wholly to be a fool/while spring is in the world

disclaimer: Trowa and Quatre are not mine, no matter how I might wish otherwise. The title comes from a poem by e.e. cummings, and the song lyrics belong to Bette Midler.

what is here: yaoi, lime, much sap

dedication: for Lorena--here's your sappy songfic, it's not the one I originally intended to write you but I hope it meets your expectations.

****

~It must have been cold there in my shadow

to never have sunlight on your face

You were content to let me shine, that's your way

You always walked a step behind~

At last, at last, I have him all to myself--even if only for a night. Even if I know that in the morning my side of the bed will be cold before he wakes up, and the course of our conversation through the day will be limited to hasty how-are-yous and occasional hurried conversation on matters of business. We've lived under the same roof--in the same bed--for two years, and yet I miss him terribly.

The day itself is not a special one. We've never really celebrated an anniversary and Trowa doesn't know when his birthday is; the only significance of today is that it's the one day I can't wait any longer, when my own heart forces me to show him how much he means to me.

I wonder sometimes if he really knows. I know he loves me, that much I can feel--even if it weren't obvious by the way he's stayed by my side for these past two years, helping me, supporting me through a period of time harder, in its way, even than the war. But I don't know if he understands how important his presence has been to me, how if it weren't for him I'd have gone crazy by now for certain, how the slightest pressure of his hand on mine gives me the strength to keep putting one metaphorical foot in front of the other every day.

Directly after the war ended I spent a few days in the hospital, being sewn up and fussed over and drugged til I barely knew who I was anymore. It was Trowa who took me home, who signed the release papers and carried me barely-conscious out of the hospital. I stayed with him and Catherine until I was healed. They took good care of me; I would apologise for being a bother, and Cathy would promise I was a far easier patient than Heero. I was afraid at first that she would hate me for trying to take Trowa away, but I needn't have worried.

"You make Trowa smile," was all she had said, with that curious quirky little grin of her own, and then she'd kissed me on the cheek and told me to start packing, so we messy boys would be out of her hair and she could have her trailer to herself again.

Those days remain some of my fondest memories. When I was well enough to leave, I had not only to take over the running of my father's company like the good little heir I had never been, but to defend myself in a dispute over whether in fact I really /was/ heir. That little matter about being disinherited to go pilot a Gundam, remember? Finally--with a little outside prompting, I think, from Relena--the other L4 leaders accepted Iria's testimony that our father had accepted me back into the family a few days before his death.

Trowa kept me going back then, even more than he does now. During the WEI hearings, every awful thing I or my father had ever done was thrown back in my face, every doubt I'd ever had about myself or my abilities was exaggerated, and I'm convinced I would have fallen to pieces if I hadn't had Trowa to go home to, to kiss me and tell me that he believed in me--and if he, who had no faith in anything, could find it in me, who was I to think otherwise?

~So I was the one with all the glory

while you were the one with all the strain

beautiful face without a name, for so long

beautiful smile to hide the pain~

My only regret was that I couldn't make our relationship public. I was under such scrutiny already, a host of rivals and enemies biding their time until they had /something/ they could use against me. I wanted to show him off to the world, write his name in the sky, share my ecstacy with everyone that he was mine--that there a person in the world who could love me without demanding anything of me, who believed in me, and who I would have found a way to change the course of the stars for had he but asked me.

But I couldn't, and he kept to the shadows where he'd spent most of his life. He tried not to let it bother him, and most the time I think he succeeded. We made him a Consultant then, so he could help in an official capacity, and we were both working ourselves to exhaustion.

Come to think of it, not much has changed...and that's why I need this night.

I hear his key turn in the lock and at once I'm on my feet--the door opens, he ducks his head in as if making sure I'm here.

"Quatre? I got your message to come home early--is everything all right?"

I throw my arms around him,burying my face in his collar, rejoicing in the firm muscles of his chest beneath his jacket and the tenderness of the arms that enfold me tentatively. "Quatre--"

"Everything's fine," I promise, and he relaxes--still curious, I can tell, wondering why I've called him home but so perfectly, wonderfully patient that I'll spill everything soon enough. "I just wanted us to have some time alone for a change. I miss you."

His laugh is warm and tickles my ear. "Iblîs," he whispers--it means 'demon,' and I blame Rashid for teaching him the word. "There I am in a meeting with the heads of all three Outer Rim Development departments, when Maia bursts in--" He pulls away, just enough so I can see the laughter sparkling in his eyes as he imitates her breathy voice--" 'Mr Barton,' she says, 'sorry to bother you, but Mr Winner needs you right away'...and out I run, Quatre, scared as hell that something awful's happened to you...."

I pull his face back down to mine--not so far down as it once was, for I'm only an inch and a half shorter than he is now. "Then aren't you glad," I purr, "to find that nothing so awful has...?"

"You," he says, punctuating his accusation with a brush of his lips across my forehead, "are wicked." I smile innocently and he shrugs his surrender. "I don't know what's infected you, little demon, but I think I'm going to like it."

And I only laugh and lock the door.

~Did you ever know that you're my hero

and everything I would like to be

I can fly higher than an eagle

you are the wind beneath my wings~

He eyes me suspiciously when I enter the kitchen. "Don't tell me you're going to cook, Quatre--here, I'll do it--"

I stick my tongue out at him. "But I want to! I'm trying to do something special for you, Trowa, just let me."

Undeterred--and chuckling--he puts his hands on my shoulders and moves me gently out of his way. "Quatre, I love you more than life itself, but I don't trust you to make a peanut-butter sandwich." I'd probably be insulted if it weren't the truth, but unfortunately he's right, and doesn't seem taken in by my pout. "How about this," he suggests, his fingertips turning up the corners of my lips, "we'll make it together."

Mm...now that sounds delightful. "All right!" I can start things off, I think, by opening the bottle of wine I chilled earlier. Neither of us drink it often, but it seemed to match the atmosphere I wanted tonight--still, I must have stood in front of the wine shelf at the supermarket for twenty minutes hoping something would announce itself as acceptable, because I had no idea what I was looking for. I did eventually find a winery that labelled their vintages with a Dummy's Guide --there was a little chart on the back of the bottle that said 'light, buttery, goes well with pasta,' and other such descriptions. Made my job so much easier.

While I'm getting into the fight of my life with the corkscrew, Trowa is mixing things, getting out herbs and dishes and details. I never know how he manages it, but unlike me, he /can/ cook, very well in fact, when he has the time and inclination. So I spend most of the rest of the evening following directions to chop this or stir that, and sneaking chances to put my hands on him every chance I get.

I could learn to get really, really good at this. I could.

~It might have appeared to go unnoticed

but I've got it all here in my heart

I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it

I would be nothing without you~

Somehow, despite my presence and...distraction, Trowa finally announces dinner is ready. Of course it's wonderful, and really probably better that I had only a small hand in its creation. We're having pasta, those little curlicue noodles that I can't remember the name of, and some kind of white herb sauce that I'm not even sure /has/ a name; I think Trowa may have just made it up as he went along. There's salad and rolls and the rest of the wine, and we take it outside--we live in a townhouse with a veranda that overlooks the rose-garden kept so meticulously by the lady downstairs. It's late spring, when the artificial sun takes ages to set and the quiet part of the evening stretches out practically forever, and we can sit in our white wooden chairs for hours, talking and smelling the roses and the scent of spring. I don't know how they simulate that smell, but they're geniuses. Until I went to Earth I didn't know what it was. It's life, it's things growing and birthing and /living/, it's the most invigorourating thing I've ever felt. And here in the lengthening evening I soak it up, let the warmth of it bathe my skin, let myself become intoxicated with it.

And Trowa and I /talk/, something we haven't had time for in far too long. Not about the meeting I pulled him out of or the proposal I have to finish for Exports by the weekend, we leave behind for a while the prison of operating procedures and profit margins. We talk about ourselves for once, about how I'm still so afraid I'm going to mess something up horribly, how he still doesn't feel like he quite fits into his job, how we both wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and watch the other sleep, wishing there were even just a few more minutes in the day. But it's not all depressing--we're young, and we have no intention of being stuck like this forever. We make plans together, what we'll do when we have the time again. Some of them are realistic--going to see Cathy and whisk her off to some tropical island on Earth, or designing and building our own house outside the city so we have a place to escape to. Others are just silly, like ordering a gazillion pizzas from the place down the street and having them delivered to Duo's house on L2 (imagine how disgusting it would be when it got there!), or commandeering a pirate ship and pillaging our way through the galaxy.

Hmm...the Dread Pirate Quatre. It does have a certain ring to it.

~Did I ever tell you you're my hero?

You're everything I wish I could be

Oh, I, I could fly higher than an eagle

Cause you are the wind beneath my wings~

I slide out of my chair and into Trowa's lap. It's a position that worked better for us back when I was smaller, but he doesn't seem to mind, just shifts a little beneath me and wraps his arms around my shoulders.

"Trowa?" I whisper, and nuzzle into the hollow of his neck.

"Yes, love?" His fingers draw meaningless patterns over my skin through the thin cotton of my shirt, and his light touches still make my heart do flips inside my chest.

"I love you." Finally I put into words what this entire evening has been purposed to tell him. "I could never have made it this far without you--I'd have fallen apart a long time ago. I worry sometimes that you'll feel like I take you for granted, and...well, I just want you to know that I don't."

His fingers brush my chin, tilt my face up so I can meet his eyes. "I know that," he whispers, and touches his lips to mine--no matter how many times he kisses me it always takes my breath away, it's like lying out on a starry night and looking up at the sky, the way I feel so special and so insignificant all at once, like I'm one small part of something unfathomably grand.

My fingers are trembling as I lace them into his, and pull him with me inside. We abandon the dishes and not-quite-empty plates--we don't even make it into our room, but collapse with each other onto the Persian rug that stretches out across the floor.

~Oh, the wind beneath my wings

Fly, fly, fly away, you let me fly so high

oh, you, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings~

Every time we make love, I think my entire life must have been leading up to that moment. Time stops, and my senses bleed into one another til my eyes can taste as well as see, and my skin breathes in the essence of Trowa with every pore. We stopped worrying a long time ago about which of us was on top; it seems now that there is a point when our bodies can no longer endure even such a minute separation, and merge of their own volition, and all either of us can do is hold on, let ourselves be borne on a tidal wave of passion and euphoria until we reach the outer edges of the universe and finally, brightly, ecstatically explode--

~Fly, fly, fly high against the sky

so high I almost touch the sky

thank you, thank you,

Thank God for you--the wind beneath my wings~

~Owari~