Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Little Perspective ❯ One-Shot

Author: Ryuen Nakashima

Pairings: 3x4, 5+2

Archived: Not yet. None of my fics have a real home yet *sniff*

Setting: Quatre's POV

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: yaoi, mild angst, sap, spoilers

Disclaimer: Nothing GW related is mine. This story is. Nuff said.

A Little Perspective

Love at first sight. Damn that, I promised myself I'd never be so trite. I guess that's just what he does to me. I can still remember when we saw each other for the very first time.

I've never felt so close to anyone in my life. The connection I can feel with him is almost supernatural. Something stirred inside me even as I first stole a glance in his direction. The first thing that ran through my mind was how beautiful he was. That silky, windswept brown hair and beautiful dark green eyes. The milky skin and the taught, muscled gymnast's body.

I'd attempted to put him out of my mind so many times and failed miserably. Even more so when I picked up my violin. The second he walked into the room it took all my strength to keep quiet and continue playing.

He was a Gundam Pilot, he wasn't supposed to be musical. He wasn't supposed to have a soul. He was a soldier God dammit! I thought I wouldn't have a chance with him if he had no feelings… just like I wasn't expected to I suppose.

Seeing him play like that, finding something we shared that was so material on the outside meant so much. His fingers spun out the notes flawlessly, so perfectly I found it was the first time I'd ever played without closing my eyes. I just couldn't look away from him. He didn't look dangerous. He was just as in love with music as I was.

I had *no* sleep that night. I lay awake sweating with the desert heat and with… something else. I can't describe it: it's as simple as that. As clichéd as it always is, I'd never felt like this before. I was almost certain I wasn't supposed to feel like this towards another boy, but everything about him pulled at my heart. I stared at him from my bed, gazed at the sheer beauty of his form.

I jumped when he suddenly opened his eyes. My heart thudded in my chest as he caught my eye and then got to his feet. I felt my chest flutter and my head was spinning - his gaze never left my face once. He stood over me and looked down at me seriously. I swore blind I was in one hell of a lot of trouble. I bit my lip and braced myself. For what exactly, I don't know.

"Don't you know it's rude to stare?" he asked me.

I was puzzled to say the least. He sat down next to me on the side of my bed and made me shudder with the close proximity we were in. My head was already pounding and I vaguely remember gasping probably louder than I meant to as he leant over me and brushed the hair out of my eyes.

"Honestly," he laughed softly at the expression on my face before he pushed his face up nose to nose with mine. I bit back a whimper and felt myself start to shake. I could feel his breath caressing my neck and I closed my eyes to savour the feel of it, knowing that I may well never be this close to him again.

"You're a Winner? I thought you'd have a better code of etiquette than to allow yourself to gawk at a sleeping guest."

I gulped, "I… I… uh, I don't…" I stammered as my vocabulary skills deserted me. He nuzzled my cheek with his nose and I completely lost it, "I'm sorry, I've never had guests as beautiful as you."

I screamed inwardly. What the hell did I say that for!? I cringed under his intent stare, "I mean, um… not that I was…" That is *not* the kind of thing that people say by accident!

Trowa smiled softly and I could feel his body pressing up against me. Then for one breathtaking moment, he brushed his lips over my face and drew me into my first kiss. He tasted so sweet and his mouth was so wonderfully soft. I felt him run his tongue along my lips, silently asking me to let him in.

Completely contrary to my persona, I let him. This was just not something I ever did. I was letting a perfect stranger, whose name I didn't even know, kiss me as deeply as a lifelong lover. I was surrendering myself to the touch of this boy I'd only just met a couple of hours ago and loving every minute of it. If it weren't for his attentiveness, I would have let him go a lot further.

The bed sheets were wrapped so tightly across my arms that as he kissed me I could barely move and I was helpless to do anything but feel him kiss me. Which I was perfectly happy to do. Once he broke the kiss with me, my lips felt numb and my eyes were glazed.

Then I felt him slip into bed beside me.

I was suddenly terrified. I became aware of just what he could ask of me, ask of my body. Things that I just wasn't willing to give but, with his strength, I may not be able to stop. Had I known what Trowa was really like at the time, I would have realized that my fears were unfounded. Even then I could sense that he wasn't the belligerent type but I knew as much about sexuality as Treize Khushrenada was inclined to know about the NHL.

I tried to find my voice and tell him I was scared but he seemed to know how I felt. He wrapped his arms around me and I felt myself blush intensely.

"I love the hospitality here," he joked. I smiled and let myself be drawn to him.

"I love it too," I replied, secretly wanting to replace the `it' with a `you'.

When I woke up, he was dressed and sat on my bed and had been watching me sleep for the last hour or so.

"I've got to go," he said. It was the most painful thing I'd ever heard. I sat up and went to protest but he pressed his fingers to my lips and spoke again, "I've been called out on another mission. It'll most likely only take a few hours but the sooner I go… you understand, don't you?"

I nodded slowly and pulled on my clothes. He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then left. I could barely move for trying to stop the tears from running down my cheeks. When I heard the front door open, I snapped back to reality and ran to the window.

Watching him walk away like that was one of the most painful things I've ever been through. Time had slowed down in my mind, yet he seemed to be going away so fast. He was abandoning me. For the first time in my life, I had someone that I couldn't hold onto no matter how hard I tried. I was dying inside.

"Do you really have to leave?" I shouted out of the window to his retreating back. I needed to vent some of the emotions currently turning my brain to mush. "I won't stop you," I added, desperate not to sound needy. Then it hit me. I didn't even know his name. How could I be so careless? What kind of person lets a total stranger claim his heart with such a kiss and not even ask of his name?

"But at least tell me what your name is before you go?" I implored of him, probably sounding far more frantic than I wanted to.

I then felt an even bigger pang of guilt as I remembered that I hadn't even told him my name, "My name is Quatre Raberba Winner," I added, hoping desperately that he was going to reply. They way he was walking wasn't giving me all that much confidence.

My heart raced as he stopped. He turned back, facing me with those beautiful hazel eyes that had captured me from the instant we stepped out of our Gundams. He seemed so calm. He obviously didn't return my feelings.

"I have no name," he replied. I was confused and listened intently. "But if you must call me something, it's Trowa. Call me Trowa Barton."

*Trowa… beautiful* I thought. The perfect name for the perfect man. I needed him, I wanted him so badly, but I couldn't have him. The first friend I'd had outside Rasheed and the Maganacs was leaving. Even worse, I felt so much passion towards the man who was my first kiss it made me feel hollow. I was so empty inside I wanted to cry. Not letting it show, I smiled through my silent tears.

"Goodbye, friend Trowa," I shouted after him, attempting to cover up the fact that we'd shared more than a friendship the night before, "We'll meet again," I added, trying to be positive about the situation, thinking that if I said it enough I'd eventually believe it myself.

I watched him start the engine up and drive away until he'd disappeared over the horizon. *Please come back to me, I begged inwardly, I have to tell you how I feel. Maybe not today or even this year, just tell me that I'll see you again someday in my life. Even if it's only for a few minutes. I just need to see your face…*

I sighed and sat down on the bed we'd slept in the night before.

A deep, familiar voice brought me back to the real world. "Quatre, should we be letting him go like this? He does know the location of this base after all," Rasheed asked me kindly yet firmly.

I shrugged and shook my head, "I wouldn't worry," I replied somewhat more confidently that I felt at the time, "He's not the type to go around telling anyone," I said, drawing from the connection the two of us had made almost entirely in silence the night before; we'd let our bodies do the talking for us.

Rasheed was persistent, "But what if he attacks?"

I sighed and looked up at the ceiling, "I almost wish he would, then at least I'd be able to see him again," I said all in one breath. My eyes widened as I realized just what I'd said. I couldn't admit to this. It just wasn't… normal.

"Master Quatre?" Rasheed's voice came a few feet above where I was before he sat next to me. He already suspected something. My heart sank as I became aware of the fact that my feelings could make people turn against me, simply for being there. That was something I'd *definitely* never had to deal with before.

Rasheed could obviously see the hurt starting to seep through onto my face, "Are you alright?" he said kindly, resting a hand on my shoulder. I sagged a little under the weight.

"It's just… I'm a little confused, Rasheed," I sighed, looking up at him for comfort. I knew I could talk to Rasheed. He'd been almost like a replacement father to me ever since I left home. "I guess I'm feeling…" I trailed off. *How do I put this into words? It's hard enough just trying to sort these things through in my head* "…feeling slightly lonely. Trowa was the only… um… *friend* I've had in a long time. But it's not that you don't mean anything to me."

"That's all right, Master Quatre," Rasheed said softly, ruffling my hair a little, "someone your own age, I know. The Maganacs and I may be here for you, but there's no substitute for friendships like that. Is that all?" evidently sensing there was something else behind my heartache, "It's not like you to feel lonely."

I put my hands in my lap and shook my head, "I know, Rasheed. I guess it's probably just teenage stuff," I resigned myself to the fact that I just didn't have it in me to tell him right now, "You shouldn't worry about me. I'll be alright in a little while."

Rasheed raised an eyebrow and got to his feet, "Well, okay. You seem to know what's best for you. If you need me, you know where I'll be, Quatre," he added, walking out of the door and leaving me to sit and think about what had just happened. I looked down at the bed beneath me and absent-mindedly ran my hands across the sheets.

I could almost see the boy I'd been held and kissed by for all the previous night.

*Trowa* The name just rolled off my tongue. I pulled my legs up and lay back on his bed, burying my face in his pillow and breathing in deeply. It smelled like his hair. The same hint of musky shampoo that covered his head was added to the material of the pillow cover. I smiled and hugged the cushion like it was a lifeline.

After a while of lying there with Trowa's pillow in my arms, I got up and left the room to go and do some research on the computer. I figured that burying myself in some work would help me push all these feelings to the back of my mind until I was ready to deal with them later.

I came back to the room barely more than an hour later and grabbed hold of the pillow again. At that point in time I hadn't cried since I was six years old and I was determined not to let myself. The strain I put myself under made my head hurt so much it was like running a skewer through my temples.

Knowing that I was doing this for him confused me. Not even my family had ever put me through so much grief. But I was well aware of the kind of things they'd say to me if I ever told them about this.

But, if he was something so incredible, then why was he giving me such pain? I'd had a wonderful experience that night, but all it was doing was hurting me. Yet, at the same time, it made me feel… what's that word?… validated.

It had given me some hope that despite my standing, despite the social bubble I'd been forced to grow up in, somebody so precious and so *real* could have feelings like these for me.

`He thinks I'm attractive' the thought still makes me feel sheepish and blush. It's not the "oh isn't that sweet of you" blush anymore, it's the sexual connotations that go along with it.

Whenever he compliments me, when he says I'm beautiful or that I'm intelligent and talented, it reminds me of the times we express it physically. Every night is more intoxicating that the last.

I'm so sure he couldn't make me feel like that if he didn't mean it.

I know some people don't do it for love, I'm not that credulous. But there's something in the way he touches me that… oh I just don't know! I could say "I love him" in a thousand different ways and it still wouldn't cover half of what I feel for Trowa.

I would sit and talk to the wind like this for years before I answered even *one* of the millions of questions I have about our love. I don't know which question it would be though. Perhaps it would be `What does he see in me?'

Looking at my own personality, I can see a million different imperfections.

I'm immature in many ways, I'm temperamental, easily depressed, have little or no self-esteem and am desperately confused by how disgustingly harsh the world can be. Some days I think that we've got it all wrong, that life really is pointless.

Then I think of him… suddenly I can think of the value of life, as flawed as humanity's existence is, it still has meaning.

If we could all live for each other, the way Trowa and I do, if we could learn to live for the chance of loving another human being, the world may well see a brighter future. Where true peace really could be obtained and held onto, without all this confusion.

It's like Zechs says, if we want harmony in our race, we need to gradually overcome the basic human instinct to fight for existence.

That notion was all very well and good when we were just animals, but this isn't like prehistoric times. We have morals and we understand that hatred is a destructive thing. But there are things can make us forget what we know.

Like the ZERO system.

It's strange how I find what happened to me humiliating instead of just horrifying, like any rational individual would.

I lost control and I lost my mind and there is not a reason in the universe good enough to make me use that system again. Something that would make me attack the man who is the most important person in all my life, is an evil thing.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

But it had it's use. Everything has a use, a purpose if you will, no matter how trivial. If I didn't believe that everything is there for a reason, I really would have lost myself completely to ZERO.

I think Trowa still would have loved me.

That really is a nice way to feel. It sounds wishy-washy but it just *is*.

He makes me happy like I never thought I could be.

I always thought I didn't need people. The way I was raised, I was taught to be entirely self-sufficient and self-reliant. My father's motto was `If you want something doing right, you either do it yourself or accept the flaws that follow.'

Well, I guess he never knew Trowa.

The one human being I trust with everything. I can't even trust Heero, Wufei or even Duo with as much as I trust Trowa. It's a personal failing of mine that I can't rely on my closest friends. I'll say to them that I have faith in their abilities, and I do, but only so much.

Past a certain point, if control is required, I instigate it myself. Those are the principals I was raised on and, true to form, I'll stick by them through anything.

However, Trowa will always be the exception to the rule. All rules need loopholes and exceptions and ways of `bending' them without breaking them. With all the business and political studying I've done in my early life, I can find them in *anything*.

But I'll use my powers for good instead of evil… just kidding. My space-heart is a gift, but I try to ignore it unless it completely overpowers me. At moments like when Heero self-destructed or when Trowa kissed me.

It can take over me in either a good or bad way.

Unfortunately during the war, it was always a bad sensation. It meant someone was dying or somebody had made a huge mistake or that something generally dreadful was about to happen.

I have to keep reminding myself that it's over now. Trowa and I are always there to do that for each other, so is my heart. It's starting to capture me in far better ways now.

Particularly when we were all staying together for Christmas at our house, there was one morning when Trowa and I walked in on Wufei and Duo kissing in the dining room. It took me all my strength to stop myself from collapsing. I was bombarded with emotions coming from all three of them. Excitement. Panic. Love. Fear. Desperation. Pride…

They spun around in my head and I could barely stop them long enough to pull them apart and figure out just *who* they were coming from.

Fact was, they were all coming from everybody. Even me. That morning was fun, I'll say that much. Duo's reaction to the fact that Trowa and I were very… intimate, was so cute I wanted to pat him on the head and give him a saucer of milk.

Something that surprises *me* is that Duo hasn't driven Wufei insane yet, nor vice versa. They're so different, but I suppose Trowa and I are quite different too. You need a bit of that to keep things in perspective.

My perspective is safe around Trowa. He'll keep it out of harm's way because he knows it's a fragile thing, just like I'll keep his soul safe from harm.

It's been hurt so many times, he'd forgotten what it was like to have an emotion that wasn't destructive. I must admit, it took meeting him to make *me* see the better side of the world.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we'd never met. *There's* an existence I know I want no part of.

~end~