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"Lines in a Pat of Butter"Written By: Mookie
Disclaimer: I don't really need to be Captain Obvious here, do I? No ownership, no money being made. Written for fun, not profit. Category: Hit Me With Your Best Shot/1000 Mecha
footprint Characters/pairing: Quatre Winner, implied Quatre/Trowa Word count: 1,667
Quatre could overhear the conversation at the next table.
A couple of young men, looking a few years older than himself, were
watching a vendor walk down the street with his cart, mylar balloons
bouncing against each other and the last to disappear from sight through
the window. The man’s friend shrugged. Quatre could see his
reflection in the window. “It’s something women want to
hear. Some of them want to see the flowers and the candy to prove
it’s not just words. It’s always been like that.” Quatre tuned them out. On the other side of the window,
a little girl and her mother were walking an energetic dog wearing
a red sweater, several large white snowflakes knitted into the pattern.
It was the closest they got to snow here on the colony but Quatre
didn’t feel it was much of a loss. When you’d already lost
everything, something you never had in the first place was barely
a blip in the radar. He looked down at his coffee cup. If he told himself that often enough, he’d eventually believe it. His lunch break over, Quatre returned to the construction
site and pulled his gloves from his pocket before hanging the heavy
coat on the hook next to the others. There was no mistaking it; although
it was years older than the others it was of obviously fine quality,
well-made and custom tailored. It was a little snug these days for it had been made
when Quatre still had the fortune of his father’s company at
his disposal, back when the family patriarch had still been alive
and when Quatre both scorned and took advantage of all the privileges
wealth brought him. It seemed like someone else’s life, someone Quatre
pitied. He put the hard hat on his head and picked up his shovel to
join the others hauling away the debris from the jackhammer. In manual labor he found a sense of purpose and belonging
that he’d only felt years ago, when he was still in his teens
and had indulged in emotions as conflicting as the opposing sides
in the war. Back then he let his heart rule his actions as long as
it didn’t interfere with directions from his head, and sometimes
he felt that was why Heero had succeeded in defeating so many odds,
even certain death. He lifted a hand from the shovel to rub at his chest.
Even now he could remember how much it had hurt the day Heero had
blown up his Gundam. His goggles had been perched on top of the hard
hat and he pulled them down over his eyes. He remembered how much it had hurt to say good-bye. The Quatre Winner that had fought alongside Trowa Barton
had made a mistake. He’d let himself believe that there was something
there, that the feeling had been mutual, that this lone soldier, masquerading
as the enemy, the man who had saved him from being a murderer, had
cared for him that way. He’d been so naïve. Trowa had saved his life and probably his soul. He was
the first Gundam pilot Quatre had met on earth and he’d listened
to him, even though all they knew about each other was they were probably
fighting for the same cause. Back then Quatre had no inclination of
the motives of the boy who called himself Trowa Barton, a name borrowed
from a dead man with whom he had no connection. Quatre had been named for his mother, a woman he’d
never met, who had died under mysterious circumstances. His father
had never spoken of the woman who’d donated an egg to further
increase the number of Winner offspring. A Petri dish baby from outer space. That’s what
he was, and he’d resented the hell out of it for far too long.
If he hadn’t been ashamed when Abdul had smacked some sense into
him, he would have when he thought about what the others had lost
before going to earth. At least he’d had time to get to know his father.
It was a shame so much of it had been wasted. The wheelbarrow was full and he propped his shovel up
against one of the sawhorse barriers to grasp both handles and lift.
He enjoyed the pull at his muscles as he wheeled the rubble out of
the way. Even when they were deconstructing something, it was all
for the good of the colony. A lump formed in his throat and he pushed the image
of Trowa rushing in front of the blast meant for Heero out of his
mind. He’d never forgive himself for the destruction of the colony,
but it was the nightmares of Trowa taking the hit that kept him awake
at night. He could still hear Trowa’s voice, soothing him as
he fought to retain consciousness. He could still hear the words Trowa had said to him
the last time they saw each other, words Quatre had taken to heart
as he shuddered his release and collapsed against Trowa’s back. Maybe Trowa had believed the same thing, that love was
only a myth, that it was something said in a moment of passion. The
little he knew of Trowa’s background didn’t give him a very
good basis for believing in it, but still Quatre had hoped. Considering all the things he’d done, all the sins
committed over his life, being wrong about that was a light punishment,
but it didn’t make it any easier. The ache was still there, years
later. It wasn’t the same sharp pain it had been at first. He’d
grown used to it and time had softened it to a dull ache, like the
way a broken bone might heal but still twinge when it rained. When the lunch invitation came the next day, he accepted. Heero looked good, was Quatre’s first thought.
His hair was a little longer but no less wild, his body still slim
and wiry, and he’d clearly missed out on any growth spurts in
his late teens. He held out his hand to Quatre, who grasped it warmly
and held it, turning it over to look at the scars. They were seated
at a table near the window, not far from where Quatre had been the
day before, and when the waitress gave them a couple of menus and
walked away, Heero didn’t open his. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a photograph
that he slid across the table. “I don’t know,” he said, “so don’t
ask.” Quatre picked up the picture with a shaking hand and
the rest of the diner was lost to him. Heero wouldn’t know, but
how he’d gotten it was something Quatre was afraid to ask. Only one person could possibly have taken this, or,
to be more accurate, only one thing. It was an aerial view of a wooded area. You couldn’t
see it from the angle it had been taken, but there was a small clearing,
one that had been manmade. Heavyarms had set a foot down, smack in
the middle, splintering the trees and creating a small crater. It
had been the second time Sandrock and Heavyarms had struggled, only
that time it had been Trowa trying to shake sense into a guilt-ridden
Quatre hell-bent on following Heero’s lead. Maybe that was why he was the messenger, although it
was more likely that Heero was the last person that had been in touch
with him. Quatre didn’t notice that Heero had placed the
order or that a plate of pancakes had been set down in front of him.
He didn’t even like pancakes. When Quatre’s hand had stopped trembling and fell
away from the self-destruct button, he’d been blinded more by
tears than the sunlight as his cockpit opened. Once his feet had touched
the ground Trowa was gripping him by the shoulders, and when he was
ready to stop studying the toes of his shoes to look back up, he hadn’t
gotten a chance to say a word, because Trowa was kissing him. They’d never spoken of it afterwards, but the clearing
had been Quatre’s favorite place to go when he needed time away
to think. The last time he’d been there had been right after
the night he and Trowa had crossed the line between friends and lovers
and then crossed right back again. The trees that had been snapped
in two were still there, overgrown with moss and homes to new families
of woodland creatures, as if to remind him that life did indeed go
on. He felt a light touch on his shoulder and by the time
he looked up from the photograph, Heero was gone. A wad of money had
been left on the table to pay for their lunch. He picked up his fork and dragged it through the pat
of butter on top of his pancakes, making four neat lines through it
that simply faded away the closer he got to the edge of the top pancake.
He turned the fork around and pressed it against the trails he’d
just made, blurring them together into a single streak. He put the photograph away carefully and got to his
feet. It was a Friday and he had the weekend off. Right after work
he’d get to work on the travel arrangements. Heero had left plenty for a tip, but Quatre dug through
his own pockets to throw a few more bills onto the pile and turned
toward the door. On the table, the pat of butter slid down the pancake.
By the time the waitress realized they weren’t coming back and
cleaned up the plate, the pancake had absorbed the trails of butter,
turning it a darker shade of brown. There was no other sign that there had ever been a line there. ~ * ~ Note: While we the audience are all well aware that
Quatre was the only Winner offspring to be conceived and born naturally,
I've found nothing suggesting that he has ever been informed of that,
and therefore I'd find it reasonable to believe that he will never
know his mother died after giving birth to him, surrounding her death
in mystery. Besides, I think the guy has enough to feel guilty for.
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