by Starherd
Behold, I suffered from sleep depravation, and it was good. Or at least depraved.
This fic dedicated, with much admiration, to Daisy in Pittsburgh, whose collection is probably still much larger than mine. And to Kasra - both the Gundam-lust and the MLP-lust are her fault.
"Quatre!"
The diminutive blonde jumped at the harsh voice. His back turned to his companion, his shoulders hunched, he clutched a grime-bottomed paper bag to his chest, quietly closing the door.
"Quatre, you were gone almost all day! Where have you been?" Trowa demanded, eyes bright with anger - or was it frustration?
"Nowhere," Quatre said in a very soft voice as he turned around, hugging the crumpled-shut bag tightly. His face seemed to be an unusual shade of red, though it could not be seen very well - he seemed to be studying his shoes.
"..." Trowa said, standing before him with his arms folded. He briefly considered tearing Quatre a new one, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. No matter how much the boy was threatening their safety with his absences, Trowa knew that he could never harm him, even verbally. He finally settled on a course of action. "You shouldn't stay out so long," he said quietly. "The heat from the mission hasn't blown over yet, and it's still too dangerous to leave this area. The longer you stay out, the more chance there is for the wrong people to recognize you."
"I know," Quatre muttered, still not looking up.
"We've been here for a couple of months now."
"I know."
"We're accepted into the neighborhood, such as it is."
"I know."
"We've got a good chance of getting out of this... But lately, you've been..."
"I know," Quatre whispered. A tear slid from his cheek and dripped onto the brown paper bag. "I'm... I'm sorry." And he hurried past Trowa, on into the apartment, never once meeting his eyes. He scurried into his room (this being a two-bedroom apartment), barely opening the door as he slipped inside, still clutching the paper bag.
Trowa stared after him. "I'm sorry too, little one," he whispered.
At first, it had been a thrill, completing that covert mission with Quatre. Ever since they'd met, Trowa had been impressed by the golden Arabian boy - his honesty, his unbounded love and faith in humanity, his quiet power - and he hadn't been able to get him out of his mind. And after the mission, he'd tried not to let on how pleased he was to get to live with Quatre, even if it was in this cramped little apartment in the city, even if it was just for a while. He'd quickly realized that his fascination with the boy was more than just a desire for friendship...
But after two weeks, it seemed that the honeymoon was over, so to speak. Quatre began to leave the apartment for unspecified and increasing stretches of time, especially on the weekends. He would return, sometimes late in the evening, often obviously hiding something inside his jacket. Lately, he'd taken to surreptitiously carrying bags - plastic or paper, but always opaque - with him on these jaunts, and they always came back full of... something. And then he would go into his room, and Trowa wouldn't see him for hours on end.
And for the past two weeks, Quatre had been skipping meals...
Trowa had, by this point, deduced that Quatre had somehow become... an addict. He wasn't sure yet just what the addictive substance was; his friend wasn't yet exhibiting any signs that he could identify. But he did always wear that pink long-sleeved dress shirt that kept his arms hidden... And really, this was such a dangerous neighborhood for that sort of thing...
No. He couldn't bear to think of it. What could possibly drive his little angel to such self-abuse?
The blond Arabian boy remained in his room the rest of the day. Trowa did his best to fill the empty loneliness with activity; he cleaned, and made a wonderful five-course Italian dinner. He set the dinner up on the only table they had, in the kitchen, with candles and everything.
When the boy of unspecified nationality had everything ready, he went and knocked on Quatre's bedroom door.
There was the sound of movement inside - a shuffling, and the creaking of bed springs - and after a moment, the door eased open an unrevealing crack.
"Dinner is ready," Trowa said, unable to disguise the pain in his voice. Quatre's eyes seemed to be rather reddened.
The blond gave a sniffle. "I'll be there in a minute." But as he shut the door again, an odd scent wafted out from inside, catching Trowa by the nose.
I know that scent, the unibanged boy realized, his rugged jaw tightening. But... Quatre... I can't believe that he'd...
At dinner, Quatre only picked at his food, and with many apologies he soon rushed right back into his room. He'd pushed his sleeves back a bit to eat, and Trowa had noticed tell-tale colorations on his arms...
There was only one thing to do.
The next day was Sunday. When, as Trowa had known he would, Quatre silently slipped out of the apartment just before dawn, the unibanged boy set about following him.
Using the acrobatic skills that he'd learned in the circus (which, incidentally, involved him going shirtless), Trowa stealthily paced his friend. He followed Quatre through their residential neighborhood: down the street to the left of their apartment, then down the next street for several blocks. When the blonde paused before crossing a street, apparently reading the flyers posted on a telephone pole, Trowa crouched behind a hedge not fifty feet away. Then Quatre moved on to the right, then right again into a smaller side street, and up two blocks.
In the misty morning light, he stepped up to a cavernous, dark, junk-filled garage, carefully navigating through the further junk that littered the ground before the structure. There was someone else inside the garage, seated near the entrance.
From behind an ornamental rhododendron bush, Trowa was unable to believe his eyes. As Quatre paid the man and slipped away again - a small, partially full paper bag in his hands - the unibanged boy slipped away. There was one more thing he had to know before he could act, could confront his... friend... with his suspicions about his behavior.
But one thing was for certain: Quatre was, indeed, an addict.
Trowa raced home, wanting to be certain that the blond boy wouldn't walk in at an awkward moment. He went straight to Quatre's room.
In this two-bedroom apartment, there was an unspoken rule that their respective rooms were sacred - one would never enter the other's without permission, especially not if the room's door was closed. But in this case, Trowa was prepared to make an exception.
He opened the door of Quatre's room, and stared. His greatest fears were confirmed.
When Quatre returned around noon, with an even more full paper bag in his arms, he glanced about nervously. He fully expected his companion to appear and scold him as he had before, but neither Trowa nor his unibang were anywhere to be seen.
Breathing a silent sigh of relief, the blond boy crept inside, glancing about as though expecting an attack as he rushed into his room. With the door closed securely behind him, he quickly sat down on his bed, upending the bag to spill its contents on his old comforter. He removed his shirt - revealing the paint stains on his arms - and reached out to begin to properly sort the somewhat dirty objects before him...
...But just then he was interrupted by a cough. "Ahem," Trowa coughed from where he'd been standing, behind the door.
Quatre nearly leapt out of his skin, then gave a shriek of dismay as he realized that his secret was out. "Oh no, no, no, no, no! Oh Trowa, please, no!"
Raising a trembling hand, Trowa tried to placate his friend. "Quatre, I'm sorry, it's all right -"
"Please, Trowa, don't tell anybody!" The blond boy entreated, jumping to his feet and approaching Trowa with his arms outstretched. "Don't try to make me give them up!"
"Oh, little one, I'd never do that!" Trowa exclaimed, breaking into a smile. "It's a truly impressive collection!"
There was a moment of silence, during which Quatre glanced about the room, at the bookshelves lining the walls. The objects of his obsession filled the shelves - heck, at this point, every flat space in the room (including the bed) was covered. Quatre's addiction had obviously already taken over his personal habits.
"Do you really think so?" Quatre asked timidly, his eyes meeting Trowa's again.
"Of course! It's beautiful," Trowa responded.
The fair Arabian blushed. "I... hey," he stopped, frowning for a moment. "What did you call me there, a minute ago...?"
Now it was Trowa's turn to blush. "Um... Little one. Sorry."
"God, that makes me hot," Quatre breathed, then caught himself. "Sorry."
His mouth suddenly dry, Trowa attempted to swallow and failed. "Quatre..."
"Yes?"
"I... have something to show you."
"You do?" Quatre asked, his big blue eyes becoming a little confused. What could Trowa possibly have to show him?
But his wondering ceased as Trowa (still shirtless, his chest muscles rippling like caged tigers under cloth) reached down to his waistband, unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. Glancing up at Quatre (through his unibang) to gauge his reaction, he gently pulled aside the edge of his tight jeans, revealing...
"Oooh," Quatre gasped, his eyes growing huge, pupils dilated. "You... you... you're the perfect man!"
For Trowa, you see, was wearing a very carefully preserved pair of My Little Pony (Firefly) Underoos. He'd been saving them for this special occasion, when he finally found the person that he wanted to share... everything... with. He knew, with a certainty borne of joy, that he had made the right decision - for Quatre could not take his eyes from the little pink-and-blue pegasai adorning Trowa's crotch.
And so they gave themselves to each other, and made wild, passionate, hot monkey love in Quatre's bed, tangled in his vintage My Little Pony bedsheets (the ones with the pink castle in the light blue and white clouds, not the lavender ones with the maypole). Quatre even broke open an original 1983 tube of My Little Pony cake decorating gel to use as sweet, sweet lube.
And all around the room, on every flat surface, Quatre's My Little Ponies looked on with their painted plastic eyes (and sometimes jewel eyes or beddy-bye eyes). Every week night he scoured thrift stores, and every weekend he spent the morning searching through yard sales, salvaging these noble toys. He then took them back to his room and spent the rest of the day cleaning them, and sometimes spending hours and hours re-rooting their hair to make them good as new. And sometimes, just sometimes, he would re-paint or just dye their bodies, and paint new symbols on them with smelly acrylic paint, and make very special custom My Little Ponies.
After a few hours they were all worn out, and after a nice long nap, Quatre presented Trowa with a rare mint-on-card Italian Gusty (non-glittery-symbol unicorn, with lime-green and red instead of dark-green and red hair - not to be confused with the Brazilian version, an earth pony of the same colors and symbol but with red in the tail as well as the mane), and asked him to stay with him forever and ever. And so, after they eventually left their safe-house, they retired from the super-secret-Gundam-pilot business, and went to live in Quatre's mansion. Together there, they played music, and made love, and decorated entire rooms in My Little Pony merchandise, and collected at least one of every single My Little Pony that had ever existed, and made custom ponies happily ever after.