I thought that he would be embarrassed when he finally woke, but Quatre
sat up, blinked as if trying to remember why he was on the edge of a
sewer, and then looked down at me. I was still lying on my back, one
arm behind my head as a cushion and my eyes, pinched with weariness,
battling the siren call of sleep.
"You should sleep," Quatre told me. No apology or wasted time feeling
guilty. There was a question in that suggestion, though, and it wasn't
an order.
"Later," I told him simply and pulled him to his feet along with
me as
I rose. I carefully listened and surveyed the area, a dawn free of
rain showing me the war torn countryside all around us.
"We need to move," he said. "We'll need to supply as well. I
have
contacts if we can get that far."
I nodded, but I wasn't a man who trusted anyone, certainly not a third
party. I wouldn't avail myself of Quatre's 'friends' unless I couldn't
find any other alternative. The first order of business, though, was
to eliminate the things that would make us stand out.
"We need to wash the mud and stink off," I told Quatre and led him
along the stream until I was certain that it was running clean. I
gathered a certain lily from the upper bank as we walked. When I had
an armful of them, Quatre raised a brow but didn't question me.
I think having saved his life was giving me credibility. I hoped that
would continue. I needed him not to question me for our survival's sake.
"Here," I said, pointing down a gentler slope of dirt to the water's
edge. "Take off your clothing and wash first. Do so quickly. We don't
have much time."
He hesitated and there was a slight pinking of his pale cheeks. With
his hair hanging in his eyes, it made him look very young and
uncertain. His fingers began working then as he began unbuttoning his
shirt.
I turned away to crush my plants against a stone. The smell was faint
and the pods rough. With some added river bottom sand, it would make a
crude kind of soap, that would, hopefully, get both mud and smell
removed. I used my military hat to bring it to Quatre and then I had
to look down and swallow hard.
Quatre is beautiful. I suppose, if I wanted to keep it cynical, and
clinical, I could point out that his family formulated themselves in
labs; weeding out genetic flaws, and making perfect heirs. Quatre
didn't look engineered though, he looked sculpted by a higher power.
His body flowed, lithe like a dancer, but still on that verge of man
and boy, soft in places and curved in others, yet possessing some
muscle. He had scars, and I know, that if I looked closely, I might
see freckles, moles, or pimples, but I couldn't see any of that just
then... and didn't really care to. Standing waist deep in the stream
and trying to wash, the rest of Quatre was a tantalizing mystery that
I was ready to solve.
"Soap." My voice was almost irritated with my need to at least appear
in control.
The blush that had been on Quatre's cheeks rocketed along his back and
chest and he kept his eyes lowered as he took the hat from me and
looked inside curiously.
"Add river sand and mix it," I suggested. "It will help scrub.
Make
certain that you keep it out of any wounds."
I turned my back and began undressing myself. I was long and lean and
didn't care what anyone thought of me... or hadn't until then. Now, I
felt like a mongrel bathing with a purebred... daring to bathe with
one. I hated that feeling of not being as good as everyone else. Yes,
I was gypsy, mercenary, and didn't have a real name, but I did things
on a daily basis that most men couldn't.... that even Quatre Winner
couldn't do. Shame was not something that I needed to indulge in...
yet I wondered if he looked and what he thought about what he saw.
Quatre handed me the soap before ducking to rinse out his hair. He came
up with a splash of cold water and then walked out of the stream, his
hair gold once more. I looked, of course, my eyes tracking one spot in
particular. What did I hope to see? Anyone will tell you what happens
to men in cold water. Yet, I looked and saw exactly what I expected to
see, and then looked quickly away.
I washed and then dressed. I didn't feel eyes on me and was somewhat
disappointed to find Quatre dressed and turned discretely away when I
was done. The man is honorable and proper. I had no doubt, just then,
that my modesty was still intact and that Quatre had never looked.
I examined us both carefully, after washing out the hat. I gave it back
to Quatre and he put it on over his soggy, bright hair. He shivered,
but I promised, "The sun will dry us, along with our body warmth, once
we begin to walk. It is easier to explain being wet than it is to
explain why we were swimming in a sewer."
Quatre nodded and then he smiled. "I'm glad that you were the one to
rescue me," he said. I had a heart fluttering moment where I
thought... but then I attributed the comment to his appreciating my
skill, and wrestled my emotions back under control.
"I've been doing this all of my life," I told him as we began to
walk.
"It is the same as breathing for me."
"Then I'm slowing you down, endangering you," Quatre replied worriedly.
"I chose to take the risk," I reminded him and saw his sidelong look
of
gratitude. If he only knew just how much I would risk for him...
Contacts gone, and hair gold again, Quatre only had a slouching hat and
a uniform to cover the fact that he was the Winner heir and a
particular Gundam pilot on the run. I wondered what it was like for
everyone to know your face and then shivered, glad that I was someone
who was nondescript, forgotten, looked over, looked past... No Name. I
was surprised by a touch of bitterness when I thought that I had long
ago accepted it. I knew, though, that it sprang from wanting to be
someone Quatre would notice, someone Quatre wouldn't forget.
"I was afraid," Quatre said as he slid across a slick rock and regained
his balance.
I tried to process that and make sense of it. "Afraid?" I finally
had
to ask.
"That they would capture me," he clarified and that admission obviously
bothered him. I wondered why he was confessing it to me, why he felt
the need.
"They... hurt Duo badly when he was captured by them," Quatre went
on.
He adjusted his hat and then jammed cold hands into his pockets.
"Broken ribs, a broken leg, and contusions. He told me... He told me
that they beat him as soon as they dragged him out of his Gundam. They
hated him. They wanted to hurt him."
"We've killed many people," Trowa replied. He didn't have to elaborate.
Quatre understood. Right or wrong, daughters, sons, lovers, wives, and
husbands were dead at their hands. Animosity was to be expected. "Duo
was also interrogated," he mused darkly. "They wanted information
badly."
"That's... criminal," Quatre said, disturbed and I had to laugh.
The
man could be so... pure in the midst of our dirty little war. It might
have made him angry, my reaction. He didn't say anything else for awhile.
"Aren't you ever afraid?" Quatre asked out of the blue, as if we
had
never stopped having the earlier conversation, though it was later in
the day by several hours.
"Yes," I replied. "But it doesn't matter. I still do my job."
"Then you're brave," Quatre said softly.
"Not caring and being brave are different," I argued. "You have
to be
afraid of losing your life to be brave."
"But you said..." Quatre was confused.
"I fear pain and a messy end, but not dying. My life has always been
full of it," I explained. "I've slept soundly on battlefields and
in
trenches with death all around me."
Quatre shook his head as if I confused him and then he said,. "You
should care about dying. I would hate for you to die."
I stopped walking and he bumped into my back. I was having a hard time
believing what I had just heard him say. He cared whether I lived or
died? He was the first that I could remember. I had always been
expendable. Nobody. The loner. The kid. The No Name tagalong who was
good with weapons. Send him, they'd often ordered. He's got nobody.
Nobody cares if he dies.
Quatre snaked an arm around me as if sensing my turmoil and he...
hugged me tight.
"It's okay," he whispered against my back.
No, it wasn't. Not then. Not when I couldn't... Not in the danger we
were in. I pulled away and started walking again, but I was tense and
emotionally shaky. I didn't want him to see it as a rejection and
hated when he caught up with me and said a soft, "Sorry."
"It's not...," I began to say and then clamped down on that and said
instead, "We don't have time."
"I know," he replied and then sighed, "I hate this war."
Hate it? It was all that I knew. It was my life. I might as well hate
the air that I breathed. There were times, though, when there were
lulls, when there were pockets of peace before the next battle. Then,
I told myself, I would, perhaps, find time to let Quatre know how I felt.
When darkness descended, we crawled through a narrow, broken window
into the tumbled remains of a brick building. It had enough space for
lying down and an off room to use as a privy. It would do for the
night and I hoped that the long line of troop carriers, that we had
seen crossing our airspace for most of that day, would be long gone by
morning. We hadn't made much progress, hiding mostly in depressions
and under bushes to avoid detection by their instruments.
It was cold. Quatre was rubbing his hands together and then jamming
them into his pockets. We couldn't chance a fire, unfortunately, but I
couldn't say that sharing body warmth for the night was unappealing.
As we crouched in our small space and cleared some of the floor of
debris, I was surprised to learn that Quatre wasn't thinking about our
predicament at all.
"This town was completely destroyed. War destroys so many lives."
Quatre said, troubled.
It was an unnecessary observation. I was thinking more along the lines
that, being the perfect hiding place, troops probably searched the
blasted out buildings as part of their sweeps. We were taking a chance
by staying there, but the wind was up and getting brisker and I didn't
want to spend the night being buffeted by it and the cold.
Floor clean, we settled together in the darkness. We both didn't voice
our hunger in unspoken agreement. I set my back against a fallen wall
and I felt him lean into me. I couldn't help the impulse to wrap an
arm around him and pull him closer.
"Cold," I explained. I felt him nod.
"We should be clear by tomorrow afternoon," Quatre mused. "I'll
be
happy to get out of the battle zone. There's so much I want to do, but
I need Sandrock."
"Or a few good weapons," I chuckled. Depending on one form of fighting
was always dangerous, especially when one depended on such a rare
machine, a Gundam. It was smarter to be a man of many skills. I could
pilot any mobile suit and any weapons array.
"Trowa?" Quatre said softly as if he wanted to tell me something important.
I thought of discovery, that perhaps he had heard a sound that I
hadn't, but then he was slipping an arm around me as well and putting
his weight on my chest. I wanted more than anything else to be able to
see his eyes, to see his expression and know for sure what I was only
hoping for.
"Quatre..." There was so much that we could say by only saying each
other's name. How did we question, argue, and then come to an
agreement with just two names? Quatre will tell you that it was soul
meeting soul, but I think it was stress, adrenaline, hormones, and
feelings for each other that we couldn't keep to ourselves any longer.
Screw danger of discovery, we wanted to screw each other to put it
bluntly.
Warm hands slid under my shirt and a kiss missed my mouth. It was
tentative, expecting censure, but, instead, it met my hot kiss instead
as I snatched at his lips with my own. He was on me then, groaning and
whispering some sort of gratitude. I don't know for sure, I was too
far gone and struggling with the mechanics of getting at least the
important parts of him undressed.
Quatre is a passionate young man and he didn't disappoint me as he
proved to be just as passionate in my arms. His hands are strong, used
to the grip of a Gundam' controls, and his slim body was well muscled
where it pressed against mine. When my hands slide between the crack
of his ass, played there, and then squeezed his firm, rounded cheeks,
there was a breath of uncertainty from him. Of course we couldn't go
that far, but it didn't mean that I couldn't explore him there.
On our rough bed of broken concrete, we lay down as best we could in
opposite directions. I knew a certain skill in this area, but Quatre
was fumbling and slow to begin. When he finally took me into his warm,
moist mouth, I shook all over, cursing the fact that I couldn't see
the person that I was so attracted to claim me that way for the first
time.
We both didn't last long. I finished him, wringing out a cry from him,
as I thoroughly enjoyed the taste and feel of him in my mouth. When he
had presence of mind again, he took my erection deeper than he had
before and gave a powerful suck. His tongue dipped into the slit at
the top at the same time, deep and rough, and I spurted while I
tangled my fingers into his hair. He choked and I heard him spit, but
he didn't protest when I pulled him around and chased the taste of
myself on his tongue in an open mouthed kiss.
We lay together afterward, Quatre draped over me and my hand playing
idly in his loose curls. He said, after awhile, almost afraid, "When
it's morning again... will it be over? Am I going to be... ashamed?"
That question told me a great deal and I felt a tension within me
relax. I wasn't just relief, the next in line. I was the first. I held
him tightly and replied, "No shame. None at all."
Would it be over, though? I didn't have the answer to that. I couldn't
make promises. I had always been a soldier. My life had always been on
the front lines. I couldn't see a future that was any other way.
on to chapter Three
Back to Chapter One