On the Corner of West Elm and Bailey
folder
Gundam Wing/AC › Yaoi - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
15
Views:
1,979
Reviews:
42
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Gundam Wing/AC › Yaoi - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
15
Views:
1,979
Reviews:
42
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
XI
The more populated part of town wasn\'t so very populated. Trowa would take a tentative guess that, in total, maybe fifty or sixty people were wandering around the outside mall; which, really was a sectioned off street lined with shops and old restaurants. It wasn\'t very long, and, about the most modern aspect of it was the old school arcade tucked inbetween an antique bookstore and an old-style candy shop where all the confections were crafted behind glass panels in full view of prospective customers. Some people paused a moment to watch the taffy pulling, a refined art that had acquired, over time, some tricks that had a hypnotic effect akin to pizza tossing.
Salt popped and crunched underfoot, a fresh coat presumably from the night before. The mall seemed to be the only patch of Virginia untouched by snow. The grey stones of the street reflected back at Trowa glumly as if to suit his mood, the rippling sediment of their faces made them appear pliable, as if they would compress and belch under a well-placed step.
The sky was overcast, and allowed only small scattered patches of sunlight to penetrate the gloom glinting off of shop windows and setting some of the more magnificent trees aglow. Days like this were the best, Trowa had always felt this to be true. The atmosphere and lighting of a cloudy day seemed to contrast so completely with things like trees, flowers, even buildings; that everything appeared to be more full of life, swollen and so bursting with life that its essence beaded on the surface of its flush fruit. On days like this, Trowa felt more in his element, and more in tune with his surroundings. It would be a day for him to go disappear in some wood for a while, just tromping around, if he weren\'t already at the mall with Duo, Heero, and Wufei who were currently bickering about where to go first.
As Trowa saw it, there wo poo point in arguing, there was no rush. But, as he got to know these people better, it seemed that all of their pointless arguements formed the glue that kept them together. \'Opposites attract,\' someone wise, and presumably famous, once said.
\"Trowa, Heero and Wufei are going to the music store, where do you want to go?\" Duo asked, bounding up to him.
Trowa shrugged. He hadn\'t really thought about it. The only thing that he\'d been able to really focus on that morning was the lingering soreness of his guilty conscience after the way that he\'d spoken to Quatre the day before.
Quatre...
For a moment, Trowa took the time to think of adjetives that he could associate with Quatre.
He\'d seen the movies, and from that, he had come to the inevitable conclusion that gifts solve everything. If he could give Quatre something nice, he could (somewhat) save face, and also save his fledgling friendship.
Even with his brain working overtime, no ideas came to his head. He thought that he heard one of the gears in his head blow a gasket, and thus decided to give it a rest. Apparently, the people to people aspect of his brilliant mind still operated on tinker toys.
\"Lets just browse,\" he suggested, uninspired.
++
They travelled up and down the street sweeping through stores, and catching glimpses of Heero and Wufei ambling around in their own world. It looked like Wufei must have purchased new cello strings by the pale paper bag hanging limply from his fingers. He and Heero seemed to be discussing things of particular interest as they walked. Their pace was slow, and from time to time, one of them would nod. Politics? Perfected murder plots? The Winner mansion?
Trowa wondered, again, whether he might tell them about Quatre.
They were a smarter pair than ten Trowas combined and might be able to help him sort through some of his more burning questions. Or, conversely, they could reveal to him that he was, indeed, a nutcase and submit him to some nameless psychological institute where his newest friend would be the crumbling plaster on the walls.
\"Hey, Tro,\" Duo waved his hand in front of his eyes.
Trowa blinked hard, snapping out of his daze, \"What?\"
\"I just remembered, I need to get some new earrings,\" Duo said seriously, then melted into a grin, \"All of my pairs\'ve become singles.\"
Trowa stuffed his hands into his pockets and let Duo lead the way.
++
In the jewlery store, Trowa hovered around the door. Something about being so close to many expensive objects never failed to bother him. An anxiousness to leave unquieted his fingers which twitched inside his pockets.
He\'d have spent the entire time by the door, if something hadn\'t caught his eye.
It wasn\'t anything particularly extraordinary, but the chain attatched to it had caught the lighting of the dim shop in such a way that it shined in Trowa\'s eyes and piqued his voracious curiosity.
Cautiously, he followed the light to its source.
Under the glass cover and pillowed on a red velvet cushion was a necklace. It was crafted from white gold, even the charm; a simple looking heart with six small diamonds \'hammered\' into it.
Duo was still scrutinizing earrings at a different counter, so, Trowa called the attendant to help him.
\"Is this the only one you have of this kind?\" he asked pointing to the necklace.
The attendant, an old man with telescope-like glasses and wiry white hair smiled severely, as if it hurt him. \"I do believe so, young man,\" he answered, his voice rough, but his tone kind.
Trowa chewed his lip pensively. Something was nagging at him to buy the necklace, and not only one, but two.
\"Can you make a replica or something like this one?\" he asked.
The old man seemed sympathetic, \"That could cost a lot for a man as young as yourself.\"
Trowa dug into his pockets for his wallet when his questing fingers touched upon what felt like a small stash of pebbles. He laid his wallet out on the counter, then, brought the pebbles out and deposited them next to the wallet. They were Quatre\'s tears.
\"Sir, could you...Could you please use these to make a necklace with the likeness of this one?\" Trowa asked.
\"I suppose, I could,\" the attendant took one between his fingers and examined it in the yellowed light of one of the overhead lamps. \"Such a curious luster,\" he commented under his breath.
\"Could you give me an estimate of the cost?\" Trowa asked apprehensively holding his debit card halfway out of his wallet.
\"Maybur hur hundred-five hundred dollars,\" the elderly man replied running his thick fingers over his scraggly stubble. They were callused and sprinkled sparingly with old scars from his former days as an apprentice.
Trowa nodded, \"That seems reasonable,\" he said, with no real inkling as to what was really reasonable. He\'d spoken to fill the space, and surprised even himself with that realization. He pointed to the necklace still under the glass, and fully unsheathed his debit card, \"When can I pick that one up?\" He set his card lightly on the counter, ready to take it back if he was disappointed.
\"Today,\" the attendant assured him, gingerly removing the necklace from the case. \"Allow me some minutes to note the specifics of it. During that time, you can fill this out.\" He pulled a pink slip of paper from out of a drawer and handed it to Trowa.
The old man disappeared behind a curtain while Trowa filled out the form, a contract of sorts, with general information and a pledge to pick up the merchandise. He finished before the attendant returned, and so amused himself by watching Duo pick his speculative way around the earrings selection.
If he was looking for more butch earrings, this didn\'t seem like the right shop to look.
\"Hey, mister, do you have any cz?\" he asked aloud, then looked up to find no \'mister\' in sight. \"Where\'d he go?\"
Though Trowa knew exactly where he\'d went, all he could manage was a microscopic shrug.
\"I don\'t think this is the right shop to ask for cubic zirconium,\" Trowa answered Duo\'s question in the attendant\'s stead. \"Most of this is antique jewlery.\"
\"I have the right to hope,\" Duo replied haughtily.
Trowa didn\'t reply, though he could think of an assortment of smart-assed quips to stick to him. Talking was far too exhausting.
Along that same vein, so was thinking about Quatre, but there wasn\'t much help for that. Quatre, to Trowa, was like a dream, and if he didn\'t think about him constantly, there was a chance that he could lose him; Quatre with deepdeep blue eyes, powder white skin, rosy cheeks, cupid lips, and insatiably sweet smile. The strings of Trowa\'s heart stretched taut and trembled with wanting.
An utterance of his name escaped his lips, though he took no notice to it, particularly. It had become such a common echo in his mind, that it masked the moving of his lips and the vibration of his larynx.
\"Who?\" Duo asked, walking towards him, now.
\"What?\" Trowa replied, snapping out of his reverie.
\"Who\'s Quatre?\" Duo pressed.
Trowa\'s mind raced, and he blurted out, \"A French song from the countryside. It\'s about the four seasons. Its origins are obscure, but most believe that it was written in the-\"
Duo raised up his hands to quiet Trowa\'s rambling, \"Y\'know, the more you talk, the less I believe you.\"
It was true. Trowa was not one prone to on-the-spot dissertations, much less, multi-sentence utterances of any sort. So, he resorted to the only other thing he could think of to kill the question, intimidation.
He willed his breathing to even, his lips to close into a small frown, his posture to slacken, and his eyes to harden so that his face took on an emotion somewhere between annoyance and apathy.
Duo scrunched his nose, unsure whether to be amused or offended.
It was this most tense moment that the attendant decided to return, \"Give me about two weeks, and I\'ll have it ready for you.\"
Lucky for him, he hadn\'t looked up to see the two friends, at odds with each other, shock themselves into proper social courtesy. Duo resuhis his habitual smile, eyeing the felt box in the elderly man\'s large hands. Trowa gathered his debit card and the pink contract in his right hand, ready to hand both over.
\"Take good care of it, it\'s had a hard life,\" the attendant said gruffly to Trowa as he handed the box over.
As pleased as he was to have made a sale, it was obvious that he was sad to see it go.
++
When Duo and Trowa were leaving the shop, they had the most unfortunate fortune to bump into, none other than, Miss Relena Darlain, Miss Dorothy Catolina, and Miss Miranda (a.k.a. Midii) Une.
Instantly, their superhuman trinket senses zeroed in on the box in Trowa\'s hand, mixed expressions of: curiosity, excitement, hopefulness, and disappointment crossing their features, all within the blink of an eye.
\"So, Trowa,\" Relena began cordially, \"who\'s that for?\"
He could have kicked himself.
TBC....
note(s):
1. SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO FRIGGIN\' LONG AND THAT IT\'S SO SHORT
Since school let out, all I\'ve been doing is watching kdramas and sleeping. I just got back to working on this story yesterday. And, to show you all that I still care, I wanted to post what I have so far. I\'m really sorry;>.> I hate it when stories I read don\'t update.
I\'ll work on all my fics this summer and endeavor to bring them to some sort of closure by August.
Please bear with me!^_^
2. thank you for all your support! I hope for more and more reviews \'cause you\'re all so awesome!
!THANKS!
Salt popped and crunched underfoot, a fresh coat presumably from the night before. The mall seemed to be the only patch of Virginia untouched by snow. The grey stones of the street reflected back at Trowa glumly as if to suit his mood, the rippling sediment of their faces made them appear pliable, as if they would compress and belch under a well-placed step.
The sky was overcast, and allowed only small scattered patches of sunlight to penetrate the gloom glinting off of shop windows and setting some of the more magnificent trees aglow. Days like this were the best, Trowa had always felt this to be true. The atmosphere and lighting of a cloudy day seemed to contrast so completely with things like trees, flowers, even buildings; that everything appeared to be more full of life, swollen and so bursting with life that its essence beaded on the surface of its flush fruit. On days like this, Trowa felt more in his element, and more in tune with his surroundings. It would be a day for him to go disappear in some wood for a while, just tromping around, if he weren\'t already at the mall with Duo, Heero, and Wufei who were currently bickering about where to go first.
As Trowa saw it, there wo poo point in arguing, there was no rush. But, as he got to know these people better, it seemed that all of their pointless arguements formed the glue that kept them together. \'Opposites attract,\' someone wise, and presumably famous, once said.
\"Trowa, Heero and Wufei are going to the music store, where do you want to go?\" Duo asked, bounding up to him.
Trowa shrugged. He hadn\'t really thought about it. The only thing that he\'d been able to really focus on that morning was the lingering soreness of his guilty conscience after the way that he\'d spoken to Quatre the day before.
Quatre...
For a moment, Trowa took the time to think of adjetives that he could associate with Quatre.
He\'d seen the movies, and from that, he had come to the inevitable conclusion that gifts solve everything. If he could give Quatre something nice, he could (somewhat) save face, and also save his fledgling friendship.
Even with his brain working overtime, no ideas came to his head. He thought that he heard one of the gears in his head blow a gasket, and thus decided to give it a rest. Apparently, the people to people aspect of his brilliant mind still operated on tinker toys.
\"Lets just browse,\" he suggested, uninspired.
++
They travelled up and down the street sweeping through stores, and catching glimpses of Heero and Wufei ambling around in their own world. It looked like Wufei must have purchased new cello strings by the pale paper bag hanging limply from his fingers. He and Heero seemed to be discussing things of particular interest as they walked. Their pace was slow, and from time to time, one of them would nod. Politics? Perfected murder plots? The Winner mansion?
Trowa wondered, again, whether he might tell them about Quatre.
They were a smarter pair than ten Trowas combined and might be able to help him sort through some of his more burning questions. Or, conversely, they could reveal to him that he was, indeed, a nutcase and submit him to some nameless psychological institute where his newest friend would be the crumbling plaster on the walls.
\"Hey, Tro,\" Duo waved his hand in front of his eyes.
Trowa blinked hard, snapping out of his daze, \"What?\"
\"I just remembered, I need to get some new earrings,\" Duo said seriously, then melted into a grin, \"All of my pairs\'ve become singles.\"
Trowa stuffed his hands into his pockets and let Duo lead the way.
++
In the jewlery store, Trowa hovered around the door. Something about being so close to many expensive objects never failed to bother him. An anxiousness to leave unquieted his fingers which twitched inside his pockets.
He\'d have spent the entire time by the door, if something hadn\'t caught his eye.
It wasn\'t anything particularly extraordinary, but the chain attatched to it had caught the lighting of the dim shop in such a way that it shined in Trowa\'s eyes and piqued his voracious curiosity.
Cautiously, he followed the light to its source.
Under the glass cover and pillowed on a red velvet cushion was a necklace. It was crafted from white gold, even the charm; a simple looking heart with six small diamonds \'hammered\' into it.
Duo was still scrutinizing earrings at a different counter, so, Trowa called the attendant to help him.
\"Is this the only one you have of this kind?\" he asked pointing to the necklace.
The attendant, an old man with telescope-like glasses and wiry white hair smiled severely, as if it hurt him. \"I do believe so, young man,\" he answered, his voice rough, but his tone kind.
Trowa chewed his lip pensively. Something was nagging at him to buy the necklace, and not only one, but two.
\"Can you make a replica or something like this one?\" he asked.
The old man seemed sympathetic, \"That could cost a lot for a man as young as yourself.\"
Trowa dug into his pockets for his wallet when his questing fingers touched upon what felt like a small stash of pebbles. He laid his wallet out on the counter, then, brought the pebbles out and deposited them next to the wallet. They were Quatre\'s tears.
\"Sir, could you...Could you please use these to make a necklace with the likeness of this one?\" Trowa asked.
\"I suppose, I could,\" the attendant took one between his fingers and examined it in the yellowed light of one of the overhead lamps. \"Such a curious luster,\" he commented under his breath.
\"Could you give me an estimate of the cost?\" Trowa asked apprehensively holding his debit card halfway out of his wallet.
\"Maybur hur hundred-five hundred dollars,\" the elderly man replied running his thick fingers over his scraggly stubble. They were callused and sprinkled sparingly with old scars from his former days as an apprentice.
Trowa nodded, \"That seems reasonable,\" he said, with no real inkling as to what was really reasonable. He\'d spoken to fill the space, and surprised even himself with that realization. He pointed to the necklace still under the glass, and fully unsheathed his debit card, \"When can I pick that one up?\" He set his card lightly on the counter, ready to take it back if he was disappointed.
\"Today,\" the attendant assured him, gingerly removing the necklace from the case. \"Allow me some minutes to note the specifics of it. During that time, you can fill this out.\" He pulled a pink slip of paper from out of a drawer and handed it to Trowa.
The old man disappeared behind a curtain while Trowa filled out the form, a contract of sorts, with general information and a pledge to pick up the merchandise. He finished before the attendant returned, and so amused himself by watching Duo pick his speculative way around the earrings selection.
If he was looking for more butch earrings, this didn\'t seem like the right shop to look.
\"Hey, mister, do you have any cz?\" he asked aloud, then looked up to find no \'mister\' in sight. \"Where\'d he go?\"
Though Trowa knew exactly where he\'d went, all he could manage was a microscopic shrug.
\"I don\'t think this is the right shop to ask for cubic zirconium,\" Trowa answered Duo\'s question in the attendant\'s stead. \"Most of this is antique jewlery.\"
\"I have the right to hope,\" Duo replied haughtily.
Trowa didn\'t reply, though he could think of an assortment of smart-assed quips to stick to him. Talking was far too exhausting.
Along that same vein, so was thinking about Quatre, but there wasn\'t much help for that. Quatre, to Trowa, was like a dream, and if he didn\'t think about him constantly, there was a chance that he could lose him; Quatre with deepdeep blue eyes, powder white skin, rosy cheeks, cupid lips, and insatiably sweet smile. The strings of Trowa\'s heart stretched taut and trembled with wanting.
An utterance of his name escaped his lips, though he took no notice to it, particularly. It had become such a common echo in his mind, that it masked the moving of his lips and the vibration of his larynx.
\"Who?\" Duo asked, walking towards him, now.
\"What?\" Trowa replied, snapping out of his reverie.
\"Who\'s Quatre?\" Duo pressed.
Trowa\'s mind raced, and he blurted out, \"A French song from the countryside. It\'s about the four seasons. Its origins are obscure, but most believe that it was written in the-\"
Duo raised up his hands to quiet Trowa\'s rambling, \"Y\'know, the more you talk, the less I believe you.\"
It was true. Trowa was not one prone to on-the-spot dissertations, much less, multi-sentence utterances of any sort. So, he resorted to the only other thing he could think of to kill the question, intimidation.
He willed his breathing to even, his lips to close into a small frown, his posture to slacken, and his eyes to harden so that his face took on an emotion somewhere between annoyance and apathy.
Duo scrunched his nose, unsure whether to be amused or offended.
It was this most tense moment that the attendant decided to return, \"Give me about two weeks, and I\'ll have it ready for you.\"
Lucky for him, he hadn\'t looked up to see the two friends, at odds with each other, shock themselves into proper social courtesy. Duo resuhis his habitual smile, eyeing the felt box in the elderly man\'s large hands. Trowa gathered his debit card and the pink contract in his right hand, ready to hand both over.
\"Take good care of it, it\'s had a hard life,\" the attendant said gruffly to Trowa as he handed the box over.
As pleased as he was to have made a sale, it was obvious that he was sad to see it go.
++
When Duo and Trowa were leaving the shop, they had the most unfortunate fortune to bump into, none other than, Miss Relena Darlain, Miss Dorothy Catolina, and Miss Miranda (a.k.a. Midii) Une.
Instantly, their superhuman trinket senses zeroed in on the box in Trowa\'s hand, mixed expressions of: curiosity, excitement, hopefulness, and disappointment crossing their features, all within the blink of an eye.
\"So, Trowa,\" Relena began cordially, \"who\'s that for?\"
He could have kicked himself.
TBC....
note(s):
1. SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO FRIGGIN\' LONG AND THAT IT\'S SO SHORT
Since school let out, all I\'ve been doing is watching kdramas and sleeping. I just got back to working on this story yesterday. And, to show you all that I still care, I wanted to post what I have so far. I\'m really sorry;>.> I hate it when stories I read don\'t update.
I\'ll work on all my fics this summer and endeavor to bring them to some sort of closure by August.
Please bear with me!^_^
2. thank you for all your support! I hope for more and more reviews \'cause you\'re all so awesome!
!THANKS!