by Kay Zozma
That circus girl, Catherine, takes us to her trailer for hot chocolate.
Trowa does all the talking, shares just-recovered memories. "Wufei visited the circus once...I slept in this chair when Heero needed my bed." He smiles at Catherine. "I'm not really your brother. I'm not really anybody. You treat me like family anyway." She kisses his cheek.
He turns to me. "Duo, you've been my friend, even though I destroyed Deathscythe. Sorry."
I slap him on the back. "Forgiven, teammate! You needed to infiltrate OZ, and I've got Deathscythe Hell now."
Quatre sits hunched sadly over his hot chocolate. Trowa tells him, "I remember our duet, after you surrendered. You trusted me from the beginning, and I trust you."
Quatre won't look up. "If you trust me, you must not remember everything."
"I do remember, Quatre. What happened to those colonies, what happened to me--blame ZERO, not yourself. I'd choose the same path if it happened again, but it won't. You're too strong."
"You don't hate me?"
"Not even then." Quatre looks up, amazed. Trowa smiles.
It's time to return to Peacemillion. I don't remind them.
I just ask Catherine for more hot chocolate.
by Kay Zozma
Trowa's back earlier than I expected. I'm caught by surprise as I repot a plant in the kitchen sink--rosemary, for remembrance.
"Cathy?" He hasn't looked this uncertain since the war, since I found him lost on a dark colony street.
"Did you keep the appointment?"
"I did. They found a match." He holds up an envelope. "I haven't been able to look yet. It's silly, but I thought if I read it alone, I might forget who I am now."
"Well, open it!" I hired Genetic Reunions once, but they didn't find my brother. I try not to worry that now I'll lose Trowa, too.
He reads the doubt in my eyes. "Cathy. You'll always be my sister, no matter what other family I have."
I nod. "I know. Go ahead."
We sit at the kitchen table shoulder to shoulder, so we read the highlighted line in the same moment.
Triton Bloom.
And my address right below, listed for "nearest relative." Neither one of us can speak for a long while. I'm crying. He's crying. He's Triton. Why didn't I ever recognize him?
But in a way, I always have.
"Welcome home, little brother."
by Raletha
Note: Set between Trowa's Episode Zero stories and an aside to my Solace Arc.
The shuttle has stopped accelerating and I am no longer pinned back in my seat. As soon as the seat belt light goes out, I unbuckle my harness and lean forward to look out my small window. It was difficult to get a window seat on this side of the shuttle; the flight is full.
The Earth - all of it - hangs within my view. I feel like I could reach out and close my fingers around the tranquil seeming orb. Seeming, yes, I know well the violence and anguish of that planet. But from here, I cannot see the faces of suffering or the wreckage of war. I try to believe that some of the billions of people under my gaze are content.
"Daniel Mikhailov?" asks a woman. This name I've borrowed from two men [1]. Both are dead.
I don't turn immediately to the stewardess. Instead I wonder if I should have booked a seat on the other side of the craft - to see the Colonies as I come to them at last.
The Earth and its wars are at my back, a new hope and a new home is before me.
I ask her for coffee.
end.
[1] In my timeline(s), Daniel is the man who taught Trowa to play the flute, Peter Mikhailov was a former school teacher turned soldier who mentored Trowa's education and bought him books.
by Anne Olsen
Growing up amongst the mercenaries, I didn't have the privilege of a home in the traditional sense of the word. We moved around so often that one location only just became familiar before it was time to journey onto the next.
But to me, home is found in a sense of belonging rather than in bricks, wood and mortar. Being in a crowd, made welcome by others and yet knowing the accommodation they offer is merely temporary, is often worse than having no shelter at all. The wrong piece never fits into another puzzle, no matter how large the jigsaw - it is impossible to escape the feeling of isolation.
In finding my sister came the discovery that I now had a family. Cathy welcomed me both into her life and into her heart. As I welcomed her.
But yet I still wasn't home.
When we shared that first tentative kiss, I realised what it was I'd been seeking. I watch you sleep now, your arm resting across my chest, your fingers intertwined in mine. And I know that we've each found missing parts of the same puzzle. That together, Cat, we've found home.
~fin~
by Raletha
We enter, and I carry a suitcase. Quatre shows me to a guestroom.
This is not my home; it is his. My arrival here is as fresh as spring's first bloom; my absence preceding it far longer than an arctic winter. In fact, I've never been here before.
This place feels like Quatre - even smells like him. I see him in every furnishing we pass in the hall; I imagine his violin music spiraling through the air.
But in his guestroom, my imaginings are quickly abandoned. My bag falls by the door, and we fumble with buttons and zippers. Though we rush, there is tenderness. It's embedded in the murmur of his voice as he takes me, the touch of his lips to my shoulder, and the caress of his hand along my spine.
He touches me while he moves inside, reminding me that he knows my body now.
My climax approaches like a sunrise, glimmering bright on the horizon, and it makes my arrival real in a way it wasn't (even couldn't have been) before. I am here now, at last. He's coming into me, welcoming me, bringing me into his life. Where I may choose to belong.
end.
by Sonnet
Home…
How is it that such a simple word can cause such feelings of serenity and contentment to surge through me?
However far apart we are, however great the distance between us just the notion of those four letters makes the miles seem like nothing.
Resting my cheek against the cool side of the shuttle's hull I sigh as I think of what you might be doing now.
Probably curled up on our sofa, deep in slumber your head resting on your arm, the copy of whatever it is you're reading open and forgotten beside you. Long golden lashes resting on soft cheeks flickering as you dream sweet dreams.
That thought makes me smile…because I know that as I sit here and think of you, you lie there and dream of me.
I used to think a home was false hope…merely a place of false security…a place to hide when there were no battles to fight. Then I met Cathy and home became a place for family, however tentative the connection…but now…now I know.
Home is no place on Earth or the colonies; home is inside you Quatre…your heart…your love…that is my home.
The place I return to...
~End~
by Raletha
Note: Goes with the Twilight Dawning timeline
Spring was too young for Duo not to feel the chill while walking back to the cottage that night. It was a night like many others: after asking Trowa to join him, Duo went out alone.
Some nights the solitude pleased Duo, for it made returning to the cottage... better.
He made his way through the iron gate, up the path, and noted the changes over the past months - the fresh paint and tidy garden, the brass fixtures and graceful curtains.
Duo smiled - he'd helped make those changes. That knowledge rested within him palpable, warm, and still pleasantly novel. It felt good to see the feline silhouette leap up to the window - and to see the young man on the porch stand to open the screen door for him.
"I missed you tonight," Trowa confessed, ushering him inside, where hands quickly caught Duo's wrists. Trowa pushed him against the wall, pressing close.
But initial urgency fled: they simply breathed in the same space for a time.
When their lips merged - softly, carefully - it felt like Trowa had been thinking about the past, and like many other nights, Duo coaxed him back to now.
end.
by Zed Adams
He called me Trowa.
His soft, lilting alto seemed to caress each syllable, sending a shiver up my spine.
I couldn't remember him, but deep in my heart I knew he's important to me. Don't ask me how or why. I'd trusted my emotions, abandoned everything and followed him.
Days passed in a hazy blur.
I could see the wistful smile in his eyes as he stole glances my way. I wanted to reach out for him, to comfort him, but I was afraid. I retired to my quarters, but sleep eluded me, Visions of gold haunted me.
A soft buzz at my door, and there he was, looking at me searchingly.
"Can I come to your bed?"
I nodded and made room. We lay side by side without touching.
"I'm cold and miserable. I can't sleep and I don't know why."
He looked at me, sorrow in his eyes. I pulled him close and held him tight. What the mind forgets, the body remembers. I had kissed this boy before, and I kissed him then.
"Trowa," he breathed into my ear.
We lay spooned together, he and I. And I knew with a shattering clarity that we belong together.
end
by Symee-Sama
Trowa never had a real home. He had never known what it was like to have a real family, or what it was like to have a mother. Childhood was supposed to be innocent, happy and carefree. His was anything but that. His childhood had been serious and bloody, his family had been a group of mercenaries, and his home, if you could call it that, had been the battlefield.
It had hurt. It had hurt to sit around the fire with the mercenaries, listening to them talk about their homes, about their families. He hadn't had either. So he sat there, listening to their stories, becoming more withdrawn, more scared. During those lonely nights, he developed a fear that would haunt him throughout the war. What if he never found a home?
He looked to the blonde woman that was sleeping beside him, smiling slightly as he brushed stray strands of hair from her face. Suddenly, he wasn't afraid anymore, because now, he had one. It had been in front of his face for years, but he had just realised it now. He chuckled softly at his stupidity. How could he have missed it?
Wherever she was, was home.
the end
by Zed Adams
We found the place by chance – a modest shelter for a group of war- displaced children. The orphans greeted us with shy smiles and polite questions. Their upturned faces were radiant as they followed us closely, as if hungering for human contact and love.
Like I used to feel before I met him.
Summer turned to autumn.
He smiled when I told him that I'd volunteered to teach music to the orphans. Three afternoons weekly I made my way there, rain or shine. It lightened my heart to be able to bring them joy, to share with them the simple pleasure of making music. As they blossomed, my pride grew.
You have a special gift with children, he declared and kissed me.
Then one afternoon he appeared, violin-case in hand. The children gathered around him excitedly, calling him Uncle Trowa's friend. I suppressed a smile as he blushed.
A hush fell as we played that same duet that we played when we first met all those years ago. Intertwining melodies, half-passionate, half-mischievous, pure affection. They adored him and begged for more. He acceded.
Later we left, hand in hand, hearts soaring with devotion. And it was enough.
end
by Rachel
Note: Further proof that I am on crack. Hope this isn't too excessively weird. Bast, this is for you, because you liked the idea.
Trowa blinked in the bright sunlight and pushed his bangs out of his face absently, all his being intent on the subtle drama unfolding a few yards away.
Wufei and Dorothy faced each other. Trowa could see the girl's blue eyes, full of wintry clouds and inscrutable as ever. She wasn't smiling. She meant business. Trowa could not see Wufei's expression, but the tautness of his muscles suggested determination.
But determination to do what? To come through for his teammates and bring them home, or to betray them and maybe win this alluring, corrupted girl?
Shifting his gaze momentarily from Dorothy and Wufei, Trowa glanced at Duo and Heero and saw their apprehension mirrored his own.
CRACK.
The sound rent the air. Trowa bolted forward, dust churning behind him as he ran with breakneck speed. So narrow was his concentration that he tripped over the plate and was sent sprawling. He lay there, dazed, until, a few moments later, Duo, then Heero, and finally Wufei crashed into him.
At the pitcher's mound, Dorothy was shrieking. Zechs cast his glove down in anger.
"Home run!" Quatre, Hilde, and Relena shouted as they hurried from the dugout to assist their entangled teammates.
end
by Sandpiper
Notes: I suppose it's rated PG just because I can't write G. It makes my teeth hurt more often than not. And of course, the whole underlying message isn't really all that kid-friendly. Might be a teensy bit squicky. Might be...
Trowa absently fiddled with the keys, noticing for not the first nor the last time how the metal seemed to be grubby and soiled (from his own hands?) Up close, the smell of it- vile corruption of elements and alloys- seemed to soak into the pads of his fingers, and the greasy mechanical oil from the keys and rings slid with the natural salt and oil of his hands.
It wasn't as much the texture as the smell that nauseated him, laying thick on his tongue and trying to gag him. The keys would clink and chime together in some twisted parody of music box and ballerina, spinning and pirouetting round on their chains, reeking like dirty old coins. Like the hundreds of hands they'd been passed through.
But no, these keys- these disgusting gateways- were all his, and he had no one else to blame for the addictive sordidness. It was revolting but intoxicating, and he once more found himself lifting his fingers to overload his senses in the perfume of decay.
Humanity's decay.
owari
by Windsor Blue
Notes: This was inspired by Anne's shower smut fic and Ponderosa's yummy shower smut picture, which can be properly ogled here. *still drooling*
The tile was cold against his back, but he didn't really give a damn. Trowa's lips were hard, insistent and demanding against his own, and seemed much more worthy of his attention. His logical mind was lost somewhere in the steam of the shower, and he was all too happy to kiss it goodbye.
Trowa let his lips go and went for his neck instead, growling low in his throat like a starving animal. Quatre felt his own teeth attach to Trowa's ear, giving it a gentle tug.
"You could've at least let me get my shirt off," Quatre purred.
"You were taking too long," came the fevered reply.
Quatre chuckled and rolled his hips in a languid circle against Trowa's lean body. "If this is the reception I can look forward to when I get home, I'll have to go away on business more often."
The arms wrapped around him tightened and lifted him up, pressing him back impossibly harder against the tile, a tongue dragging aggressively down his chest as he went.
"Don't you fucking dare," Trowa snarled, biting and lapping at Quatre's nipple.
Quatre curled over him, eyes closing. Oh, but it was good to be home.
the end