"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"

 

Blueberry Pancakes:

Life was a million times easier with Duo there. Someone else to distract the kid; let Trowa get on with things. Auri sat on Duo's lap to eat his pancakes, with Duo turning the pages of his dinosaur story book, and pointing out stuff in the pictures and making up little stories; so fascinated that he ate almost absently. Trowa hadn't really thought Duo would be so good with kids, hadn't really thought about introducing him to Cathy's girls. God, he hadn't even told Cathy what was going on. She'd be pleased, most likely. She'd always liked Duo; never really trusted Quat.

Always a better judge of character than him.

'So,' he asked, when they'd all eaten their bodyweights in pancakes and syrup and every other topping imaginable, and Auri had thrown up a bit because neither of them had known he wasn't great with peanut butter, and hopefully it wasn't a serious allergy, 'you want to go up and check on Quat? I'll clean up a bit here, and keep an eye on this monster.'

Duo just shook his head. 'I'll do the babysitting, Tro; you've had him for hours now. Anyway, you're the one Quat's going to want to talk to. '

It was an incredible gesture of trust and generosity and it made something twist, very slightly, inside Trowa's chest. He liked Duo, of course he did. He was good fun and great in the sack and easy to be around.

Even though he'd been starting to realise there was more, the last couple of weeks, it still took him by surprise, sometimes, just how strongly he felt.

'Thanks,' he kissed Duo, trying to show him just how grateful he was for trusting him that much, and Duo grinned through it.

'Dunno what you're thanking me for, Tro. I get the fun bit, playing with the easily-distracted toddler. You get Quat's dramatics.'

He moved in for another kiss, just because. Duo pushed him back against the table, and moved his lips downward, nibbling along the curve of his jaw, and then down his throat with a little bit more force. Not hurting, but not quite, but definitely sucking and biting hard enough to leave bruises.

'Marking me?' he asked, just a bit hoarse, and throwing his head back because God, that felt amazing; the first time Duo'd been quite that aggressive.

'Kind of,' Duo admitted, rubbing against him and adding one hand into the mix, in a very strategic place. 'If I'm letting you go upstairs to your ex, I'm going to make damn sure I'm the one you'll be thinking about.'

'I can think of a really effective way for you to achieve that.' He let himself fall backwards on to the table, and Duo moved to follow him, those clever fingers already fumbling at his belt, and then Auri said 'Oh, fuck'.

Clear as a bell.

'Oh, fuck,' Trowa echoed. Quat would kill the pair of them. Slowly. He half-fell off the table to squat beside Auri. 'Listen, shrimp. You can't say that.'

'Fastest way to make sure he will; tell him he can't,' Duo observed, grinning. 'OK, Tro. Hold back on the f-word, yeah? And the physical activity that goes with it? I'll take Auri out for a bit; you go talk to his Daddy. And here's a little something on account.'

The kiss was pure sex, delivered mouth to mouth with Duo's body pressed flush against his. And only slightly lessened by the round-eyed toddler staring at them.

He warmed some leftover pancakes in the oven, and made a pot of lemon tea, and paused at the window to watch Duo and Auri making their way down to the beach. Auri was looking like a normal kid, in jeans and a red t-shirt and little sneakers, and Duo's hair was blowing all over the place and he was laughing at whatever Auri was babbling. He'd have given anything to be out there with them.

Quatre was awake when he went into the bedroom; sitting up and looking like he hadn't slept a wink.

'Duo's here,' Trowa said before Quat could ask, placing the tray on the bed, and sitting beside it. 'He's taken Auri down to the sea. He's good with him; they'll be fine.'

Quat nodded, apparently deeming Duo to be an acceptable babysitter. 'I'm sorry. I should have gone down earlier. I heard him yelling. Was he awful?'

'He was a freaking nightmare,' Trowa said frankly. 'Seriously, whatever you pay Megan, you need to double it. Bare minimum.'

Quatre nodded, cutting his pancakes into very exact, bite-sized pieces but not making any moves to actually eat. 'I agree. Absolutely.'

Trowa watched him add a spoonful of honey to his tea, his usual little ritual, raise the cup to his lips, and then replace it on the tray, untouched.

'Quat. If you don't talk about what's going on, we can't help you.'

'Sura's divorcing me.'

'Yeah. You said, last night. I'm sorry, Quat. That sucks. But maybe it's for the best, long term. You both get to move on, be with other people. Be happy, and I don't think either of you ever have been, together.'

He was still at a loss as to why this was affecting Quat so badly. OK, it probably wouldn't go down too well with some of his older sisters or uncles, or the more conservative members of the board, but he was hardly the first person on L4 whose marriage had ended in the divorce courts. And there was an ironclad pre-nup; he'd seen it. The process should be amicable enough.

'You know you're to get full custody, right?' he hazarded. 'Although, honestly, after being with him all morning, I'd advise you to rethink that. Or at least make sure that you get Megan when you start divvying up the assets.'

It was supposed to get a laugh. It didn't.

'Trowa,' Quatre managed, very low. 'The pre-nup's invalid. She's divorcing me.'

He'd said it last night, Trowa recalls and suddenly thinks about the phrasing. Not, we're getting a divorce, or I want a divorce or even Sura wants a divorce..

Sura's divorcing me.

Sura's decision.

Not, to the best of his knowledge, possible on L4, where it's so fucking medieval that women don't get to make those decisions for themselves.

Only under exceptional circumstances.

'Tell me. Quat. What's happened?'

'She can divorce me; she can instigate it, if she has proof of...of any unnatural perversions.' He swallowed around the word. 'She has.'

'No,' Trowa protested at once, not even sure what he's arguing with. The unnatural comment, the way Quatre said it so matter-of-factly, or the evidence of proof. 'Quat, she can't have.'

It wasn't really true. They'd lived together, pretty much openly, for five years after the war. OK, the official Winner party line was that they'd been 'just friends' who attended the same university and shared a house and then gone travelling together, and Quat, very occasionally, had taken a girl to some high-profile event just to please his family, but it never really fooled anyone.

There was plenty of proof, if anyone did even a little digging. They'd been discreet in a perfunctory sort of way to keep the Winners happy, but there had to be plenty of photos and tabloid articles out there.

Quat had been young then, though, and wealthy teenage boys on L4 got a lot of latitude. In a society when suitable young women were strictly chaperoned, young boys needed some sort of outlet. Sure, there were always maids and imported prostitutes but that led down the slippery slope to the possibility of illegitimate kids and paternity suits and tabloid interviews and tacky talk shows, so it was tacitly recognized that boys might choose other boys for fooling around.

It didn't mean they were gay, or whatever derogatory term for it was currently in use on L4. It was just experimentation and youthful high spirits.

So, yeah, it was officially frowned upon but everyone turned a blind eye to it, once appearances were kept up, and no one's name got dragged through the mud.

There was no way Sura could use any of that; a teenage boy going through a bit of a phase before he'd even met her. After the wedding, they'd been obsessively careful that no one would ever know.

He said all that; actually, he wasn't entirely sure exactly what he said. Anything that might have stopped Quat looking like that. He only paused when Quatre curled fingers around his wrist, lightly.

'Trowa. It wasn't with you.'

'Who?' He didn't even get to complete the question. He knew. God, of course he did. It wasn't even that much of a surprise, really. Some part of his subconscious must have put it together, because he'd had all the pieces, except he'd managed to blank it. Thinking about Duo, probably.

Quat had all but told him, in Budapest, saying he could only ever be with someone he totally trusted. That was a very narrow group of people, and only one of them was currently in any way available. God, he'd even mentioned meeting Heero.

'When you met him, on L3. Before we met up in Hungary. Was that it?'

Quat nodded, one hand still on Trowa's arm, the other playing with the bed-sheet, arranging it into little pleats. 'It was...nothing really happened. We just talked, mostly. But he did stay the night in my suite.

'What does mostly talked mean, exactly?' Trowa demanded. God, not like he had any right to feel...what? Jealous? But there'd always been a part of him that had kind of liked the idea of Quat stuck in his loveless marriage, with Sura no remote threat; that Quatre still loved only him.

Quatre still didn't look at him. 'He was ... very upset, about what was going on with Duo. He didn't really understand what Duo wanted.'

'Maybe he should've asked him,' Trowa said coldly. 'Tried talking to him once in a while, instead of just using him for sex when he felt like it, and freezing him out the rest of the time.'

'I know, Trowa. But, he's not much good at that sort of thing, and Duo,..,,well, you know what he's like. If he doesn't want to talk about something, he won't.'

'Right. So it's all Duo's fault. Sure. Let's throw him under the bus so Heero gets to come out the good guy.'

'Oh, Trowa, I never said that.'

'You came damn close,' Trowa snapped. 'So, yay, good for you, Quat, you actually got Heero Yuy to talk about something. You should get some sort of damn trophy. So, where the fuck does that leave all of us?'

'Trowa. Please don't.'

'You came here. Your choice. What did you think; that I wouldn't ask what this is all about? Why the fuck didn't you just go to Heero, if you've fallen for him?'

'Please, don't,' Quat said again, a little shaky. 'It isn't like that. We just...'

'Talked, yeah,' Trowa said tightly. 'You said. I got that.'

He also got, loud and clear, that it hadn't been just talking. That was pretty damn obvious, even if Quat was dancing around what had really happened.

Quatre drew his knees up to his chest, dropped his chin on to them. Damn. He'd always done that, pulling into himself; a snail curling into its shell. With his rumpled shirt and hair, he looked fifteen, the way he'd looked when he'd been Trowa's entire universe.

Damn it anyway. They weren't fifteen any more. Quat had fallen off the pedestal a long time ago.

'He was very sad, Trowa,' he said softly. 'About Duo leaving. And I was....things weren't going very well at home. We've always been able to talk to each other, ever since we first met. I'd only invited him for dinner, and then we realised how late it was, and I asked him to stay, if he liked. I had a suite; there was space.'

'If there was so much space, how come he ended up in your bed?' Trowa demanded. Quat flinched at his tone, at the words, and Trowa did too. He had no right to them, no right to feel like that, to behave like the outraged, jealous lover. Quatre wasn't his, even if that was how he'd always felt, just a little.

That, after everything, Quatre Winner belonged to him.

'It wasn't like that,' Quat said, a statement that still managed to leave a fair bit of room for evasive doubt about exactly what had happened between them. Certainly not an outraged, outright denial.

He'd probably never know. He wasn't sure, any more, that he wanted to.

Quat had, finally and irrevocably, finished them, the moment he'd said it wasn't you. That was it. Over. Something to think about later, about how he felt. But now he had Quat miserably wrapped up in his own sheets and the over-riding need to help him somehow. That hadn't changed, even if everything else had. There was an odd bit of comfort in that; he could still care about Quat, and the mad tangle he'd managed to make of his life.

'So what if Heero did sleep over?' he asked. 'You're good friends. I suppose you had a couple of bedrooms in that suite. Who's to say anything happened, that you didn't just have separate rooms?'

'I couldn't lie in court, under oath,' Quatre said, eyes downcast, lashes sweeping so prettily on to his cheeks.

Right then. So much for the mostly talking.

'I wouldn't. And, well, he did stay the night, and he is gay, and ....it wasn't just then. I've met him a couple of times since then and... Trowa, I'm just tired of it all. Tired of pretending all the time to be someone I'm not. And I won't do that to Heero.'

'You did it to me.'

Five years of the Winners nagging them to be discreet, threatening him, and then the first years of Quat's marriage, being his dirty, terrifying secret. And here they were, with Quatre prepared to throw the life he'd so carefully crafted over because he'd had one night with Heero Yuy and his apparently enchanted dick.

'I did one stupid thing,' Quat said, unsteady and breathless. 'I was young and I was terrified of losing my family, everything my father wanted me to be, and I did one insanely stupid thing, and you are never going to trust me again.'

'Do you blame me?' He'd meant to yell it, raw and harsh and loud enough to make Quatre flinch, but somewhere along the line it ended up as a whisper.

'No. But, I am so very sorry. I wish I'd done things differently. That I'd been braver, that I'd been honest about what you meant to me.'

Nothing he hadn't said before. Just the knowledge that he was ready now, to be brave and honest and that it was for someone who wasn't Trowa.

'Does he know?'

Quatre looked up, a swift and sudden flash of aquamarine, like the flashing flight of a kingfisher. 'That I ... care for him? Yes. About everything else? No. It all happened very suddenly. I haven't had a chance. I need to talk to him, I suppose, in person. I don't want to do it over the phone. And I don't even know what he wants. I know he likes me, but there's Duo and ..'

'No, there isn't,' Trowa snapped. 'Not for him. You can take him right out of this crazy equation. And what the fuck was all that crap about Heero trying to get him back? All those stupid presents?'

'Oh!' Quatre blushed, the way he did, very prettily. He could have been the innocent fifteen-year-old he'd been when they'd first met, all rumpled hair and reddened cheeks and downcast lashes. All totally at odds with the sneaky little smile toying with the corners of his mouth; not innocent at all. 'We - well, we both got our wires crossed, just a little. It was all very silly, really. I thought he really did want to get Duo back, and he thought I wanted to be with you.'

Before Hungary, that had been, Trowa thought. Before that night in Budapest, when Quatre had done his very best to get Trowa into bed. Bloody Quat, playing the martyr as usual. 'That's what Budapest was about?' he demanded. 'Get me to fuck you, break up me and Duo, send Duo running back to Heero? Seriously?'

'No! No, I swear, Trowa. It wasn't like that! I thought...it might change things, with us, if I came back to live on Earth, that we could be together, but you didn't want me.'

'I didn't want you on your terms,' Trowa said harshly. 'I didn't want to go back to all that sneaking around and lying and watching you date girls. Good luck getting Heero to put up with any of that, by the way. He won't, not for a second.'

'I know.' There it was again, that damn smile, with just a little smugness thrown in for good measure.

Trowa had never, in all his life, wanted to hit Quat. He did now. Instead, he stood up, looking down at the blond in his bed, at the untouched pancakes on the tray, islands pooled in too-much syrup. 'You should eat that, before it gets cold.'

'Oh.' Quatre actually got as far as lifting a piece to his mouth, and then put it back down on the plate. 'I'm so sorry, Trowa. Truly.'

'Yeah.' Quat was always sorry and it never changed anything. He suddenly wanted to be outside, with a fresh breeze and seagulls and Duo, away from Quat's labyrinthine plots. Heero was welcome to all that.

'Right. I'll leave you to eat your breakfast in peace. See how Duo's getting on with your monster of a kid?'

'He's not a monster!'

Trowa snorted. 'Shows how much time you actually spend with him. I'd better go and rescue Duo.'

'Are you in love with him?'

'I think,' he hesitated, 'I'm getting there.' Another hesitation; the first time he'd said it out loud and it wasn't even to Duo himself.

'I'm so glad. Honestly. And about Heero, I don't know. It's not much of a start to a relationship, dragging him into a massive scandal, dragging him through the divorce courts. He'd hate anything like that. I wouldn't blame him if he didn't want anything to do with me after that.'

'Right. Yeah. So. This whole divorce thing. Tell me.'

Quatre sighed. 'It's not Sura, really. I don't think she's so terribly unhappy with me; if anything, she has a lot more freedom than she ever did at home. It's her father and her older brother. They say it's protecting her honour, but they really just want control of WEI. They want Auri, since he's the heir, and if Sura had custody, they'd be the ones to bring him up.'

'You know all this how?'

The faintest wash of colour bloomed across Quat's face. 'Things have been pretty awful for the last few weeks. I, ah, overheard her a conversation between her and her brother yesterday. About serving divorce papers.'

Trowa looked at him. 'You just happened to overhear something like that?'

'No. Of course not. I've had her under surveillance for months now. I knew there was something going on.

'Jesus. That's pretty cold, Quat.'

'No, it's not! He's my son!'

'And you did - what? Grabbed the kid and ran for it? That's insane! Even if you did get served divorce papers, they couldn't just drag him away from you.'

'I think I just panicked,' Quatre said quietly. 'I just wanted to get away, to get Auri away. I don't want him anywhere near Sura's family; I don't want him being brought up by those people, the way Sura and her brothers were raised. They're awful. It was stupid, really, what I did. But I just - I wanted to get away from all of it.'

Wanted to go to Heero, Trowa's mind added. Quat wasn't the sort to panic over stuff; he was all about logic and solutions and discussion. Maybe he'd talked himself into believing there was a genuine threat, but it had been a catalyst as much as anything. He'd grabbed the first reason to justify leaving L4, leaving his wife and his business, and he'd run.

'You should call him,' Trowa said abruptly. 'Seriously. Tell him what's going on.'

Quatre nodded, just looking at him, with over ten years of history in his eyes. That first time, when he'd walked out of Sandrock; the first time he'd played the violin, in the desert; the first time they'd kissed.

'Call him,' he repeated roughly.

He paused by the door looking back, just for a second. Quatre Winner, in his bed, under the lush, glowing colours of the Gaugin painting. He'd probably have to buy one for Heero now.

Quat was glowing himself, gilded by sunbeams and possibility, head bent over his 'phone, not even noticing Trowa watching him.

He waited just long enough to hear Quat say Heero's name, low and tremulous.

Trowa would have crawled through battlefields, broken and bloody, if he'd heard Quat say his name like that.

Heero Yuy had better be willing to do the same.

He closed the door, very softly, and then flung himself down the first two flights of stairs, deliberately putting distance between them, and paused on the landing with Duo's mirror, and leaned out the window.

He said 'I love you' in his head, the way he used to when he was fifteen, after meeting Quat, because he hadn't known how to say it properly. He wasn't sure which of them he was saying it to. Then he said it again, aloud, letting the wind carry the words out over the sea, lost forever.

He had no real idea what would happen with Duo, what Duo really wanted, even. It probably wouldn't be easy; they both had massive trust issues, and it probably wouldn't help that their respective exes seemed to be falling for each other, and Duo was a freaking nightmare sometimes; unpredictable and touchy and probably still at least half in love with Heero.

If you looked at it impartially, analytically, they hadn't got a prayer. Too different, the two of them. Trowa liked locking himself away from the world. Silence and solitude. Duo was the original party animal who needed a cloud of admirers buzzing around him.

On paper, they were doomed, except that in real life, they sort of worked, most of the time.

And he did know one thing, bone deep. They might break up over some stupid row, or because one of them met someone else, or because they started to bore each other - he couldn't ever imagine that - or because their sharp edges started to rub the wrong way, to draw blood.

All the honest, genuine reasons why people broke up, and maybe got to stay friends after if they were lucky.

Duo would never leave him to please someone else; to live up to expectations; for money, because that just wasn't who he was, and never would be. There was honesty there, and loyalty; the loyalty that had kept him riveted to Heero for ten years.

It was just up to the two of them, how much they wanted it.

He was smiling as he ran down the stairs, and walked out on to the beach, looking for Duo.

~ * ~

Chapter 19

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