On the Corner of West Elm and Bailey
folder
Gundam Wing/AC › Yaoi - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
15
Views:
1,984
Reviews:
42
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Gundam Wing/AC › Yaoi - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
15
Views:
1,984
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.
XIV
On the Corner of West Elm and Bailey XIV
\"How do I love thee?\"
Eyes rolled.
\"Let me count the ways! One one-thousand! Two one-thousand! Three one-thousand!\"
Wufei shut his eyes, a pinched expression shadowing his face, \"Are you going to do that for every M&M?\"
\"Four one-thousand!\"
\"Someone forgot to take his medication this morning,\" Heero muttered into his hand-me-down copy of The CIA At War.
\"No kidding,\" Wufei sighed. He drew a hand back, tempted to sweep Duo\'s neat little collection of chocolates off of the table. \"Say another number, and they all go,\" he threatened.
Duo opened his mouth, thought better of it, and then closed it.
It seemed, at that moment, as if Trowa swooped in out of nowhere. To Duo, it was like an all-out attack.
The table cried out and shuddered as Trowa\'s books slammed mercilessly into it from above, apparently, the result of a careless toss. No more than two seconds later, Trowa\'s backpack joined the books with a hearty thunk, toppling one book that fell onto a few of Duo\'s M&M\'s and scattered the rest which went in all directions, some wheeling off of the edges of the table, unrecoverable.
Duo\'s mouth dropped, but Trowa was already gone.
Lately, he\'d been acting as if constantly in a great hurry. Perhaps, he was, but it so contradicted his usual care and patience that it was a growing sense of worry for his friends.
Wufei pretended not to notice, being far above the concept of surprise. It had been a very long time since he had last expressed feelings of care for anyone beyond himself, and foresaw a bothersome trouble in articulating his thoughts. Things like this that didn\'t immediately concern himself were best left to time and to other people. He could percieve a shadow on Trowa\'s shoulders, which bothered him, but which he also didn\'t think to mention.
Heero, unlike Wufei, barely took notice. It was a hard mood to miss, but he managed well.
He had only recently begun to ponder himself. The amount of time and labor that it involved sapped his empathic abilities, however small they were in the first place. His parents expected him to unveil a girlfriend, soon. Then, they expected him to marry, to gain acceptance into an Ivy League school, and to produce a litter of children before turning thirty while climbing his way up the corporate ladder, dropping bales of money back into the family fold during his ascent. In any case, his parents had only just hinted as much, as old-fashioned as they were. He was beginning to meditate on sex, obscene aspects of it beyond the scope of pornography and a rudimentary understanding of the idealized married life that his family so craved from him.
If he had sex with a woman, would he cease thinking, or would he grow even more despicable? Would he still be himself? Would he be able to look at his friends, still? Honestly?
He glanced at Wufei, who, to him, seemed to be thinking along a similar vein.
He admired that likeness between them, and felt that if Wufei could survive, so could he.
Wufei eyed him without turning his head and percieved the warmth of their kinship that, every now and again, seemed to find a bit of dry wood, still unconsumed. Comforted, he nearly smiled. Security.
Duo scraped together the survivors, five count, feeling bruised.
Trowa had become positively hasty within the past week. He seemed haunted, no time for idle thought, idle receptiveness that his friends had come to appreciate in him. He was like a king at war who had just woken up to find the Great Birnam Wood knocking on the door of Dunsinane Hill. He seemed distracted.
Duo worried about him, the outsider.
++
The house was heavy on his mind. It cast shadows over his steps, clapped its shutters at his dreams, and shook the foundations of his heart. *Quatre, Quatre, Quatre, Quatre....*
He was becoming frightened and appaling. Nightmares plagued his sleep and vigorous carnal fantasies interrupted his thoughts in waking. The combination of the two was driving him more than crazy.
Sometimes, his thoughts strayed to Edward. Was this how Edward had begun?
Trowa was beginning to miss himself.
He studied between dreams and ate when he remembered to.
He felt vulgar, like a walking, talking organ.
*The penis needs to eat,* he mused irritably at the vending machine, exchanging a jaw-dropping eighty-five cents for a betl-tightening half-filled bag of pretzels. He\'d forgotten Cathy\'s lunch on the kitchen counter.
Recieving his meagre nourishment, he quickly covered the bag with both hands. There was something shameful about vending-machine food, though he couldn\'t put a name to it.
His flight from the vending-hall was thwarted by, who else, but Miranda Une.
\"Hey!\" she started-Trowa swirved. She, ever the optimist, skipped after him, \"Are you alright?\"
Trowa paused a moment...*Are you quite well?* he felt it should be.
\"Quite,\" he replied tersely.
\"Are you sure?\" she pressed, following him again towards the cafeteria.
Trowa stopped suddenly before the double doors of his destination and turned on his heel to face his chief annoyance of the day, something outside of himself that he could snap at. \"Do you want my pretzels?\" he demanded hotly.
\"Wha-?\" Miranda\'s eyes grew wide and distant in her uncomprehension.
\"Do you want my pretzels?\" he asked again, sterner.
Still bewildered, Miranda shook her head.
\"Then, get off my ass!\" Trowa practically expactorated. He nearly burst into the cafeteria with a bang, but checked himself at the last moment and made a softer entrance.
++
She tries so hard, Trowa reflected with a nearly guilty conscience. *If Quatre...*he paused, *If Quatre had flesh...I might be just like her.* Suddenly, a wild desire flared up within him and burnt his cheeks.
*Really, I\'m the desperate one.*
He seated himself next to Duo at the lunch table.
He still hadn\'t been to visit Quatre since that day. Was he still upset?
Trowa gutted his backpack and began attacking his physics homework and thinking dirty thoughts.
++
In the afternoon, when he got off the bus, he took a moment to stare at the house.
It seemed to swell under his gaze and to reach the long fingers of its foundation yet deeper into Virginia soil.
There were no faces in the windows, but he felt, then, the prick of eyes cast in his direction. He was reminded of the watcher on the ceiling and shuddered. It hated him, but so long as he stayed out of reach, it was impotent to do him harm.
\"It feels like that house has grown a face,\" Trowa heard someone say behing him. He turned and found, to his surprise, Wufei\'s gaze centered squarely on the house.
Never would he have attributed such a comment to him, before. It lacked his, usually, dry skepticism.
\"A little bit,\" Trowa agreed.
Wufei regarded him cooly for a moment, as one often does who is secure in his knowledge and knows his opinions well. \"You haven\'t been in there, recently.\"
Trowa shook his head, \"I haven\'t had much inclination to do so.\"
Wufei nodded, \"Well, if it\'s of any interest to you,\" he paused a moment looking slightly bothered by himself, \"Mr.Kushrenada will be attending the Latter Winter Concert.\"
There was no time to respond before Wufei left him to join Heero and Duo who had already started on up the road.
Trowa didn\'t follow them and, rather, decided to chew on the matter a bit.
How had he known?
After a while, though his heart rebelled, he left the house to another day, and trudged home.
TBC....
note(s):
1. Dusinane Hill was in Shakespeare\'s Macbeth (if any of you bothered to read it in English). The only reason that I remembered it was because I was reading a biography on J.R.R. Tolkien, and the trees coming to Dusinane Hill was a big factor in the creation of his tree hearders, the Ents.
2. The \"awkward love\" theme of the chapter comes from the novel Maurice by E.M. Forster, one of my favorite books of all time.
3. Oh yes...the \"hasty\" bit can be attributed to Ents as well. I read the Rings trilogy in the past two weeks, and Pippin takes a moment in the Two Towers to explain to Aragorn & Co. how Isengard came to ruin. \"He became positively hasty!\" <-talking about Treebeard, eldest of the Ents
4. The \"how do I love thee, let me count the ways...\" comes from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
5. \"Pretzels\" has double meaning in the context where it was given. I thought it was amusing ;>>
6. Chapter is short because I\'m tired this week, and I promised an update. I (nearly) ALWAYS deliver on my promises! I\'m planning future chapters as I write this, so, don\'t freak out about how quickly this chappie went by.
7. PLEASE R&R, THANK YOU
\"How do I love thee?\"
Eyes rolled.
\"Let me count the ways! One one-thousand! Two one-thousand! Three one-thousand!\"
Wufei shut his eyes, a pinched expression shadowing his face, \"Are you going to do that for every M&M?\"
\"Four one-thousand!\"
\"Someone forgot to take his medication this morning,\" Heero muttered into his hand-me-down copy of The CIA At War.
\"No kidding,\" Wufei sighed. He drew a hand back, tempted to sweep Duo\'s neat little collection of chocolates off of the table. \"Say another number, and they all go,\" he threatened.
Duo opened his mouth, thought better of it, and then closed it.
It seemed, at that moment, as if Trowa swooped in out of nowhere. To Duo, it was like an all-out attack.
The table cried out and shuddered as Trowa\'s books slammed mercilessly into it from above, apparently, the result of a careless toss. No more than two seconds later, Trowa\'s backpack joined the books with a hearty thunk, toppling one book that fell onto a few of Duo\'s M&M\'s and scattered the rest which went in all directions, some wheeling off of the edges of the table, unrecoverable.
Duo\'s mouth dropped, but Trowa was already gone.
Lately, he\'d been acting as if constantly in a great hurry. Perhaps, he was, but it so contradicted his usual care and patience that it was a growing sense of worry for his friends.
Wufei pretended not to notice, being far above the concept of surprise. It had been a very long time since he had last expressed feelings of care for anyone beyond himself, and foresaw a bothersome trouble in articulating his thoughts. Things like this that didn\'t immediately concern himself were best left to time and to other people. He could percieve a shadow on Trowa\'s shoulders, which bothered him, but which he also didn\'t think to mention.
Heero, unlike Wufei, barely took notice. It was a hard mood to miss, but he managed well.
He had only recently begun to ponder himself. The amount of time and labor that it involved sapped his empathic abilities, however small they were in the first place. His parents expected him to unveil a girlfriend, soon. Then, they expected him to marry, to gain acceptance into an Ivy League school, and to produce a litter of children before turning thirty while climbing his way up the corporate ladder, dropping bales of money back into the family fold during his ascent. In any case, his parents had only just hinted as much, as old-fashioned as they were. He was beginning to meditate on sex, obscene aspects of it beyond the scope of pornography and a rudimentary understanding of the idealized married life that his family so craved from him.
If he had sex with a woman, would he cease thinking, or would he grow even more despicable? Would he still be himself? Would he be able to look at his friends, still? Honestly?
He glanced at Wufei, who, to him, seemed to be thinking along a similar vein.
He admired that likeness between them, and felt that if Wufei could survive, so could he.
Wufei eyed him without turning his head and percieved the warmth of their kinship that, every now and again, seemed to find a bit of dry wood, still unconsumed. Comforted, he nearly smiled. Security.
Duo scraped together the survivors, five count, feeling bruised.
Trowa had become positively hasty within the past week. He seemed haunted, no time for idle thought, idle receptiveness that his friends had come to appreciate in him. He was like a king at war who had just woken up to find the Great Birnam Wood knocking on the door of Dunsinane Hill. He seemed distracted.
Duo worried about him, the outsider.
++
The house was heavy on his mind. It cast shadows over his steps, clapped its shutters at his dreams, and shook the foundations of his heart. *Quatre, Quatre, Quatre, Quatre....*
He was becoming frightened and appaling. Nightmares plagued his sleep and vigorous carnal fantasies interrupted his thoughts in waking. The combination of the two was driving him more than crazy.
Sometimes, his thoughts strayed to Edward. Was this how Edward had begun?
Trowa was beginning to miss himself.
He studied between dreams and ate when he remembered to.
He felt vulgar, like a walking, talking organ.
*The penis needs to eat,* he mused irritably at the vending machine, exchanging a jaw-dropping eighty-five cents for a betl-tightening half-filled bag of pretzels. He\'d forgotten Cathy\'s lunch on the kitchen counter.
Recieving his meagre nourishment, he quickly covered the bag with both hands. There was something shameful about vending-machine food, though he couldn\'t put a name to it.
His flight from the vending-hall was thwarted by, who else, but Miranda Une.
\"Hey!\" she started-Trowa swirved. She, ever the optimist, skipped after him, \"Are you alright?\"
Trowa paused a moment...*Are you quite well?* he felt it should be.
\"Quite,\" he replied tersely.
\"Are you sure?\" she pressed, following him again towards the cafeteria.
Trowa stopped suddenly before the double doors of his destination and turned on his heel to face his chief annoyance of the day, something outside of himself that he could snap at. \"Do you want my pretzels?\" he demanded hotly.
\"Wha-?\" Miranda\'s eyes grew wide and distant in her uncomprehension.
\"Do you want my pretzels?\" he asked again, sterner.
Still bewildered, Miranda shook her head.
\"Then, get off my ass!\" Trowa practically expactorated. He nearly burst into the cafeteria with a bang, but checked himself at the last moment and made a softer entrance.
++
She tries so hard, Trowa reflected with a nearly guilty conscience. *If Quatre...*he paused, *If Quatre had flesh...I might be just like her.* Suddenly, a wild desire flared up within him and burnt his cheeks.
*Really, I\'m the desperate one.*
He seated himself next to Duo at the lunch table.
He still hadn\'t been to visit Quatre since that day. Was he still upset?
Trowa gutted his backpack and began attacking his physics homework and thinking dirty thoughts.
++
In the afternoon, when he got off the bus, he took a moment to stare at the house.
It seemed to swell under his gaze and to reach the long fingers of its foundation yet deeper into Virginia soil.
There were no faces in the windows, but he felt, then, the prick of eyes cast in his direction. He was reminded of the watcher on the ceiling and shuddered. It hated him, but so long as he stayed out of reach, it was impotent to do him harm.
\"It feels like that house has grown a face,\" Trowa heard someone say behing him. He turned and found, to his surprise, Wufei\'s gaze centered squarely on the house.
Never would he have attributed such a comment to him, before. It lacked his, usually, dry skepticism.
\"A little bit,\" Trowa agreed.
Wufei regarded him cooly for a moment, as one often does who is secure in his knowledge and knows his opinions well. \"You haven\'t been in there, recently.\"
Trowa shook his head, \"I haven\'t had much inclination to do so.\"
Wufei nodded, \"Well, if it\'s of any interest to you,\" he paused a moment looking slightly bothered by himself, \"Mr.Kushrenada will be attending the Latter Winter Concert.\"
There was no time to respond before Wufei left him to join Heero and Duo who had already started on up the road.
Trowa didn\'t follow them and, rather, decided to chew on the matter a bit.
How had he known?
After a while, though his heart rebelled, he left the house to another day, and trudged home.
TBC....
note(s):
1. Dusinane Hill was in Shakespeare\'s Macbeth (if any of you bothered to read it in English). The only reason that I remembered it was because I was reading a biography on J.R.R. Tolkien, and the trees coming to Dusinane Hill was a big factor in the creation of his tree hearders, the Ents.
2. The \"awkward love\" theme of the chapter comes from the novel Maurice by E.M. Forster, one of my favorite books of all time.
3. Oh yes...the \"hasty\" bit can be attributed to Ents as well. I read the Rings trilogy in the past two weeks, and Pippin takes a moment in the Two Towers to explain to Aragorn & Co. how Isengard came to ruin. \"He became positively hasty!\" <-talking about Treebeard, eldest of the Ents
4. The \"how do I love thee, let me count the ways...\" comes from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
5. \"Pretzels\" has double meaning in the context where it was given. I thought it was amusing ;>>
6. Chapter is short because I\'m tired this week, and I promised an update. I (nearly) ALWAYS deliver on my promises! I\'m planning future chapters as I write this, so, don\'t freak out about how quickly this chappie went by.
7. PLEASE R&R, THANK YOU