1x3x1 Week

(From January 12th-18th, 2015) A Gundam Wing Week Long Event Celebrating The Pairing Of Heero Yuy And Trowa Barton.

[shinigami-irae]

1x3x1 week recap post.

I was so late but f*ck yeah I did it. This was literaly a one-drawing-everyday-for-the-next-day marathon. *Personal achievement*

Back to normal life I guess! (-, – )…zzzZZZ

1x3x1 Week Log | foxyladycpz [pixiv] http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=48261391

[shinigami-irae]

1x3x1week on tumblr.

2015-01-18 day 7, theme #1 : Anniversary (// theme  #2 : Birthday).

Heero & Trowa - Anniversary | foxyladycpz [pixiv] http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=48249448

[1x3x1week-blog]

Author/Artist: greeneyes_softsighs

Daily Prompt(s): Their children

Title: Undoubtedly

Rating: General Audience

Summary: Heero & Trowa meet their daughter.

Warnings: Explicit language, fluff/comfort

Heero’s hands told a bloody story.  His palms were calloused.  His knuckles cracked and dry, bleeding occasionally when it was cold enough.  He chewed his fingernails — a habit he had been unable to shake since the end of the war — anxiously nibbling them to the quick while at work in meetings.  They had killed, maimed and injured hundreds of people — innocent and guilty alike.  He had used them to hack his way into institutions. They had curled around the frayed leather grips of Wing’s controls countless times.  They had held a gun to Relena’s head as he promised to kill her.  His hands were a weapon.

And now, as he gently cradled the soft, fragile head of his first born in his palm, Heero’s hands shook.  He was afraid.  Had been for the last nine months, wondering what it would be like to hold her.  Hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t accidentally drop her or crush her tiny skull.  

Trowa had assured him they were ready many times.  That nearly 15 years after the war, after the innumerable hours of therapy and grief counseling and reliving the shit, he and Trowa were ready to start a family.  And Heero, who had never imagined having a partner he could trust let alone a family of his own, had nodded and agreed.  Yes, it had been time to start something permanent.  Time to put away the past, to hang up his old Perfect Soldier uniform and finally admit to himself that he was not just an expendable piece of machinery.  He was not just a cog in the war machine.

That didn’t mean the decision was an easy one.  It didn’t mean that they weren’t met with resistance — from friends, as well as strangers.  Duo had taken particular umbrage to the fact that they had decided to have a surrogate give birth rather than an adoption.  Wufei just thought the idea of two men raising children was silly.  But both of them were waiting outside anyway, along with Trowa’s sister, and Heero had definitely seen Duo tear up when Trowa had first entered the waiting room to retrieve Heero.  The guy could never stay angry for long, God of Death or no.

“Heero, breathe,” Trowa’s gentle tenor reminded him.  The ex-pilot inhaled slowly, deeply, refilling his lungs after what seemed like an eternity.  He had forgotten to breathe.  This little thing had literally taken his breath away.  When he exhaled, the soft, auburn curls dusting the baby’s head stirred and she made a strange little grunting noise.  He looked up at Trowa, brow tense and mouth twisted into a line of worry.  Was it supposed to make a noise like that?

Trowa laughed softly and sat on the ottoman next to Heero’s knees.  They were alone in the room now, he realized.  The nurse had gone to do something or other, immediately forgotten once she’d placed the tiny bundle into his arms.

“She’s beautiful, don’t you think?”  Trowa asked, reaching out to trace the tiny, downy-soft shell of her ear with his thumb.

“Hm… she’s a little wrinkly,” Heero offered honestly.  But, yes, she was beautiful.  Beautiful in the way that all life — all unadulterated, pure life was beautiful.  Trowa snorted out another soft laugh at the response.  His fingers stroked along her cheek, then traced over the rough, cracked flesh of Heero’s knuckles.  They spoke in hushed tones over her little head, neither man wanting to break the delicate thread of the moment.

“She’ll get cuter eventually,” Trowa said.  “Once you start spoiling her rotten and she gets her baby rolls.”

“I’m the one who’s going to spoil our daughter?”  Heero asked with a glare, enjoying the way those words — ‘our daughter’ — rolled off his tongue.  And enjoying far better the way Trowa inhaled and bit his lip.  How his entire face seemed to shift with emotion, but the green-eyed man quickly covered it with his hands and exhaled shakily into his palms.  Trowa, no matter how many times Heero told him, always had a hard time accepting his emotions.  He seemed so overwhelmed by them at times, unable to identify or even understand what he was feeling, that he tried to hide it behind his hair or his hands.

“Shit,” the taller man sniffed, rubbing his eyes with his fingers, trying to scrub away unbidden tears.  But they fell anyway, streaking neat trails down his cheeks to drip off his chin.  “I’m happy.  I’m so, so fucking happy.  Why am I crying?”

Heero shifted the baby gently, cradling her head safely with her body in his lap, and reached out to wipe Trowa’s tears.  He’d never seen him like this before.  His face was naked, vulnerable, and without the so carefully cultivated mask of calm, caustic sarcasm and wit he normally wore.  An hours-old baby had broken his barrier more easily than Heero, who had been trying desperately for 15 years just to get a peek at Trowa’s real heart.  

They kissed once, an affirmation of something, then sat back.  Heero gently transferred the baby girl into her father’s arms and internally breathed a sigh of relief.  Trowa pulled a tiny knit cap out of the pocket of his scrubs and settled it over her head gently.  The baby squirmed, then quieted again, making more of those grunts Heero would never get used to.

“What did we do to deserve this perfect person?”  Trowa asked suddenly with awe in his voice, his gaze centered on the child cradled so carefully in his arms.

Heero’s initial response, the answer he tried so hard to stomp down each time he asked himself that same question, was always I don’t deserve this.  But that wasn’t true.  It had been hard to forgive himself.  To forgive his comrades, his enemies, the world, even, but in the end Heero realized that it was pointless to continue living as though the war were the end all be all of his life.  His actions, at the time, had been important to his cause and survival.  He had made his mistakes, had paid for them, and now it was over.

“You deserve this happiness, Trowa.  We deserve this: our family,” Heero said, meeting Trowa’s eyes when the man looked at him with a hesitant smile.  He knew Trowa still struggled.  Sometimes, though not often, the ex-pilot wondered if he was good enough for a peaceful existence.  Good enough to live among the people he’d fought so hard against for all his life.  Trowa still woke with 15 year-old nightmares.  Heero, too, though less often.  They would deal with it and move on, but the ex-Heavyarms pilot had his bad days.

That was when the nurse burst into the room rolling a little plastic cradle in front of her.  Trowa looked like he wanted to strangle her when she asked for the baby, and placed her in the thing himself all the while glaring at the nurse.  She gave them both the judgemental, weary look of a late-night L&D care nurse, then told them they could view the baby while she slept in the nursery.  Tomorrow morning, they could take her home.

Before Trowa could follow her out of the room Heero grabbed his wrist and pulled him close.  In the years after the war, the Wing pilot had actually caught up to Trowa in terms of height.  He hugged the other man tightly, not so much as a gesture of comfort, but to have him close in proximity.  To have the throb of a separate heartbeat against his chest.  Heero’s arms tightened, his fingers dug into the flesh of Trowa’s hip and shoulder.  Those green eyes jumped back and forth between Heero’s, unable to focus as they stood so close.  He took a deep breath and leaned his head against Heero’s shoulder, exhaling raggedly, finally relaxing into the other man’s insistent embrace.

Trowa was always the last to yield.  He was stubborn, a hold out, and carefully guarded himself in every situation.  Heero’s rough fingers passed over Trowa’s cheeks to wipe away the salt trails of his dried tears.  He cupped the back of his neck, gently rubbing the knot of muscle at the top of Trowa’s spine.  “Just breathe,” Heero said against his hair.  “Breathe.”

After a few moments of deep, calming breaths, Trowa asked quietly, “Do you think we’ll fuck her up?”

“Undoubtedly,” Heero replied in a deadpan.  His partner shifted against his shoulder and stood up, giving Heero a look that told him that joke had been in poor taste.  Well, how else was he supposed to answer that question?  Neither of them knew, really, what would happen in the future.  They could only try to prepare, and meet each challenge with the kind of wit and skill that had kept them alive during the war.  Though, with less self-destructing and more dirty diapers.

A knock on the door interrupted them.  “Here you are,” Duo popped his head inside and raised a brow, grinning at the couple still entwined.  They returned his lecherous smirk with twin glares that only made the man laugh.  “We want to see the kiddo, dammit, and all the little raisins look the same to us!”

“They’re newborns, Duo, not raisins,” Trowa retorted as he exited the room with Heero at his heels.

“Shit.  Coulda fooled me,” Duo replied with another laugh.

[greeneyes-softsighs-blog]

For 1x3x1week!!  

It’s actually for the 18th’s theme Anniversary, but I’m scum and I liked this so much I didn’t want to keep it under wraps until them.  Happy (almost) 20 year anniversary to my fave boys~! 

I’m also a terrible closet romantic, and when I drew the little wedding bands I got very excitable. lol  I decided they’re made of gundanium alloy.  Cuz… you know… I’m a cheeseball.

[shinigami-irae]

1x3x1week on tumblr.

2015-01-17 day 6, theme #3 : Domesticity.

Hell yeah dress alike and petting the cat!!! ฅ( ̳͒ᵕ ˑ̫ ᵕ ̳͒)ฅ

Heero & Trowa - Domesticity | foxyladycpz [pixiv] http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=48227346

[1x3x1week-blog]

Fic submission for January 17th

Author/Artist: Ahsimwithsake (beta’d by Laurathia) Daily Prompt(s): January 17 (Domesticity) Title: Morning Routine Rating: (explicit, mature, teen, general audience) Teen (maybe mature?)—partial nudity, suggestions and mentions of sex Summary: Weekday or weekend, Trowa had his routine and he stuck to it. It had been a long time since Heero had just watched, and Trowa had lines meant to be watched. Warnings: Partial nudity, kind of sweet, squirrel frustrations

Squirrels were the absolute worse.  Not only did they insist on not staying still long enough for even a quick gesture drawing, they had unanimously decided that nothing should stay still long enough.  With startling accuracy, they tracked Heero’s line of sight and then, with the precision of snipers, dove, scrambled, or scampered into every bush, flower bed, and clump of leaves Heero turned his attention to. 

Heero was sure that, eventually, he would get to the point where he could hold shapes in his head regardless of a subject’s movements.  He was getting closer; light breezes no longer irritated him, after all.  But Heero was still learning detailed landscape sketching and intricate still life.  He needed stillness.  Besides, this was not a light breeze.  This was a dozen squirrels—or six extraordinarily quick and determined squirrels—intent on being nuisances and rustling everything green or colorful in sight. 

Heero scowled as two particularly annoying squirrels leapt into a flower bed and nearly uprooted the several clumps of poppies Heero had been eyeing.   Huffing, he shoved his pencil between the pages of his sketchbook and snapped it closed.  It would be best to call the session a wash, before he started sketching out plans for squirrel traps or a good automatic rifle rigging.

He unfolded himself and stretched before getting up off the stones of their short sandstone patio.  The muscles in his legs complained, tight and painful from sitting too long on less-than-pleasant surface.  Heero probably should have grabbed one of the cushions from the patio chairs or the sunroom.  Tucking his sketchbook under his arm, he rubbed his thigh with his fist as he turned.  

There was no direct connection from the sunroom to the patio—they used the kitchen door to access it and Heero’s garden, since the patio wrapped partway around the back of the house—but you could see it from the sunroom.  Trowa enjoyed the layout, because that side of the house got the most afternoon sun and inside or outside he could bask in the heat, and the view.  And the current one, judging by his lover’s expression.  The sunroom’s interior was still a bit dark, even this late in the morning, but Heero caught Trowa’s slow, warm smirk.  He tilted his head slightly as he watched Heero, eyes drifting down and up once, with slow precision, before he wriggled his fingers at Heero and brought a mug up to his lips. 

Heero almost wished he had left the house with a little more than just his old jeans on, but he did love that smile. 

He headed around the back of the house and to the backdoor.  Trowa had left it unlocked for him.  He might have heard Heero slip out of bed, or checked outside before getting his morning tea.  The kitchen itself smelled like coffee, with an underlining, lingering sweetness from Trowa’s favorite morning blend.  Heero smiled.  Weekday or weekend, or his third day of pto after an away job, Trowa had his routine and he stuck to it.  Even if he was a few hours late in starting.  Heero poured coffee in the mug left by the coffee pot before heading to the sunroom. 

“You should be drinking water, not tea,” he said, leaning against the doorway. 

Trowa turned, just enough that Heero could see the way his hair fell, soft and lank and a little tangled from sleep, along the side of his face; and that, apart from a pair of black exercise shorts that hugged his legs far too well, Trowa wasn’t wearing much of anything underneath the dress shirt he had scooped up from the bedroom floor.  He took a single, long sip of tea before nodding at his water bottle sitting on one of the small tables tucked into the corner of the windowed wall.

“I have water,” he said, “and I can drink tea before and after, thank you very much. 

“Just as long as I don’t find you dehydrated on the floor again.”

Trowa flushed some. “I was not dehydrated.  Given up, then” he asked, nodding towards the window and the patio.

It was Heero’s turn to flush.  He shrugged slightly.  “Wasn’t feeling it.”

“The squirrels were just coincidence then?” 

“There was also that.  You don’t have any suggestions, do you?” 

“Nothing that actually works.  Squirrels do what they want and are surprisingly good at dodging bullets.” 

“Was afraid of that.” 

Trowa laughed, a single low note disguised in a soft puff of breath.  He walked over to the table and set his mug down.  It, a second one, the matching chairs, and cushioned trunk had already been pushed up against the wall.  Trowa tugged his mat out of trunk. 

“I’ll be done in a little while,” he said as he rolled it out in the middle of the floor.  Heero knew the hard wood wouldn’t bother him too much during his inversions, but it was too uncomfortable for a lot of his stretching.  “Forty-five minutes or so.” 

Heero watched Trowa slid the dress shirt off, his eyes following the lean lines of his back and shoulders as Trowa tossed the shirt onto a chair and stretched a little.  Bone and muscled rolled and flexed beneath his skin. 

“Can I stay?”  Heero had watched him before.  He personally had no interest in yoga or pilates, the two styles of exercise needing far more flexibility than Heero thought possible, but he knew they were important to Trowa.  They were the core of all that Trowa was: all of his dexterity and strength, all of his grace and control.  It had been a long time since Heero had watched him train and he—

It had been a long time since Heero had just watched.  

Trowa blinked at him, paused as he was at the end of the mat, arms raised for opening stretches.  He tilted his head slightly before smiling a little. 

“If you like,” he said, shrugging a little.  “You might get bored.” 

“Doubt it.” 

Heero settled himself in the chair next to the table, putting his coffee near Trowa’s water and tea.  He balanced his sketchbook on his thigh.  Trowa stretched briefly, shaking his head and hands before sitting down at the end of the mat.  He smiled at Heero before letting his face fall into a look of relaxed concentration.  He stretched out his legs, brought his hands out in front of him, tucked his chin, and laid back. 

Except that wasn’t quite the right word for it. 

Trowa controlled himself down.  He had always been the one with the most interest in control.  Control over the battle, over the war.  His body, his emotions, his memories.  Everything came back to control.  Trowa had managed to loosen his grip on that need since the end of the war, but he still exacted perfect control over himself.  Most of the time.  His core tightened as he laid himself down on the mat, inch by inch, vertebrae by vertebrae.  He let his arms stretch out over his head, fingers long and relaxed.  Trowa laid there for a moment and breathed.  Then he started to move. 

He started with stretches and strength exercises, focusing on each group of muscles (although most exercises seemed to work at least two or three groups).  Trowa had some sort of plan in mind as he worked, his body moving seamlessly from core-focused to lower body and legs, to upper body and back and arms.  He exercised in total silence, keeping count of reps in his head (Heero noted that he generally did twenty to thirty reps before moving onto a variation or new movement all together), except for his breathing.  That raised slowly as he worked himself harder and harder, his muscles undoubtedly getting heavier.  

Eventually, Trowa rolled himself up.  He folded himself over his legs for a moment, breathing into his knees.  Then he sat up, tucked his legs under him, and stood.  Without even looking at Heero, he folded the mat and pushed it out of the way.  Trowa laid himself down on his stomach, facing the windows.  He took a slow, deep breath and pressed his hands into the floor near his chest and pushed. 

Heero still had no idea how Trowa managed to lift himself so effortlessly. 

He wasn’t sure exactly when he had done it, but sometime between Trowa’s slow lay down and the start of the yoga and inversions, Heero had tucked his legs under him and opened his sketchbook.  Trowa was different than the garden, than the squirrels.  Heero didn’t need him to stay still.  He knew him.  Heero could draw his lover blind, his fingers simply remembering the long lines of Trowa’s chest and arms, the strength of his legs as they stretched and flexed and locked, the power of his back as he moved, curled, arched beneath him.  He knew the way Trowa’s eyes partially closed when he was concentrating, squinted when he laughed, or rolled back in pleasure.  He knew how his lips rounded and parted to breathe or sneer or gasp.  Trowa was burned into his brain.  It was a pleasant, constant image.  

They were messy sketches, although later Heero would decide that quite of them had potential for deeper intricacy.  But they caught the fluidness of Trowa’s routine and the impossible lines he could make with his body.  The curves of his back and stomach, the angles and lines of his arms and legs.  And they caught the quiet intensity of his face and the soft but powerful pleasure. 

Heero was musing over one sketch—one-handed handstand, with his legs split and the knees bent at sharp angles—darkening some of the lines to make Trowa’s expression sharper when a shadow fell over him.  He glanced up to see Trowa sipping from his water bottle, head tilted slightly.  The sun had just started to get into the sunroom.  It hit the sweat on Trowa’s skin and made him glow. 

“Now I see,” Trowa said, nodding at the sketchbook.  He wasn’t smiling.   

Heero swallowed and moved his hand around to the spine of the book to snap it closed.  He wasn’t fast enough.  Trowa pressed a finger to the corner of the page.  He knew that Heero sketched, of course.  Occasionally, Heero showed him what he worked on, but Heero was never quite satisfied with his work so he rarely did.  This time, he relinquished the book without a fuss.

“I should have, sorry,” he murmured as Trowa took the sketchbook and flipped through the last few pages.  It was not the first time Heero had drawn Trowa without his permission.  Trowa’s raised eyebrows told him Trowa now knew that. 

“This, this is how you see me,” Trowa asked after a moment, looking again at the sketches of his inversions.  Heero frowned a little.  Trowa’s expression was hard to read.  His mouth made a slightly unusual shape: parted slightly, as if startled, but also pursed almost the way Trowa’s mouth got just before he smiled.  He had his fingers near one of the sketches, careful not to touch the rough lines.  And there was a light dusting of pink across his cheeks and nose. 

“It’s a poor imitation,” Heero said.  The patch darkened to almost scarlet.  The corners of his mouth twitched up.  

Trowa was embarrassed and flattered. 

“I’m sorry,” Heero said, smiling a little.  “Next time I’ll ask.” 

“I’d appreciate that, although you can’t ask me if I’m asleep.”

Heero had forgotten the nap sketch was in there.  “No, I can’t.” 

Trowa handed the sketchbook back.  He hesitated before murmuring “permission granted in advanced.”

Heero blinked once before putting the book aside, wrapping his arms around Trowa’s waist, and tugging him into his lap.  Trowa had been drinking and nearly choked on his water. 

“I’m sweaty and gross,” he complained when he could breathe.  Heero pressed his lips against Trowa’s shoulder, tasting salt and breathing in the exertion.  Trowa shivered in his arms. 

“And,” Heero asked. 

“Shower.  Chair’s too small and the floor will hurt your back.” 

“Shower,” Heero agreed.  

[shinigami-irae]

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2015-01-16 day 5, theme #1 : Alternate Universe.

Hey Sailors! Trowa drank too much. There’s a red pompom on French sailor’s hat (aka ‘bachi’). Touching the pompom is said to bring luck, as long as the sailor doesn’t notice you doing it. And if he catches you he can insist on a kiss in return. ( ˘ ³˘)♥ 

Heero & Trowa - Hey Sailors! | foxyladycpz [pixiv] http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=48208013

[1x3x1week-blog]

Author/Artist: greeneyes_softsighs

Daily Prompt(s): bittersweet/bittersweet goodbyes

Title: Futile Devices

Rating: Mature

Summary: All Trowa needed was a proper way to say goodbye.

Warnings: explicit language, some violence, toxic relationships

Trowa woke with a dry mouth and a sore face, awkwardly sprawled on the couch in Heero’s apartment living room.  Yellow sunlight streamed in through partially closed blinds, and outside the window Trowa heard the muffled rumble of trucks entering the freeway from an overpass.  He squinted into the light past his hand, shielding his sensitive eyes while they adjusted, and sat up slowly.  

A glass of water was sitting on the coffee table beside him.  Trowa sipped it after giving a tentative sniff, careful of the newly scabbed over cut on his bottom lip.  It was cool and tasted crisp on his sleep-heavy tongue.  He wondered when it had been left for him.  Another rumble from the freeway cut through the silence of the apartment.  Aside from the gentle hum of the refrigerator, Trowa could hear nothing else.  No other movement meant Heero must be out, which made sense, since it was late Wednesday morning.  He would be at work at the Preventers’ headquarters in the city.

A quick look around the room, and over into the kitchen past the small breakfast bar, revealed that Heero’s apartment had changed little in the years since Trowa had moved out.  There were more things on the walls.  A framed picture of Heero with Relena on her wedding day.  Another photo of Heero with Duo and Quatre at a sporting event, which Trowa remembered taking for them almost three years ago.  A framed medal and certificate from Heero’s current job as a Preventer.  These things were curiously prominent.  They stood out on the stark white of the walls like the dog-eared pages of a book.

Trowa leaned back against the couch as he cradled the half-empty glass in his hand, resting the bottom on his thigh while twirling it absently.  It had been years since he’d sat in this room.  Years since he’d seen Heero in person.  Though they had been in touch, with his schedule of performances at the circus and Heero’s heavy workload as a Preventer the ex-pilots found it hard to set aside time for a reunion.  So, when he finally found a chance, Trowa decided in a fit of nostalgia that it would be a good idea to surprise Heero at home.

Heero had not been home.  Trowa had waited an hour past the Preventer’s usual quitting time before he headed down to the bar below the apartments, planning to wait a little while longer with a drink in his hand.  The bar was dark.  It reeked, and retina burning pink neon light bounced off the walls near the entrance while sickening blue flickered by the bathrooms.  It was familiar, though not a place full of fond memories.  That’s where he found Heero.  He sat at the bar hunched over, peeling apart a napkin and rolling it into tiny balls while nursing a beer.  Trowa sat beside him and ordered a whiskey.

“Whiskey, no ice,” he had said, never a fan of idiotic bar jargon.  Heero hadn’t turned to look at him.  He hadn’t said a damn thing until the bartender slid a squat glass of whiskey across to Trowa and quoted a price.  Heero laid down the rumpled bills before he could reach for his wallet, then picked up both of their drinks and nodded at a booth toward the back.  They sat, bathed in fluorescent blue, and drank in silence for a while.  When Heero was done with his beer, and Trowa with his whiskey, Heero spoke finally.

“Another?”  His voice grated out just above the noise cranking out of the old jukebox to their left.

“A beer,” Trowa had replied.  When Heero returned with a dark beer for Trowa and another light beer for himself, the green-eyed man pushed a thin roll of credits into his palm.  Heero pushed it back.

“No, keep your money,” he said.  “The night’s on me.”  He knew Trowa wouldn’t push.

“Thanks,” he had said softly, pocketing the credits as they continued to drink.  Trowa wondered how long Heero had been in the bar before he arrived.  He watched the other man.  Noticed how he drew his lips up over his teeth after every few sips of beer, or how his dark blue eyes would regard Trowa in the same way his studied Heero.  

They were just shy of 25 now, 10 years after the war they had both barely survived.  Trowa still woke up some nights with the bloody ghosts of their battles haunting his dreams.  He always had, even with Heero there he woke up screaming, paralyzed and helpless.  Unable to help himself or the others.  

He could live with them, now.  Could ignore the dreams if he was having a good day.  Being with Catherine and the troupe had helped.  Quitting the Preventers had helped.  He had convinced himself that leaving Heero had helped.  Trowa wondered if it had the same effect on Heero.  In their correspondence, he mentioned little of his personal troubles and only detailed stories about other people or the ex-pilots he worked alongside with at the office.  Trowa wrote about Catherine, the circus, and the state of the colonies they traveled through.  Sometimes, on his bad days, he would begin a letter revealing everything.  What he’d thought, how he had felt, and how much he regretted leaving to travel with the circus again.  Those letters were never posted.  Trowa would write them, read them over, and immediately hit the delete key.  

“Ready?”  Heero had asked.  They abandoned the glasses at the table and walked up the stairs to his apartment.  Trowa was glad to be away from the sickening blue and pink glow of the bar.  He could see Heero more clearly in the warm light of the hallway.  He was all compact muscle and sinew under the dark shirt of his uniform, with strong arms and a sharp jaw-line grey with stubble.  All of his angles were familiar, yet foreign, after such a long time of absence.

As soon as they entered the small foyer of his apartment, Heero spun and pinned Trowa to the door with an arm across his chest and a fierce, hard kiss against his mouth.  He tasted bitter and hoppy, like the beer, with an underlying sweetness Trowa remembered but could never place.  He parted his lips for Heero’s tongue as it thrust into his mouth, searching over teeth until Trowa offered his own.  The slick muscles slid together, tasting, remembering.  Heero moaned into his mouth, then pulled away to look into Trowa’s eyes.  Deep blue met green for a moment before Heero whispered, “Welcome home.”

Trowa inhaled sharply and shoved Heero away.  The ex-Wing pilot stumbled back into the kitchen with a look of surprise.  They watched each other, breathing heavily, until Trowa finally spoke up.

“I can’t,” he said, and regretted the words as soon as they entered the air between them.  As soon he had tasted the memory of Heero’s mouth on his.  That look, the one that crossed Heero’s face the first time Trowa left, surfaced again.  It meant that Heero had hoped.  Had wanted.  But Trowa wouldn’t — couldn’t — give him wanted, he was sure of that.  He took a steadying breath as Heero turned away and strode into the kitchen.  He pulled out a bottle of water from the fridge.   “I just came to visit.  I thought it would be nice to see you.  To catch up.”

“Just came to visit?”  Heero asked, his voice rasping slightly as he slammed the fridge door closed.  “To catch up?  What is there to catch up on?  I send you emails twice a month, sometimes more.  There isn’t much else for me to talk about.”

“I wanted to talk about other things.  The things we don’t mention in our letters.  I need to know—”

“Need to know what?”  Heero had asked suspiciously.

“Need to know if—” Trowa paused, his throat closing over the words he wanted to say.  He stared at Heero, trying desperately to keep his mask of composure in place to hide the turbulent swirl of emotion in his head.  If he said anything more, he knew it would sweep him away.  He would lose himself in his heart.

“Need to know what, Trowa?  Spit it out,” Heero growled angrily, stalking forward until he stood at the threshold to the foyer.  He gripped the wood archway in one hand, as if holding himself back from Trowa, keeping the space between them because without that space he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.

“Are you happier?  Are you happy now?”  Trowa’s voice escaped his throat in a breath, surprisingly calm.  Heero’s face contorted in anger and then he rushed forward.  He had Trowa’s t-shirt bunched into his fists and he was shaking the taller man.  The water bottle skittered across the floor and bumped into the wall.  The door trembled on its hinges as Trowa’s shoulders slammed into it roughly.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”  Heero shouted, hoarse and desperate, pushing Trowa out of the foyer into the living room.  Lost footing at the edge of the carpet had Trowa falling hard on his hip, and Heero followed him.  He straddled the taller man’s waist and yanked a fist back to his ear.  The first frenzied blow glanced off Trowa’s cheek, the second split his bottom lip.  Trowa let the man land a couple more, tasting blood before twisting out of the hold and stumbling away.  He leaned against the wall and touched his lip.  Bright blood dripped from his fingertips.

“What gives you the right to do this to me?  You’re the one who left!  You’re the one who keeps writing to me about the fucking circus.  About how you and Catherine are getting along just great,” Heero gasped, catching his breath.  He leaned against the couch with his fingers tangled in his hair, pushing the dark mass back from his face.  Trowa saw the anger, confusion and hurt trapped in his dark eyes.  Guilt welled up in his chest, squeezing his organs painfully, but his face hardly twitched..

“You never said.  I thought — you had said I should go,” Trowa offered the silence.  Heero grimaced and turned to kick the couch, leaning forward to grip the arm as he forced his body to calm itself after the rush of adrenaline.  His shoulders and back tensed under his shirt, remaining that way until he let out a soft breath.

“Yeah.  I did say that,” Heero murmured, looking over his couch out the window into the night.  Even at this hour, the overpass rattled and hummed with traffic.  He finally turned back to look at Trowa, swallowing before giving the other a wry grin that seemed so out of place on his normally stolid face.  “But you said you needed it, Trowa.  To be away from the preventers and Earth and the others.  I assumed you also meant you needed to be away from me.  Not that you said it in as many words, but you never really say exactly what you mean.”

Trowa’s mind had blanked.  He tried to recall the initial conversation they had, but three years was a long time to remember something.  He had thought that leaving was the right thing to do.  They needed to be separated to remember who they were, so Trowa could let Heero do what he needed without interfering with his own personal demons.  Heero never said he wanted Trowa to stay.  Never asked him to come back, even with their numerous correspondence.

“Could I have changed your mind?”  Heero had asked, encroaching on Trowa’s space again, approaching him and looking at him straight in the eye.  Trowa straightened up and leaned against the wall as the smaller man grabbed his face.  The broad, rough pad of Heero’s thumb ran over his lips, stretching the broken skin painfully, tearing.  His blunt fingertips dug into the side of the green-eyed man’s skull.  Trowa blinked back heat starting to pool at the corners of his eyes.  He sucked in a breath and clenched his teeth.  

“You wouldn’t have come back, even if I asked,” Heero growled at him.  His hand slid from Trowa’s cheek to the nape of his neck, smearing a trail of blood and saliva from his lip across his jaw and under his ear.  Heero yanked his head down, pressing their foreheads together with steady pressure against Trowa’s neck.  

“No,” Trowa croaked out his denial, eyelids fluttering to blink back the heat of his tears.  The emotion was short lived, but Heero noticed the crack in his façade.  His anger dissipated into surprise.  Trowa swiped his tongue over his lip, tasting blood and irritating the broken skin, to test how painful it was.  Heero misinterpreted the gesture and leaned forward, clasping his fingers at the base of Trowa’s skull as he kissed him with one brief, brutal press of his lips and teeth before burying his face in the crook of Trowa’s shoulder.

The sharp pangs from his face, and even the dull throb of his bruised hip from the fall, was more bearable than the painful tightness inside his chest.  He wasn’t sure what it was.  Regret, guilt, or loneliness, maybe — since those were the three most prevalent emotions he felt when Heero was involved.  Of course, there was also love, but love was the root of all these other emotions.  In fact, he was pretty sure that loving Heero had only ever resulted in pain of some sort.  Granted, there were times when the pain was necessary and even, oddly enough, pleasurable.

Trowa held onto Heero tightly, and the shorter man held onto him, until their breathing was even.  When Heero took a deep breath, Trowa felt his chest expand, and on the exhale the ex-pilot pulled away and took a few steps back.  He pocketed his hands and regarded Trowa with the same even stare from the bar, having ‘returned to zero’ as he sometimes put it.  Trowa took a deep breath, too, slowly letting it out on a ten-count.  The pain in his chest had subsided, leaving only the emptiness of catharsis.  It was freeing to be able to feel nothing after such a huge explosion of emotion, but just as he did when he lived with Heero, Trowa questioned the healthiness of it.

“How long are you visiting?”  Heero asked.

“I’d thought just one night,” Trowa murmured past his split lip.  He glanced at the smear of blood on Heero’s chin.  From the kiss.

“Not much of a visit.  The others probably want to say ‘hi’ at least.”

“I don’t really want to see them,” Trowa replied with a shrug, tasting his broken lip again.  It was starting to swell up from all the abuse.  “I just came to see you.”

“Hm… well, you can sleep here,” Heero offered.

“The couch will be fine,” Trowa agreed quickly, catching the look of confused disappointment as it passed over Heero’s face.  They both knew that was out of the question, but Heero had still hoped, and the knowledge of that brought a new pain to life in Trowa’s heart.  He walked over to the couch and sat.

“You want a pillow or something?”

“No, this is fine,” Trowa shook his head as he stroked the arm of the couch.  “Thanks.”

“Trowa, will you do me a favor?  Be here when I get back from work tomorrow, please?”  Heero had asked, before going off to bed himself.  Trowa had considered the shorter man’s hunched shoulders, his pocketed hands, and that ever present intensity in his blue eyes.  He hadn’t given an answer, and Heero had just left to his room without pushing it.

Now it was morning, all of the heat and turmoil of emotion from the night before was a distant memory.  Trowa stood with his empty glass and left it on the breakfast bar before walking down the short hallway to Heero’s room.  Just the few steps it took to get to there brought back memories.  A night after a ball game, pressed against the wall, and Heero had said ‘You never come to these things.  Thank you… I love you…’  Fleeting memories.

The door was closed, and no doubt Heero would have something in place to recognize if someone tampered with it, but Trowa didn’t hesitate to open it and enter.  The room was dark and tidy, set up in the exact same way Trowa remembered, even with Heero’s slippers tucked under the bed on the side next to the window.  More memories surfaced.  A lot of fights had ended here, in a flurry of sucking mouths and grasping hands, eager to ride the high of adrenaline until there was nothingness again.  Trowa found himself by Heero’s desk, where it was shoved catty corner to the bed, and opened some of the drawers.

There wasn’t anything in particular he was looking for, or any suspicions he needed to squash, just curiosity.  Heero was meticulously organized.  Each drawer had a specific purpose, and some were rigged with dividers in the case of more than one purpose.  On the top of the last drawer, though, simply thrown on top of the files Heero kept for work, was a small leather bound notebook with gilded edges.  Trowa picked it up and recognized that, at this size and shape, it must function as a journal.  That’s where he came to an impasse.

Entering Heero’s room, looking through his drawers, those things were necessary for Trowa — and no doubt expected of him as an ex-Gundam pilot.  Trowa ran his thumb over the cover of the journal and flipped it over, making note of scratches in the leather binding and the soft scuff marks usual to wear and tear.  He quickly flipped through the creamy pages, then squeezed the covers closed again, without having read a word.  Heero’s cramped, impatient writing filled only about half of the book in blue ink.  Trowa scanned the desk and found, lined up parallel against the edge of Heero’s laptop, a fountain pen.

The fountain pen was a present.  A memory — just like in the hallway, the bedroom — fleeting and full of that same aching pain.  Trowa had left it behind, along with a few other keepsakes, and it seemed that Heero had kept it and used it.  Trowa sat on the bottom edge of the bed and opened the journal.  The first page was dated about two years ago, and that’s all he could bring himself to read for a while.  

Really, he had come here to talk about what he and Heero didn’t write in their letters, and in the journal he was sure he would find that.  Yet reading was simpler than asking.  Reading was simpler than sitting, and looking at him, and bearing the agony, the high, the catharsis — all of that old, terrible cycle.  Trowa knew, somehow, it would be better to ask and talk and feel that pain.  Better in what way, he thought, glancing down at the words crowding the page.  Better because, by some stroke of luck, they may be able to repair what was broken?  Better than simply reading, simply getting the intel, and simply walking away?

A clean get away was always better than a complicated one.  Talking was a futile gesture between them, anyway, he decided.  Trowa slowly flipped through the journal, read it page by page, then closed the book.  He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.  They had been so broken, and were still young and stupid enough to think that anything could be, or even would be, fixed.  Should be?  Trowa squeezed his eyes shut.  

Heero’s journal contained thoughts similar to his own, words that he’d written over and over and failed to send.  They were validation.  They were apology.  They were too late, and Trowa was only just realizing this now, as he sat on his old lover’s bed in a bedroom they once shared.  He stood up after reading through the journal one more time, and tossed it onto the top of the files again, tapping the drawer closed with his foot.  The fountain pen clicked against the laptop, wiggling with the movement of the drawer.  Trowa picked it up and turned it over to read the inscription on the clip.

It was saccharine, something he knew Heero had gotten advice for, but it had been perfect at the time.  Trowa had loved it, and the stupid little gesture of the inscription.  He thought maybe he would take it with him, as the memories arose and he smiled, envisioning that velvety blue box again.  The way it felt to open it as Heero watched.  He had never gotten that feeling again, since then, and probably never would.  And the pen probably wouldn’t survive the depressurization of space travel.

Trowa pulled out the drawer again, and Heero’s journal.  He leaned over the desk and scribbled on the next unused page, just a short note.  A good-bye.  One that he needed to give, but certainly not one that Heero deserved.  He left the pen in the journal, and the journal on top of the desk.  He left the drawer open, the blinds drawn, the glass on the counter in the kitchen.  And then he left the apartment.

[shinigami-irae]

1x3x1week on tumblr

2015-01-15 day 4, theme #2 : Silence/Comfort.

Heero & Trowa - Silent Comfort | foxyladycpz [pixiv] http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=48185870

[1x3x1week-blog]

January 14th prompt fic

Author/Artist: Ahsimwithsake (beta’d by laurathia and greeneyes-softsighs)

Daily Prompt(s): Irrational fear

Title: The Way Through

Rating: general

Summary: Snow always brought the worst in his lover

Warnings: PTSD and flashbacking/dissociation, a lot of angst      

Even in a dead sleep, Heero knew the bed was empty. 

The cold, satin sheets beside him had yanked him out mid-cycle, so he stared, bleary-eyed and confused, for several seconds before sitting up.  There was a light, soft-and-warmish blanket still wrapped around his legs—the most covering Heero could tolerate, even in the middle of winter—but the rest were gone.  Heero brushed his fingers over the pillow beside him (cool and a little flat from use) before leaning over the far side of the bed.  No blankets, sheets, or quilt.  Trowa must have taken his cocoon materials with him then. 

Across the room, behind the black-out curtains, there was the cold, rasping scratch of snow and sleet on glass.  The wind whistled, low and shrill, rattling the window in its frame.  Heero cursed and kicked the blanket off. 

“Cold but clear,” my ass. That was the last time he trusted radio weather stations. 

Heero tugged on a light sweater before slipping out of their bedroom and into the dark, silent hall.  He forwent the socks.  The floorboards would be cold-neither of them thought the cost and hassle of heated flooring were worth its convenience-but he needed the soft slap of skin on wood.  Needed to give Trowa that aural cue.  He hadn’t last time; they still hadn’t managed to find a side table that matched the rest of the furniture in the living room. 

Heero moved carefully down the hall towards the living room, biting back a shiver at the cold wood and the utter silence.  There were quite a few places Trowa could be holed up, despite the small size of their rancher.  Trowa had ended up in the garage the last time he had lapsed; in the basement the time before that.  The house creaked as it shifted and settled in the wind.  Heero glanced at the wall and frowned.  He hoped Trowa hadn’t gone outside again.  It had only happened once since they had moved in together, but the weather had been bad then as well: cold and muddy and pouring rain.  Heero suspected Trowa had climbed the tree before the rain really started coming down, but he had stayed up there during most of the storm.  How Trowa had gotten away with just a cold and not struck by lightning, Heero had no idea.  

The same dumb luck that had gotten Trowa picked up by scrappers, probably. 

Heero scanned the living room carefully.  Dark as it was, it wouldn’t be difficult to miss his lover, a shadow within shadows, probably tucked into one of the corners or crevices made by wall and furniture.  Except it wasn’t quite —that— dark.  Heero frowned as his eyes adjusted and he was able to pick out the black lines of the furniture from the near-blind black of the walls.  He navigated the narrow space between the couch and coffee table and found the source of the not-darkness: a narrow swath of gray light stretched out across the floor.  It fell across the misplaced fire-poker, the wrought iron squintingly sharp in the pale light, before reaching back towards the small open door.  Heero replaced it before heading the side room, making sure to rattle the poker in its stand by the fireplace. 

Trowa’s sunroom was—apart from the rancher’s desperate need for do-it-yourself fixing up—the reason he had bought the house in the first place.  He had emptied it of its rotten wicker furniture, dismantled its bizarre plywood shutters, and torn up the carpet and replaced it with honeyed-wood.  Trowa stretched the frames on the long wall until they touched the corners and then converted a little more than half on both of the shorter walls into wall-to-floor windows.  The frames were steel and narrow, easy to ignore, and there was the subtlest suggestion of a pattern in the glass.  It gave the room a wispy, dreamy feel, regardless of weather.  Trowa would happily laze about in it during sunny afternoons, stretched out on the floor, quiet, content, and silent only because humans generally didn’t purr. 

Heero accepted Trowa’s need for openness, even the illusion of it, and the glass was both bullet-proof and reinforced, several times over; Heero had still insisted on curtains.  So much glass, so many clean lines of sight.  It made him nervous.  Trowa had been fairly accepting of the compromise and rigged a long, slightly curved curtain rod from the ceiling, sturdy enough to support the blackout curtains Heero preferred.  Heero had found a set of ceiling-to-floor length ones in a pleasing muted red that went with the room.  

They looked gray now, in the pale light of the blizzard.  And sagging.  Heero stepped closer to the yanked back curtains.  A couple of rings seemed to have popped off the bar, sliding loose from the grommets and landing on the floor.  He had just started to count the glittering metal pieces when he heard the click behind him.  

It was unnerving to see his lover with an assault rifle, even if it wasn’t pointed at him.  Yet. 

Trowa sat against the wall, directly between the doors that went from the sunroom into the living room proper.  Blankets and sheets were draped around his shoulders and across his legs, giving his hands and face a strange corpse-like and disembodied look.  He held the rifle against one shoulder, pale fingers seemingly relaxed.  The click must have been the safety.  Heero didn’t doubt the rifle was loaded, and he knew exactly how long it would take for Trowa’s long, pale, powerful fingers to move and tighten around the trigger.  

His lover stared at him with a quiet but distant intensity.  Heero worried at his cheek.  Trowa had drifted very far tonight.  Snow did that. 

Rolling his shoulders back, Heero cocked his hip to the side, tucking his hands against his lower back.  It was the closest thing he knew to a military pose.  The effect was immediate.  Trowa relaxed, body curling as he sank against the wall a bit.  His hand drifted down towards the butt of the rifle. 

“Status,” Heero asked. 

“ ’s quiet,” Trowa said quietly, his voice at once thick with an accent Heero didn’t recognize and thin with the memory of his childhood vocals.  Heero bit back a shiver.  Trowa shook his head slowly.  “A bad one.  No one’s come back yet.” 

There were a number of things that could mean.  Heero liked none of them.  “We’ll give them a while longer,” he said, turning his head so that he could watch the pealing snow.  Trowa was a shadow just visible from the corner of his eye, but he could almost feel the scowling.  Trowa sank lower against the wall. 

Heero wanted to turn.  To go to him.  To ask, or not ask and just wrap his arms around Trowa and feel the way he had to be shaking with something that wasn’t the cold.  But he knew better; now was not the time.  So Heero watched the snow fall in an almost solid, swirling sheet, turning the not-so-distant copse of trees vague.  Perfect weather for an ambush, if the ambushers were dressed for it.  Mercenaries often were. 

Where could the corps have been stationed that had winters like this?  Heero turned the question over—somewhere north, probably near the circle—before glancing back at Trowa.  “Coffee?” 

Trowa nodded after a moment, tugging one of the blankets a little tighter over his shoulder.  “Thanks.” 

Inclining his head slightly, Heero headed towards the living room again.  Trowa didn’t move, but Heero could feel the way Trowa tracked his movements with his eyes.  Heero left the door to the sunroom opened so he wouldn’t trip.

The kitchen overheads he flicked on.  It was far enough from the living room that he didn’t think Trowa would notice it.  Their kitchen was one of the smallest rooms in the house but just as delicately detailed.  Trowa had never had much use for it, so he had just replaced the cabinets to match the sunroom and installed granite counter tops.  Heero had added the bands of colored molding and a few touches of stenciling to bring out the flecks of gold in the granite and make the imbedded lights and white ceiling a little less stark.  Heero went to the cabinet just above the coffee maker and opened it.  It was strange to make coffee for Trowa.  Trowa rarely drank it, and certainly never at home.  It was an office drink, or a mission drink, and only when he needed the stimulant to keep going after seventy-two hours without sleep.  

He supposed tea would have been a luxury they couldn’t afford.   Coffee was too, in war, but it had more uses—alertness, hydration, warmth—and a higher number of reuses than tea leaves or tea bags.  They probably indulged in it more.  Trowa had been one of them; young or not, he had to have drank it through the cold, dark nights.  

Trowa didn’t talk much about mercenaries or childhood or even early adolescence.  Heero never asked.  He didn’t really have to; he saw the sudden distance that sprang up between Trowa and the present when conditions were right for it.  When there were certain combinations of smells and sounds and lights and words.  He heard the sharp intake of breath and then the frightening silence while Trowa forgot momentarily how to breathe.  He felt Trowa beside him at night, shifting and twisting his way out of night terrors and then lying stiff and trembling as the dregs of them slowly left.  Trowa never told him because Heero already knew.

Except for the snow.  Trowa had told him about snow, during the war, when Siberia was the last place either of them wanted to go but they had gone anyway—Trowa dragging his feet and a sharp bitterness along in a way that he hadn’t during Heero’s quest for redemption.  At the Siberian base, Trowa had worn his misery openly, wrapped in it more tightly than the fur coat Noin had lent him.  He would say later that he was, if not all right, at least better with the clear weather.  There was snow everywhere, but it didn’t move.  It just stayed, still and deep and white, on the ground and the mountains.  It was when the clouds rolled in that Trowa started twitching (not jumping, never jumping) at small noises and staring out windows almost constantly. 

Trowa had turned up outside his door just before the first crack of thunder that came with the blizzard, as if he had known it was coming and Heero was somehow the safest place in the entire base to ride it out.  Heero’s small quarters there had had no windows, so perhaps he was. 

Heero hadn’t asked, the same way that Trowa hadn’t: not about the gun and not about every person Heero had handed it to on his redemption road. Trowa had simply explained.  Bad things happened when the snows came.  They made him nervous.  Heero didn’t tell him his nervous looked very much like fear, and he didn’t say it would be all right (which was good, considering Trowa nearly froze less than a week later).  Instead, he shoved most of his bedding at Trowa and told him to sleep.  He didn’t think Trowa did; he probably listened to the steady beat of hail.  But he had smiled, a small shift at the corner of his mouth and eye, and made himself a nest in the corner and pretended Heero had helped. 

He hadn’t, of course, and he still couldn’t.  But Heero tried, which was why he filled the coffee pot and looked for filters and a mug that Trowa didn’t usually use. 

He paused when he saw it behind the filters, in deceptively plain packaging, considering its rich contents.  Chocolate powder.  A particularly good and difficult-to-find brand that Quatre tried to keep Trowa in steady supply of.  Which was not all that hard since Trowa drank it sparingly, conserving it for the best, and the worst, moments.  This package had to be a souvenir from Quatre’s last diplomatic trip.  Trowa hadn’t opened it yet. 

Chocolate was the rarest luxury.  Trowa had never had it before the war, before Quatre and the half dozen boxes they had gone through together in the few days they had holed up together.  The corps never indulged in such a culinary extravagance; Trowa never indulged until after his position at the Preventers made his life somewhat stable.  Heero stared at the box for a moment before taking it down.  It wasn’t right, it didn’t fit, but it was a sweet, present indulgence of Trowa’s.  And if this isn’t a good time for it—

Heero started the coffee before warming milk in a saucepan on the stove.  The maker’s noise and smells would hide the chocolate better.  Besides, he sure as hell needed it. 

Trowa didn’t lift his head when Heero finally returned, plain dull-red mugs in either hand.  Perhaps he smelled the coffee and remembered it was coming.  Perhaps he saw something in the snow, or remembered a time when he did.  Heero crouched next to him, careful not to be directly in front or too far out of his line of sight.  He nudged the mug of coffee towards Trowa’s arm.  Trowa must have noticed the movement.  He lifted his head, lidded eyes taking in the mug for a moment before drifting up.  His lank hair curled slightly towards his mouth.  He shifted and brought one of his thin, pale hands out from the blankets.  Trowa plucked the hair from his face before reaching for the mug.  He went over Heero’s hand, clutching at the mug’s rim, careful to avoid his fingers.  Heero bit back a noise.  Trowa always touched their fingers together when Heero handed him anything. 

Mug in hand, Trowa sank back against the wall.  He brought his legs up, slowly to keep the blankets from moving too much, and shifted the rifle until it could rest against one shoulder and the crook of his arm.  He wrapped his long fingers around the warm ceramic and sighed before bringing the mug towards his nose.  

Heero moved, dropping down beside him.  He didn’t mean to jostle Trowa’s knee with his elbow.  Trowa let out a hiss, tilting to the side before straightening.   He glared with irritation and sharp suspicion.  Heero met the narrowed stare without blinking.

“Two sets of eyes,” he said simply before making himself comfortable against the wall.  Trowa’s brow knitted.  After a long moment, he sat slowly back.  Heero raised a knee and balanced his coffee on it.  How many times did Trowa do watch alone?  Solo watches weren’t safe, and they couldn’t have been absolutely necessary.  The corps had to have at least a dozen mercenaries.  They could have spared another body to sit up with him.  Trowa would have been a child, lacking the strength and stamina for all-nighters and then day travel and fighting.  He wouldn’t have been able to stay awake or keep himself warm efficiently.  He could have froze.

Maybe that was the point.  Heero felt the handle of the mug start to give and eased up on his grip. 

Trowa didn’t notice.  He was curled a little over the mug, eyes closed and the warm steam curling up over his neck and face.  His head tilted and his nose momentarily crinkled, but the expression relaxed.  Trowa opened his eyes and fixed that distant stare on the windows again.  Drifts of snow ghosted across his blank eyes as he watched the blizzard without seeing it.  The mug rose towards his lips. 

Heero had never actually seen Trowa spit out anything, but Trowa had just come very close to it.  The half choke-and-sputter would have been amusing if it was daylight and Trowa was all here. 

He wiped his mouth with his hand, staring down at the mug.  “This—” 

“Yeah,” Heero asked, sipping his coffee.  “What about it?” 

Trowa frowned and eyed the chocolate before looking at Heero.  “When did we—” 

“Does it matter?  You don’t want it, I’ll take it back.”

Trowa pulled the mug close, hands wrapping around it and hiding most of the ceramic from sight.  For a moment, there was life in his eyes.  Something Heero didn’t quite recognize: young and fleeting and nervous and, perhaps, the tiniest bit grateful.  When he was sure Heero wouldn’t take it back, Trowa brought the mug back to his lips.  He took slow sips, hands so close to his mouth it almost looked like prayer. 

Heero wondered for a moment if anything would have been different if he had small gifts like this with the mercenaries.  But then Trowa’s eyes closed and he looked almost like himself again, and Heero had to wonder what Trowa thought about when the chocolate rolled across his tongue. 

The wind shifted, throwing snow and hail against the glass with the same sharp bang as bullets.  Trowa flinched, hard.  Most of the chocolate leapt out of the mug.  By now, it wasn’t hot enough to burn, but Trowa still stared down at the chocolate dribbling down his hands and staining the blankets and whimpered—a low, miserable sound.  Heero set his coffee safely out of reach, pulled the stained mug from Trowa’s grasping fingers, and touched his hand. 

Trowa broke.  

At some point between the first clutching sobs and the calmer cries, Heero managed to get the rifle out from between them.  It was still loaded and as good as they were, accidents happened when control was let go.  And Trowa had completely lost his.  He managed to tuck Trowa against his side, arm tight around Trowa’s shaking shoulders, before moving the rifle, placing it down by his feet and then gentle pushing it out of reach.  He wrapped his other arm around Trowa’s waist, which Trowa took as a sign to shift into his lap.  Heero tucked Trowa’s head beneath his chin. 

Trowa settled, slowly, the constant barrage of hail and snow making the process long and difficult.  Heero pressed his lips against his hair.  “I can make you more,” he murmured when Trowa was finally quiet.  He felt Trowa tense, his chocolate-stained hands clutching at his shirt. 

“Don’t want more,” he murmured.  His fingers dug into Heero’s chest as the wind rattled the windows.  Heero nodded.  He reached around Trowa and grabbed some of the blankets tangled around his legs.  He tugged until some of them came free, wrapping them loosely around Trowa’s chest and then finally tugging one large corner up over his head.    

They stayed like that for a while, Trowa tucked against his chest, blanket-hooded, breathing soft and warm against Heero’s neck.  Heero kept his cheek against the top of Trowa’s head, until Trowa moved.  Heero watched him, smiling a little as Trowa released Heero’s shirt and tucked his hands into the warm cocoon.  He saw a brief flash of chocolate-covered skin before Trowa moved his head, ducking over them.  He relaxed into Heero’s chest and sighed. 

Heero would wait until the storm died down before getting Trowa more.  Maybe they would build up a fire too.

[shinigami-irae]

1x3x1week on tumblr.

2015-01-14 day 3, theme #1 : Learning Reflexes.

This is a throwing knives & apple mashup :D

Heero & Trowa -Learning Reflexes | foxyladycpz [pixiv] http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=48170971

[shinigami-irae]

1x3x1week on tumblr.

2015-01-13 day 2, theme #2 : Mission Gone Wrong.

[greeneyes-softsighs-blog]

Omg just in time for 1x3x1 week. My sister bought these as an xmas present! HEERO AND TROWA PILLOWS???!!! Adorable and perfect.

Thank you, lunchable-eater!!!!!

[greeneyes-softsighs-blog]

Author/Artist: greeneyes_softsighs Daily Prompt(s): Heat

Heero takes Trowa to a hot springs for the first time.

[1x3x1week-blog]

It's time to face the facts.

While 1x3x1 Week has finally arrived, only the following days received official submissions:

January 14th

January 15th

January 17th

January 18th

We were lucky enough to see two posts in the tags to cover for January 12th and 13th, but the event could always use more.

[shinigami-irae]

1x3x1week on tumblr.

2015-01-12 day 1, I picked theme #3 : masks. Heero’s wearing a noh mask since he’s japanese. ♡〜٩( ╹▿╹ )۶〜♡

Heero & Trowa - Masks | foxyladycpz [pixiv] http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=48137634

[1x3x1week-blog]

Submissions are officially closed.

As stated numerous times, if you still have something you would like to add, simply post it in the #1x3x1week #1x3x1 week tags.