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"The Other Side of the Horizon " Written By: Stone Angel
Disclaimer: Oh, please. Do you honestly think
I'm making money offthis? If I was, I'd be writing a whole lot more
and it wouldn't takegetting drunk to do it. I don't own the characters
or the show, if Idid, it would be SOOO different. Screw the war, let's
see how we canget Heero and Duo in a locked room after taking away
their clothes.(wolfish grin) I just like to make the creators cry
with the way Iwrite their characters. ^____^ Mission accomplished.
hehehe Rating: NC-17 for GRAPHIC lemon. Warnings: Hmmm... Well, actually not much. Nothing
bad, anyway. I mean, as far as things go, this fic is really fluffy
and light. There's Lemon(the most detailed stuff I've written yet)
and a little blood but not really enough to count. Oh, some angst
but not enough to make it too sad. Generally, this fic is pretty easy
to swallow. Pairings: Quatre and Trowa. (My first 3X4 fic! Yay!) Spoilers: None really. AU and all.
"Other Side of the Horizon" Chapter 12 Quatre stared at the paint on the canvas and tipped his head to the side. `No. A little more blue.' He mixed a bit more blue into the green he had made and painted over the green area on the canvas. Stepping back, he sighed. `That's it. That is the color exactly.' He studied the painting of his lover's eyes staring back at him from the canvas. Trowa's hair partially covered one as it so often did and his eyes held an intensity matched by no other, their deep forest-green vivid upon the surface. A knock at his door disturbed him and he called behind him. "Come in." The door opened and he felt Duo enter the room. His friend came to stand beside him, studying the painting. "That's good. But can it match the others?" "It will." Quatre said and set down the brush with the green on it in favor of the brown, adding a little more detail to the hair that hung attractively. Duo sighed as he looked about the room. "It's been a week." "Yes, I can read a calendar, Duo." Quatre said distractedly as he painted extremely fine dark lines in the hair. "What I'm saying is that this isn't healthy." Duo said and sat down on the bed, barely missing another drying canvas. "Hn." "You need to take a break. Maybe even hunt a little?" He said and Quatre shook his head. "I've fed." "That dying man three nights ago doesn't count." Duo crossed his arms. "You have to go out tonight or you will go mad." `Have I not already done so?' He wondered idly as he continued to paint. "Are you listening to me?" "Yes." "What say you?" "I say `perhaps' and then nothing." He stepped back a little and looked at the painting from another perspective. "Quatre!" Duo yelled and he turned to him with wide eyes. Duo never yelled at him unless he was very upset. "What?" "This has to stop!" Duo continued. He gestured around the room that was quite literally covered in paintings, on the walls, the floor, upon every surface and propped against the furniture, some drying on his bed. Quatre blinked as he looked about the room, truly seeing it for the first time in many days. `I hadn't realized it had gotten to be so many.' "You have to stop this and you have to hunt!" Duo shouted. "Are you trying to kill yourself?!" Quatre turned his eyes to his friend and Duo shook his head. "Stop it! Either go see him, or do something for yourself before you become a danger to us all!" He stood. "Look at yourself for a moment!" He walked forward, taking his hand and pulling him to the mirror. Quatre looked at himself in the reflection. He was much paler than usual and noticeably thinner. His skin and hair was covered in small amounts of paint here and there, mostly green, and his clothes were ruined by it. There were light shadows under his eyes. His pupils were large and his fangs were visible when his lips parted. "Now." Duo turned him from the mirror that
seemed to mock him with his own reflection to face him and looked
into his eyes. "We are going hunting. Right now. We are going
to find something big and then you are Quatre allowed Duo to pull him out of the room and to the door of the house, the braided man holding on to his hand tightly. He looked to his friend and then back at where he was walking. "Arigato." Duo shook his head. "Don't thank me for returning a favor. You had to do the same with me, remember?" Quatre nodded. "Even so. Arigato." Duo was quiet and they both turned their attention to the town as they approached. It was a late hour and the only people about were about for the wrong reasons. As they walked down a street, a pair of robust women approached them, dressed provocatively with smiles on their faces that were anything but sweet. "Hey." One said and smirked, placing a hand on her hip. "Want to have a good time?" Quatre examined her aura when he found it, seeing that it was red, and then looked into her eyes. She slept with men and killed them to take their money. The other was her partner. They moved from town to town doing this and, tonight, they had the misfortune of being in his. He caught the scent of them on a small breeze, suddenly hearing their heartbeats in his ears acutely, and the hunger suddenly hit him like a brick wall and he nearly staggered with it. He smiled to them, if a little weakly, keeping his lips closed as much as possible. "Oui." * * * Trowa stepped outside his house for the first time in two days for a reason other than going to work. It was Saturday and the butcher shop was closed, but the market was open. The fact was, he could only survive on bread and water for so long and he had reached his limit. Too tired_and hung over as drinking seemed to be becoming a nightly ritual_to walk to town, he headed to the pasture in the back of his house where Cheval was staring off into the distance. Trowa followed the horse's line of sight and sighed as he realized that he was looking in the direction of Quatre's house. `He misses Sadik.' He thought sadly. Quatre's horse and Cheval had become very close since
they had met and, as either Quatre had been at Trowa's house, or Trowa
had been at Quatre's house half of the time, they had bonded and were
never seen He approached and the horse noticed him and walked towards him hopefully. "Sorry. You won't be seeing him today. I don't know when or if you'll see him again." He rubbed the horse's nose in apology. "But I understand how you feel." Taking the bridle from the post, he slipped it on the horse's face and mounted him, giving a very gentle kick to his flanks and heading to town. "Some air and activity will do us both good." He said to Cheval whose ears turned back to him in an almost cynical manner as if he knew they would stop by the bar. "Oh, shut up." * * * Quatre was walking to the store at which he purchased his painting supplies. It had been nine days since he had seen Trowa. Since then, he had run out of a few colors of oil paints, namely green, blue, yellow, and brown, as well as canvas. `I hope that I didn't buy the last that they had last time I was here.' He thought as he entered the store. Walking out of the shop with canvas under his arm and a sack of paints in his other hand, he smiled to himself as a few children ran by him to the market, their cheerful laughter lifting his spirits a little. He watched them disappear into the crowd and was turning to head back to his house when his eyes landed on familiar impossible hair. A man was sitting against a post near the edge of the market, his head hung and his hair covering his face. He wore Trowa's clothes and Quatre reached out and discovered that he indeed was his lover. His eyes welled slightly as he gazed at him, unbeknownst. `I suppose I can expect to run into him. It is the same town. But still... It doesn't make it any easier.' He was about to walk away and give Trowa his space when he noticed the bottle in his hand. `He's drunk. Kuso.' He sighed and headed towards him to wake him and tell him to go home before he got mugged. As if on cue, a man walked up to Trowa and nudged his thigh with his foot. Trowa mumbled something and the man began to feel his pockets to try and determine if he had any money. `Yaha!' Dropping his art supplies to the dirt, Quatre ran forward and grabbed the man's shoulder, pulling it roughly. The man started to yell something as he was spun around to face him but could not finish as Quatre struck him across the face with an open-palmed fist, the blow hard enough to send the man into the wall a few meters away. No one seemed to notice and Quatre looked around himself with a dangerous glare while the man stood up on wobbling legs and ran. Looking down to whom he had just defended, Quatre stared into Trowa's eyes and gasped silently. Trowa looked up at him through half-mast eyes, barely any sense to them. Under his eyes were dark circles and his every feature seemed tired. Quatre knelt by him and studied him. `He's barely conscious at all. He must have drunk more than this.' He thought as he took the empty bottle out of his lover's hand, crouching by his side. Trowa's eyes followed his and he mumbled softly. "Q... Quatre?..." Quatre nodded and waited, his heart feeling like it was being held prisoner to those eyes as his blood ran a little colder in his veins. "Go... Away..." Trowa said and closed his eyes for a moment before looking back to him and seeming mildly surprised he was still there. Quatre nearly cried at the words before he realized what was happening. `He thinks I'm a dream or drunken hallucination. Chikuso.' He shook his head and looked around, seeing Trowa's horse tied nearby. Lifting Trowa to his arms, he carried him to Cheval, laying him on the horse's back before untying the reins and jumping up to ride. He held Trowa in his arms as he convinced the horse to walk with a few clicking noises and they headed at a slow walk towards his lover's house. He looked down to Trowa as he cradled him and sighed, trying to keep his emotions in check with only minimal success. Trowa looked back up to him for a moment before his eyes closed, his head resting in the crook of Quatre's elbow. Quatre looked back up and his eyes welled. `I hope he
does not continue this way for long. He will kill himself if he does.
Allah, I couldn't bear that. ...Is he this way because he is hurt
for the same reason as I? Or is it that he simply cannot deal with
the knowledge I gave him?' He wondered before gently touching Trowa's
mind with his own. `Both. He is still very unhappy with me. And he
does not want to believe that Long moments passed as they continued away from town and he shook his head and let it fall back as tears fell from his eyes. `Allah, forgive me. I cannot do it.' He tightened his arms around Trowa and sobbed silently. `I know that it is the right thing to do, but I cannot. Am I evil? To do the wrong thing intentionally, does that make me a demon as he had said?' He looked back to Trowa. "Trowa. I will let you be. I will leave you with your knowledge in the hopes that you will see things for how they are. I think that if you tried, you could overcome this. Do not kill yourself by drinking, please." Trowa gave him no reply and Quatre bent and kissed his hair. When they reached his house, Quatre dismounted, still cradling Trowa in his arms and opened the door with a simple trick, closing it behind himself as he headed to his lover's room. He pulled back the blankets and laid Trowa down on the bed, covering him with them. He kissed Trowa's brow lightly and whispered in the silent room to him. "I will go now. I'll not return unless you wish me to do so. Right now, you need to think things through. And I will be waiting for you when you have." He stood and looked down to see that Trowa's eyes were barely open and he was watching him again. Quatre smiled slightly, tears coming to his eyes. He looked on every feature on his lover's face, committing it to memory. `This may be the last time I see him.' He thought as he gazed into those forest-green eyes he loved so much. At last, he could not stay, and he kissed Trowa's brow once more. "Fare thee well, Trowa." He said softly and turned and headed out of the house. Locking the door behind himself, he swallowed the emotions he had and led Cheval to the pasture, unbridling him and setting him loose within the fence. Closing the gate and draping the bridle on the post by it, bringing the long reins up so they did not touch the ground, he headed toward home, too preoccupied with his own thoughts and emotions to go back to town to see if his supplies still lay where they were dropped. * * * Trowa awoke and looked about himself before his eyes landed on the clock. `Six. Already?' He suddenly realized that he was home and in bed, rather than in town and on the street where he remembered himself last and sat up quickly. "Que?!" He stared out his window and saw Cheval in the pasture and the bridle on the post. The reins were looped and draped over the top of the post with the bridle and he knew that Quatre had done it. "Quatre?" He said quietly as fear gripped him. He did not like the idea of the blonde being in the house with him while he slept. When he got no reply, he yelled the name. "Quatre?!" Still no reply and Trowa relaxed a little. `How did I get here? Was it truly him? Did he bring me here?' He thought hard and strained to remember and recalled a few hazy images. `It WAS him.' He remembered seeing Quatre standing over
him after the man who had been feeling his pockets had left... No...
Been pushed away from him with force. He recalled Quatre crouching
near him, his hair seeming to glow in the sunlight while his eyes
shimmered at him. He remembered feeling safe and content as he was
carried in his arms on his horse and then looking up to Quatre as
the blonde tucked his /"I will go now. I'll not return unless you wish me to do so. Right now, you need to think things through. And I will be waiting for you when you have."/ Trowa felt a little lost. He was angry that Quatre had found him and then had the audacity to bring him home and set foot in his house, the fact that he had bought it be damned. He felt a little sad at seeing the blonde again. He missed him. But he was still angry with him. So very angry. And he was confused as to why he had felt happy and safe when Quatre had cradled him in his arms. "Merde, Quatre." He groaned and fell back onto the bed, wincing at his headache. "Even when you are gone, you torment me. Will this ever end?" He sighed as tears escaped his eyes. "Can't this just end?" * * * Trowa walked along the street towards where he had left his horse, carrying the sacks of food he had bought as well as the book he had purchased at the bookstore. Every place was closing, even the market. The crowd was busy, everyone running around and accomplishing their last tasks before they headed home. The sun had already set and the very last trace of glow was leaving the horizon. He had worked all day and now that the butcher shop was closed, he could run his errands and go home. Trowa quickened his steps, wishing to get home as soon as possible to do some reading. He could not lie to himself. He wanted to see Quatre again, but he was very afraid of what that meant. And so, he had bought the only book on vampires that he could find. It had cost him two day's pay, but he felt that it was worth it. `Maybe if I know a little more, I can make a better decision. I think the best way to decide something is to be well informed.' He reasoned as he saw his horse and relaxed a little. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the crowd disperse just enough for him to catch sight of a familiar face. He stopped in his tracks and turned his head slowly to look and wished he had just kept walking. Duo grinned to him with a wave as if he was extremely happy to see him. Trowa began to take a step backwards, but even so, Duo walked towards him as if he had not noticed it. "Hey, Tro." Duo said in English with the same happy grin and Trowa just stared at him as he stopped a meter away from him. "What... What do you want?" Trowa looked around quickly for Wufei or Quatre. Duo blinked. "Boy, you're friendly. And I'm alone. I wanted to talk to you." He said in French and Trowa looked back at him. His eyes landed on the book and Trowa realized that he had brought the large, leather bound object up as if to protect himself with it. "Where did you get that?" He asked as he examined it. "May I see?" He gently reached forward and took it from Trowa's white-knuckled grip as if it was nothing to him and began leafing through the pages. "Usually, these books have no real facts in them. You may very well have wasted your money." He said as he looked through it. Trowa could do little more than stare at him with wide eyes. Duo turned a page. "Crap." He said and turned the next one. "Crap." Next. "Crap." He skipped a few. "Total crap." He turned the page again and laughed at what was on the next one. "This is more of a joke than anything else. How much did you pay for this?" Trowa just gaped at him. `He's acting like he always did. What is he playing at?' Duo closed the book and handed it back to him. "I think you were robbed if you paid more than three Francs. That is hardly worth the paper on which it is printed." Trowa looked down to the large book in his hands for a moment before looking back up to Duo. "If you had wanted to know some things, you could have asked." Duo's eyes held a spark of humor. Trowa shook his head. "What do you want?" He repeated. Duo sighed. "Right to the point, I see." He looked around. "Can we talk somewhere in private?" Trowa narrowed his eyes. "Not to be rude, but I really don't think that I want to go anywhere in private with you, Duo." Duo raised a brow as he looked back to him. "Trowa, don't you think that if any of us had ever wanted to hurt you, we would have done it by now? You were alone with us all those times and we never did anything to you. Doesn't that tell you anything?" Trowa thought about that. "I will talk with you. But it will be near people and at a place of my choice." He said firmly. Duo sighed. "Fine. I just hate crowds." He waited for a moment. "Lead the way." Trowa shook himself out of his thoughts and blinked. `Oh yes. I said MY choice. Now I have to choose.' Naturally, the first place he thought of was the bar and he decided that it was a good place. It had tables and people but they could talk there as no one cared enough to listen in on what was being said. "Fine." He walked over to Cheval and secured his bags to the horse's saddle before leading him back to Duo and pointing. "This way." Duo nodded and Trowa watched him from the corner of his eye as he walked a couple of meters to his side. `I'm walking to a bar with a vampire. Can things get ANY weirder? What am I saying? I've done this before. I just didn't know it.' After what seemed like hours of uncomfortable silence, they reached the bar and Trowa tied his horse and they both entered. There were enough people within that he felt comfortable, but not so many that they would have to shout over the din to be heard or that people would be sitting close enough to listen to them. He headed straight for the bar and Duo followed him. "Je voudrais un Cognac, s'il vous plait." He said to the bartender and placed enough Francs on the surface. "Un verre de Chardonnay, veuillez." Duo said beside him and placed his own money on the bar. They waited in silence until they got their drinks and then walked away as the barkeep collected the pay. Trowa walked to a table in the corner of the room, keeping an eye on his companion the whole time and sat with his back to the wall, able to get away if he wanted, but also able to see the rest of the room to be sure that he was not ambushed. Duo sat across from him and set his glass down on the surface. "That is the only one you are having, no?" Trowa raised a brow. "Pourquoi?" "Well." Duo looked to his glass. "A little over two weeks ago, Quatre came home in the day smelling like alcohol. He doesn't drink very often and he also had your scent on him, so I think that he ran into you while you were drunk. Please listen to me without drinking to the point of losing your senses. You will need them." Trowa was a little offended by that, but not enough to say anything of it. "Answer me a question?" Duo looked up. "Of course. What is it?" "Did he send you?" Duo shook his head. "No. I am here by my own choice. A free agent. He hasn't an idea. But I was..." He paused and looked up to the ceiling, biting his lower lip, and Trowa realized that he was trying to remember the next word in the sentence. `I keep forgetting that he is not French. He speaks it so well for a foreigner.' He watched as Duo scowled slightly and then looked back to him, obviously having found the word for which he was looking. "I guess one could say, that I was `motivated' by him." He said and swirled the glass of wine but did not drink from it. Trowa sipped from his glass. "How so?" Duo sighed. "He is... How does one say..." He looked up again. "Malheureux. Miserable. It pains me to see him like this. He does not leave his room unless I force him to do so, and then it is usually only for a moment. His eyes seem like they have lost the light in them and he doesn't talk like he used to. All he does is read and paint. He's even..." Duo looked extremely sad as he spoke, his eyes wandering away from Trowa's. "He's even stopped playing the violin. He's NEVER done that, as long as I've known him. He's always played it at least once every few nights when he thought no one was listening. But now his room is silent all the time. He is a wreck. He doesn't want Wufei or I to know, so he locks himself away for days at a time. He's heartbroken." He leveled his violet eyes at Trowa with a piercing gaze. "And you are the only one who can make him better." Trowa glared at him. "I'm not just going to go back because YOU are upset that your friend is unhappy." Duo nodded as he looked away. "I thought you'd say as much. However, that is not the only factor here." Trowa took a sip of his drink and Duo did the same. "Yes? And what is that?" Duo's eyes turned back to his and he spoke softly. "You are miserable as well." Trowa did his best not to show his emotions, but tears welled in his eyes and he dropped his gaze to the table. Duo sighed and when Trowa looked up, he saw that he was watching him with a sorrowful _expression. "He did not want to tell you for this very reason, you know. It is why he waited so long. He was afraid. He thought that maybe, if he waited long enough that you were sure of him, when he told you, it would not push you away. I think that if he could take it back, he would and would never have told you. Then none of this would have happened, and we would still be secure. He trusted you with something that can get him killed. It can get ALL of us killed." Duo said seriously. "It is no light matter. He has never told another mortal. You are the only person to whom he has ever opened up." Trowa listened to that and gazed at his drink. "I think... I think the two of you should talk. Even if it means ending everything. I do not want to see that happen, but if that is how things go, there is nothing any of us can do about it. But leaving things as they are... It is killing you both." Trowa gave him no response, merely continued to gaze at his drink with fresh tears in his eyes. `He's right. I can't live like this.' "Trowa. You are my friend. Or, at least, you were before. So, as a former friend, take little advice. Take care of this. He won't come to you because he thinks that you will fear him if he does. Everything is in your hands." Duo stood suddenly and Trowa looked up to him. He placed a few extra Francs on the table as a tip and left his nearly full glass on the surface. "Whatever you do, be certain it is what you want or you will never forgive yourself, either way. Life is too short to make mistakes such as these." He turned and Trowa stood as well. "Duo." Duo turned back to him, looking over his shoulder to him with a grin, holding up two fingers in the odd gesture he sometimes did. "Do me a favor? Don't tell him about any of this. He'd never forgive me if he found out how meddling I can be." Turning around again, he walked off, his braid swaying slightly behind him, one hand raised in goodbye in the same elegant manner Quatre sometimes used. Trowa watched him disappear out the door and then sat down and stared at his drink. For nearly an hour, he sat there, deep in thought. At last, he stood, leaving his nearly untouched glass on the table as he walked away. * * *
Well, that's that chapter. ^_^' Hope you liked it. The next one's even shorter. Freakishly so almost. Anyone like the part Duo played in helping Q? And the relationship? Even though Quatre still didn't know in "Shadows", Duo was a huge help to both Q and T.
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