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On the Corner of West Elm and Bailey	By : tinyvoice Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1730 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-On the Corner of West Elm and Bailey
- 2-II
- 3-III
- 4-IV
- 5-V
- 6-VI
- 7-VII
- 8-VIII
- 9-IX
- 10-X
- 11-XI
- 12-XII
- 13-XIII
- 14-XIV
- 15-XV
- 1
- 2
- 3
Sorry this chapter is so short. I�ve been really busy
lately.

Thank you so much for all the nice reviews^_^

I�d really appreciate reviews for this chapter as well to
make sure that I�m still on par with the first chapter.

I got all your wonderful reviews, and I was thinking, �Oh
no�how do I top the first chapter?� ^^;

Thank you all so much!

�What�s that?� Wufei asked from the doorway.

�I don�t know,� Trowa replied reaching behind himself and
dropping the volume into his backpack. �I�m done. I�m going home, now.�

�Sure,� Wufei said stepping back to allow Trowa passage.
�I�ll tell them that you left.�

�Thanks,� Trowa mumbled concentrating more on the feel and
sound of his shoes on the dense wood floor than what he said, as if he wanted
to make sure that it was all there, that it was all real. Walking down the
crescent stairs, he couldn�t shake the vague fear that they would suddenly
become immaterial and send him plummeting to the yawning abyss below.

At the foot of the stairs he had a last look around. He
thought that he could see phantom shapes flitting in the half darkness of the
unlit corners, but that, he attributed to the anxiousness that his earlier
encounter had stirred.

�Goodbye,� he whispered.

++

November 15, 1774

It is coming soon. The strings of rebellion are braiding
together, creating a stronger, more centralized ideal. The epitome of our time
that will define generations to come. Britain is turning her eyes steadily
westward. She sees Massachusetts in the target of her turrets. The presence of
British soldiers is on the rise in large cities but has managed to leave this
little spot of Virginia untainted, though the land here is sewing the seeds of
dissent reigning in higher yields with each political injustice that fans on
the ears of the common man.

I furnished Thaddeus, this morning, with considerable funds
from my personal allowance to acquire arms. Some smithies are able to strike a
gun and fashion bullets, but at a considerable price that places our flowering
resistance at a grievous disadvantage to our British counterparts. I have
established an informant within the forces of an influential British general,
henceforth, �seventy-twenty.� He has agreed to deal us British arms at a more
favorable price than our own gunsmiths. We�ve decided to invest in stockpiling
these things, basic materials for facing this kind of conflict that seems all
but imminent, right now.

Like the momentum of a wave gaining force and speed as it
nears the shore, I feel the feeling of this nation hastening towards the shore
to crash against the rocks in an explosion of foam, scattering pebbles and
shells. Like that, our order will be made and rearranged to suit us as a
nation. I strongly believe in that.

++

Trowa set the book down. It seemed void of personal notes or
anything non-political. From what Trowa was able to gather so far was that: the
owner of the journal was going against his father�s wishes and getting involved
in the contemporarily known American Revolution, he was a key logistical strategist
and financier, and that he planned to serve as an American battle strategist
when the revolution would finally begin. Considering his language, he didn�t
seem to look forward to the coming conflict, but, nor did he shy from it. More
so than anything, he seemed resolute to protect his fellow countrymen and
establish a government that conformed to common American sentiment, which
sounded reasonable and innocent, enough.

He closed his eyes and imagined the specter that he�d seen
once more. Each time he tried to recall that apparition�s form, it grew less
and less definite. He knew the rudimentary features: blond, blue eyes, short,
thin, pale, and nice. His mind, however, was incapable of processing that
information into a full image. He remembered that face, but when he visualized
it, it didn�t seem perfect enough. It seemed as if his mind was working
miserably with an etch-a-sketch to try to recollect something for him that it
was simply unable to supply. He wanted to see that person again, to ask his
name.

He leaned back in his chair bracing his palms against the
desk to tip him back at an angle so that he could see outside. Snow was coming
down slowly reminding him vaguely of Fantasia and the sugar plum fairies,
enchanting.

++

The fibers that made up his being slowly wove back together.
That boy�s invasion into his space had sent ripples into him and muddled his
image. The more as one his being became, the worse he felt.

Nauseating self-consciousness rolled over his head and made
his heart flounder. No one had seen him for such a long time. He couldn�t
remember what he looked . He. He couldn�t recall whether he was pleasing to
see. What color were his eyes? His hair? Things that he hadn�t thought about in
centuries.

That person, though, he was nice to see. His eyes, struck
like ivy green darts into his soul and paralyzed him, rid him of coherent
thought. He�d never had that feeling before. Just remembering it made him
shiver.

He paced the room like a caged wolf eyeing the window as if
it were a poacher.

He willed his hand to have form and struck at the glass. It
only rattled while his semi-tangible fist passed through it almost clear to the
other side before he threw himself down to arrest his momentum. The infuriating
idea that the only place of existence for him was within the confines of his
father�s house haunted him even through his short episodes when he craved
oblivion.

Quatre rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes, then
he had a thought.

He picked himself up onto his knees and willed his fingers
to have form. In the undisturbed portions of the dusty floor, he began to
write.

++

At the bust stop the next morning, everything was as it had
been before they had entered the house. Duo was up to his antics and Heero and
Wufei were back to subtly goading him on. They were all back to normal.

Ofcourse, they hadn�t seen what Trowa had seen.

He looked anxiously at the house. He could swear to seeing
faces in the windows, and puffs of breath fading and reappearing on the glass.
The eyes that he felt shook his body and sapped the warmth from his very bones.

The house was all eyes.

When the bus arrived, Trowa nearly bowled over his
companions to climb inside, to escape that thing.

That sentinel.

++

He walked with his friends as far as West Elm and Bailey. There,
they all parted ways.

He watched them all leave before he turned back.

++

Trowa entered the house with some trepidation. It seemed to
sigh when he took his first steps into the foyer.

�Don�t psyche yourself out,� Trowa reminded himself pressing
his palm to his forehead. �It�s just a house.�

He picked his way through the hallways back to the same room
he�d invaded just a day earlier. Empty, as he had expected. The internal
disappointment that he felt was hard to surmount, and he just stood in the doorframe
a few moments until his peripheral vision picked up the message on the
floorboardsp>

Farie Stranger,

Please do not think me too forward when I tell you that I�
am quite caught in admiration of your countenance.

If you would please grace me with your name, I would be most
grateful.

Earnestly yours,

An admirer

Trowa paused a moment, then sat on his heels and wrote, Trowa.

He almost jumped out of his skin when the dust began to
trace itself.

It�s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Trowa.

Trowa swallowed hard and scraped his index finger in the
dust again, What are you?

I have submitted to the understanding that, I must be dead.

How did you die?

I don�t remember.

That bad?

I do not know.

What is your name?

I don�t remember.

Winner?

Is that my name?

Isn�t it?

I don�t remember.

Are there others like you in this house?

Yes.

How many?

Of that, I have no inkling.

Do you remember anything?

My memory since before yesterday is incomplete.

Trowa heaved a heavy sigh, Are you real? Or an ingenious
personification of my idle mind?

It took a moment for the phantom to swirl its next words, I
think�therefore, I am. I must be. However, if it were to be that I exist only
as a figment of your imagination, I am content.

Trowa closed his eyes and considered for a moment before
scribbling in the dust again, I�ve just had an idea. If you are able to
write in the dust, I should be able to feel you. Since we�ve just met, lets
shake hands. He stuck his hand out surprisingly steady for how drunken with
dopamine and other coping mechanisms he felt.

At first it felt like static that slowly solidified into the
feel of fingers that barely brushed his skin. He screwed his eyes closed and
began to breath hard when he felt those fingers push past his skin.

He could only stand the strange sensation for so long before
he jerked his hand back. �H-holy shit�� he said flexing his fingers. His bones
still resonated with the electric hum of the ghost fingers� caress. �You�re
real.�

A door slammed upstairs.

Already jittery to the point of utter hysteria, Trowa jumped
to his feet like a startled cat and got the hell out of that house as fast as
his legs would carry him.

Outside, the sun was already setting, and the moon could
already be seen rising on the opposite side of the sky. Trowa stared at it a
moment, and then looked back at the house he had so recently vacated. A smile
seemed to trace across its front at having expunged him so quickly. He half
expected to hear laughter from it.

It crossed his mind to say something, some verbal assurance
to himself that he wasn�t going crazy, but the only thing he could manage to
get past his lips was a monosyllabic, �Shit.�

++

The house shuddered in the wake of Trowa�s hasty exit.

Papers shuffled and filed themselves in the study upstairs,
and soft voices began to penetrate the gloom of the house.

Quatre settled his spirit at the windowsill and watched
Trowa�s retreating shadow.

�Fare thee well gentle stranger borne like a blessing into
the night, nary from thy form my heart should waver, it is as constant as the
sun�� Quatre improvised pressing his open palm against the glass. An
unreasoning hope played upon the strings of his heart that, perhaps, if he
wished hard enough, if his fingers pushed far enough through the window, he
might be able to capture that boy. To stop him in his tracks and draw him near
once more.

Gentle laughter from one of the upstairs rooms drew his
attention. He gazed questioningly at the ceiling and thought that, for a
moment, he could hear the footfalls of a young lady dancing.

++

�Welcome home,� Catherine was barely able to say as Trowa
entered through the front door before he was holed up inside his room.

He set his backpack down next to his bed, kicked off his
shoes, and then sat. While he sat, he didn�t think of anything in particular,
though his face appeared pensive. Unconsciously, he ran his hands over each
other as if trying to restore feeling in them.

After a whilesittsitting semi-comatose, he had what he
thought to be an epiphany, but turned out to be hunger. Grudgingly, he hauled
himself up and made for the kitchen. In the doorframe to his room, he turned to
glance out the window. It wasn�t snowing. The clouds hung in the sky dark and
pregnant with precipitation. They stretched languidly from house to house,
breaking from here to there allowing the moon to wink out from behind them.o:p>

++

Trowa didn�t return to the house for some time.

Over the weekend, he didn�t go anywhere near it.

On Sunday, he spent the day with Duo, Heero, and Wufei
shooting empty bottles off fence-posts. He�d never discharged a firearm in his
life before that day, but caught the hang of it quickly. He learned quickly to
overcome the recoil and fire off rounds quickly, his accuracy proving with each
round until he eventually hit all the bottles without error.

Duo was like a one-man cheerleading squad singing praises
from behind and clapping with each burst bottle.

It would have been a lie to say that he didn�t enjoy the
attention. Trowa�s aim improved partially due to the encouragement and the
desire to surpass Heero and Wufei with their marksmanship. Duo was good, but,
his preoccupation with showmanship made him miss a few times.

It was Trowa�s last turn. Duo set the bottles, then took his
place a considerable distance behind the shooter with Heero and Wufei.

Aim and fire, aim and fire, Trowa popped off slug after slug
until he came to the last target, which made him jerk, and his last shot to go
off in some other direction.

�What�s wrong?� Duo called, but Trowa couldn�t answer.

Not truthfully, in any case.

He could have sworn that he�d seen, in the crosshairs of his
aim, the phantom cowering holding bloodied hands up in front of his face. After
his misfire, the phantom disappeared, and he was left with his mouth ajar
staring at a lone green bottle sitting squat on the fence.

�Whatever that was,� Wufei began to say.

�It sucked,� Heero finished.

++

No one was home when he got there. It was the first time
since he�d moved to Virginia that Cathy wasn�t there. It made things easier for
him, though. He dragged a chair back from the kitchen table and parked himself
in it.

He couldn�t shake the image from his head.

He�d left the guys back there. He�d flipped the safety back
on the gun and shoved it into Heero�s hands before stalking off back in the
general direction of home. At this point, they probably didn�t need him to
reveal to them his freaky ghost experiences for them to think that he was nuts.

font-family:Verdana'>

TBC
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On the Corner of West Elm and Bailey

November 15, 1774

How did you die?