SWEET DARKNESS
Part 7
Despite the late hour, there were people in the corridors, everyone high on adrenaline after the fight. Treize entered the recreation room, the voices from there loud and heated. The air was thick and bluish with cigarette smoke and there were twenty or so people there, half of his team, crowded around the TV transmitter. He knew they would be watching.
They moved when he came in, their eyes intent, and Treize nodded to them briefly.
"They blame us for this thing with the minefield," someone said.
Even though Treize was ready for these words, they still hit hard. He did his best to sound calm, to sound confident - and was satisfied with the result.
"You know they would. They're desperate to make someone responsible - and we're just too convenient a target."
"And morphs want us to give them back all the hostages," another man said derisively.
"They can't even count their own men, don't know how many we took, if any!"
"The hell we'll going to give the slut back. Only piece by piece, maybe."
Treize listened to them, smiling faintly; it was good they were like this - sure, enthusiastic. They couldn't afford thinking about failures - if they wanted to keep fighting.
It was actually in the quest of Wufei as much as to check on the people's mood Treize had come here - but Wufei was not there, unsurprisingly. Wufei never liked crowds, preferred to be alone- the reason why, even though the boy had everyone's respect, he hardly had any friends.
It'll change, Wufei, Treize promised silently. After everything will be over, I'll take care of that. You'll have friends, you'll have life - everything that a boy of your age should have.
"Sir..." someone hailed him. "Do you think the Board will get in contact with us?"
So far the contacts from the EB were sheer ultimatums... as well the Board's participation in the siege of the planet, together with morphs. Treize smiled, touching the man's shoulder.
"What do you think yourself, Jackson? It's a long way till then - but one day it'll happen."
A few more men entered the room, loud, discussing something excitedly. There was a weird smell clinging to their bodies, the one that Treize refused to admit feeling, even though it made his stomach lurch involuntarily. He saw them notice him and stop, their eyes feverishly bright but their voices dying away.
He moved to the door, caught one of the newcomers by the sleeve, asked in a low voice:
"Have you seen Wufei Chang?"
He wanted the man to say 'no', for some reason - but he knew what the answer would be.
"Yeah." There was a broad, nearly delirious smile on the man's face. "He's with the morph. I tell you, sir, it was a good idea to take him. Let one of those bastards try their own medicine..."
Treize jerked his hand back abruptly, letting the man go. It was what he'd expected, wasn't it? He knew Wufei, after all. But he also hoped Wufei had enough presence of mind... not to do anything... too bad.
He rushed down the steps to the basement, the sound of his boots on the stone loud and hasty - half in a warning for those down there: not to let him catch them doing something that would make him angry. Only Wufei was never afraid of him, that's the thing...
The basement premises were chillier than the upper ones but also more stuffy - the ventilation in the building didn't work so well. And sand was everywhere, covering the floor, crackling under his feet as Treize walked along the corridor.
They didn't take his approach as warning - and in the end it was even worse than he expected. The smell assaulted his senses as he walked in - unbearable in a tiny room. The men didn't seem to notice it, however - which Treize could explain - carried away as they were. Two of his people - and Wufei perched on the edge of the table, his hands buried in the wide sleeves of the jacket. He must've been the only one who heard Treize approaching - and didn't react at it, didn't let the others know.
Well, as if Treize could expect anything else from him.
He stopped at the doorway, glaring at the men - and they noticed him finally; one of them backed away from the morph hastily; for the other it took a bit more time as he had to disengage himself, then rearrange his clothes.
"Fuck... sir..."
Idiots; stupid idiots. Treize felt anger seize him - at the sordidness of the situation, at his obligation to deal with it. He leaned against the doorjamb, feeling how the dank air of the room was suffocating him. Couldn't they spare him from looking at their brutal entertainment?
"Sorry, sir... didn't see you..." the men said breathlessly, zipping his pants.
"You may go." He prided himself on his voice sounding levelly. They walked past him out of the room and Treize felt this smell again, coming from them. Arousal... blood, sweat and semen. Was he too clean to understand it, as Wufei always scolded him - and too far from understanding to approve it?
Just three of them stayed now - he, Wufei and the morph - and Wufei shifted lightly on the table, his thin figure seeming to consist just of angles and hard lines. His eyes met Treize's, unrepentant.
"You're crazy, aren't you?" He couldn't help saying that. Wufei looked like he expected Treize to lecture him - and what else could Treize do, anyway? "You know we wanted him to testify. No one will believe he tells the truth and does it willingly after what you've done. He's of no use for us any more!"
"Morphs heal fast." Wufei's mouth curved shortly - and then the boy jumped down from the table, walked up to the prisoner. "But it's not the point. He's of no use for us anyway."
The morph's body was limp, suspended on the arms wrenched behind his back, the flow of his hair nearly brushing the floor as his head sagged. His uniform jacket was gone and the shirt was shredded, half-deliberately, half during the beating, Treize realized - but his pants were lowered on purpose, no doubt of that - down to his chained, pulled apart ankles.
"No one will believe him all the same," Wufei said wrapping the morph's long hair around his palm and yanking the man's head back.
The morph must've been exhausted, barely conscious as he submitted to Wufei's gesture without struggle. His blood-smeared face, raised to Treize, was blank, with fluttering eyelids over the eyes full of pain and shock in black pupils and blue irises. Blue...
A moment later Treize understood what Wufei meant. The morph's features had no sign of his origin in them; no outturned nostrils demonstrating nasal passages - no vein-lined pallid skin. The morph was pale - looked sick, in fact - but the color of his skin was white, not greyish.
"We were lucky to take a morph who doesn't look like a morph and no one will believe what he is," Wufei said sardonically, letting the man's hair go.
He'd been wearing a helmet, Treize thought. A question nearly left his lips - if the man was really a morph, not some traitor. But of course, he was; there was enough of his blood everywhere to witness for that; purple - not red. The man's hands were deformed as well, the fingers too long - bloodied now as he must've clawed on his cuffs.
"Sucks, doesn't it?" Wufei said.
"It's all right," Treize found himself saying, denying that the note of irony in Wufei's voice hurt him; as if it was Treize who'd chosen to take this particular morph with them - as if it was all his fault. "We still have other means to prove our case, other evidence..."
Wufei's ink-black eyes looked at him with that strange expression that both maddened him and made him feel weak in his knees: both affectionate and contemptuous. As if between them two it was Treize who was young and immature - and Wufei was adult and knowledgeable.
"What I want to say, Treize, is that you don't need to worry your pretty head about damage control. The morph is worthless; and he'd never known much anyway, he was rather a dummy there... honorable Zechs Merquise... He told us everything he knew, it wasn't difficult to make him talk. But we can't use him to testify - so, I don't see a reason why our people shouldn't have some fun."
Why shouldn't they? Treize wondered about it. He hated morphs, wanted to see as many of them dead as possible. But not like this... he didn't want this to be done. To one of his captives. By his people. It was what defined them as human, wasn't it? Kept them from crossing that line of inhumanity he thought so much about.
But, maybe, it was just theorizing. Maybe, he didn't understand. His people's anger demanded more than just shooting a few of morphs during the attack. His people wanted something more tangible - like an impact of their fists against a responsive body, like hearing their enemy's voice crying out in pain, begging them for mercy. Like this smell of blood that made Treize really sick but probably excited others even more.
"You can stop worrying and go drink yourself to sleep now, Treize," Wufei added coldly, defiantly. Treize didn't react to the insult - it was too deliberate and he had more important things to say.
"You offered them all to participate in it, didn't you?"
Wufei's face was tranquil, his figure so narrow, brittle as he stood with his arms wrapped around himself. The chained morph's head dropped again. Blood and sperm kept rolling down over the morph's thighs and Treize looked away; this sight was too much for him.
"Only those who wanted," Wufei said brightly. "Unsurprisingly, there were quite a lot of them. But you didn't give an order forbidding it, did you, Captain?"
It was true; he didn't.
"I thought it went without saying that you wouldn't... wouldn't abuse and rape a prisoner."
These were wrong words, he knew it - and the payback was swift. Wufei's face changed, his lips spread in a sweetest smile, his voice sounding just too kind.
"Oh really? And I thought, on the contrary, it went without saying that a prisoner always gets raped and abused. Stupid me! I must've misunderstood something... in my time."
"Don't fool around, Wufei!"
Treize bit his tongue not letting his voice break, said the words through clenched teeth. Wufei's dark eyes in meagre light of the basement scintillated.
"Fool around? I don't think there's anything to be called 'fooling around' here. Anyway, we didn't harm him so much, did we? Morphs can bear more than humans, it's well known. And twenty men or something is what even a human can bear... even a boy."
Treize felt splitting headache; how unfalteringly Wufei could aim in his soft spots. How well he knew where Treize's soft spots were... a hint, a reminder - to spur his memory, to make pain flood him. Treize wondered if reminding hurt Wufei as much as it hurt him; very possibly it did. Only his boy never showed the pain.
"But if you feel so sorry for him," there was deceptive mildness in Wufei's voice - mildness that Treize didn't believe but couldn't avoid being affected with, "if you think he shouldn't suffer for what he and his race did... Well, since we don't need him for testifying anyway, I don't see any problem with releasing him. Release him, Treize. Show your humanity you like to talk so much about."
Oh God... There had been times when talking about humanity, about future were not just a travesty for Wufei. There had been times when they could talk... kiss and talk.
Wufei's glimmering eyes didn't leave him, a little half-smile turning the corners of his mouth - and under this stare Treize reached for his gun. He knew what Wufei meant under release - never misunderstood him; there was no other way to let the morph go. The handle lay in his hand smoothly, habitually. He stepped towards the morph and reached for his hair.
The long strands were soft and smooth, silky even despite the sand in them. Treize pulled on them, making the morph raise his head. The bloodied face, so unbearably human, was tilted up to him now, the morph's blue eyes with hugely dilated pupils looking at him.
The creature was almost beautiful, Treize thought absently; by human standards, of course - the features clean, nearly delicate, the mouth small and pink. And those long black eyelashes trembling over the widened eyes. The morph's lips were split badly, the bruises on his face dark and cruel - and this damage strangely made him look younger... more vulnerable.
Treize raised the gun.
"Zechs... Merquise?" Wasn't it the name of the morph Wufei mentioned? The dark eyelashes, so long they seemed to be made up with mascara, fluttered as the man's eyes widened, locked on the gun. Treize pressed the muzzle to Zechs' forehead. The morph shivered minutely, letting Treize feel how he tried to withdraw involuntarily. "You're to be executed for your crimes."
The words came out almost softly - and indeed he didn't need to raise his voice, so close they stood. The morph's eyes looked in his, blinking; the man didn't say a word, didn't ask what right Treize had to judge and execute him.
Maybe, he understood as well that killing him now would mean sparing him from everything that could've waited for him here, in captivity, Treize thought; from Wufei's frenzied revenge, from others' anger. For a moment Treize took his gaze away from the morph's face and glanced at the boy. Wufei's face was an expressionless mask, his long slanted eyes focused on Treize, unblinking. And even though his lips didn't move, Treize felt as if he could hear Wufei's hard voice in his mind:
"Release him. Yeah right, spare him. Give him an easy death... what had never been given to me."
The right to judge and execute... did Treize really have it? The revenge is mine... Wufei could judge - others who suffered from morphs could judge. But him, Treize?
He felt familiar despair flood him. The gun was pressed to Zechs' forehead, the morph's head immobile in Treize's grip and Treize could count the seconds passing - by his own heartbeats, by the blinks of the morph's darkened eyes, by the shallow gasps falling from Zechs' lips. He knew already he wouldn't shoot.
Treize hit with the handle; the sound of the morph's broken jaw was sickening, the impact reverberating through Treize's wrist. As the morph's head fell, a trickle of blue blood sliding from the corner of his mouth under the white net of hair, Treize stepped away and tucked the gun back.
He was at loss for words for a few moments, not knowing how to explain cruelty - or weakness - of his decision - but as it turned out, the words were not necessary. Wufei's eyes glowed, looking at him - warm, nearly gentle.
"Well done, Captain."
Treize wanted to argue, to say that his choice didn't imply that Wufei and others were free to continue with their practices now - but it did imply and he knew it, so, he spared his breath.
Lightly, gracefully, Wufei moved towards him, as near as it was only possible between them, with Wufei's shoulder almost touching Treize's. The boy raised on tiptoes, for his mouth to be on the level of Treize's ear, whispered barely audibly the words Treize knew he would hear, wanted to hear so much:
"Go to my room. I'll be shortly."
Shortly... after just enough time to initiate some other cruel game with the morph. But together with bitterness, there was embarrassing, undeniable heat that filled Treize, washed him from head to toes. Wasn't it in expectation of these words that he'd done - or, rather, hadn't done what he was going to?
"Get ready," Wufei whispered.
He would be. The blindfold; the cuffs locked on his wrists and ankles - things done habitually, almost automatically. Things that could seem a kinky S&M game if Treize didn't know their point, didn't know that it all was to make Wufei feel safe, to make Treize unable to reach to him, to touch him... the only way Wufei could be with him.
He walked out of the room, sand screeching under his boots, with just one glance back. Wufei didn't look at him by now, gathering some things of the table; and the morph's head was lowered, his long hair obscuring his face again, as purple blood soaked into the ground between his feet.
***********************************************************
Time was running away like sand through his fingers and all he could do was just watch it impotently, desperately. But even despair lost its edge with the weakening of his body. Nearly two weeks of fever had worn him out - Trowa had never felt so feeble and vulnerable before.
Surely, J and Wataru tried to do their best - but little depended on them. The only one who could change something for Trowa was Treize but day after day passed with him saying the same thing: no corridor opened yet, they had to wait. He knew Treize didn't lie - the man knew how important the vaccine was, said he would do everything for it to be delivered, and Trowa believed him. It was just the fate that turned this way; ill fate.
Trowa knew Quatre had recorded his testimony and it was sent to whomever Treize sent his messages - the Board, the Parliament, media. He'd never known what Quatre had said there; on that morning the boy had been so nervous that couldn't put the buttons through the buttonholes of his shirt.
"Would you like me to go with you?" Trowa asked almost unexpectedly for himself. There was no reason why Quatre would want him there, and nothing threatened the boy... and when did he become Quatre's self-appointed protector, anyway?
Quatre made a small gasp, looking at Trowa with the weird mixture of guilt and hope in his incredibly expressive eyes - then shook his head.
"It's 'kay. I'd better do it... on my own."
Trowa just nodded; he really didn't want to be there. For some reason the thought of Quatre's childish voice recounting everything that had been done to him made him feel ill. Of course, the past was there, wasn't going to go anywhere...
Trowa didn't know how many others among Treize's people had heard Quatre's statement - and talked to Treize as soon as he could.
"Order your people to stay away from him, sir, so that no one dared to... to force him. I know one can think that if he was what he was, it's possible to use him. But no one must touch him here... unless he wants it himself."
"You can take it for granted," Treize said seriously. "The boy is safe with my men. They'd never do him any harm."
Trowa wanted to ask about Zechs at that moment, what happened to the morph - but he never managed to make himself say this name. He never, never wanted to hear about Zechs Merquise again, never wanted to think about the morph.
He and Quatre were given a place at the infirmary, those two beds where they'd spent the first night. The big room was generally empty, so, they had it all for themselves. And while Quatre used to wander around the building, Trowa seldom walked out, mainly because he wasn't sure in his strength any more. It'd happened once that his legs gave up somewhere on the way and one of Treize's men had to carry him back to the bed - and Trowa didn't want it to occur again.
His world seemed diminished this way: to faintly waving nets around him, to J's and Treize's visits... and to Quatre's presence that Trowa didn't notice how he started liking or needing. To himself, Trowa explained it with Quatre's own words he remembered from prison time - when Quatre had said he wanted to be near to Trowa because it was for such a short time, because soon Trowa would be gone from him.
Maybe, it was that - he would be gone soon. Whether he would leave to deliver the vaccine - or whether it'd be departure to death - it was just a matter of days either way. Soon they'd part and Trowa wouldn't see him again. He wondered if the aching feeling he had when thinking about it was regret. Regret of not seeing again the pale tender face, its features so cute and its mournful eyes of such un-childish seriousness - of not hearing the high-pitched voice asking another one of those annoying questions:
"Why did you get up? Didn't J tell you to stay in bed? Look, you'll lose your IV!"
Or:
"Do you want peach cake? It's soft."
"I can chew, I can't swallow," Trowa said angrily.
There was always some kind of cake or cookies Quatre was gnawing at; the cook apparently had a soft spot about him. Maybe, quite a lot of insurrectionists did - maybe, Quatre reminded them of their children or younger brothers.
A part of Trowa's mind was glad to know that Quatre was safe and well liked here; but a part of him tinged with a confused emotion he couldn't find a name for until realized one day it was jealousy. It was unfamiliar, absurd - because what kind of jealousy he could feel about the boy who was nothing for him, about a former - and, maybe, future prostitute? He had other things to worry about, much more important things than to think about those whom Quatre's mind and body might belong.
But nights were the most difficult time to direct his thoughts the right way. And it was at night when, in fever, Raymond Dien's face appeared in front of him and Trowa felt guilty and desperate more than ever that he hadn't done anything yet, that there was a chance he wouldn't be able to do anything.
Trowa had already decided that if he couldn't deliver the vaccine, if he failed - he wouldn't have it removed to stay alive, as Doctor J offered him to do. He didn't need his life like that - in shame, in failure. It nearly enraged J - his refusal.
"What did I say? A fanatic!"
"You're not supposed to know about that stuff at all," Trowa said weakly. "And I'm sure Treize didn't tell you."
Well, J obviously knew everything now; and Quatre knew as well - Trowa just declined every attempt of the boy to talk about it. He didn't need Quatre to feel sorry for him; he didn't deserve pity if he was to fail... and he'd have his award if he got back to the Order.
At night Trowa lay listening to the jingle of springs in Quatre's bed as the boy tossed and turned unceasingly. For someone so light, Quatre certainly made awfully much noise in his sleep. As if fighting someone... so close and yet not close enough.
The truth was sometimes Trowa missed the necessity of their forced intimacy, like in the prison cell, when they went asleep with their limbs tangled and feeling the breath of each other. It wasn't cold at the infirmary - no reason for them get close. So, there was just Quatre's usual forwardness as he sometimes flopped on Trowa's bed - or a reached hand in the darkness catching Trowa's as Quatre babbled sleepily of some places he'd seen or some things he'd done.
And when one morning Trowa found Quatre in his bed, curled on the blanket, he tried not to think about the joy that fluttered inside him. He turned, spooning against the boy, and pretend sleeping.
* * *
"It's going to storm tonight." J dropped two respiratory masks on their beds. "Put them on when it starts."
"Is it going to be so sandy here?" Trowa raised his eyes from a medical book; whether he was going to die in a few days or not, he didn't think he should've wasted his time without learning something useful.
"No more than usual," J shrugged. "See all this sand on the floor? When Queen of Sand storm comes, it'll all get up and hang in the air. You'll cough it out later with pieces of your lungs."
Doctor J was exaggerating, as usual.
"If you get scared, stop by at the recreation room or something," he winked before leaving.
"Scared?" Quatre drawled. "What did he mean?"
His small tongue was stuck between his teeth as he colored the drawing. Someone had given Quatre a pad of paper and fountain pens and he was drawing almost all the time recently - unfamiliar landscapes with strange sad animals on them, animals with nearly human eyes - horses, deer, predators, joined in some weird dance of part-courting part-preying. Quatre's drawings surprised Trowa - not with their style that was a bit naive even if neat - but with the feeling of maturity that came from them, absence of explicit violence mixed with constant threat there.
"Don't you draw people?" he asked Quatre once.
"I don't draw people," the boy shook his fair head. He didn't draw dogs as well, Trowa thought and bit his tongue not to say something tactless.
"There's something for you." Suddenly Quatre sat on his heels, the paper pressed to his chest. "I mean if you want that, of course."
"For me?"
"Yes. I've drawn it for you. But if you don't want it, it's okay." The boy's voice was getting agitated, had that edge in it that Trowa sometimes thought didn't have to be there normally.
"Sure I want it."
"All right." The tension was gone from Quatre's voice; he folded the paper and handed it to Trowa. "No, don't look. It's..." he said with an effort and Trowa looked at him in surprise - Quatre had never tried to explain his drawings before. "It's for you."
He suddenly flushed, bit his lip savagely, his expression becoming the one of such misery and loneliness - and Trowa felt a pang of regret for Quatre's openness gone. As if the boy was building a barrier around himself. Trowa had known all about building barriers... it didn't feel good.
And at the next moment the first crash of thunder came.
The light above their heads flickered and dimmed visibly - but even like that they could see the little grits from the floor rise slowly and hang in the air in spirals. Trowa could see it the little fair hairs on Quatre's forearms rose with electricity.
"Don't breathe!" In a moment Quatre was over him, put the mask over Trowa's nose and mouth. Satisfied, he put on his own mask, looking at Trowa with mysteriously glimmering eyes over the edge of the respirator. The sand was swaying in the air slowly, gathering in long stripes, like strange airy cobras dancing on their tails.
"Cool." Quatre's voice was muffled but still understandable.
It was cool; Trowa nodded quietly. Doctor J had said nothing about covering their eyes, maybe, because he didn't need to bother with it himself - but likely it was not so good to look at it as well. Trowa started feeling his eyes sting. And then, in one more rumble of thunder, the light was gone all in all.
They usually didn't leave the light on in the infirmary for night - but there used to be some light coming from the next room - and Trowa knew somehow Quatre liked it, probably had been used to sleeping with light from the prison days. Now the darkness was complete - apparently the light in the whole building was gone.
Thunderstorm gave place to silence - and Trowa strained his eyes trying to see at least something, discern Quatre's figure. But even a cat would see nothing in this darkness. The rumble came again, now closer, and Trowa felt sand lash against his cheek.
"Quatre?"
"Ah?"
The voice was breathless and came not quite from where Trowa expected it to. It strangely disturbed him, not to be sure where Quatre was - as if there was something important in knowing it, as if the boy was threatened somehow and he, Trowa, could protect him. He reached his hand forward blindly - and met a small cold palm in the air. He clasped Quatre's fingers and pulled slightly.
"Come here."
The boy moved immediately, eagerly; Trowa's bed sagged under their joint weight - and a moment later Quatre's shoulder, bony and thin, pressed to his. For a moment, the pleasure of this touch, unexplainable, was so strong that Trowa felt overwhelmed, uncaring about anything else but this warmth spreading inside him. Quatre fidgeted, settling more comfortably.
"Close your eyes," Trowa said.
"Why?" Quatre's voice was little, mesmerized.
"I dunno. It'll hurt your eyes."
"How do you know?"
"Common sense."
"You... you don't have common sense, Trowa," Quatre giggled suddenly. It was a nervous giggle, not an easy one - and Trowa caught himself on feeling concerned for the boy again.
"What is it about?" He made his voice sound carefully level.
"It's a fact. Everyone says it. J says it."
"J is a weirdo - and, so, you listen to him?"
"I do." The laughter was gone, abruptly as it happened to Quatre all too often, exchanged with seriousness - and suddenly Trowa knew what Quatre would say next and didn't want to hear it. "Trowa..."
"Queen of Sand - no wonder they call it so."
"Trowa." Insistence in Quatre's voice was so strong that Trowa couldn't interrupt him. "You don't need to die, you know. Even if there's no corridor till then."
"Shut up."
"There must be another way..."
"Shut up!"
He couldn't bear it any more. In his anxiety to make Quatre silent he reached blindly, finding Quatre's face, feeling smooth cheek and sandy gauze of the mask. He felt Quatre back away from him slightly.
"What're you doing?"
"Checking if you obey me and keep your eyes closed."
"You..." The little frown between Quatre's eyebrows fluttered against his fingers. "Why do you I have to obey you? Do you keep *your* eyes closed?"
A narrow sand-covered palm groped over his face and Trowa pushed it away unconsciously.
"You stubborn one," Quatre muttered.
"No more stubborn than you."
"More."
"Not more."
"More!"
It was ridiculous; and it got more ridiculous in a moment, as Quatre pushed him suddenly, turning him down on the bed. Trowa wrestled blindly, not knowing what he tried to achieve - to push the boy away or to pull him closer. Quatre was over him, pressing him down to the bed - and Trowa didn't know if he couldn't wrestle him away or didn't want to. Quatre's body was along his, all the way, just thin clothes separating them - and Trowa could feel every bone and muscle in this thin form, could feel how Quatre's chest fluttered against his. He writhed, caught Quatre's wrists and held them - and their faces nearly touched, mask against mask - but even through them Trowa fancied he could feel Quatre's breath.
It felt so good; so good that Trowa's head seemed light and swimming as Quatre leaned on him, silent, in darkness.
What are you doing to me, he wanted to ask. What am I doing to myself? But he couldn't - his thoughts lost their coherence, his body lost its strength.
"Trowa!" suddenly Quatre's hands slipped out of his slackened grip and touched his face insistently, carefully. "Trowa, are you all right?"
I am, he wanted to say but only shivered violently - and Quatre was off of him at once, the boy's arms hugging him, raising him into a sitting position.
"Trowa, do you feel all right?" The boy's voice was plaintive, begging. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"No, baka," he said finally and leaned against Quatre's shoulder and decided that he wouldn't open his eyes any more, would just sit like this and wait for the storm to pass.
To be continued
Oh my... People, you're so nice to me! I love your reviews so much, every one of them :-) Please know that you make me totally happy. And don't you stop!!! Anyway, I'm somewhere on chapter 10 now - and I just have a question to ask: will your hearts be broken if there are no Heero, Relena and Duo in this story? I was going to introduce them there but somehow it doesn't quite work. So, will it be okay if we just do without them? :-)