Remember Me

warnings: YAOI, LEMON, angst, sap

****

He was watching, and the boy was walking away. //No! Don't go!// He couldn't pinpoint exactly what had happened between them, or even precisely when, but he knew he'd felt it, and he wanted to explore it a bit more before they both went back to fighting.

But he couldn't, because the beautiful, enigmatic pilot was walking away.

"Wait!" The word burst from his lips without warning, and the boy paused mid-stride, turning, lifting his face up toward Quatre in silent query. And Quatre, forced now into finding some suitable reason for his interruption, fumbled with his words. "I--I don't know your name," he stammered lamely. "Mine's Quatre. Quatre Raberba Winner."

A flicker of something--pain, perhaps, or longing--passed over the boy's face as he nodded acknowledgement. "I have no name," he answered after a moment, mildly. "But if you must call me something...call me Trowa Barton."

He turned away again, and Quatre--adolescent leader of an entire military corps, who could throw himself into combat with the deadliest enemies in the populated world in the blink of an eye--could not summon the courage to call out to him again. "I hope I see you again, Trowa Barton," he said...but only to himself, in a whisper that was swallowed by the light spring breeze.

"Should we really be letting that boy go?" Rashid asked over his shoulder. Quatre was never sure how someone so /large/ could be so silent, or exactly when he had appeared. "He knows now where we are...he could come back and attack."

"I almost hope he does!" Quatre blurted, and a blush crept up his cheeks at the Maguanac's raised-eyebrow expression. "Then I'd get to see him again," he finished, his voice dropping as his eyes lowered.

"Well then," said Rashid in quiet, dry amusement, "we'll hope things don't quite come to that. It would be a shame, Quatre-sama, to meet him again only to have to kill him."

"I wouldn't," Quatre said fiercely, still staring off in the direction the other pilot had vanished, and if his vehemence surprised Rashid at all, he kept it to himself. "I wouldn't ever!"

//What is this fixation I can feel growing? Why do I feel this way?//

He almost missed it when Rashid shook his head sadly. "Then I hope for your sake that he's everything you seem to think he is," he said. "War can play with even the best man's mind, after all."

************

The woman on the telephone, a receptionist for a San Francisco hotel, was being considerably less than helpful. "Yes," Quatre said through clenched teeth, for what had to be the fourth time, "I'm fifteen, I'm on my own, and I can legally pay for the room. Now can you help me or not?" //As if,// he thought wryly, //getting a hotel was the worst thing I intend to do while I'm here.//

The woman let out a long-suffering sigh. "All right. What name shall I put it under?"

He told her, and before he could ask her for directions to the place, her entire manner had undergone an instantaneous transformation. Quatre winced inwardly. //Oh, so now I'm 'sir'? A minute ago I was some punk kid.// He decided he would never understand why people--the average citizen, who were /not/ involved in shooting at the opposite side--couldn't stand to be civil to people on general principle, without having to first examine the strength of their wallet. Trowa, he decided, Mr-I-Don't-Have-a-Real-Name, would never be so shallow. At least not in Quatre's mind.

He'd done a lot of thinking about Trowa since the Heavyarms pilot had left his hideaway. Most of it was based purely on speculation and the limited encounter they'd had--the fight, the surrender, the almost-nonexistent conversation and the spectacular duet. That last had occupied most of his thoughts regarding the other young man--at least the ones he would admit to having. There were others, but he kept those to himself, to be drug out and examined only in the safety of the dark and his own lonely bed.

Was he fixated? Undoubtedly. Did he have a crush? Without question. Would he give almost anything in his power to have Trowa near him again, close enough to explore those late-night fantasies he indulged in? Oh, yes.

//Rather pathetic, really,// he informed himself wryly. //Here I am trying to fight a war, and FINALLY the hormones decide to kick in. Rashid may think it's entertaining, but my father is not going to pleased at all. Again.// That road was just too unpleasant to travel--his father had disapproved of all Quatre's actions, more or less constantly, for a good two years. One more shock would hardly make a difference. //After all, he's disinherited me twice already. And with all he preaches pacifism, it's unlikely he'd hit me. He's running out of ways to show he's angry with me.//

His thoughts--as well as the small part of his brain that was still conversing with the receptionist about directions and payment details--were interrupted abruptly when a cloud of petrol fumes rolled over him, choking him. The truck it came from looked barely sound, let alone ecologically efficient, a broken-down clunker with something bulky tied down in its bed.

But once Quatre looked up, it was the driver that caught his eye. Brown hair, falling lazily over one eye...a sculpted face, and a glimpse of a graceful, wiry body visible from the open window.

//Trowa!// Quatre dropped the phone, reaching to grab for it only long enough to call, "I'm sorry ma'am--got to go, I'll be there later!" and drop it again, leaving the thing dangling from its cord. He pelted after the truck, footsteps pounding on the hard cement of the sidewalk. "Trowa!"

He lost the truck as it turned a corner, but only for a moment--a quick cut through the parking lot of a factory and he had caught sight of it again. It had slowed almost to a stop, and the driver was looking from side to side as if he were searching for something. Quatre raced to intercept him, gasping to catch his breath as he grasped hold of the driver's door. "Um...hi."

The faintest trace of surprise registered on Trowa's calm face. "Hello. Quatre Raberba Winner."

//He remembered!// Quatre fought to quell the rising hope that simple fact set to bubbling in his chest, but he couldn't completely hide his smile. "Trowa Barton," he returned. "You're here too."

A shrug, and no sign of his returning the smile. "I have orders."

Quatre nodded. "So do I." An idea occurred, lightning struck, and he suggested, "Why don't we work together? Two's better than one, after all."

Trowa paused, and looked for a moment as if he were about to agree...then shook his head slowly. "I can handle it on my own."

Quatre snorted. It wasn't dignified, but it was how he felt. "That doesn't change my orders any, so don't think I'm not going to be there to back you up." Surprise, again, and he felt a brief surge or triumph. //I'm getting to him!// Which left only one further course of action. "Listen...the mission profile, if we /do/ have the same orders, doesn't start until tomorrow morning. Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

"I--" Trowa began, then stopped and jerked his hand to indicate the back of the truck. "Well--here."

Quatre smiled sunnily. There was hope after all. "I've got a room in a hotel," he offered, choosing his words as carefully as his hormone-stunned mind was capable of. Being this close to Trowa was more intoxicating than he remembered. "Why don't you share it with me?"

The long pause, before Trowa answered him, stretched out into an uncomfortable silence, but Quatre forced himself to be patient. He could tell--sense, see, whatever--the struggle playing out in the other boy's mind. But he was relieved when, finally, the Heavyarms pilot nodded. "All right," he agreed. "Just let me hide this truck first. And..." another pause, another struggle. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," said Quatre, meaning it wholeheartedly.

************

If Quatre had hoped to use the night to learn more about his enigmatic companion, he was disappointed. Trowa was neither prone nor willing to divulging any information about himself, and everything about him--his words, his posture, even what little Quatre could sense of his heart--was viciously guarded.

"I'm ordering out," Quatre called, leaning over the vidphone to flip it on. "What do you like?"

There was a pause. "You don't have to worry about me," Trowa said blandly.

Quatre rolled his eyes. "Don't be silly. It's just food. Your species does eat, right?" He almost regretted the jibe immediately, but it actually provoked a shadow of a laugh from the quiet boy.

"Yes," he admitted, a hint of self-deprecating humour colouring his voice. "And I suppose I am hungry."

"At last, we're getting somewhere," Quatre said, with an exaggerated sigh of exhaustion. "Now. Let me repeat my question. I'm ordering out, Trowa. What do you like?"

Trowa shrugged. "Anything you get is fine."

Quatre sighed. //So much for finding out any personal details. All I know is he plays the flute...and beautifully. If he ever gets captured, I almost feel sorry for the Oz officer stuck trying to interrogate him.// He stopped that thought in its tracks--such was not the sort of thing one should think about one's allies, and it really wasn't funny. //Still. It would serve him right if I made him eat...oh, monkey's brains or something. But I won't.// He contented himself with ordering to his own tastes, and Trowa, as good as his word, downed his share in silence.

Quatre wasn't up to conversation either. He spent most of the meal trying to decide if it was all right to try to push things a step further, and how he might go about doing it. //I want...oh, if I could just kiss him, then I'd at least know if he was interested, right? But if he wasn't--then we'd both feel awkward, and I'd be embarrassed...and I can't think straight with him sitting like that, dammit! How can he even MOVE in those jeans?//

Indeed, it was a miracle he made it through dinner at all without exploding. He was poking at the last few slices of shawirma [1] with his fork, forming a carefully-designed pattern of little holes, when Trowa softly interrupted his thoughts.

"We start early tomorrow...we should sleep soon."

Quatre looked up, abandoning his 'artwork.' "Does that mean you've decided we should work together?"

Trowa shrugged. "It's as you said. Two are better than one."

Quatre beamed at him. "I'm glad." His smile faded as he realised the nature of the uncomfortable dilemma to follow. //Oh, just act like it's no big deal, Quatre...you're acting pathetic.// He forced his heart to still, and called over his shoulder as he removed the dishes to the room's kitchenette. "You can take the bed, if you want to. Or we can share. Only if you don't mind, though. It's up to you."

"But you don't--" Trowa stopped. It seemed he had learned something over the course of the night after all, and that was not to argue when Quatre offered something. "We can share, I don't mind," he said after a moment, swallowing. "It's a big enough bed."

With greater self-control than Quatre had realised he possessed, the Arabian managed not to squeal, cheer, or faint dead away. //Yes!! I'm going to sleep next to Trowa!// The difficulties inherent in keeping his dignity in said situation could be dealt with later. "All right then. I'm going to take a shower, first--do you need the bathroom?"

Trowa shook his head. "I'm a morning shower person." Quatre quelled another mental cheer. Finally--a detail, an idiosyncracy, /something/. He fairly skipped to the shower, leaving Trowa to get ready for bed alone.

***********

Trowa curled around himself in one side of the hotel bed, shielded by a soft cotton blanket and a mess of dark hair. It was a comfortable bed, he ruminated--far better than any he'd been accustomed to, and definately a few steps above sleeping with his Gundam in the back of a stolen truck.

But he still felt so /vulnerable/. And he hated it.

The shower stopped running, and he felt his muscles tense involuntarily. //Relax,// he commanded himself sternly, forcing a posture of comfortable slumber, so he could pretend to be asleep. //There's no reason to believe Quatre's dangerous. He doesn't want to hurt you, idiot, he's just being a nice guy.//

But after a lifetime of conditioning, some things were easier to say than to believe.

The bathroom door opened, and through half-closed eyes he watched as Quatre emerged, toweling off his hair. He was clad only in a pair of loose scarlet pants, made of something that might have been silk, and droplets of water still glistened against his damp chest.

//See?// Trowa told himself fiercely. //How can anyone that beautiful be cruel?// The boy moved closer, and Trowa closed his eyes, the tension in his body invisible to anyone not looking for it, his attention fixed on the sense of movement near the bed.

Cool air brushed his body as the blankets were pulled back, the mattress shifting as Quatre lay down next to him. He could feel--whether it was real, or if he imagined it--the weight of those soft blue eyes resting on him, before the movement of the mattress and tug of the comforter made it apparent that the blonde boy had snuggled in to go to sleep. Trowa let out a sigh of relief, his body finally relaxing. //There, see?// he informed himself triumphantly. //You made it. Nothing happened. Now go to sleep.//

And he drifted into a world of dark and painful dreams.

*********

Quatre awoke from his own steamy fantasy when one of Trowa's flailing arms thumped him solidly in the head. With a yelp, consciousness took over, and his undefended heart was flooded with a wave of overwhelming terror.

After conquering his initial instinct to crawl under the bed til he could figure out what was wrong, he sat up, carefully avoiding contact with any more fluttering limbs. "Trowa?" he demanded tentatively, rubbing at his eyes in confusion, but no answer came.

A nightmare, then. Quatre tried to suppress his body's immediate reaction to the sight of sweat-drenched, half-naked Trowa tangled in the sheets, and shook the boy's shoulder. No reaction. He sighed, his breath catching in his throat, and wrapped his arms around the taller pilot's chest. "Trowa, wake up. You're dreaming. /Trowa!/"

When necessary, Quatre could imbue a good deal of commanding presence into his voice, and he did so now, startling the shaken pilot into wakefulness. "What--?" Trowa's attempt at indignation came out as a frightened whimper, his body tense and trembling in Quatre's arms.

"You were having a dream," Quatre explained, not letting go. "You accidentally hit me in the face, it woke me up. Are you all right?"

Shame coloured Trowa's face crimson, and he turned his eyes to the wall. "I'm sorry for waking you."

"I said," Quatre repeated, patiently, firmly, "are you all right?"

Trowa nodded, still refusing to meet Quatre's eyes, his entire consciousness focused intently on Quatre's arms around him, and the warmth of the chest pressed against Trowa's side. //Safe. I feel safe.// The sensation was unfamiliar, and too precious to waste, and it took all his remarkable will not to nestle into the curve of that protective embrace and cry his nightmare into the crisp hotel sheets.

But no good thing, Trowa had long since realised, could ever last.

Quatre's heart pounded against his ribs, his body's reaction to being pressed so close against the object of its desire made abundantly plain, his mind whirling and utterly free of the restrictions of convention or reason. He was holding Trowa, and that sensation alone sent him spiraling far distant from the region inhabited by his more rational thoughts. //I want him, I want him so badly...is it taking advantage of him if I try to kiss him now? He's so vulnerable, it doesn't seem fair. But oh...if only...//

Tentatively, tenderly, he brushed his lips across Trowa's neck.

The boy's reaction was instantaneous. His body tensed in Quatre's arms, as if the faint kiss had rendered him paralysed. Quatre, unsure if that was a positive or negative response, nibbled on his lip. "Trowa...." he murmured.

The taller boy shifted in his embrace, turning to face him, his clear green eyes still haunted and half-hidden by his hair. He was so vulnerably beautiful that Quatre's brain forgot, momentarily, to make sure his body continued to breathe. Impulsively, he leaned close, and kissed him gently. Trowa's lips parted obligingly beneath his own, and his tongue flicked against the soft warmth of the taller boy's mouth.

And having so touched Heaven, Quatre pulled away.

Trowa was watching him, his eyes guarded, his body perfectly still, and he was hit with a sudden wave of apprehension--his own, or the other's, it really mattered little. "Can I...?" he stumbled over his own request, almost choking on his words.

And Trowa, compliant, only nodded and said softly, "It's your room."

Of all the things Quatre had hoped or anticipated hearing, that was not on the list. "It's my--?" He began, cutting himself off as realisation of Trowa's meaning dawned. //Does he mean what I think he means? That he owes me, somehow, for letting him stay here?// Defiance, and no small amount of anger, welled up in the boy's hypersensitive heart.

"You misunderstand," he said flatly, letting go of Trowa and sitting up in bed. "But so did I." The sight, of the boy he was almost certain he loved--however insensible that was--huddled in defense against /him/, against his touch, was almost more than he could bear.

But worse yet, was Trowa's stammered attempt at apology. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "It's all right, really--it isn't that important to me--"

Quatre stared at him for several seconds in shock. "It's that important to /ME/," he declared, when he had regained his voice and some semblance of his former composure, and was rewarded by a flicker of faint surprise in those deep green eyes. "Please..." he sighed, searching for words that his turned-on, emotionally-distraught, and sleep-deprived brain was having trouble locating. "I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry for making you uncomfortable. And for trying to kiss you...I shouldn't have, but I've never done this before, I don't really know how it works." With that, he crawled out of the bed, stripping one of the blankets from it to wrap around himself. "Get some sleep," he finished wearily. "I'm afraid we're going to have a rather stressful morning."

Trowa struggled to free himself from the sheets that insisted on keeping him tangled in their grasp. "No--I mean, you shouldn't--I'll go sleep on the couch, it's your--"

Quatre silenced him with a look. "No. I made you uncomfortable, I'll sleep on the couch. You can wake me up if you need anything."

And Quatre, with his heart aching and his body crying for release, relocated to the couch. If it had been possible to do in an unobvious manner, he would have hit himself over the head. //Ghabee! [2] That was one of the worst moves you've ever made,// he berated himself, throwing himself onto the cushions and burying his head under the blanket. //So much for not hurting him.//

It was a long and self-deprecating while before he finally drifted into sleep.

But it was even longer for Trowa, whose confused thoughts ran in longer and longer circles as he fought with the demons still threatening to overtake him, and the safety he'd thought he'd found in the arms of a boy he wanted so desperately to trust.

Finally he gave up, crawling out of bed and into his clothes. //I can't stay. There's something just wrong about it.// Stealthily, he slipped past the boy dozing fitfully on the couch, and paused. //I can't just vanish...he's the kind who blames himself for everything, I can't cause him any more pain.// Decided then. He knelt next to the blonde pilot on the floor, brushing his fingertips lightly across the pale cheek. "Quatre...wake up for a minute, will you?"

Soft blue eyes flickered open, his mouth rounded in an O of surprise. "Trowa?"

"I'm leaving," Trowa interrupted, forestalling any question about the nature of whatever emergency meant he had to be woken up in the middle of the night. "I need to think, and be alone for a while...I can't sleep now anyway." He took a long breath, but started again quickly, when it looked like Quatre was about to protest. "I just wanted to say good-bye first...and thank you. And that none of...that...was your fault. And I still want to fight with you in the morning."

Quatre nodded, his expression more comprehending than one would expect for one who'd just been woken up. "It's all right," he answered, "and I'm sorry."

"I know," said Trowa, and leaned in suddenly, closing the distance between them and meeting his lips. It was only a kiss, and not a long one, the mere brush of soft lips together, tentative and innocent before he pulled away. "I'll see you in a while," he said.

Quatre caught his hand as he began to move away. "I'd never hurt you, Trowa," he whispered fervently.

And the look in Trowa's eyes promised he believed him more than words ever could.

*******

//I'd never hurt you, Trowa.// Quatre's own innocent promise haunted him, echoing mockingly in his mind as he wrenched himself angrily from the depths of restless sleep. //You should have known better than to trust me,// he'd informed a dream-Trowa bitterly. And the dream-Trowa had only looked at him sadly, with the pain of betrayal in his eyes, before the Wing Zero's beam cannon had sent him catapulting into space.

In the nightmare, there was not even a Vayeate to shield him.

Quatre was about to despair of ever getting a restful night's sleep again. It had been bad enough when they thought Trowa was dead--no matter how fervently Quatre denied it, he'd known they'd humoured his search only because they feared him losing his mind again. Then he'd found him, working as a circus clown with a woman who said she was his sister. He remembered the surge of joy he'd felt when Trowa had looked at him, with /almost/ recognition in his eyes, and followed him back to space. It was more than he had dared to hope.

But now the Heavyarms pilot could remember everything, and Quatre could not yet bring himself to face him. His mind already supplied him with more looks of betrayal and hurt than he could stand, he couldn't bear to see it in the real Trowa's eyes.

He slipped out of bed, sparing a momentary glance down at the loose red silks he used to sleep in. It was the same thing he'd been wearing when he'd tried to kiss Trowa, and for good or ill, he couldn't bring himself to part with them. //That's silly. Being attached to a pair of pants.// But silly or not, it was true, just as it was true that Quatre was not getting any sleep this night. He rubbed at his eyes, sighing, and slipped out into the Peacemillion's hall.

There was only one place he could truly feel safe anymore, and he made his way there: the Gundam hangar, where he could curl up in Sandrock's cockpit like a return to the womb and hide from the troubles of the world.

Strange, perhaps, that a weapon would be so comforting.

His hands caressed the hull, and he paused to rest against one gargantuan leg. "I should have stayed," he informed his Gundam in a whisper. Only in the dark of night would he give voice to the doubts that still plagued him, or surrender to the guilt that threatened to swallow him. He would always try to be strong, to help the others. And yet... "I should have detonated with you...none of this would have happened then."

"Don't say that." The soft voice startled him, he spun around to face the speaker he had already identified by the voice that haunted all of his dreams.

"How can you say that?" he demanded, his voice still low. "You, of everybody...I practically killed you!"

A shrug, as Trowa slipped closer to him. Quatre refused to let himself be distracted by the way his jeans hugged his graceful form so perfectly, or the wiry muscles that defined his smooth chest, resisted the compulsion to stare. "You weren't yourself," Trowa countered softly, and Quatre wondered if he /knew/ how sultry his voice could sound when he whispered. "You couldn't be cruel...you're too good a person. I think I've always known that."

Quatre was in danger of melting, he already needed Sandrock's support just to keep standing. "Every time I've seen you, I've hurt you somehow. And you stand there and say I'm a good person? Trowa, I destroyed two colonies!" Repressed guilt, suddenly free of its prison in his heart, burst free and choked his words. "Not to mention I shot you! After I promised...."

"You weren't yourself," Trowa repeated firmly, gently, closing the distance between them finally and tilting Quatre's chin. "And I had time to get out of the Vayeate before it exploded. That I didn't is not your fault."

Quatre's heart skipped at least three beats when Trowa touched him, and another four at the implications of his words. //He knew what he was doing.// The thought had occured to him before, but now it was confirmed. //He knew, and he was staying to--to talk me out of the madness.// A whimper, unbidden and uncontrolled, escaped his lips. //I don't understand you, Trowa--how you can be so fragile and so strong at once..how you can forgive me when I can't forgive myself.//

And Trowa stood still in front of him, his fingers slowly stroking Quatre's cheek, watching the thoughts as they flickered across his face, each one confirming what he'd decided long ago: that he was right, when he'd wondered at how safe he felt in this boy's arms. For a long time after that night he'd explored the feelings that the encounter had evoked, and all had led to a single conclusion--

"You're a beautiful person, Quatre Raberba Winner," he said softly, and bent to meet the blonde boy's lips. "Forgive yourself...I've already forgiven you."

Quatre let out a strangled sob, and Trowa's first instinct was that he'd made the wrong move, but then the small Arabian flung his arms around his neck, and clung there, trembling, tearing away from the kiss to bury his face in the hollow of Trowa's neck. Unnervingly conscious of the warm body pressed so tantalisingly against his own, Trowa stroked long fingers through the soft blonde hair, dropping gentle kisses across his skin. "Come with me," he whispered finally, after a moment of eternity, gently disengaging the arms around him.

"Where are we going?" Quatre asked, sniffling, trying to blink the puffiness from his eyes before Trowa could see it.

And Trowa allowed him the moment of weakness without judgement. "That depends," he said after a moment. "Do you trust me?"

Quatre nodded. "Of course."

"Do you still want me?" A little less sure of himself, then, though his trepidation was well-disguised.

The adoration in Quatre's blue eyes as they turned up toward him was absolute. "Only if /you/ want /me/," he answered firmly, his mind noting with some satisfaction, //He certainly can't feel he owes me anything NOW.//

"Then come with me," Trowa repeated, drawing him away.

********

Trowa had made his room aboard Peacemillion his own in a way Quatre had not. He noticed it as soon as he entered, Trowa guiding him by the hand, leading him into a small room cluttered with unlit candles and scattered pillows, all arranged to make a simple room into a shelter from the world.

"I like your room," he said honestly.

Trowa shrugged. "It's mine," he answered, clasping Quatre's hands as he closed the door.

"That's what I like about it," Quatre responded. Then--Trowa was kissing him, and conscious thought fled. He reveled in the velvet kiss, in the way Trowa's tongue probed at his mouth til it opened, demanding entry. The intoxicating touch, the hands drawing abstract patterns across his flushed skin, the heat of his body as he returned the fervent gestures--all served to make him dizzy, to blur the edges of his consciousness as he lost himself in exploration of the beautiful boy before him.

He broke the kiss--his hands slid up Trowa's smooth, muscular chest, and his mouth followed, urged on by the pounding of the heart beneath his lips and the breathing that came more ragged with each gasp. His tongue brushed a nipple, and swirled experimentally around it, rewarded by Trowa's hands in his hair, pressing him closer.

A moment's more ecstacy, and Trowa pushed him reluctantly away, turning him, lowering him down onto the pile of pillows and mattress that served as a bed, tugging hurriedly at the waistband of those red silk pants. Quatre wriggled free of the clinging cloth, long past the point of awkwardness even when Trowa paused to drink in the sight of him, hovering above him.

//He really is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,// Trowa thought in wonder, stroking his fingertips lightly, teasingly down the centre of Quatre's chest. He caressed the smooth, almost childish lines of the Sandrock pilot's body as if it might dissipate on rougher handling.

Quatre grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down atop him. "I'm not breakable," he almost growled, his body arcing into the embrace, his hips bucking in frustrated desire. Now that he was here, naked and aroused and in bed with Trowa--exactly where he wanted to be, even if mere hours ago he'd thought it impossible--he was in no mood to be treated like a decouration. He fumbled for Trowa's hand, pushing it down his body toward the centre of his desire. "Touch me...please...."

And Trowa found it was hardly within his power to refuse such a request, even if he had wanted to. The grunted plea melted him, and he obliged, wrapping his hand around Quatre's throbbing arousal and pumping it, coaxing ever-more-rapid moans from the boy beneath him.

But he wanted more.

Without warning his lover he ducked his head, taking the tip of Quatre's erection between his lips, suckling the head until the smaller boy let out a strangled cry and pressed straining fingers into his hair. He looked up, a smile curving his lips as his tongue stroked Quatre's length, revelling in the image before him--the blonde's head was thrown back, his body prone, his hips thrusting upward in search of Trowa's mouth.

In spite of all the fantasies he'd ever indulged in, Quatre had been utterly unprepared for the heaven that was Trowa. He tried to keep from screaming when the taller boy swallowed him, the damp warmth of his mouth engulfing him, coaxing him toward a higher plane of ecstacy. He tangled his fingers in Trowa's silky hair and moaned, his body trembling with the depth of his desire.

And somewhere in the midst of heaven Trowa slid a finger inside him, and his body froze for the briefest of moments before accepting even such a small invasion and rejoicing in it. //Ohyesohyesohyes.// It was good--no, much better than good, and he wanted more, even if it meant his body would drown in the erotic sensations that flooded it. He felt warmth, centering in his groin and threatening to explode outward. //No! Not yet, not yet!// He grasped ineffectually at Trowa's hair, tugging at him. "Please--"

Trowa lifted his head, licking drops of moisture from the tip of Quatre's straining erection, kissing up a line along his belly. "What is it...?"

"Do that to me." It was hardly a coherent request, even punctuated as it was by Quatre heaving Trowa fully atop him, tugging futilely at the button of his jeans. "Now."

The button gave way with a pop, and clattered onto the floor, as Trowa shimmied out of his jeans, kicking them into a pile to be abandoned on the floor. Quatre touched his chest, slid his hands down his sides, over his hips, between his legs, distracted by the exploration of each newly-revealed inch of that oh-so-tempting body. He grasped Trowa's erection, a little roughly, and was rewarded by a moan as the other boy fell back onto the bed.

Encouraged, he ducked his head, taking Trowa's length into his mouth. "Trowa...?" he whispered, his voice buzzing against already-inflamed skin and evoking another soft moan. He bobbed his head, swirled his tongue around the tip, reveled in the soft moans he elicited from the other boy's lips. "I want...." he ducked again, as Trowa sighed his name, "...you..." and his fingers blazed light trails up that graceful form, "...inside me." He looked up, meeting the eyes turned dark and hazy with desire. "Please?"

Trowa seized his shoulders and hauled him up, claiming his mouth for a searing kiss. "If that's what you want--" he murmured between ragged breaths, his hands roaming desperately over Quatre's body. //So amasing...so amasing...// The litany streamed repetitively through Trowa's lust-fogged brain.

Quatre, wondering how in Allah's name it would be possible to be any more obvious, grabbed Trowa's hand and slid it behind him, guiding it exactly where he wanted it to go. Trowa let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a groan, and obliged. Quatre melted against him as those fingers began to stretch him, kissing Trowa's chest and nibbling at his collarbone, rocking his body against the intoxicating ministrations of those hands.

It was, in his impatient opinion, far too long before Trowa had determined he was ready and rolled him onto his side. "As long as I've been dreaming of this...." he growled, turning his face for a kiss.

Trowa smiled, his tongue caressing Quatre's lips, his arms slipping around his sides. "Then why are you in such a hurry get it over with, hm?" he countered, pressing his body flush against Quatre's, and lifting his face to nibble on his ear.

"This is some bizarre revenge plot, isn't it?" Quatre writhed against Trowa's body, rubbing as much as he could against him, words falling unhindered from his lips. "I swear--ooohhh--Trowa, if you meant what you said about having forgiven me, stop teasing me--OOOHH!"

It hurt, but the pain was negligible compared to the absolute rapture of being filled by Trowa, of having fulfilled the fantasy of the past several months, of being ultimately joined with the boy who'd occupied his heart and thoughts for so long. And Trowa waited as his body adjusted, accepted his intrusion and reveled in it. He pulled out, slowly, and Quatre bit back a sob at the hollow feeling it left him with.

"It's all right..." Trowa whispered into his hair, rocking back into him as his hands roamed over Quatre's chest, down his sides, to part his legs and wrap his weeping erection in strong fingers. He pumped in time with slow, rhythmic thrusts, and Quatre's world spiraled into the stratosphere. Each motion made him more complete, lit fires over every inch of his skin, wrapped his brain in the fog of lovemaking. He gasped Trowa's name, urged him harder, faster, catapulted to further heights of ecstacy. And this time, when the heat enveloped him and threatened to explode, he surrendered to it, his hands fisting in the sheets til his knuckles cracked, his body quivering with the force of the virgin's orgasm that spilled across his skin. He felt Trowa come inside him, crying his name in his ear, wrapping his arms around Quatre's chest to hold him close.

And there they rested, trembling, exhausted, tangled in the faded sheets and each other's arms.

"I love you," Quatre said abruptly, squirming til he could face Trowa and look into those deep eyes.

Trowa's fingertips brushed the length of his cheek tenderly, and Quatre nuzzled into the touch. "I know."

"You do?" Not the most profound thing Quatre had ever said, to be sure, but like so many other things related to Trowa, it slipped out of its own accord.

Trowa nodded, bending close to kiss him lightly. "I know. And I love you."

"But--" Quatre began, and Trowa silenced him with a finger across his lips.

"I'll explain it to you later," he said firmly, and Quatre nodded acquiescence. Whatever process of emotional evolution had brought them to this moment could be inspected later, when he wasn't basking in afterglow and cuddling in Trowa's arms. That sensation was too wonderful to be wasted.

And for once, when the two spent boys drifted finally into sleep, no nightmares plagued them.

~Owari~

[1] shawirma: an Arabic dish--spiced grilled meat, usually served in fine slices

[2] Ghabee: "stupid"

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