M�nage � Trowa

Ménage à Trowa - a Gundam Wing fanfiction by Raletha


Ménage à Trowa
Epilogue

by Raletha

I leaned back in my chair to gaze up into the night. The city lights painted the low cloud cover in a muted palette of grey, amber, and gold. I inhaled deeply of the rose scented air and listened to the silence of the streets at this small hour. Occasionally, the grumble of a motor and the hiss of tires broke the peaceful quietude, but they remained distant and muted by the night. A hushed step, the sound of a bare foot on carpet, prompted me to turn my gaze from the sky to the open door. Quatre smiled, looking endearingly boyish in his oversized pyjamas, and moved to the chair opposite mine.

The sound of wrought iron dragged over concrete jarred for a moment, before Quatre dropped into his seat witlazylazy sigh. We enjoyed the night together in silence for a time. It had become an unspoken tradition after we'd engaged in some new bedroom activity to stay up afterwards and talk -- either in the living room, or the balcony (but never the bedroom). Quatre always started.

He had a habit, a desire, to examine our experiences. It brought us closer he believed, and I agreed. His tendency for this analysis he claimed was an offshoot of his empathy, exacerbated by human curiosity.

"You enjoyed yourself tonight, Trowa?" he began, as he often did.

"You know I did."

"Yes, but you know I don't like to assume."

"I do." I met his eyes in a sidelong glance. "What about you?"

"Hmm? Yeah." Quatre's smile broadened to a grin. "Watching you with Duo, feeling you with him?" Quatre let his head fall back against the back of his chair. "It was inspiring." His head lolled sideways to face me. His eyes sparkled with affection. "I love it when you indulge yourself."

"I love it when you indulge me." I returned his grin. "Which reminds me, just how long were you planning tonight?"

"A while," he answered.

"A while?"

"Long enough." I saw Quatre's lips twitch as he squelched a chuckle.

"How long?"

"That depends..." he started, but didn't continue.

"On what?" I persisted, leaning forward.

"What counts as planning. I had the initial idea about a year ago. I didn't mention it to Duo until the New Year's party."

"I see. So for the past seven months you'd both been plotting my seduction?"

"Mmhm."

"I figured Duo'd been in on it too."

He nodded, and we fell silent once more.

I broke the silence this time. "I was meaning to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"How did we feel in there." I gestured back toward the bedroom. "Did Duo and I feel differently to you?"

"Yes, of course, I mean, you know I feel you differently compared to everyone else. I always have."

"Okay, I just wondered if the intimacy of sex blurred boundaries or garbled things. As you know, I only ever feel you, and we've established it's not the same as the way you sense me."

Quatre shrugged. "You're different." Despite Quatre's usual eloquence, that was the best explanation he could offer when it came to his sense of me -- simply that I was different. Neither of us knew why; it didn't seem to be related to love since it had been this way from the moment we first saw each other, and neither of us was willing to claim that had been something so sentimental as 'love at first site' -- more it had been a recognition. And after everything we'd been through, it hadn't been an easy journey from there to here -- to trust so completely, to trust enough for love.

Like many times before, Quatre's next words sent a shiver down my spine, for at times it seemed we shared much more than a sense of each other's feelings.

"How did we get here from there, Trowa?"

It was a dense question. What was here? Together after having involved our closest friend in our lovemaking, or simply here, on Earth, together and comfortable six years past the end of the war neither of us had expected to survive.

"One day at a time," I answered, and though trite, the words held the right meaning. One day at a time was the only way we could have gotten anywhere, and now, I was pleased to acknowledge that there were days when memories of war and violence never crossed my conscious mind.

"Are you happy?" he asked me.

"I am," I answered without reservation or pause.

"How do you know?" Quatre's question conveyed curiosity not doubt. Again, it was the legacy of being an empath; he was especially curious about how other people, especially me, defined their emotional states. In particular, he was inquisitive about the things he referred to as aggregate emotions -- like love or happiness -- which he didn't perceive as singular feelings but rather as combinations of many others.

"I can go to bed every night looking forward to the next day. I have hope. I think that means I'm happy."

"And what do you look forward to tomorrow?"

"Oh, well, tomorrow..." I rose to my feet, tightening the belt of my dressing gown. "Tomorrow I look forward to sleeping in with you until an obscenely late hour."

"And?" Quatre arched an eyebrow at me as I approached him.

"And then, I'll wake up first -- because I always do when you don't set an alarm -- and I'll find a most obscene way to wake you."

"Oh?" Quatre spread his thighs apart so I could stand with my shins against the cold metal of his seat.

"Yes." I leaned down, my hands braced on the chair's arms, and kissed his forehead. "So, we should hurry up and go to sleep so we can have our morning fun."

Quatre chuckled. "We'd better sleep fast, huh?"

"Mmhm." I took his hands and stepped back, pulling him to his feet. "Very fast."

Hand in hand we returned to our bedroom. While I'd been tidying up the other remnants of our evening, Quatre had extinguished the candles, opened the windows, and changed the bed linens. The brighter, paler light of the twin bedside lamps illuminated crisp white sheeting and the room no longer smelled of candle wax and sex. The fantasy was over, gone -- a memory.

We lay down together and I spoke, "Thank you for tonight, for sharing my fantasy."

"Mmm, It was a most enjoyable fantasy." Quatre stretched next to me, and heaved a contented sigh. "Duo enjoyed himself as well."

"Yeah," I said, but my smile turned to a frown. What we'd done today could never be undone, and while it had been pleasurable for us all, things would never be quite thme. me. The look that had been in Duo's eyes before he left worried me.

"But?" Quatre prompted, taking my hand in his.

"But..." I shrugged. I didn't really want to talk about it now; the words stuck in my throat.

"Yeah," Quatre whispered with a sympathetic smile and tugged my hand. He understood. I moved closer as we embraced and Quatre's lips found mine. It was a comfortable, familiar kiss, the kiss with which we started and closed all our days together.

Today had been no different.


the end