No One

by wind_chijmes

Pairing : 3x5
Rating : NC-17
Warning : Yaoi, lemon, angst, POV changes, TWT (I have taken certain
liberties with the GW timeline!)
Archive : Other than site-owners who had already obtained permission,
other please inform me beforehand. Thank you.
Disclaimer : GW belongs to Sunrise, Bandai, Sotsu Agency. NOT ME.
Don’t sue.
Spoilers : Trowa’s past and certain happenings in the GW storyline.
Author’s note : This is the first time I’ve ever attempted this
pairing; it just seems more difficult (to me, at least) than a 1x5 or
a 2x5. I pray I’ve gotten my facts right! Feedback most appreciated!
Flames will be laughed at.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sometimes when you looked hard enough into the fire, you can see
things. Illusionary things…that exist in your mind and dance before
your eyes. Fiery-orange, red-gold things…how they flicker, and lick at
the edges of your consciousness until you are bound in that dream-like
haze between reality and imagination.

I wonder what he sees when he looks into the fire.

I see the circus...Catherine, the ringmaster, every one in the
faceless crowd. One image burning into golden ashes, then followed by
another. I do nothing to stop them. Not even when the face of the real
Trowa Barton finally hovered like a nightmarish glow.

I chose my path years ago. I have no complaints.

But what about him? What does he see? His eyes are so dark I can see
but the innermost reflections of the flames in those deep orbs. Does
he see his life, from the beginning to this moment? Before he became a
Gundam pilot…before the duel with Khushrenada, or after? Or is he
envisioning the duel itself?

He came in defeat, and I couldn’t turn him away.

I hand him a mug. It contains tea - something hard found on L3.

He takes it and holds it in both hands. “Xie xie.” He says softly.

We sit in silence after that. There seems no more to say. Perhaps I
should get him to talk about the duel...I heard people say it is not
good to bottle up one’s feelings. But I don’t know…I do it so often
myself. Is it really not good? If I speak of every emotion to ever
pass within me, will it stop blood-streaked nightmares from haunting
me? Probably not.

I say nothing.

“Is...is Catherine really your sister?”

I look up at him. He is staring deep into the tea in the mug, as if
he is trying to decipher the amber liquescent swirls.

“No.” I say honestly. It is true…we are not connected by blood (1).
She is my surrogate sister, and mother. She is a miracle - dumb luck
and fortune on my part that I have her in my life.

“Do you have any real sister?”

“No.” It is true again. Nanashi grew up amongst mercenaries. I had
fathers, brothers, comrades...but never a sister until Catherine.

“I did.” He says, looking up so suddenly I am caught in that obsidian
gaze. “I had many. But I don’t remember any of them.” He stares down
at the liquid again.

I don’t have to hear the rest of his unspoken words to guess the
meaning in his silence. He had had a family, many sisters, probably
brothers...but he remembered none of them for he was sent away before
he could (2). Solitary in schooling, solitary in training. Is that not
what your story is, Dragon warrior?

It is a story that is his own, yet it runs on the same axis as mine,
and those of the other pilots.

“Do you fight for her, Trowa?”

“Yes.” I gaze deep into the flickering flames. “Not just for her. For
the circus. For L3.”

“For yourself too?”

“Perhaps.”

“I fight for myself.” He kept quiet for a moment, then laughed. It
was a harsh, bitter sound.

“Only for yourself?”

He does not reply for some time, choosing instead to let my words
hang in the air, as if awaiting his judgment. “Yes.” He whispered
finally.

What liars the war makes of us.

“You can tell me who you fight for, another day.”

His breath catches sharply, an audible hiss in the silent air.
“Perhaps the day when I return the victor.” He stands up abruptly,
turning away from me. “It is late, Trowa. We should sleep.”

++++++++++

The circus camp is deathly silent by the time we have returned. The
night is dark but the moonshine lights our way. The air is still, save
for the thrill of crickets deep within the grasses. I have no fear of
nights. To me, this is all peaceful. Too peaceful, but it is my solace
tonight. I will think no more of my defeat. I will let nothing touch
my peace tonight.

His caravan is small, but it serves us well. We do not need much
space for a night’s rest.

The same moonlight angles into the tiny window in the darkened space
of his caravan. I stand to one side, while he pulls out sheets and
blankets. I will sleep on the bottom of the bunkers. He has told me
this is fine. I stand in the shadow, so he can see by the moonlight as
he works silently.

The silvery light catches the strands of his red-brown hair and as he
turns to look at me, the single verdant orb that I can see turns
silvery-green. It startles me, how he looks so different yet the same
under moonlight. I wonder if I look different as well?

The thought has entered my mind and my body reacts instinctively. My
eyes slide around to search for a mirror. It is laughable, these
reflexes of mine. But oh, how well they serve me in battle. After all,
battle is the only thing I am good for.

“Wufei.” His voice is so quiet it is no more than a thought.

I would have answer, but something catches my attention. Something
unnaturally bright and oddly-shaped. I walk over and pick it up.

It is a half-mask. The bright red half-mouth grinning at me out of a
pasty-white base.

“Do you wear this, Trowa?” I say without thinking.

++++++++++

“Do you wear this, Trowa?”

My mouth opens as if to answer, but pregnant seconds past before any
sound came. “Yes.”

“Why?”

His questions get harder with each subsequent one. He is not asking
me about that half-mask. No, he is…my breath trembles. “Because I need
to.”

His gaze is dark even under the moonlight. “Because you want to.”

“Because it is me!” Why does he have to ask me such things? “Because
I am it!”

He falls silent at my harsh words.

Without my knowing, my heartbeat has tripled in that few seconds it
took me to speak. But it is true, yet again. It is ironic how I cannot
get rid of that mask. It sits on my costume chest, and I wear it when
I perform. I need it, and somehow I don’t need it. I have my own
half-mask even when I don’t perform. It is my own face.

I am not Trowa Barton.

He turns the mask in his hands, tracing the grotesque clown mouth
with his fingers. Strands of escaped hair shields his eyes from me. I
watch as he turns it over and over in his hands. The air grows heavy -
a weight on my shoulders. Still, his hands would not stop.

His arms rise, and bring the half-mask to his face.

I move before I think and slap the mask away from his hands. “Don’t
wear it!” My voice sounds shrill in the thickened air.

Somewhere in the darkness, we hear the mask skitter across the
flooring.

Sloe eyes looks into me. “Who are you?” He says in the barest of
whispers.

“Nanashi.” I hear myself replying in a voice that sounds unlike mine.
“I have no name. And I am no one.” The words drag out of me. I do not
care if he understands me. I turn blindly to the bed. “We should
sleep.”

A warm pressure captures my arm before I can move away.

“I want to be no one.”

I turn and we stare at each other. The moonlight passes behind
clouds, and I cannot see his face clearly. It is but a plane of blurry
lines, but his eyes shine clear. His hand tightens on my arms.

“I want to forget.”

In that one sentence, it seems years have suddenly fallen away from
him and I see not a fierce warrior before me, but a weary child.
Children, aren’t we all? In years, but not in war. We have never truly
been children in this life.

He needs to forget. I need to forget. Perhaps…we can both wear that
faceless mask this night.

++++++++++

He moved like the shadow itself, melding into it, becoming it, before
emerging again as he stood by the narrow cot. He moved with quick
efficiency, wasting no time, no effort. He was beautiful this way, an
almost savage beauty that brimmed beneath his gracefulness. His
clothes fell to the floor as he shed them. A hand reached up to tug
the hairtie off.

Even as loosened raven hair spilled around his neck, he turned and
waited. He hid none of himself, allowing the faintest glimmers of
moonlight to trail the angles and curves of his body.

Verdant eyes watched in almost awe, before he sought to follow.

Long, pale limbs unfolded. Trowa shed his own clothes, feeling no
shame either. What shame could there be, if this was a meeting of
friends?

For a quiet moment, they simply gazed at each other, allowing the
stirrings of heat ripple through their naked forms, letting the hunger
build degree by degree even as they touched with nothing but their
eyes.

The Chinese pilot slid into the narrow cot, laying himself on the
sheets, still waiting. He spoke nothing, but there was no need for
words.

Trowa climbed into the cramped space, fitting himself over the other
darker-skinned body, slowly pressing their skin together from arms to
chests to legs. When their groins finally met, the pressure dragged
ragged moans from both of them.

They did not kiss, not yet; it seemed wrong somehow. Trowa sank his
cheek against the other’s, and listened to the twinned breathing. The
cot creaked with their combined weights.

“We can both forget, Trowa.”

As if the words were a catalyst, it drove the surreality from Trowa’s
mind and replaced it with burning need. He peppered rough, nipping
kisses down a corded, slender neck. Strong, wiry arms rose and twined
around Trowa’s own neck, pulling his head deeper into copper skin.

He inhaled deeply, breathing in the mixed scent of aged youthfulness
and bone-deep fatigue, of sweet incense overlaid with salt of sweat,
of Chang Wufei who became no one in this shared bed.

As his lips burnt into the column of copper throat, the Chinese boy
arched his head, and a soft fall of raven hair splayed on the white
pillow.

The air was no longer still. It throbbed with harsh gasps and
stuttered breathing.

Copper hands ran over his skin, as if trying to map out every inch
with just palms and fingers. And everywhere the touch lingered, it
sent another pulse of pleasure through Trowa’s sensitised skin. They
touched blindly, hungrily, as if they could consume each other with
lips and hands.

Their groins rocked together and Wufei tore his mouth away. “Don’t
wait!”

Trowa’s hand scrambled for something, anything, to ease their
joining.

“No.” Wufei said harshly. His legs raised and curled around the pale
waist atop his. “Don’t wait.”

Pale lips worked in refusal. “I could hurt...”

“No!” The tenor was husky with need and something akin to
desperation. “Please!”

He knew not what snapped his reserve. Perhaps it was the plea, and
yet it could be his own body taking control of his mind. But he pulled
those slim, muscled legs higher around his waist, and surged up to
nudge at the tight entrance.

It was hard for both of them. The air trembled with their laboured
rasping.

Trowa groaned deep in his throat. His body was so taut he felt he
could snap; the tension reverberating in his every vein, until he felt
he could control no longer and push himself in all the way. And yet
something held him back. The same tension in the body beneath his as
it strained to fit him in. Pain that could not be hidden surfacing in
sobbed breathing as the tight, hot sheath took him in inch by
agonising inch.

The cot whined in protest beneath them, straining just as they were.

Fingers scrabbled at auburn hair. Wufei almost clawing at the pale,
dampened forehead that loomed above him, pushing the hair away so he
could see into deepest green eyes. He needed to see those eyes, to
reach that strength that glimmered behind the emerald glow, to become
that strength.

He wondered if all his thoughts were spoken by his own desperate
gaze, for he thought he felt sudden understanding even as Trowa began
to move.

Then he thought no more. Thrusts slow and drawn out. The rhythm was
ceaseless, each heavy stroke sending sparks of pleasure and pain
surging in relentless waves through his body. He cried out, clenching
and kilting up to meet Trowa.

Their eyes held each other with an all-encompassing grip; an
invisible, steady connection in counterpoint to their heaving bodies.
So they could get lost in obsidian and verdant. Their minds were
conscious only of the escalating tide of pleasure that hurtled them
towards the edge.

And they did forget. All they could do was feel, the unbearable
sliding of flesh against flesh, the haze of burning pleasure that
devoured them both.

Wufei came with a bitten-off cry, and Trowa followed almost after.
Their twin cries mingled, before muffling as they sought each other’s
mouth.

They broke apart only when the need to breathe overwhelmed them, and
Trowa’s arms could no longer brace themselves. Their bodies still
wrapped around each other, they lay in the darkness. There were no
more words, but only the sounds of their breathing.

The darkness was warm comfort, a blanket of safety.

++++++++++

I know once the dawn had broke, we will return to own purposes, go
our separate ways. This meeting will be buried deep within the grave
of secrets we both carry in our hearts. Maybe we will forget this
night in time. Maybe we will not.

I think of Wufei’s words. I think of Wufei returning as the victor.
Maybe then he can tell me whom he fights for.

But until that day...we are no one for this night.

I draw up the thin blanket and cover myself, and Wufei.

~*~ fin ~*~

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(1) Ok, the issue of Triton and Catherine Bloom’s relationship. I
think it HAS been officially declared that they ARE flesh and blood
siblings. Just that at this point, I am assuming they do not know of
that fact yet.

(2) Sheer fabrication on my part. I know he was a scholar before he
became a pilot, and I know about Meiran and their field of flowers.
But, does he have a large family as a child? I really don’t know!
Forgive me if I’m wrong.

comments? e-mail Wind Chijmes!