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The Chains We Wear	By : LadyYeinKhan Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 13123 -:- 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
- 21
- 22
- 23
You can find story updates and other information at ahsimwithsake.tumblr.com

A/n: Prevailing mood is prevailing. It’s not pleasant, but I’ll try not to go into it too much.

This time, I made my deadline, but only by making a decision I’m not entirely comfortable with. You might notice that this chapter is a little bit shorter than the last few chapters. That’s because I decided to change the ending location. I did this for a variety of reasons, some stylistic and other practical. On the practical side, I would never be able to finish the next four page (at least) section in time and that would cut seriously into NaNoWriMo, which I’m attempting. On the stylistic side, the section I wanted to add will be stronger, I think, at the beginning of the next chapter. It will have a deeper connection with the next chapter than it would here.

I also will have more time to get into Duo’s head.

Warnings for this chapter: swearing and I think that’s about it.

Chapter 22

Sarah was easy to spot. Not only was she wearing the black windbreaker and wispy red scarf she had mentioned, she was the only person under the flagpoles, so distracted that she didn’t notice the leash circling her legs.

Trowa frowned. Why didn’t she leave the dog at home?

Trowa used some of his easiest tricks to observe her; he didn’t have the means, or the energy, for much else. Hip resting against the rail some fifty feet away, he watched her from beneath the hood of his denim jacket. Occasionally she would turn just a little too far to the left in her almost desperate sweeps of the growing crowd. Trowa would lean out over the rail every time, body turned towards her but his face towards the sea, and her notice would pass over him quickly.

Tracey was only about five minutes late, which made Trowa even more uncomfortable with this meeting than he had been all morning. And most of last night for that matter. It just wasn’t normal for someone to be panicking so early, at least not when failure, discovery, or death weren’t immediate concerns. She obviously had expectations for this meeting, expectations that Trowa most likely didn’t share. This was going to be a disaster. He knew it. He should spare himself, and her, the impending embarrassment and go home.

And then, just as they had this morning at the dresser, and in the bathroom, and finally at the door, Trowa’s legs turned in the direction completely opposite of the one his brain ordered.

Trowa stuffed his hands into his pockets as he walked slowly towards the flagpoles, shoulders rounding forward every few steps. If he could understand why he had made it, Trowa might have felt a little better about this very stupid decision. Or pretend to, at least. Obviously, it had been a whim, one possibly born out of temporary insanity; he might have hit his head harder than he thought. But once he had figured out why Sarah’s lingering gaze as he jogged away left him chilled—once he had figured out what, or rather who, it reminded him of—Trowa should have barricaded himself in the apartment; it wasn’t like Sarah could find him. He should have found an excuse: call Holly and beg her for hours or switch shifts with David like he had asked. Work was a legitimate reason to avoid someone. He should have called her this morning and said something came up, someone was sick, there was a sinkhole that destroyed half of the frozen food section. He would have been disgustingly apologetic, and have had an excuse for every day for the next two months why he couldn’t reschedule.

Exactly what kind of person gives out their cell phone number after five minutes anyway?

The point was that Trowa should have done something to stop this meeting from happening, and he hadn’t. That bothered him. There was nothing between them. They were two people who, almost literally, ran into each other via a runaway dog. There was no connection, no want or need that was going to be fulfilled by cultivating even an acquaintanceship. Judging by their initial meeting, Trowa could expect more bodily harm, in increasingly painful and embarrassing intervals, if he furthered this encounter by even a little.

And yet Trowa was going to further it, because underneath the embarrassment and the discomfort, there was something, or at least he hoped there was. It was something Trowa wanted. It was stupid and dangerous. He had been actively avoiding it for weeks, but Trowa still wanted it. It wasn’t her, obviously, but it was a taste of what he missed. A taste couldn’t be bad, as long as it didn’t become an addiction. And I’ve had such a great track record.

One meeting. He was allowing himself one meeting and that was going to be it. And if it didn’t satisfy him, Trowa would have even more reason to kick himself later.

When he was within thirty feet, Trowa slipped his hands out of his pockets and pushed back his hood. He rolled his shoulders back a little so that he moved with more of Tracey’s mild hesitancy instead of overt reluctance. Within twenty feet, when she still hadn’t noticed him, Trowa shifted towards the left. Sarah caught that movement. She turned quickly. Her face broke into a wide, relieved smile, and Trowa was more convinced than ever that she had no idea that there was a leash looped three times around her shins.

Thankfully he was only a few feet away when she tried to take a step. Sarah gasped, her arms spinning wildly. Trowa caught her around the waist. Her chin landed hard on his collarbone; he top of her head smacked him in the mouth. Her second gasp sounded neither hurt nor embarrassed. Trowa should have let her drop.

“Jazz! Dumb dog, what were you doing? I’m really sorry, Tracey—”

“You should pay more attention to her,” he said, pushing her back by the shoulders carefully.

“I know, especially after last night,” she said. She picked the leash from around her legs, careful not to let the end out of her hand in case Jazz decided to run. Jazz, however, seemed content with lying by her feet and staring up at Trowa with large brown eyes. “How’s your head?”

Trowa crouched down near Jazz. Sniffing the hand he held near her nose, she licked his fingers in short, surprisingly gross pulls. Apparently, she either forgot or forgave him nearly choking her the night before.Trowa wiped the slimy saliva on her head before scratching her behind the ears.

“It’s fine,” he said, trying to fight a quirk to his lips as Jazz turned her head into his fingers. “How’s yours?”

“Mine?”

“You hit it.”

“Did I,” she asked, running a hand along the back of her head. “I didn’t notice."

Trowa wasn’t sure how that was possible, considering how much his mouth hurt. His front teeth ached and he thought he tasted blood when he swept his tongue over the back of his lip.

“Oh. Well that’s good.”

Sarah smiled, wrapping the leash around her hand again. “Ready for some pizza?”

Trowa realized, as he slid his massaging, scratching fingers beneath Jazz’s chin, that Sarah was blonde. The smooth strands that curled against her shoulders, though, were neither platinum nor sunshine. They were darker, probably bordering on brown in the right light, but here, under the bright but heavy clouds of a dreary afternoon, they were the same muted gold of sun-sickened grass. Trowa followed a strand of it as it whipped across her eyes in the wind. Those were blue, like he had (stupidly) hoped. But like the hair, it was a shade he didn’t recognize. They were a single, solid shade but lighter than any he had seen before. Even when she smiled, they seemed distant and cold.

They were rather pretty, though, and they could always be worse; they could be black.

“You said this pizza’s pretty good,” he said. Trowa patted Jazz’s head once before standing.

Sarah chuckled. “You definitely haven’t been here long. Manco’s better than good. People drive for hours for a slice, in summer anyway.”

Trowa held back a frown. Season really couldn’t have that much of an effect on a pizza’s popularity. “They don’t have good pizza hours away?”

“They don’t have shore pizza, and everyone knows shore pizza is the best. You’ll see.”

“Guess I will,” he said, falling into step beside her as she started walking down the boardwalk. Jazz slipped between them and butted her head against his knee. “Can’t be very long, though. I have to work.”

“I thought you said you were free,” she said, frowning.

“Someone called out and we’ve got inventory coming up.” It had sounded like a good escape in his head this morning.

“Oh. Okay. Just a quick slice of pizza, then.”

Apparently, there were people who pouted better than Duo. Trowa sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “As long as I can get home by three. Three-thirty at the latest.”

“I can do that. The boardwalk’s not that long.”

“I thought we were doing pizza.”

“We are doing pizza but that’s only part of the experience. You’ve got to at least tour the rest of the boardwalk. You’ll never know what’s worth seeing.”

Trowa reached down and scratched at Jazz’s insistent head. He had already “toured” the boardwalk on his own. In the first days, when he couldn’t sleep, Trowa had walked the silent miles, listening to the soft slap of his shoes and the creak of his weight on the worn wood. When he drifted through the business district, he had walked close enough to the stores and restaurants to peer through their black windows.

He had been unimpressed.

When he roamed it in the daylight, after he realized that days off were particularly brutal on his anxiety and he needed at least minor stimulation to distract his overactive mind, he had been only marginally less unimpressed. In the off-season, a fourth of the stores were closed. Swim wear and souvenir shops, mostly, a couple of summer clothing stores, a small amusement area. It was close enough to official spring and the last stretch before the summer rush that workers appeared in some of them. Behind glass doors, Trowa could watch them remodel, repair, open crates, or start the slow process of inventory.

Another fourth were empty. Apart from some shelves, maybe a hook or two, and an inch of dust, there was nothing behind the smudged display windows. The white and black “for sale” and “for rent” signs plastered to the door looked oddly yellow.

The rest of the stores were varying levels of deserted, with maybe a handful of customers on a good day at any hour, instead of the “throngs” of the summer rush. The restaurants seemed to get decent business; there was always a few people waiting or chatting quietly whenever he passed. The rest—clothes and jewelry and knick-knacks and such—would be lucky if they had one customer as he passed. And that customer always seemed to leave empty-handed. Trowa was surprised there weren’t more clearance sale signs.

Maybe the summer rush was enough to keep them in the black during the off-season, or maybe Trowa just picked bad times. Late evenings and weekday afternoons weren’t exactly the best times for most people to go shopping or socialize. They had school and nine-to-five jobs, and Trowa had boxes every Saturday and Sunday to unpack.

Sarah passed the first few stores with very limited commentary. At the fifth, she slowed a bit as she said “You’ll get food poisoning there, everyone does.” At the eighth, she stopped and sighed wistfully, “I wish they were still here. I liked their shoes.” Soon they were drifting slowly from storefront to storefront, never lingering longer than a few minutes, and Trowa found himself oddly interested in a few of the places they left behind.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m telling you, Shriver’s was here when Queen Victoria was alive.”

“That’s over a hundred years—”

“One hundred and fifty actually.”

Trowa couldn’t even think of a business that had stayed in operation for more than a century. “It’s not possible. Times change. People change, what they need changes. No one can stay open that long. It’s impossible.”

“You never heard of Harvard? Yale? Oxford?”

“Those are universities.”

“They’re famous and popular universities, and Shriver’s is a famous and popular store. It’s the same thing,” she said. Trowa shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. It really wasn’t it, but he doubted Tracey would argue that point. “And don’t let the name fool you: salt-water taffy is delicious.”

“If you like salt.”

“There’s actually no salt. Just sweet, chewy goodness. I’ll buy a handful later and you can try it.”

If salt-water taffy was similar in any way to regular taffy, Trowa was going to pass. Taffy was behind the very rare occasion where Duo threatened to kill Quatre. Trowa didn’t know how the melted goop even got in his hair in the first place, but it had taken nearly three hours to get out, and they still had to cut off a couple of inches. Of course, handling it now was probably safer than in the middle of July heat-wave, but he would rather not risk it.

Trowa fought the urge to shake his head hard. He was not supposed to think about that. “You don’t have to do that.”

“But if I buy some for you, then I get to have some. And I haven’t had any in ages.”

“You can’t just buy it?”

“You’ve never seen me around salt-water taffy. It’s not exactly pretty and I like being able to fit in these jeans. So I try to limit myself.”

“Got it. Well, thank you, then.”

“Thank you.”

They passed a few more stores, including a bookstore she used to frequent as a child for story-hours and a temporary tattoo parlor/henna artist who was very liberal with her discounts, before Sarah interrupted herself.

“So are you from Red Bank?”

Trowa looked away from the heavy gray clouds slowly rolling in from the coast. “Red Bank?”

“Guess not. Hoboken?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Okay, so you’re not from north Jersey. New Yorker then. That’s a shame.”

“I’m from Colorado.”

“No way,” she said, stopping so fast that Jazz yelped as the leash went tight. Sarah ducked down to sooth her neck with pets. “You sound just like a north Jersian.”

Trowa wasn’t exactly sure what a “north Jersian” sounded like, but he assumed it might be a little bit like a “New Yorker,” considering the proximity. He had no idea why it was a shame.“It’s totally unintentional.”

“You’ve been in Ocean City for how long?”

“Almost two,” he said slowly, weaving slightly as he walked.

“How you been to north Jersey yet?”

“No.”

“Have you ever?”

“This is my first time in New Jersey.”

“Freaky. I so had you pegged as north Jersey.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“No, no, no. I’m just surprised. Colorado. I’ve never been out that far. Is it nice there?”

Trowa had never been to Colorado. He wasn’t sure if he even flew over it. Tracey, though, had lived there his entire life. Born in Denver, raised in Boulder until he was old enough to miss it, and then rotted away in Cripple Creek: a mining town with less than two-thousand people, with enough space between the houses that no one heard, or cared, about what happened to the neighbors.

“It’s cold,” he muttered. “Often.”

“There are mountains in Colorado, right? The Rockies? Did you live near them? They must be beautiful.”

Trowa had a book—which he really shouldn’t think about—that had mountains in it. He wasn’t sure if they were the Rockies or not; he never spent that much time looking at the captions.If they were the Rockies, though, they were beautiful. White in winter, with forests dripping down their slopes in drips of paint. Green and grey in summer. Gold in the mornings and evenings as the sun kissed the horizon, before brightening into blue or deepening into violet as day came or ended.

He had been tempted to hide out in the Midwest, where mountains pierced the sky on every side of small towns. But Trowa had seen mountains. He had been, briefly, encircled by their cold, constant presence. He had never seen the ocean.

“It’s okay. I prefer the ocean.”

“Water and sand,” she said frowning out at the beach. “For as far as you can see. Oh, and crabs, and jellyfish in summer.”

“Better than rocks. Miles and miles of rocks, straight into the sky, and trees, and sometimes bears if you’re really unlucky.”

“I’ve never seen mountains, so I think I might enjoy the miles and miles of rocks. And bears are at least exciting.”

“I’ve never seen the ocean so I like the miles and miles of water. And they’re only exciting until they’re nosing at your backdoor.”

“They come to your door?”

“They’re bears. They kind of do what they want.”

“Did bears ever come to your door?”

“A couple of times, yeah.”

“Wow,” she said, head falling back as if she couldn’t imagine bears on a back porch. Actually, Trowa couldn’t for that matter. Not really anyway, but he had the small experience of bears (and lions, tigers, and the occasional elephant) walking past his trailer, sometimes under his guidance. He imagined it was quite a bit worse than that.

“So did you come to escape the bears,” she asked.

“No. Actually I—”

“There it is!”

Trowa followed the sudden flick of her hand. It took him a moment to pick out this “famous” pizza place from the rest of the store fronts. It was only one in this segment with an green and white awning, weather beaten and tattered. As they approached, Trowa noticed that there was a name scrawled across the front of the awning: Manco and Manco’s. The letters were faded to near invisibility.

Within a couple of feet of the entrance, Trowa saw that it was clearly one of the busiest places on the boardwalk; there were at least six people at the counter and another two sitting at the nearest table. From the smells, he could see why. His stomach rumbled at the idea of cheese, tomatoes, and hard baked bread, and then lurched when it remembered that it wasn’t actually accepting food at the moment.

The disaster was approaching; he could feel it.

“I can’t take Jazz inside, so would you mind waiting out here with her? It won’t take long, since it’s not super busy. We can eat on the bench since it’s nice out.”

Trowa glanced at the gray sky growing steadily grayer as the clouds moved in. There was a cold, wet bite to the wind coming off the water. “Nice out” was going to last another hour, tops. “I can wait here, no problem.”

“Any requests? It’s on me, and they have an amazing sausage and pepper pizza.”

“Plain’s fine,” he said.

“Are you sure? They’ve got mushroom and ham and pepperoni, of course and—”

“Plain’s fine,” he said. “I like uncomplicated pizza.”

“Uncomplicated it is,” she said. Sarah pushed the leash into his hands before hurrying off. Trowa glanced down at Jazz. She looked up at him with large eyes before butting her head against his knee.

Trowa didn’t have much experience with dogs, apart from a couple of guard dogs that had chased him off bases when he was young and stupid. He had lots of experience with lions, though. The control principles were probably similar, and Trowa ran a much lower risk of losing a very large chunk of his body if he pissed off the dog. Trowa wound the leash around his right hand once and grabbed the remaining lead with his left. He tugged gently. Jazz resisted for a second, pulling back against him, before turning with the leash.

Trowa led her over to the empty wooden bench sitting under the railing. He was tempted for a moment to the leash around one of the metal poles that connected the bench’s seat to its back. Instead, Trowa leaned against the rail. He gave the leash slack and then spent the next few minutes carefully unwinding the nylon from around his knees as Jazz walked around him. Eventually, Jazz settled down next to him and laid her head on top of his foot. Trowa dropped down slowly.

There was something oddly pleasant about sitting back on his heels, scratching a dog behind the ears, and watching storm clouds roll slowly in off the coast. The soft push and pull of the water, the quiet crash as the waves broke against the shore, drowned out the little human activity he could hear behind him until there was only the cool rush of the water, the hard wood under his feet, and the warm fur under his hands. Trowa shifted carefully, stretching out his legs until he could let them dangle over the edge of the walk. Jazz’s head ended up in his lap, turning against his jeans as she tried to guide his fingers to the places she wanted petted.

Maybe I should think about getting a pet. He was finding them unexpectedly pleasant, a steady and comfortable weight and warmth against him. And a pet would be an excellent distraction, which he so sorely needed. Maybe Trowa should think about getting something: a dog, or a cat maybe. He might enjoy having a cat; cats were quiet, efficient creatures. They were affectionate and independent in turns, which was fine. A cat, when it was so inclined, would fit nicely in his lap or in the crook between his shoulder and neck. A cat, however, probably wouldn’t enjoy sitting on the beach or boardwalk in the wind, watching the ocean. It certainly wouldn’t enjoy trying to get there. A dog would, though, and right now, sitting on the boardwalk with a head in his lap was exactly what Trowa wanted to do.

Of course, when he was ready to leave, having a pet would be something of a problem. Depending on the size, transporting it could be difficult and costly. Depending on how deeply he dove into the underground, he might not even have time to take care of it. And if he did take it with him, Trowa couldn’t depend on anyone to pet sit when he disappeared for days, or weeks, on end. It would not only be unfair but it would carry a much higher risk of discovery. Trowa would rather not have to kill more people than he absolutely had to.

Still, having a dog’s head on his lap, drool and all, was nice enough that Trowa considered it. He heard in passing that there was a shelter nearby, and Mrs. Cass’ son was still begging for a puppy. He could leave it, if he needed to.

“Pizza’s here,” Sarah called.

Trowa looked back at her and nodded. Standing slowly, he traded the leash for a thick paper plate and cup. Sarah tied the end of the leash around the bench’s feet. She stroked Jazz’s head once before hurrying back to the restaurant.

Trowa looked down at the plate in his hand. No wonder she couldn’t bring both at once. The two slices of plain cheese pizza took up the entire plate, their edges draping dangerously over the sides. Trowa sat down on the bench, setting his cup down by his feet, away from Jazz’s slowly wagging tail, and balancing the plate on his knees. He could see the grease oozing out of the cheese, and while Trowa never normally had a problem with it—pizza wasn’t supposed to be healthy, after all—the sight of it made his stomach flip hard.

Sarah dropped down beside him, cradling two of the most topping-packed pizza slices he had ever seen between her hands. “Oh that smells good.”

Trowa swallowed the lump that had crept into his throat. “Really good.” Sarah took a large bite and sighed happily. Trowa balanced a slice on his fingers and took a much smaller one. It was almost too hot to eat. Trowa chewed slowly. Somehow, through the thick numbness that overpowered his mouth as the nausea rose, he knew that he was eating an exemplary piece of pizza. He was going to feel terrible for throwing it back up.

Maybe if he took really small bites at really long intervals, he’d keep it down.

“So,” Sarah said after eating half of her first slice and taking a long drink. “If you didn’t come here to escape the bears, why Ocean City?”

Trowa took two careful bites before answering. “It seemed like a quiet place,” he said. Trowa actually hadn’t put much thought into it; there hadn’t been enough time. He had needed a small town depressed enough by the war to be off the radar while not completely broken. Ocean City fit, and had the added bonus of a minor reputation concerning its seaside. “I need quiet to work.”

“You need quiet for inventory?”

“I need quiet to write. Stock is just a paycheck to tide me over until I get something out there.”

“You’re a writer?”

“Yeah,” he said, with a sinking suspicion about where this was going. Sarah didn’t disappoint him. Her mouth broke into a wide smile and she nearly knocked her pizza off her lap.

“That’s so cool. Are you working on anything now?”

“I’m working on a couple of things.”

“A couple? Oh awesome. Can you tell me about any of them?”

Trowa devoured half of his pizza despite his heaving stomach. He needed the excuse; he needed the time. Apart from a couple of names and the very beginnings of something that might be considered a plot, Trowa had nothing that would be convincing enough for Tracey to ramble on about. He had, after all, been trying to avoid those tiring conversations. Swallowing hard, he somehow managed to drag up Tracey’s enthusiasm.

“I’ve got this one right now that I think is going to be it. It’s got all of my attention all the time. There’s this girl, Eudora, and she—”

Surprisingly, Sarah threw her hands over her ears, nearly upsetting the pizza again. “No, no, no, stop, stop. I changed my mind.”

Trowa was too confused to let Tracey be hurt. “I thought—”

“I don’t want to spoil it,” she said, bringing her hands down. “If this is ‘the one,’ then I don’t want to have it already ruined for me when I buy it.”

“But it could be totally different by then.”

“It might not be, and if there’s anything I hate, it’s having a book ruined for me.”

“Oh,” he said and, despite not writing a word, found himself oddly touched by the reasoning and the sincere passion behind it. “So you like to read?”

“More like love. You’re catching me in one of those rare moments when I don’t have a book glued to my nose.”

“That sounds time-consuming.”

“So does writing.”

“Point taken,” he said. Trowa took another bite. He needed a long drink to force it down, and it still bounced back up once. Trowa pitched forward slightly. Sarah, who had started her second slice, didn’t notice.

“So what do you do, when you’re not reading?” he managed after a moment.

“College,” she said, taking a sip of her drink.“And babysitting, oh, and sometimes work-study but only when the professor is actually, you know, there.” Sarah sighed and played with her straw. “Technically, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing today, but he had another conference this weekend. I know, I should be happy to be working under such a highly-demanded, well-connected professor,” Trowa, bent over his rolling stomach, didn’t particularly care at the moment. “But it would be nice if he stuck around more than one weekend a semester. I would like to actually earn my seven-fifty-an-hour and, you know, do simple stuff like stop begging Mom for gas money.”

She sighed and shrugged, turning at just the right moment to see Trowa shove the plate off his lap.

He had no idea where the nearest bathroom was and highly doubted he would make it even if he did. There was a trashcan about twenty feet away, but he was shaking too hard to run to it. And then he would have to try to fit the lid off. So Trowa lurched off of the bench, tripping over the leash Jazz had pulled tight in her search for bits of cheese and crust. He caught himself on the railing and straightened just in time to vomit over the side into the sand and not onto his shoes.

“Tracey!” Through the hard pounding of his pulse in his ear, Trowa heard a sharp yelp. Then there were hands: settling on his shoulder, drifting up towards his neck, skating down towards his waist. Trowa forced one hand to let go of its vice-grip on the railing and swung.

“Don’t!”

Thankfully, Sarah had decent reaction time, and Trowa had terrible aim at the moment. She jumped back out of the arch of the backhand. He caught a glimpse of her wide-eyed, pale face before the too-fast spin shoved his stomach back into his throat. Trowa doubled-over the railing and heaved.

When his meager lunch, and meager breakfast, and far too much stomach acid, was finally up, Trowa slipped to his knees. He rested his forehead against the cool metal. Tears pricked at his eyes. Trowa turned his face into his arms.

Something cold suddenly dripped down the back of his neck. Trowa jumped and nearly banged his head.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just water. I’ll just leave it here, by your knee. Left knee, your left knee.”

Trowa scrubbed his eyes once against the crook of his elbow before glancing down at the water. It was in a familiar green-and-white paper cup. From behind he heard, “He all right?” Trowa’s face flushed. He ducked his head as he brought the cup shakily to his lips.

Through the dark hair falling over his face, he saw Sarah look over her shoulder. “He’s fine,” she called. She waited a minute, probably until whoever worked in Manco and Manco’s went back inside, before looking back at him.

Trowa rinsed his mouth and spit the spoiled water into the sand. “Sorry,” he muttered. He pushed his hair back from his face. Sarah frowned.

“Why’d you come if you’re sick?”

Trowa frowned. “I’m not sick.”

“Throwing up is sick. Throwing up after six bites is really sick.”

“Ten bites.”

“It’s still half a slice,” she said. Sarah chewed on her lip before leaning forward. Trowa could stop himself from leaning back until he hit the railing again. “Did you pick up the bug flying around?”

“Bug?”

“This stomach thing hitting the schools. Half my brother’s class is out with it.”

That certainly sounded better than making himself sick. “Maybe. I don’t know,” he said taking a sip of water. Sarah rocked back on her heels.

“You need anything? Soda usually settles my stomach. All the bubbles and stuff.”

Trowa glanced down at the water in his hands. The cold splash wasn’t making his stomach roll any less. Carbonation might, though. “That’d be great.”

Sarah took a little bit longer to get the soda. Trowa, sitting back against the railing, watched her as she lingered at the counter. She smiled, though, when she came back: a small, sheepish twitch to the corners of her lips that didn’t quite reach her eyes. It was uncomfortably familiar.

“I’m sorry,” he said when she crouched just in reach of him and handed him the soda. “For… I don’t, I don’t like people touching me. When I’m sick.”

Sarah watched him closely before smiling a bit more. The warmth of it touched her eyes. “I guess it is pretty gross and embarrassing,” she said, shifting a little closer. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’d appreciate that,” he said. Trowa sipped the soda carefully; the carbonation settled his stomach slowly.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t really enjoy your pizza,” she said. Trowa shrugged.

“No, but someone is.” Sarah followed the slow, careful nod he made towards the bench. In his haste, Trowa had knocked his plate clean off the bench, and in their distraction Jazz had managed to nose the plate away from the partly-eaten pieces. She was dutifully licking cheese and sauce from the wood, crust crumbles dotting her muzzle.

“I don’t suppose you’d want something for the road.”

“I’ll pass.”

Sarah frowned at Jazz as she crawled after more sauce-and-cheese stains. “I’m leaving you outside tonight if you get sick.”

Jazz licked determinedly at the stain.

“Stupid dog. She won’t get sick, either. My brother feeds her so much junk sometimes, I’m amazed she isn’t two-hundred pounds,” she said. Sarah leaned her chin into her hand. “You should probably go home and get some rest.”

“Probably.”

“And you probably shouldn’t go to work. I’m pretty sure they’d be upset if you threw up all over their inventory.”

“Probably. We’d end up throwing it all away because of ‘contamination.’ I’d probably get fired.”

“And that would be bad.”

Sarah chewed on her lip as he eased himself to his feet. Once, when he swayed and nearly dropped the half-finished soda as he tried to catch himself, she looked like she wanted to lunge forward and catch him. She rocked back to sit on the wood instead, folding her arms over her knees. Trowa ran his hand through his hair.

“I’ll see you around maybe,” he said slowly. Sarah looked up at him. The smile made her glow.

“That’d be cool. Maybe if you’re feeling up to it, we can explore more Saturday or Sunday. Get some salt-water taffy in you.”

“If I can hold it down.”

“Here’s hoping. If you can’t, though, it keeps well. Lasts for days, years if you freeze it.”

“I’ve got work on Saturday.”

“I’ve got some stuff tomorrow too, so how about Sunday?”

“Sunday could work.”

“So maybe Sunday then,” she asked.

Trowa nodded slowly after a moment. “Maybe Sunday.”

Trowa headed back to the ramp near the flagpoles slowly, partly because he wanted to be easy with his stomach and partly because he couldn’t quite stop himself from glancing back over his shoulder. Sarah stayed at the bench for a while longer, moving only to sit next to Jazz. She ripped off small pieces of the rest of her pizza and let Jazz nibbled them from the palm of her hand. She looked up only once, catching him watching as he walked way. Sarah waved as she rubbed Jazz’s head. Trowa slipped the hand without the cup from his pocket and waved once.

The next time he looked back, Sarah had already unwound Jazz from the bench. She was at least twenty feet from the bench, walking in the other direction. Trowa was suitably uncomfortable with the sudden prick of disappointment.

Trowa walked, drinking the rest of the soda in slow, quiet sips. When he finished, he chewed on the straw, grinding the plastic between his teeth. His stomach still rolled a bit with every step, but it was less from the food and the stress and the anxiety.

He was looking forward to this “maybe Sunday,” and he shouldn’t. The meeting hadn’t been exactly a disaster, but throwing up in front of a total stranger should have been embarrassing enough to make Trowa shun any further contact. He was probably going to blush when he saw her. If he saw her, and he wasn’t. Besides, Sarah was exhausting. She seemed to have a problem with extended silences, only pausing comfortably when she needed to breathe. And she was only going to get worse; it wouldn’t be long until she wouldn’t be able to contain herself and begged him for extensive details about something he was “working” on. Trowa wouldn’t make it through that conversation.

There wasn’t going to be a “maybe Sunday.” Period. So Trowa needed to stop lengthening his stride into a more pleased stroll at the thought of taffy, and he needed to stop his mouth from quirking when he wondered if Sarah would bring Jazz.

Thankfully, the clouds opened up as he reached his ramp and tossed the empty cup one-handed into the trash can. Then all Trowa could think about was getting back to the apartment before he was soaked through.

Trowa didn’t run. He didn’t exactly trust his stomach to stay where it was with that level of activity. He did, however, walk as fast as he could, shoulders hunched against the steadily increasing rain. A third of the way there, Trowa pulled his head back over his head and zipped his jacket up to his chin. The rain drummed hard against the denim. It was heavy in minutes.

As he rounded the last corner, Trowa glanced back over his shoulder. He couldn’t even really see the boardwalk from here, and he had no idea how far away she lived from it. He hoped it wasn’t too far. She couldn’t have had an umbrella. She didn’t even have a purse. There were plenty of stores on the boardwalk, and several of them had to have umbrellas, or awnings where she could wait the rain out. She’s fine, now stop it. There’s no Sunday. Stop thinking about it.

Trowa yanked his head back towards the entrance of his apartment building. He stopped.

Thirty feet ahead, approximately, a braid slipped around the edge of the entrance way. It slapped wetly against the worn brick that made up the entrance’s arch. Just past the long, soggy sweeping of that hair, Trowa caught a glimpse of brown khakis soaked to the knee and drenched yellow sneakers. Trowa waited twenty agonizing seconds. There were no shouts of the name he dared not say aloud, no bodies streaking from the cover of the entrance towards him. Trowa took a stumbling step backwards. His second step was steadier.

Yanking his hood down over his face, Trowa turned. He shoved his wet hands into his wet pockets as he headed back towards the boardwalk, making turns at random. He would find the shelter now. He’d stumble upon it by accident. It would only take a few hours; in a few hours, they would be discouraged.

And if they weren’t, there were a couple of roofs close enough that he might make the jump.

A/n: I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter. A part of me feels like it’s nothing but filler, and that I should never have introduced Sarah. But that part of me is also very aware that I’m not in a good place right now and have been second guessing everything. That part of me things that the closer I get to the conclusion, the faster my story is unraveling.

I certainly hope that part of me is wrong.

This is a bit of a nasty cliffhanger, and I’m sorry to say that’s all you are going to have until around December 20^th. I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year, so Chains is going to be on the back burner during November. I will work on it when I can, but I won’t be able to dedicate serious time to it until December 1^st. You have my most sincerest apologies.

But chapter 23 may be the chapter everyone is waiting for. Chapter 23 is when the rest of the pilots confront Trowa. Or perhaps it will be Trowa who confronts them. I think there are accusations to be made on all sides.

As always, if you have a moment, please review. I’ve been getting a lot of constructive criticism recently. Quite a bit of it has forced me to pause and reevaluate what I’m doing, which is never a bad thing. I do appreciate hearing from you and I really value the time and attention you’ve given Chains.

I remain, as always, your humble storyteller.

~*~LadyYeinKhan~*~

You can find story updates and other information at ahsimwithsake.tumblr.com
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The Chains We Wear