"Firsts"

Written By: Waterlilylf

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. All rights remain with Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. No profit being made here.

Rating: R

Warnings: Yaoi, Post Cannon, sap, angst

Pairings: 3x2

Summary: How do you get past losing the love of your life, the person you fell in love with when you were just fifteen? Trowa desperately needs someone special in his life, even if he hasn't quite realised it yet..

"Firsts"

 

Desert Symphony:

AC 196:

'What's this one called again?' Trowa squinted at the sheet music propped on the piano in front of him. He'd never known that you could write music down instead of just keeping it in your head, and he still couldn't quite get over it. All those little symbols that meant specific sounds. It was like magic. Magical that Quatre knew how to read them. 'D?'

'D sharp. Here.' Quatre took his hand off Trowa's leg, and leaned over to press a key. 'Like this.'

'So?' Trowa played the next few bars of the piece, loving the feel of the keys under his fingers, the ripple of sound. Quatre had replaced his hand, and it rested lightly on the curve of his knee.

He didn't think he'd ever been this happy. It was better, even, that than first night in the desert. They knew each other now. They were friends. More than friends, actually, and that was another magical thought.

Quatre called the safe-house they were all currently hiding out in a summer cottage, rather dismissively, but they obviously had very different standards, because it was by far the nicest house Trowa had ever been in. Actually four bedrooms; theirs had a bed piled high with pillows and prettily-layered quilts, and was tucked under the roof with sloping ceilings and a wooden beam across, which Trowa found impossibly charming. Best of all, there was a piano and stacks of sheet music, and Quatre had started teaching him to sight-read.

'Oh, that's lovely, Trowa,' Quatre inched closer, resting his head on Trowa's shoulder. 'You're so lucky; it took me ages to learn all the keys. And you don't even need to learn to do it, when you can play by ear. I wish I could do that.'

'You can't?'

'No, not many people can. I don't think so, at least. It's very special.'

'I thought it was just something people did.' He'd never really thought about it. Ramon, Kurt's second-in-command, who'd taught him to play the flute, had been able to do it like that. Trowa had thought that was how you were supposed to do it. 'Like making up tunes instead of playing ones other people wrote.'

'Well, you can do whatever you like really. Improvising is fun as well.' The fingers on Trowa's knee squeezed, very lightly, and then took off to dance over the piano keys.

Trowa followed him, mimicking exactly at first, just a beat later, and half a tone down, and then adding a few little twirls and flourishes of his own. Quatre picked up the pace, and they had a mad, mutual dash across the keys, racing each other, and then slowed by mutual consent, fingers brushing and then tangling together.

Quatre laughed, the way he did sometimes, just a bit breathlessly, as if he didn't want to use up too much air in laughing and breathing both, as if he didn't want to be greedy. It did something to Trowa's gut, that laugh. He usually did it only when Trowa was touching him.

'Oh, that was fun.'

'Yeah.' He was breathless himself, just a bit, all his senses overloaded. He could still hear the melody they'd made in his head, almost see the notes still lingering in the air around them, woven in with Quatre's bright laughter. He could smell the lemon-scented soap he'd used in the shower. Another thing he'd never known until Quat; you could get soap that smelled of actual things, not just the rough carbolic he'd mostly used when he'd got a chance to wash. And, God, he could feel the other boy's body pressed so close to him; Quat's fingers twining with his.

He'd never known before that happiness could be a tangible thing. He'd never known much about happiness at all. The adrenalin that came for survival, sure; from killing sometimes. Small physical satisfactions that were always all too brief, like a full belly or a good sleep in a safe place, or the quick, bright thrum of orgasm.

Never anything like this.

Another thing that Quatre had given him.

'We should start writing some of these down,' Quatre went on. 'It would be such a shame to forget them. I do wish I could remember everything we played that first night.'

'I don't forget stuff like that.,' Trowa told him. 'Listen.' He lifted their linked hands, brushed a kiss across Quatre's knuckles, and then pulled his hand free to tap out a little tune on the piano. The duet they'd first played in the desert. So very tentative at first; two separate songs, and then the slow, slow dance to bring them closer.

'Oh,' Quatre breathed, looking at him with that look, as if Trowa had just handed him the universe, all prettily wrapped up and tied with ribbon. 'That's so amazing, Trowa. You're amazing. You know, I'm sure there's some blank sheet music somewhere; I might try writing it down, if you wouldn't mind playing for me again.'

''Course not. You can do that? Write music?'

Quatre nodded. 'I can show you, if you like. Actually, I've seen some books on the shelves here about theory and composition, things like that. You should look at them. It's awfully interesting.'

Trowa half-closed his eyes; it was incredible, really, that it hadn't come out yet. 'I don't know how to read much in English, Quat.' Not at all, really. He could identify some words all right; enough to fool most people, but not the individual letters. 'Sorry,' he mumbled, 'I'm stupid.'

'You're not!' Quatre gasped. 'Trowa, you're brilliant, truly! You're practically a musical genius, and you've got an eidetic memory and..'

'I've got a what?'

'It just means you can remember things,' Quatre smiled at him, and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. 'Play our tune again. Please?'

'Sure' He didn't play it on the piano though, but on Quatre's bare arm, fingers dancing up and down the pale skin. 'There. Desert symphony in Q minor.'

'Oh,' Quatre gasped, as Trowa's left hand slid under his shirt, playing a quick staccato beat on his ribs. 'You didn't do that then.'

'I'm improvising. Thought you liked that.'

'Oh, please. Improvise me,' Quatre squirmed deliciously against him as Trowa's hand slid under his shirt, and then the inevitable happened, and they both tumbled off the stool.

'Q flat, I do believe,' Trowa teased, looking down at the boy under him.

Quatre laughed, eyes shining, and then wound both arms around Trowa's neck, pulling him down for a kiss. Such trust, Trowa thought numbly. Handed to him so freely. He ran his tongue over Quatre's lips, probing gently. Quatre's mouth curved against his, one hand stroking the back of his neck.

'OK?' They'd gone this far before, and a bit farther, but it had always been in a bed, with a locked door, and darkness. Quat wasn't exactly shy; just a bit hesitant sometimes, and Trowa got that, got that he'd never done anything like this in his life, that Trowa was the first person to touch him like that, ever.

'OK,' Quatre affirmed, and arched his hips just enough for him to rub against Trowa. It felt like a lightning bolt, flashing through his veins.

'God. Do that again. Please.'

'This?' There was an expression of beatific innocence on his face, wholly at odds with the movements that slim, beautiful body was making under Trowa's, or the little sounds of desire and arousal.

'That, yeah,' Trowa muttered, and suddenly a door banged in the hallway.

Trowa had started up at the first sound, hand groping for his gun, a second behind Quat, who was always just that little bit faster. After three days, though, they both knew what a door slammed by Duo Maxwell sounded like. Then the quick sounds of Duo's boots running upstairs, and a door being wrenched open. Then the inevitable shouting.

'Oh no! Not again!' Quatre said crossly, sliding his gun back into his ankle holster and letting himself fall backwards on to the floor. 'Fizz it! Honestly. If they dislike each other so much, I don't know why they can't just stay away from each other.'

Trowa grinned. 'I don't think they really dislike each other all that much, Quat.'

It had been building up for the last few days, he thought. More probably since they'd met, although as far as he knew this was the first time they'd been in the same place together for any length of time. He and Heero had gone out to do a perimeter check that morning, which inevitably meant that Duo had tagged along because he and Heero had some sort of pathological compulsion to trail after each other wherever they went, and of course they'd been bickering from the minute they'd stepped out of the house.

Trowa had tried to tune the two of them out at the start: they seemed to be rehashing some incident that had taken place a month ago, and inevitably wound up with the usual accusations of Heero claiming that Duo had shot him, and Duo yelling back something about Heero damn well raping his Gundam.

'You shot me,' Heero shouted, for what was probably the tenth time in as many minutes. 'Twice, Maxwell.'

'Oh, God.' Trowa had put one hand up to rub his temple, to rub away the headache that started to develop whenever he had to spend any length of time with those two. They were killing him, seriously. Wufei was fine; he kept to himself mostly, but when he did come out of his room, you could have a civil, sensible conversation with him. But these two were wrecking his head. He was only surprised they'd never actually stopped in the middle of a battle to yell at each other. Not yet, anyway. As far as he knew. 'Yeah, Duo. Couldn't you just find some other way to get his attention? Like kissing him?'

'What the hell are you talking about?' Heero demanded. He'd gone an interesting shade of red, though, and Duo was suddenly studying the ground at his feet, both hands compulsively gripping his braid.

'Fuck, isn't it obvious? Will you two just go and screw each other and put the rest of us out of our misery having to listen to the way you carry on?'

Heero had started to bluster something, and then Duo had, predictably enough, shot off into the woods, and Heero, probably predictably enough, had taken off straight after him. He'd come back to the house not long after Trowa though, and alone, and stalked straight upstairs. If he had caught up with Duo, then it clearly hadn't gone very well.

'What do you mean?' Quatre asked. 'That they really like each other? But they're so horrible to each other all the time.'

He grinned, bending to kiss Quatre full on the mouth. 'More than like, I think, actually. '

'Oh.' Quatre blushed. 'Really? Are you sure?'

'Pretty sure, yeah.'

'Oh!' Quatre sat bolt upright, almost banging their heads together, as a new sound came from upstairs, a body colliding hard against a solid surface. That was new; they were always yelling at each other, and Heero sometimes gave Duo's braid a tug in passing, along with some snarky comment about how impractical it was, but they were normally compulsively careful not to touch each other. Idiots.

'Do you think we should go up? If they're really fighting?'

'I think Heero would shoot us. And I don't think they're fighting, actually.'

Quatre said 'oh' a third time, his skin suddenly a vivid, rosy-crimson as Duo suddenly stopped yelling curses and instead gave a low, honest-to-God moan.

Well.

Heero'd finally got it right, then.

'But they're not in love, Trowa!'

Trowa smoothed back the hair flopping over his forehead. He loved that he got to do this now, to touch him. Quatre smiled, faintly, when he drew a finger between the fair brows. 'You don't have to be.'

'Oh.' Quatre considered that for a second. 'I thought...Never mind. It's silly.'

'I think it would make it better, probably,' Trowa said awkwardly. They hadn't really ever talked about sex before. They just were - together, whenever it was possible. Quat seemed to think that they were inventing whatever they did, like no one had ever kissed or touched before. Maybe nobody ever had. Not like them.

'You think...you do think he wants it?'

'I think he's wanted it from the start, Quat,' Trowa looked into the lovely, troubled blue eyes and knew exactly what Quatre was trying to ask. 'He can look after himself, you know. And he knows we're down here. He could call if he wanted back-up.'

He didn't really believe that Duo would do anything of the sort, but it apparently satisfied Quat. Anyway, he'd seen the way Heero looked at the boy from L2, sometimes, when he thought no one was watching, and he'd talked about him once or twice when they were at the circus. Mostly bitching, admittedly, but every so often his expression had softened, just a little.

Heero wouldn't hurt him, he didn't think. Not intentionally anyway, but he seemed to be as ignorant about sex as Quat, and Duo clearly wasn't, was the sort who just kept pushing until something gave.

Duo was all hard, glittering edges jaggedly pulled over the shadows Trowa had seen once or twice, and the even rarer glimpses of a scared, lonely kid. He didn't know if Heero realised that.

Quatre flinched at a sound from upstairs, a loud creak from the bedsprings, and then the headboard banging against the wall, and Trowa couldn't help a shudder. 'Is it always like that? So - angry?'

'No! It shouldn't be like that at all.' He didn't really have much first-hand experience of how good it should be, but there'd been guys who'd paired off among the mercenaries, and there hadn't been much privacy there. He knew what good sex, happy sex should sound like. 'It should be ... a good thing. Showing someone that you really love them. I think.'

Quatre was silent again, 'I ... would like to try it properly. With you. One day.'

'One day, yeah,' Trowa said at once. 'Whenever you want. Anything you want. You know that.'

'Oh, Trowa,' Quatre pressed closer, dabbing kisses over his face and neck. 'I do love you.'

Trowa gave a jerky little nod. Quatre said it all the time, so naturally. Trowa had never been able to, although he said it in his head sometimes, and tried to show Quatre how much.

'One day,' Trowa repeated. 'And, you know, there's plenty of improvising we can do in the meantime.'

'I do like improvising,' Quatre purred happily. 'We were in the middle of something, weren't we?'

'Remind me?' Trowa teased, bending to take Quatre's lower lip between his teeth, loving the slick, wet feel of it, the way Quatre groaned, deep in his chest. 'What were we doing again?'

'I think you were....Oh no!' They both jerked upright at the sound from upstairs. Trowa hadn't even realised Wufei was back from checking on the Gundams, Shit. He'd never heard him come in; neither of them had.

Two shots rang out; then someone running downstairs, and then Wufei stumbled through the door, ashen. 'Maxwell and Yuy. They're...'

'We guessed,' Trowa said dryly. 'Are you all right?'

Wufei shook his head. 'Emphatically not! I thought they were killing each other. Yuy tried to shoot me!''

'He missed?' Trowa demanded incredulously, and heard Quatre give a choked-off laugh.

'Duo was...distracting him.'

'Quite effectively, apparently,' Quatre put in. 'Oh, Wufei, I'm sorry. It's not funny.'

It was, sort of, Trowa thought, imagining the scene upstairs, and then trying to keep his expression straight as he looked at Wufei's face.

'I never knew they were...like that,' the Chinese pilot stammered. 'Did you?'

'Not for a second,' Quatre assured him. 'Were they really...you know?'

'Winner!' Wufei sank on to the nearest chair, burying his head in his hands. 'Dear Gods! I thought....Yuy was hurting him.'

Quat let out a little puff of air, not quite a sigh. 'So did I, at the start.'

Trowa looked, very deliberately, at the wall. Not at Quatre. Tried not to listen to the sounds from above. 'It hurts if you don't do it right. If you're not careful.'

They were both scarlet when he finally glanced up, apparently on the verge of spontaneous combustion. Wufei looked like he might die from the embarrassment of it all, and Quatre was just looking at him. Trowa couldn't tell what he was thinking.

Wufei muttered something about going for a run and vanished; Trowa wondered if he'd ever come back.

It was just the two of them, then, Quatre perched on a chair with his arms wrapped around his knees, curled into himself. Not looking at Trowa. Not looking anywhere, really.

Shit.

'Quat. I'd never hurt you. It wouldn't be like that with us. Ever. You do get that, right?'

'Oh, Trowa. Of course I know that.'

Trowa swallowed. 'You don't know...what it can be like. Sorry,' he muttered, hating himself for putting that pain in Quat's eyes. He shouldn't ever have to look like that, shouldn't have to know the sort of darkness that existed in the world.

Shouldn't be with someone like Trowa.

That was what it all came down to, really. Quat deserved to be with someone bright and pure and beautiful. Not Trowa, who wasn't nearly good enough and never would be.

'Trowa.' He hadn't even noticed Quat standing up, but he was suddenly burrowing into Trowa's embrace. Trowa's arms went around him instinctively, holding that slim, lovely body close. 'I love you,' Quat said, low and fierce and heartfelt, and kissed him.

~ * ~

Chapter 11

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