The Heart Asks Pleasure First
A Prose Opera
-By B. E. Sheurmann
~*~A Quatre Winner and Trowa Barton Story.~*~
A.N.: This story is an A.U.-more specifically an alternate timeline-. Project Meteor was halted even before it truly began.. warning: homosexual and heterosexual relationships.PG-13. The title comes from the instrumental piece of the same name- the theme song to The Piano.
Sinfonia
L4 Colony. A.C.196
They were hunting him.
So he ran.
'Quatre! Quatre!!'
He thought he heard his sisters screaming. . .but he wasn't quite sure. His pounding pulse and the overwhelming sense of anxiety numbed his perception, while the sirens and gun shots had him brutally deafened.
'Quatre!'
He heard the cry again- weaving its way through the din. He turned around sharply and flung himself against the tunnel wall, hoping that its shadowy veil would momentarily camouflage his trembling form.
He saw nothing.
But that didn't necessarily mean anything.
They would find him eventually- he had been a fool to think he could hide from them in the attack shelter. There was only one way out- back through the tunnel into the Winner mansion. . .the mansion that was presently being brutalized and ransacked by the Alliance military.
'Father!'
He was now underneath the conservatory- he could hear the discordant wails of the piano as it was riddled with bullets. He heard hollers and screams- cruel hollers colored by sadistic smirks, rough from smoke-inhalation and strident screams tinted with an overtone of desperation and an undertone of terror.
The tunnel acted as an amplifier and the sounds. . .the sounds made him nauseous.
He hoped his family was alive. He prayed for at least one of them to live through the massacre.
His father. . .
He shook his head. He wouldn't think about that.
Thick, brackish rain streamed from his eyes. He wiped it from his gaze with the cuff of his good linen shirt, though it was hardly good now, stained with his father's blood.
The hollow sound of footsteps in descent caught his ear.
They'd found the stairs.
He bolted toward the shelter, muttering a guilty blasphemy- his footsteps resounded beautifully within the resonant cavern. The sound was greeted with a half dozen more heavy echoes as the soldiers registered the sound and began to pursue their prey.
He pumped his legs hard, cursing his pampered upbringing- the door was just ahead. If he made it, he'd be able to live for a few more days. . .though, the newly-acquired numbness in his heart asked him why he should bother.
But he ran.
Behind him he heard a row of guns cock. Quatre shuddered and memories of a time not long ago made him stumble. . .
The door was looming.
He heard the gruff shouts, the pounding and running. They were coming.
The sound grew louder- they were so close. . .
The door was close!
His legs were giving out.
He was screaming and he heard them screaming along with him in the conservatory above-a cacophonous female chorus accompanying his choked tenor. His beautiful sisters were being pillaged along with their beautiful home.
He reached for the door handle- grabbing onto it for dear, sweet life.
Then the hall exploded with compressed sound- all of the running stopped. Everything stopped
Caught in the emotional haze, he stared with unseeing eyes at his own slender, pallid hand- the hand that had wrought the most beautiful melodies from the desecrated piano in the room above. A hand suited to music and art and childish pursuits now gushed blood like a soldier's mitt. Gasping, he released the door and clutched his wound with his good hand. He watched the red juice as it caressed the length of his arm-soaking his good linen shirt and mingling with the blood of his father.
His pulse pounded more fervently-he was totally deafened by it. He was unable to the hear the cries of the soldiers and the second shot. But he felt the air around him grow dense. The Winner heir subconsciously embraced his impending death.
There was only silence before he collapsed.