranda.
The reporter gulped. What had intrigued him about Trowa Barton that led him to this door? It had felt like a magnet. The youth barely remembered walking there from his home. He should be at work. His father would be horrified at his lack of ambition.
White hand curled into a fist, and trembling reached back to knock on the door. He was about to plant the resounding knock, when the door opened. Quatre leapt back, a little alarmed, left hand still to his chest.
The emerald eyes glinted under the dark waterfall. Quatre felt his face redden, and glanced down, down to where the hands hid in Trowa's pockets. He glanced down to where the hands that had something to hide were hid in Trowa's pockets. He glanced down to the hidden hands, then up again to the cold eyes.
Trowa said nothing, just seemed to sigh, and turning into the house, left the door open for Quatre to follow. Quatre wondered why he didn't speak or why a hand didn't raise to motion him inside the dusty, wooden house. Small, leather clad feet moved forward unconsciously--out of the hot, white, light and into the cooler, dimness of shelter.
The tall thin man pulled out a chair and sat down, pulling his elegant hands from the pockets and hiding them under the table. Quatre sat with him and for a long time no one spoke. Quatre just looked over the room--the counters, the basket of berries, the half-clean floor, open windows with no breeze. He tugged his collar uncomfortably.
"You don't get … many visitors do you?" The high tenor voice quavered as he spoke. At once, he felt it was the wrong way to start a conversation.
"No."
Trowa looked out the window, escaping the inquisitive and fearful glance of the reporter. Quatre wondered if his eyes were looking out the window, or somewhere else entirely. The blond began to trace the wood grain on the table with his fingers, finding a face here, a rabbit there. He bit his lip as the silence grew more uncomfortable.
"I suppose you-"
"I know you're Quatre." The words said more. "It's a small town and everyone knows everyone." That was the real meaning, but Trowa didn't say it. He just fidgeted his hands under the table, and watched the blue eyes of the blond.
"I came … just to talk."
Trowa nodded and grabbed an apple from the fruit basket, passing one over to Quatre. He lifted it to his mouth tenderly, and bit with tiny bites, white teeth tearing into small pieces, juicing gather and spilling at the corners of his mouth.
"I hate this town," the blond spat suddenly. "Every day people farm or chatter nonsense about farming. I hate reporting here."
"It's quiet here."
"Too quiet." Quatre took another bite of his apple. "I hate reporting too. All facts and no art."
Trowa put his apple down. The hands lingered fearfully on it a moment, then moved to cup the brunette's chin. "Why do you work for the Eagle then?"
Quatre shook his head. "Its no choice of mine, Mr. Barton. If I had it my way, I'd go to the city and write--but …"
"But you have to do it?"
"Yes …" It felt like confessing a sin. Being handcuffed to his family was not something he was proud of. Quatre Winner was always taking orders from other people. Sometimes he wondered if he could even think for himself if he ever escaped.
Trowa stood and walked from the room, luring Quatre back into the outdoors. However, it wasn't as hot as before. They'd spent a long time saying nothing. The backside of the house was a small garden, a large oak tree near enough to walk to and sit under. Trowa patted at the ground beside him and the reporter sat, looking again at the curious hands.
/I should ask him now. I should ask him about those hands.\
"I've watched you, Quatre."
"Huh?"
"When one doesn't talk, you do a lot of listening--a lot of watching."
"Oh?"
Trowa nodded and looked at the sun, making a gold haze on the western horizon. "You spend too much time with other people and their dreams. Your father wants you to be rich, famous, make a good name for him, as he's already lost the chance to do it yourself. The paper wants you to put out a good article for their sake, not yours.
"You're a loner by nature. I've heard the violin at midnight. I know who plays it."
Quatre blinked. "I thought no one heard me play."
"You're a dreamer and you're afraid of it. You're afraid to be different: Afraid to be the golden strand among the cotton floss. You mimic and hurt inside because of it. You're unhappy and tearing all that is you apart."
"I-"
"You're a dreamer and afraid of dreams. These people, they don't have dreams, not like you. You're violin, the music, your voice at midnight …" The brunette drifted into thought and hummed softly to himself.
Quatre buried his head in his hands and thought. Trowa had never talked that much. In fact, he rarely saw him, until this visit. And the man knew so much! How? The head turned sideways to rest his cheek on his arm. Was Trowa a frightened dreamer too? Was he talking about Quatre or himself?
Trowa's hands fumbled through the grass, and spoke again, as though he had almost forgotten Quatre was there, or at least where they were. He himself was lost in a dream, and Quatre was swept up by it--by the dream and the resonating bass voice that carried it.
"People used to dream … When the sun stole gold upon the farms and shepherds still slept with their flocks guarding their herds from wolves. There were meadows and fair maidens and wise men--no one had thought to kill them yet. There was still a God, still angels, still heaven and heaven on earth.
"And here some men stole across the earth, some mounted on steeds and some on foot, wandering on stout legs across the plains and fields. They came by and by to a great tree in a tiny garden, where an old man waited for them. Wisdom, King Solomon they called him, waiting under an oak 500 years old and still growing."
Quatre rose in the same moment as Trowa, caught up in the scene. This garden and this oak was that garden and oak. And Quatre was the young men, and Trowa Solomon. Trowa was now utterly inspired in his own poetry. The hands escaped him and wandered in the air with his intonations.
The stole forth like elegant, predatory things--gentle predatory things. They stole forth like predators and lay themselves on the gently sloping shoulders of Quatre Winner. The blond felt the touch like electric and shivered. The voice was suddenly more powerful--revitalized by the movement of the hands. "And the wise man said, as I say unto you, " You must forget all that you have learned, all the ambition and obedience and blindness. You must open those heavy lids long closed to what is. You must open them and dream. Dream as though there were a hundred million years with which to dream. From this time on, you are deaf to the voices. Your soul speaks. You must …"
He paused and reached his hand to tossle the blonde's hair, to caress the soft face. Quatre leaned in, almost wanting the forbidden church. /I am deaf to the voices.\
A look of horror crossed Trowa's face. He leapt back suddenly, and shoving his hands back into his pockets turned swiftly and silently toward the house. His eyes glinted softly--forbidden touch, forbidden hands.
"I-I must get home. The cat … It-" He cut off and walked away, shutting the door behind him.
Quatre shivered. There was something wrong about those hands. Something he couldn't ask. He remembered the touch on his shoulders, the brief and passing excitement. Forbidden touch. All of the sudden he did not want to know the secret of those hands, lest it reveal a secret in himself.
Trowa had not always been Trowa Barton. No, he had not once been famous for his hands. It was more like infamous. Once he had been another name and a schoolteacher of boys--many not much younger than himself.
He couldn't explain it, but his hands were his gift. With those hands he could teach and he offered praise. The brunette, who's hair was short and standard then, would tossle a boy's hair, touch him gently on the shoulders or under his chin. They never seemed uncomfortable, and he never thought much about his hands. They extended in kindness and teaching to all of his students.
However, his hands, those unforgivable hands, were his downfall. One boy had taken his touch as more than gentle kindess. He had fallen in love with the teacher, like a child often does, only it was the more forbidden crush.
That was when the rumors started. Word passed that the teacher had abused his student. That he had touched him in ways it was not proper for a teacher to touch. They talked of passion and kisses and general molestation.
The student's infatuation had started it.
And one by one the teacher's students were questioned. They said the same thing: "One time he touched my head." "He played with my hair." "He embraced me once."
The teacher knew nothing of this, until it was to late. The owner of the saloon had a son--not the boy of the rumor, but another, and one night as the teacher walked back late from the school the man came out of nowhere, and attacked the poor youth.
The teacher had no way to defend himself and fell into a ball on the street, holding his head in the mischievous hands.
"Never touch my boy again." That was his warning and for a while it was enough.
It was not enough for long. He remembered the pain his hands had caused him. The men of the town, they had got together with a rope and threw stones at him. The stones his body and he ran and cried and bled.
Sympathy at tears halted them from the lynching, but the teacher lingered to long, and the chase began again. He was stoned until he could barely run away, but somehow managed it. Covered in globs of mud and bruises, nearly stripped naked, the nameless, former schoolteacher fell to the ground and wept into his hands, those fiendish hands. He vowed never to use them in kind gesture, never to stroke or touch again. It hurt him, but the stones hurt more.
So his hands hid in his pockets.
Quatre stared out the window at the strawberry fields. The berry pickers moved quickly to remove the ripening fruit, quickest of all Trowa Barton.
It was August, and it had been a month at least since Quatre had first spoke to the brooding, brunette. He still wasn't certain of what to make of their conversation, and he was still in the same town obeying his father's every whim. He hands clenched the window as his gaze followed the small figure of Trowa. The blond knew he needed to see him again, a fluttering in the heart. After that fluttering he always went to Barton's, and they talked long, but Trowa never again lifted his hands to touch the blonde's face. He only pounded them or hid them in pockets.
/I'm going to see him.\
Quatre stood and buttoned his shirt over his ivory chest, white fingers moving swiftly, though not as fast as Trowa's. He picked up the violin case, and scrambled down the stairs and out the door before anyone could chastise him for laziness.
He ran to the field, hoping to catch the brunette with the hidden hands before he finished his row and moved on to another. The small feet thudded across the clodded earth, maybe not thudded but skittered. He felt like he was flying, violin case catching the air and tugging him all the while.
Trowa saw him and smiled. Having Quatre to talk to was a blessing. He finished his row and walked toward the tow-haired youth. He shuffled slightly, but his cheeks were a little red from the sun, and that with the slight smile made him seem delightful.
They walked together down to the bank, silent for a long while. Quatre had by then become accustomed to long periods of time without words. They reached the river and the blond sat, Trowa following shortly. The pale young man opened the leather case and gently lifted his violin.
He cradled the instrument like a lover, tipping the end to his chin and the bow held at an elegant angle. He cradled it like a lover and began to play with passion. Like a lover Trowa watched with wonder, hypnotized by the soul, by the dream in the music. The slender hands escaped their mantle again, and began to play the air.
And Quatre continued to make music, eyes closed in a world of dreams, hands and fingers moving in caresses and wild strokes. He did not know the intensity with which the brunette gazed at him, unless it was reflected in the sound of the violin.
And then it trembled, and it faded. The blonde had felt the stare--the stare that extended into the caress of gentle, forbidden hands. The music was forgotten, violin replaced, and the hands lingered, Trowa's eyes lingered, Quatre's eyes lingered.
Hands lifted, fingers caressed, and bodies leaned inward. He blond closed his eyes waiting for something. But the hands jerked back, and Trowa gasped, lurching away.
Forget-me-not eyes opened, looking curiously at the brunette. "Don't," he whispered. "Touch me with those hands … I've never felt a touch like that."
Trowa Barton looked at the ground, hands in his pockets. "No, I shouldn't have."
Quatre scooted towards the stricken man, and twisted his own hands in the curtains of hair. "You are afraid of touch and love as I am afraid of dreams, aren't you."
Electric sensation. Quatre hadn't admitted to that as love until now. But here he was, hands in Trowa's hair, wanting to pour everything into him and get it all in return.
"You have beautiful hands, Trowa. So gentle …" Tears congealed in the pockets of the blond's eyes. Blue eyes, like blue water reflecting in the sun.
"My hands … beautiful?"
Quatre nodded, and leaned forward, wrapping his lips about Trowa's mouth. Like a whisper he released again. "You are what my dreams are made of. I won't fear you, my dreams, if you will stop fearing your hands …"
The brunette looked at his hands and sighed. They had caused him so much pain. Could they give him happiness?
He lifted them again from his pockets, tentatively because it was willingly. He first touched the sunbeams of Quatre's hair, then the gentle contours of his angelic face, down his neck to his shoulders and chest.
And he cried … Cried for the stones it took to get to this place. And the elegant, beautiful, kind hands were unbruised and free.
FIN