A WHOLE WORLD OPENING

 

For Hilary; I promised her a sappy songfic.  This isn’t quite fluff, but I hope it fits the bill!

DISCLAIMER:  I don’t own GW or the boys, and I didn’t get them for Christmas even though I was good all year.  “Cantico” is from Andrea Boccelli’s CD “Sogno” and I don’t own that either (though I did get the CD for Christmas).

WARNINGS:  Yaoi, angst, sap

 

****

 

a che serve piangere                            

rinunciare a vivere                                

resta qua se ti va                                 

non pensare abbracciami                       

what’s the use of crying
and denying what you feel

stay here if you will

but don’t think, just hold me

 

 

“I’m sorry, Cat...I’m sorry....”  The words whimpered pitifully from the curled lump taking up space on the edge of Quatre’s narrow bunk.  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me....”

 

Quatre sighed, bringing tentative fingers to brush softly against the cool skin of one trembling arm, taking heart when Trowa didn’t jerk reflexively away.  “Nothing’s wrong with you,” he promised fervently.  Maybe, if he repeated it enough times, the other boy would believe it.  “You’ve been badly hurt, that’s all....”

 

“But I trust you!”  Trowa interrupted desperately.  “At least, I want to.  And I love you....I want to give you all of me, Quatre—why can’t I?”

 

The plea ripped at Quatre’s hypersensitive heart, made his stomach churn with the strength of his love’s turmoil.  “Oh, Trowa....”  Cautiously he embraced the huddled figure, a touch more comforting than intimate.  “Don’t blame yourself if you can’t trust me.  I killed you, after all.  There’s no reason you should—“

 

“Don’t say that!”  Trowa twisted in his arms, his voice a hoarse, fierce whisper.  “That wasn’t your fault!  I /do/ trust you, Cat....”

 

“And I you,” Quatre responded softly, wishing he could brush his fingers across that magnificent chest without evoking emotional trauma.  While his heart remained devoted to healing Trowa’s scars, his body still protested their stumbling half-starts and the constant denial of the passion it longed for.  Still—all that was secondary.  “I love you.  I’ll wait as long as you need.”

 

Darkness flashed in wood-green eyes before they lowered in shame.  “What if I can’t—if I never—“

 

“Then,” answered Quatre, spooning against Trowa and nestling into the bed as if it were of no consequence, “I shall grow to be a very frustrated but devoted old man.”

 

As he’d hoped, Trowa laughed a little at the image, and he twisted a bit more to brush a chaste kiss across Quatre’s lips.  “I hope it doesn’t come to that.  I really want...everything, with you.”

 

“So do I,” Quatre agreed softly, his eyes drifting closed as he savoured the precious instant of that kiss.

 

“Are you falling asleep?”  Trowa asked guiltily.

 

Lazily, Quatre opened one aquamarine eye.  “Unless you want me awake for something, yes.  I think I shall have good dreams.”

 

“Quatre,” Trowa asked seriously, “do you ever dream about me?”

 

 

Lasciami sognare                                  

la tua pelle morbida                              

voglio accarezzare                     

 let me dream

of your velvet skin

skin I long to caress

 

  

//If only you knew,// Quatre’s brain leapt to answer, but he merely nodded.  “All the time.”

 

Trowa turned his face into the sheets.  “What...” he began shyly, then more firmly—“What do we do?”

 

Quatre felt a blush creeping slowly but insistently up his cheeks.  “I don’t think you’re ready to hear about it, my love,” he answered honestly.  “And in our current state I may not survive the telling of it.  But in my dreams, Trowa, you’re happy, and never hurt, and it’s safe and beautiful to make love to you.”

 

And to Quatre’s pleased surprise, Trowa clasped his hand between his own, against his chest, and murmured, “I’m glad...I hoped you’d say that.  It’s the future, isn’t it?”

 

Quatre summoned all his remarkable strength of will, and restrained himself from submitting to the urge to cover the back of Trowa’s neck in kisses.  “Someday I’ll be able to show you,” he promised.

 

Long silence fell, and the only testament to Trowa’s wakefulness was the irregular rhythm of his breathing as he rested in Quatre’s arms.

 

“You’re so strong,” he whispered finally, jolting Quatre from his half-doze.

 

The smaller boy shook his head, chasing the fleeting images of an almost-dream.  “Only for you.”

 

“That’s not true.”  Certainty in Trowa’s voice beyond any willingness to argue the point.  “Cat?”  Another pause, as his heart beat faster against his chest, pulsing against Quatre’s limp touch.  “Promise you won’t give up on me?”

 

“Never,” Quatre promised fervently.

 

 

E finche’ non avro’

anche l’anima 

lo saro’ sempre sulla tua scia

and for as long as

you’re unable to give yourself

I shall never give up trying

 

 

He must have been dreaming again, because Trowa sat opposite him on the bed, cross-legged, clad only in a loose pair of blue silk pants, and Quatre was certain he’d only ever imagined the taller boy looking quite that way.  His suspicion was only confirmed when he leaned close, running gentle fingers down the smooth, wiry chest, and not only did Trowa not pull away, but arched toward him, his eyelids drifting closed in half-lidded lust.  He tested further the limits of reality when he let his lips follow his fingers, swirling slow, sensual kisses in abstract patterns over the soft, faintly scarred skin.

 

Why was it, he wondered idly, did those scars never heal completely even in his dreams?

 

His hands slid across Trowa’s sides, around his back, lowering him slowly backward til he lay prone on the bed, and Quatre could ease between his long, silk-covered legs.  A soft moan was his reward as his lips trailed across his lover’s flushed skin—then another, deeper, as his fingers brushed almost delicately against the centre of Trowa’s growing desire.  The sound set every nerve alight and sent shivers through his body; brought forth a low whimper of his own, coaxed his mouth ever downward til his tongue brushed the hem of the beautiful but unnecessary clothing and Trowa’s hips bucked beneath him.

 

He took Trowa in his mouth the way he could only do in dreams, reveled in the soft moans and sighs evoked by his ministrations, felt himself drowning in the intimacy of the taste and feel and smell and sight that was his Trowa, the boy who had captured his attention so thoroughly even from their first meeting, who had disappeared into the shadows and taken Quatre’s heart with him.  The same boy to whom Quatre would swear a lifetime of frustration and heartbreak before he would ever try to live without him.

 

And here, in the private sanctum of his mind, his dreams, he and Trowa moved together in a song more perfect than any symphony ever written, til the universe blossomed into ecstatic, eternal light, and the separation of their two bodies was a formality and nothing more.

 

 

 

Non puoi fuggire

Perche’ sei mia 

perche’ ti voglio

perche mi vuoi

It’s pointless to run away

because you’re mine                                       because I want you
and because you want me

 

  

 

Movement, then, in the shadowed darkness, and Quatre’s arms tightened around his love before he ever blinked into wakefulness.  “—Trowa--?”

 

The twist of blankets and bodies, and a pair of stunningly green eyes gazed soulfully up at him, caught in the act of attempted escape.  “I’m sorry.”

 

“For what?”  Quatre marvelled, sometimes, at his own ability to shift so readily between sleep and wakefulness, but still he wanted to make sure he knew what exactly Trowa was apologising for. 

 

A sigh, then.  “I don’t mean to frustrate you,” the boy began, and Quatre wondered abruptly just how much of his fading dream his body had exposed for him.  “I thought—if I went, you’d sleep a little better—“  He faltered, then, already knowing what the blonde pilot would say.

 

“Stay.”  It wasn’t a command, merely a soft-spoken request.  “You know I’d rather have you here....”

 

Trowa smiled softly, ruefully in the half-light.  “I should.”  He nestled comfortably into Quatre’s embrace again, to the blonde boy’s relief.  “I’m sorry I keep waking you, too.  You have far more patience with me than you should.”

 

Quatre succumbed to the urge to brush a light kiss across Trowa’s cheek as he settled back down.  “I love you, that’s why.”  And almost as an afterthought, then—“Go to sleep.”

 

A pause, a sigh.  “I don’t dream like you do.”

 

“Dream about the end of this,” Quatre whispered into his hair.  “The end of the war...the fighting...there can be nothing in the world but us if we want it to be, Trowa.  Dream about that.”

 

Trowa sighed, cradling Quatre’s hand to his chest once more.  “It’s so beautiful when you tell it,” he said.

 

 

 

Un mondo si apre

Intorno a noi 

There’s a whole world there for the taking

and it’s opening around us 

 

 

A new battle, another hasty retreat, a new night spent curled in a narrow berth against the wall of the crippled Peacemillion, holding Trowa safe from fears that never let him escape.   Quatre woke to a brush of fingertips, the softest touch against his cheek blending in fugue with the warmth of breath in the hollow of his neck.   He wrapped arms and legs around his love, holding close the back striped by a row of pale scars, the bruised thighs and scraped knuckles and sore, tired eyes.  It was, ultimately, a fierce and futile protectiveness-there was no spell Quatre could cast, no weapon he could wield against the onslaught of Trowa’s nightmares.  Some nights it was hard enough to dilute the shame the other pilot felt at succumbing to them, and salty humiliation leaked from his eyes to dampen Quatre’s soft skin as he chanted feeble poetry into a fall of silky brown hair.

 

And around them, despite the wary struggle against the fears of the heart, there was still a war—a grand spectacle long since emptied of meaning, an outdated opera where the principle actors fumbled through multiple roles and the casualties numbered a cast of thousands.

 

 

 

E se vorrai crederlo 

lo saro l’angelo 

Che non ti abbandonera

and if it makes you happy

I shall be your guardian angel

Never, ever to leave you

 

 

 

“It will never end, you know,” Trowa murmured sadly.  They stood hand-in-hand on the ledge above the hangar where the Gundams stood at solemn attention, awaiting their next skirmish.

 

“Don’t say that,” Quatre protested.

 

Trowa shook his head, a melancholy ripple of motion, a downward glance.  “I thought it was over once before,” he whispered, almost to himself.  “I thought so, but I was wrong.  There will always be someone who wants to take up arms and continue the fight.  Unless,” he added, a rueful smile playing across sorrowed features, “unless Ze—Milliardo Peacecraft really does destroy the Earth.”

 

“Don’t /say/ that!”  Quatre repeated—forceful, fervent, capturing Trowa’s opposite hand in his own and turning up his face to meet the cloudy green gaze.  “It /will/ end, Trowa, I—I promise!  I won’t ever stop fighting til it’s finished and I can take you home and not have to worry about it ever again.  I won’t.”  His determination was childish but no less true for that; he would have found a way to reorder the planets and create the universe anew at that moment, if it meant erasing the despair he’d seen growing slowly but steadily in Trowa’s eyes.

 

And Trowa smiled—sadly, beautifully.  “You know what, Quatre?  I believe you.”

 

Quatre lifted slender, calloused fingers to brush the curve of Trowa’s cheek.  Palpable silence shattered at the sudden shriek of alarms and the pounding of feet toward the hangar.

 

Time to fight again.

 

“I love you,” Quatre said as they broke away, each hand dropping from the other’s tentative grasp.  They turned, and he launched into the air to float the distance to his Sandrock, his comrade-in-arms—

 

--and stopped.  Trowa caught his hand, preventing him from flying too far, drawing him inexorably closer again.

 

“I—“ he stumbled, faltered, but not for long.  “I love you, too.”

 

He kissed him, then.  It was only a small step, really, no more than the soft insistent press of lips against lips, the tickle of his hair against Quatre’s cheek, the faint tremble of his longer fingers around a slender wrist.

 

Quatre smiled.

 

 

 

Quando sul tuo viso   

non vedra’ risplendere  

dolce il tuo sorriso 

Even when I cannot see

your sweet smile

lighting up your face

 

 

Spin.  Turn.   Duck.  Strike.

 

Shoot, strike, spin again—a dans macabre with soulless partners, a vast ballet in flames against the backdrop of space.

 

“They keep zoning in on Quatre!” Duo growled in frustration, an arc of thermal green splitting an opponent in two.

 

“Maybe they think I’m the weak link,” Quatre suggested, is musician’s fingers clenched tight around Sandrock’s controls.  Parry.  Turn.  Strike.

 

“Or trying to take out the brain first,” Wufei conceded reluctantly, as the Altron’s dragonclaw smashed a pair of mobile dolls together.

 

“Well they /won’t/!” Trowa called fiercely, firing a steady barrage into the cluster of enemies.  Quatre’s heart let out a subtle cheer at the protectiveness in his love’s  voice.  Spin.  Strike.  Turn.  Again.

 

“I’ll take care of this!” Wufei challenged, streaking forward, breaking their ranks, engaging the dolls that swarmed over him.

 

“Wufei!”  As fast as Duo moved to close the space left by Altron’s departure, it wasn’t quite enough.  The mobile dolls broke file, trying to drive the remaining allies apart.  “We have to stay together—“ But Quatre did not have enough breath left for calling, and the words broke at his lips as something /hard/ slammed into him, knocking him back.

 

“I’m all right!”  He reassured them as soon as he recaught his breath, yanking his rocking Gundam aright, fending off another attack as Duo came swooping in with a yell. 

 

“I’ve got your back!” he promised, his scythe flashing spinning death with each swing.  “Trowa!  Give us a hand!”

 

“I’m almost out of ammo.”  It happened every battle, and against this many opponents, it was miracle enough it hadn’t happened sooner.  Not that Trowa was out of the fight completely—he spun, ducked, tackled, the knife in the Heavyarms’ other hand glittering, as the beam gatling spewed what little ammunition remained.

 

“Then get back here!” Quatre directed.  Sandrock’s twin shotels, crimson with heat, arced again and swerved, and fragments of forged metal fell away from his blow. 

 

“I’m coming.”  Trowa’s voice never lifted, his tone barely changed—he fought with the same quiet dignity that he faced all of life and all of death until the dreaded sleep caught up to him.  It was death he faced now, fighting, spinning, kicking outward with gundanium legs as he forced his way through the ranks of mobile dolls and closer to Quatre.

 

With all of their targets but one now in a single place, the mobile dolls begin to close in.  What had been a defensive circle became a trap, and the three Gundams moved in the carefully-timed synchrony of a desperate dance.  Wufei, on the edges, darted in to strike, and back again, always moving, never still enough to catch, picking them off in slow pairs.

 

Then—a flash of light, a loud noise, the momentary chaos of the universe all /happening/ at once--

 

“That’s it,” said Trowa calmly.  “I’m out.”

 

The Deathscythe rocked back, and Duo screamed.

 

Between the wounded Gundams, their enemies broke through, diving for the leader they were programmed to destroy.

 

Quatre ducked, yanking the ungainly Sandrock out of the way of one mobile doll but directly into the path of another.

 

Heavyarms appeared in front of him, then was knocked out of the way, and Quatre’s ears rang with the echo of his own scream.

 

 

 

E finche’ non avro’

anche l’anima 

lo saro’ sempre sulla tua scia
Non puoi fuggire  

and for as long as

you’re unable to give yourself

I shall never give up trying
it’s pointless to run away

 

 

 

“Quatre, if you’re going to be in here, make yourself useful and pass me that bottle.”

 

“This one?”

 

“No...next to it.  The tall one that says ‘antiseptic ointment’ on it.”

 

Quatre obeyed, handed Sally the bottle, wincing at the angry crimson line she’d stitched up Trowa’s side.  One more scar to add to an ever-increasing collection.

 

“It’s all right, Quatre,” the boy said, as if he could read thoughts.  “It doesn’t hurt that much.  I’ve had worse.”

 

“That’s not an excuse,” Quatre grumbled, leaning against the edge of the sickbay cot to wrap his fingers round Trowa’s hand as Sally layered a bandage over her latest layer of creme.

 

She coughed delicately as she straightened, returning the bottle to its prescribed place on the shelf.  “Try not to strain it any earlier than absolutely necessary, Trowa, and it’ll heal up fine.  And don’t get out of that bed til I say you can.”

 

Such carefully chosen words, Quatre reflected as she left them alone.  They all knew the next battle could come far too quickly, and likely before they were ready.  If that happened, not even a hole in his side would keep Trowa out of the fight.

 

And they were desperate, and they were soldiers, and they all expected it.

 

“You’re an idiot,” Quatre said bluntly, lifting Trowa’s hand to his lips.

 

Trowa shrugged.  “I suppose.”  His lips curved ever so slightly upward, a ghost of a smile flickering across his face. “Though you might rather have said ‘thank you for saving my life,’ instead.”

 

Quatre stared at him for a moment, carefully weighing the decision of whether to shake Trowa senseless or kiss the breath out of him.  He elected for neither, and stretched out next to him on the cot instead, hiding his face in the curve of Trowa’s arm.  “Thank you for saving my life.  Don’t ever do it again.”

 

“I can’t promise that,” Trowa told him solemnly, the tentative movements of his wounded body finally bringing his fingers up enough to brush Quatre’s cheek.  “I can’t live without you, you know.  And I had to show you somehow.”  Conversational, his tone, as if his words were ordinary, and not the sort that sent tears springing to Quatre’s soft blue eyes and set his heart to pounding fiercely in his chest.

 

“I can’t live without you either,” Quatre countered hoarsely, a suspiciously tearful lump forming in the back of his throat. 

 

“Then we have to win,” Trowa said, almost sadly.

 

Quatre squeezed his hand, a little harder than he meant to, bruising the graceful knuckles.  “We will.”

 

 

Un mondo si apre

Intorno a noi 

There’s a whole world there for the taking

and it’s opening around us 

 

 

 

 

He was never completely sure if it was gravity or bloodloss that made the world spin just so, made his feet tingle and his fingers hang limp, weighted his head til he could barely hold it up.  His eyes refused to hold their focus, and the second rapier-thrust was only another blur, a flash of light followed by a thick viscous warmth welling from his skin.

 

He fell, weightless, the whole world crawling by in stop-motion, advancing with each heartbeat.  He fell the way heroes fall, deadened fingers losing their grip on his sword, floating backward, away from his angrily tearful enemy.

 

And then strong arms were around him, catching him, lifting him. 

 

“Trowa.”  He knew, without having to look—the familiar circle of those arms was enough, the light scent of sandalwood, the faint brush of hair.  “You came for me.”

 

Then there was only the light hum of voices—Trowa’s, Dorothy’s, even his own he thought—and the swirling assault of shadows at his eyes.  He felt Trowa gather him up and hold him against his chest, felt the insistent press of fingertips to his temple. 

 

“Can you move, Cat?  We have to get back to the Gundams and off this ship before Heero blows it up.”  He felt himself nod, forced his eyes open past the darkness rushing in to close them again.

 

“I can fight.”  He struggled upright, almost fell again, seized Trowa’s arm hurriedly.  “It’s almost over, isn’t it?”  //I said I would fight til it was finished.  I promised.  Only a little longer, love, and there’ll only be us.  And even if it doesn’t work out, I need to believe this.//

 

“I know you can,” Trowa whispered into his hair as he helped the smaller boy regain his balance.  “But I wish you didn’t have to.”

 

“No time for that,” Quatre reminded him sadly.  “But it’s only one more, Trowa, and then we can be finished.   One more fight.  For us.”

 

“For us,” the other agreed.

 

 

 

Perche’ sei mia 

Perche’ ti voglio

Perche’ mi vuoi

Tutto sarai per me

Because you’re mine

Because I want you

And because you want me

You’ll be everything to me

 

 

Quatre pulled closed the curtain that separated the berth from the rest of the room.  Tentatively, he stroked the bony ridge of Trowa’s spine as the taller boy stretched, catlike, along the length of the bunk.

 

“How do you feel?”

 

Trowa rolled over onto his side, capturing Quatre’s hand in his own, but only holding it above his chest as if uncertain what to do with it.  “A little sore,” he answered, with a rueful glance at the careful stitches Sally had been forced to  repeat.  “What about you?”

 

Quatre pressed his free hand into the bandage that wrapped his chest.  “I hurt a bit,” he admitted.  He smiled, then—even wounded, happiness bubbled from him, radiated around him.  “What a pair of invalids we make.”

 

Trowa chuckled.  “It’s all right,” he said softly, bending carefully around his own wound to bring his lips down to brush against Quatre’s.  “We have time to heal.”

 

Quatre did not cheapen the confession by acknowledging that it had more than one meaning.  They both already knew.

 

 

Un mondo si apre intorno a noi  

There’s a whole world opening up around us

 

~Owari~