Title: The Windmills of Your Mind
Author: Taw
Pairing: 3=4
Written: _Thursday, March 19, 2009
Warnings: Angst

A/N: This took me an excruciatingly long time to write. I usually can write a fic in two days maximum, this has taken me all week. I'm pretty freaing tired right now, too, but oh well. Thus is the life of a book store employee.

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It ended during summertime. I remember the heat and the scent of flowers in the air. The cool breeze of the ocean still tickles my face when I sleep at night, dreaming dreams of circus clowns and bullet rounds. Earth was beautiful then, just as it is now. I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be on this blue, spinning orb, so lost and lonely as it hovers in space, the only star in the sky inhabitable. I should be back home, on L4, with the giant corporations and the endless hilltops of papers that are waiting for me. They always loved me, always needed me. I could always count on them to be there when I got home. Their love was faithful, but unrequited. My mind has been nothing but a roll of film these past few days, spinning on and on, playing picture after picture and when will it end? When will the images behind my eyelids fade away?

I remember that summer on L3, the falsified one, just a beam of simulated sunlight on a colony with the heat turned up too high. I remember nights, where the windows were passageways into the universe dare you look out, fair-weather friends that were so beautiful but wouldn't let you forget that you weren't on Earth. That it wasn't really summer, wasn't really a season at all. Those nights smelled like cotton candy and caramel corn and leave multi-colored lights flashing in my pupils. The sound of children laughing and circus music echoes through my ears, playing loud on a loop to block out the sound of your voice.

You can't let balloons go on colonies. You can hold them all you want, but if you let them go they'll float right to the top, next to the men in uniforms with grease stains who work the weather and the lighting. Eventually, they'll pop. Whether it be from bouncing off a support beam or just slowly dying a sad, sad death. Either way you'll find it later. Maybe it'll be lying limp and dirty in a trashcan, already retrieved and thrown away by some eco-friendly stranger. Or, it could be caught, tangled in a tree, waiting for the branches to dig in and put it out of it's misery.

I'm looking at the clock, waiting for this day to end and take me back to my dreams of you. The apple in my hand is the color of your Gundam, reminding me of when we first met. Did you know, then, that this would happen? That we would find something so amazing and exquisite only for it to be crushed like autumn leaves on the sidewalks? The light plays off the shiny red of the fruit and I think about how the rising sun made Heavyarm's armor burn like fire in space. I bite into the apple, quickly, almost wincing at the loud crunch it makes between my teeth.

Driving, now, I pass through a tunnel. The darkness hides the homeless lying in rags against the walls, the dim lighting casting shadows in my hair and across my face. My headlights are obnoxious as they beam through the black. Our love was, in a way, like these tunnels. Twisting and turning and leading only to more tunnels, the dark obscuring our view of outside, shrouding the destinations in mystery. I never knew it would come to this, never knew I'd one day be crying these tears. I wipe them away, not wanting to see them in my rearview mirror. Suddenly, I emerge and the sun bears down upon me. I squint until I find my sunglasses. Is this what they call the "light at the end of the tunnel?" This heartbreak, this emptiness inside me? Is this where our love lead me to?

Entering my hotel, I pass through the revolving doors. I feel sorry for those doors, knowing that no matter how many people pass through them they'll never be able to catch up. Was I the door, running in circles, going nowhere? Were you the one passing through me, placing intricate smudges on my surfaces with your fingertips? I hope not. I so desperately want to catch up.

Come springtime I knew we were crashing and burning, waiting for impact. Like Libra falling to Earth, except I didn't have Heero to stop me. I remember walking, hand in hand along the beach. Watching as you skipped shells along the surface of the water, only for them to be swallowed up by waves. These memories are ripples fluttering across the surface of my mind.

I'm alone in the elevator, riding up and up to the top floor. My hand's in my pocket, jingling my keys. They make clicking sounds, muffled only by my hand and the soft fabric of my slacks. I sigh and press my back against the railing, closing my eyes. The bright lights in the elevator look like the summer sun behind my closed lids and once again I remember the day we broke up. I wonder, if I had said something different, would we have been able to talk through it? If instead of saying "I love you" should I have just kept the words to myself? I pull my hand towards my chest and press it over my heart. It's fast and warm and heavy. It's a wonder it hasn't fallen down to the pit of my stomach by now, it's so heavy.

Our feet made footprints in the sand that day. I reached for your hand, but you tucked it away inside your pocket. When I tried to look into your eyes, you turned toward the sea. Not for the first time I wished you'd cut your hair, then I could at least see the expression on your face when you looked at me and said that you were leaving. Instead, I saw a half-mask of hair, hiding your eyes from me like a curtain as you looked at your shoes. I thought you meant that I'd be going with you, so I smiled and began to make plans for leaving. When I looked at you again, you were crying. This I saw. I'd only seen you cry once before, during the war. You'd held onto me as if I was your only chance of survival, as if letting go would cause you to float away like a circus balloon. On the beach last summer, you didn't even reach for me as a single tear ran down your face. I hear the sounds of drumming, but realize it's just my fingers tapping against the elevator door.

I enter my hotel room quietly and slip off my shoes. The carpet is plush and warm beneath my feet; I'd told them to keep the heating on. I first go to the kitchen area, where I pour myself a glass of wine and finish it in one swallow. It tingles inside me and warms my cold insides. I move to pour another glass, but there's a hand on my arm, preventing me from this. I look up, and you're there.

"Quatre," you whisper. The wine glass shatters as it hits the floor, and you immediately move to pick up the pieces.

"T-Trowa?"

You're kneeling at my feet, carefully picking up pieces of glass. It's your hair, the color of the autumn leaves outside, that I look down at. It's your shoulders that stretch, broad and muscular on each side. I can feel the sob caught in my throat and the weight of it pushes me down with you. I grasp your hand.

"Don't, don't touch it, you'll cut yourself," I say, my voice cracking.

I can't bring myself to look at your face, though. Perhaps it's because of your eyes and the way they haunt me like a wolf. Perhaps it's the ghosts of memories long forgotten, something I still blame myself for, even when you tell me not to. You lift my face up and there they are, green and big and full of...something, some emotion. I won't get hopeful.

"It's okay," you tell me and I can't figure out if we're still talking about the broken glass or something else.

"Trowa, what are you doing here?" Tears fall into my mouth when I open my lips to speak. They are like salt water, like ocean water, like summer.

"I'm living based on my emotions, remember?"

I do remember.

"A-and, what are your emotions telling you?" I try to say. It just comes out raspy and hoarse, but I know you heard me because suddenly my cheeks are covered by the warmth of your palms.

"That I love you."

It's the first time you've ever said it and suddenly I'm the one who's going to float away like a balloon if I don't hold onto you. So I grasp at your arms and pull you to me. Suddenly it's you, me and broken glass between us and I'm being careful not to touch it and I think you are, too, because you won't surrender to my embrace completely.

Wiping my eyes and letting out a pathetic laugh I say, "Let's clean this up."

We do it together.

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END

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