Pretty Electric

Disclaimer: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is copyrighted to Bandai, Sunrise, and The Sotsu Agency.

Pretty Electric
by Raletha

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Chapter 6: Midnight Snack
Where Quatre cannot sleep, and Trowa considers mortality.

I tossed and turned for an hour before giving up on sleep for the night. Disturbing images from my nightmare lingered behind my closed eyelids and intruded into both thoughts and imaginings, though I tried to divert them. My bedding, dampened with sweat and twisted about my limbs no longer invited rest, and my body echoed with the memory of dreamed (and unsatisfied) arousal. I got up. It took me a few minutes to decide for what purpose I should be getting up. I did not wish to cloister myself in my bedroom, but since Trowa\'s arrival, I had not ventured from my bedroom during the night. I worried—irrationally, I suppose—that I would interrupt him somehow.

It was my home, I reminded myself, and snagged my dressing gown from its hook on the back of my bedroom door. Muscles in my shoulders spasmed painfully, reminding me of my earlier, too zealous gym outing. I winced, feeling the stiffness of impending aches in my arms, back, and thighs as well; but my fingers found comfort in the familiar dense burgundy velvet and thick silk cording of the garment.

The rest of me felt decidedly unfamiliar as I opened the door and padded down the hall barefoot. I had no idea what to expect.

The light over the sink was on but no others in the immediate living area. It left the living room deep in shadow. My eyes strained to make out a Trowa-like shape, in case he were there. I did not know where he did his daily shut down and maintenance. \"Trowa?\" I inquired of the darkness. I received no reply.

In the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of chilled water and sipped it while leaning back against the counter. Should I seek out Trowa? Curiosity bade me to, and I did not think I could get back to sleep now anyway. I set my half drunk glass on the counter and made my way to the hall. A soft light glowed beneath the door to the library.

I sidled up to the closed door and held my ear near its surface, seeking acoustic hints of what the android may be doing. I heard nothing, so I opened the door.

Trowa was in the chair by the window, with a large book of Cubist art open in his lap, open to Duchamp\'s Nude Descending a Staircase. It was a distinctive enough piece, I could recognise it from where I stood. His attention turned from it to me as I paused at the threshold of the room. I took but one silent step into the library; my fingers fastened upon the plush side seams of my robe. I felt like a boy suddenly, unsure of my presence in this room, at this time, in this company. Reflexively I smiled.

\"I couldn\'t sleep,\" I said, in explanation. I nearly added that it was due to a nightmare, but I did not want to speak of the dream lest words concretize its imagery; I was sure Trowa would ask for details if I mentioned it.

Trowa looked at me for a long moment without speaking. The book he shut with a thudded slap and set aside. He stood, rising in an inhumanly fluid movement. \"What do you desire of me, Quatre?\" he asked, his voice low and soft and full of the nighttime.

Maybe it was my imagination, but as he moved toward me, I thought I perceived a seductive twist in his torso, a inviting tilt of his head, a too-slow blink. My breath tangled with my heartbeat on it\'s way into my lungs. I took another deeper, smoother breath before trying to speak. His uncanny green eyes fixed their gaze on my face. Inquisitive.

\"I...\" I took a half step to the side and back, and Trowa halted a pace from me. \"I didn\'t have anything in mind. I just, thought I\'d see you, what you were doing.\"

The android frowned, a fleeting expression of confusion, and then smiled as if the frown had never marred his features. \"I\'m here,\" he said.

I laughed a little, mostly at myself for being so unsettled without real cause. But I still did not know what to say.

Trowa kept looking at me—studying me almost—with his little smile on his face. It almost looked like affection.

Conversation was not Trowa\'s primary purpose, but I wished he would say something more, something I could work with. My brain was bleary from both sleep and my abrupt awakening. A headache lurked behind my eyelids. I rubbed my temples and felt my neck muscles twinge as I rolled my head.

\"Are you in discomfort?\" Trowa asked.

\"Just a little headache,\" I said, \"And I might\'ve overdone it at the gym today.\"

\"May I?\" Trowa asked, reaching for my shoulder with a hand.

I did not protest or pull away this time, and so I let him touch me, as Duo had exhorted.

Slowly and carefully, as if I might bolt away like a timid animal, Trowa\'s hand folded over my shoulder, and he gently prompted me to turn. I held my breath, trusting him through my anxiety, until both of his hands touched me, resting upon my shoulders for moment before moving to my head. His fingertips eased into my hair and pressed against my scalp, into the tension of my nascent headache. I bit my lip to prevent an exhalation of pleasure.

Oh, it had been a long time since anyone had done this for me. And this! It was the best scalp massage in existence; I was convinced. \"Where\'d you learn to—?\" I began, before I realised it was a wholly moronic question. Bliss blurred my words.

\"Pardon me, Quatre?\"

\"Nothing, never mind,\" I said. Rising into the sinking bliss of the massage was the flicker of physical arousal; I tried to ignore it. \"That feels nice, Trowa.\"

His thumbs slid down my neck, worked into the ache there, and I let out a little sigh. Too good. Trowa\'s hands were too good. The induced relaxation weakened my knees, and I feared I might slump back against Trowa. \"Thank you,\" I said, and made myself firm my stance. I pulled away, slowly, and turned to face the android.

\"Do you feel better?\"

I nodded. \"Yes, thanks, Trowa.\"

\"Do you think you can sleep now?\" the android asked.

Remembering my tangled and sweaty bedding, I grimaced. \"Doubtful. I need to change my sheets.\"

\"May I assist you?\"

Trowa\'s seeming eagerness made me smile. \"Please,\" I said, but my smile faded as I wondered what part of my psychology had made him eager for subservience. Or maybe all PA\'s were like this, I reassured myself.

The wisdom of inviting Trowa into my bedroom at three in the morning did not register long in my mind. I was awake, yes, but it was the hollow-brained sort of awake one only experiences in those small hours when your circadian rhythms are insisting that your proper mental state is unconsciousness, and yet, here you are—foolish creature—being awake. The ache to return to sleep was a tangible void behind my breastbone; a tangible vacuum behind my eyes. Fresh sheets—or rather the promise of them—had me beckon Trowa within my sanctuary, and direct him to the opposite side of my bed to assist me in stripping off the soiled sheets.

Once the dirty sheets were in a wad by the door, I retrieved a clean set from the linen cupboard in my en suite. They were, in contrast to the plain ivory we had stripped from the bed, cinnamon brown shadow striped cotton.

I shook out the bottom sheet and passed a corner to Trowa; he examined the fabric, running his fingertips over the texture of the finely woven stripes. I did not rush him.

He rubbed the fabric between his fingertips curiously.

\"Do you like the way that feels?\" I asked, curious myself. I remained uncertain to what extent Trowa could experience things such as likes and dislikes, without them having been preprogrammed directives.

\"It\'s very soft fabric,\" Trowa said.

\"It\'s comfortable for sleeping,\" I said and pulled the top of the sheet up to the head of the bed. Trowa watched me lift the mattress and tuck the pocket of the sheet about the corner. He did the same on his side of the bed.

\"What is sleep like, Quatre?\"

I smoothed the bottom of the sheet into place, and grabbed the top sheet, handing one edge to Trowa as I considered his question. \"Sleep is usually, for me, like oblivion. I don\'t remember my dreams often.\"

\"Then is it like being dead?\"

\"I really couldn\'t tell you, Trowa, having never been dead,\" I chuckled.

Trowa grinned. \"Of course.\"

\"Some people believe in an afterlife of some sort, so maybe it\'s not oblivion.\"

\"Heaven and Hell, for much of Western religion, correct?\"

\"Yeah, that\'s right.\"

\"Perhaps, if death is like sleep, then the afterlife is like a dream.\" Trowa said.

I smiled and nodded my head. An original thought; an analogy solved. \"That\'s a very interesting idea, Trowa.\"

\"I don\'t have dreams when I am shut down,\" he said, as if confiding a secret to me.

\"No, I wouldn\'t expect you did,\" I said.

The android appeared disgruntled by this fact, but it required consciousness for dreams. And many would hold, a subconscious as well. I tossed a pillow and pillowcase to Trowa; he caught them easily, and we finished making the bed.

After pulling the comforter up, Trowa stood regarding me expectantly.

\"Thank you, Trowa.\"

\"Do you feel you can return to sleep now?\"

\"I don\'t know.\"

\"If you do not believe you can, may I ask something of you, Quatre, please?\"

Nothing in Trowa\'s expression or carriage hinted at what it might he wanted to ask me. But given the context: night time, my bedroom, my bed between us... \"You may ask,\" I said to him. I sounded like I did at work sometimes. Or like my father had: chilly.

\"Duo said you had art in your closet. You said you would show it to me. Could you please show me now?\"

Ah, that. I was relieved. \"We may as well look at them now,\" I said, and smiled at Trowa, to let him know I wasn\'t upset by his question. \"I\'m glad you reminded me.\"

I moved to the double doors of my closet—in truth it was more of a room, larger even than my en suite bathroom and toilet, but smaller than my bedroom proper. Opening one of the doors I gestured for Trowa to join me. \"Come in, Trowa. It\'s easier than bringing them out.\"

He joined me in my closet. The lights came up, triggered by our entrance. While Trowa looked about the room, especially at the three way mirror (or his reflection in it), I went to where the framed art was, stacked together against the wall, behind my old suits, covered in blankets.

An accent chair sat near the mirror, so I shifted the first piece to lean against it. This one was a replica of Emile Levy\'s The Death of Orpheus. \"The death of another Greek dude,\" I said to Trowa as I pulled the blanket off.

\"Orpheus,\" said Trowa, immediately rapt. He knelt before the painting.

\"Do you know the story?\"

\"He is about to be torn apart by the Maenads, for loving \'tender boys\' rather than them.\"

\"That\'s one version,\" I said.

\"It\'s a brutal scene.\"

\"Yes,\" I said, and knelt next to Trowa. I watched him as he examined the painting. It was rich with detail. Brutal and yet sensuous with an eroticism of death: the passion of the Maenads and the surrender of Orpheus.

\"May I touch it?\"

\"Yes,\" I said and turned my attention to his hand, his fingertips lightly skating over the surface of the oil paint, feeling the texture of the work of the artist who made this copy.

\"It is beautiful,\" Trowa said.

\"Do you think so?\"

\"Yes.\" The android nodded. \"Death is mysterious, and enigma is beautiful.\"

\"Some say he was killed shortly after exiting Hades, after falling into despair for failing to save Euridice.\"

\"Can I die?\" Trowa asked.

Trowa was looking at me now, serious and earnest in his question. Innocent also.

\"I don\'t know,\" I told him, for I didn\'t. \"To die implies having lived. I don\'t think—I don\'t know if you are alive.\"

Trowa\'s gaze returned to Orpheus, lying despondent under the Maenads poised to butcher him. His lyre lay nearby, broken. Looking too long at him left me raw and melancholy—part of the reason this painting remained in here, hidden.

\"Am I alive?\" Trowa asked. I sensed it was a question directed at himself (peculiar), but then he asked me, \"You are alive, Quatre. How do you know you are?\"

Being alive was not that same question as being conscious, for a mushroom is alive, but does not—to the best of modern scientific knowledge—possess consciousness in any form. Nor was being alive equivalent with existing, for many things not alive exist: mountains, oceans, umbrellas. Maybe Trowa too.

Being alive had something to do with biology; that was intuitive, but not relevant to Trowa\'s query, for he was not biological, and my being biological likely had little to do with my own personal sense of being alive. Life did imply change and growth though. Perhaps that was it. Over time, alive things changed. \"I think it has something to do with change over time, growth of some sort—psychological, physical. The capacity for and experience of that growth, I think, is what lets me know I am alive.\"

\"I change over time, I learn,\" said Trowa. \"So I am alive, and I can therefore die.\"

\"I don\'t know,\" I said, doubtful. It couldn\'t be that easy. Maybe there was nothing to let me know that I was alive. I just took it as axiomatic. \"I\'m not a scientist.\"

\"May I see another painting now, please?\"

\"Okay,\" I said, and stood. Trowa helped me put The Death of Orpheus back against the wall, and he helped me pull out the next piece. For a moment I considered: if I could not determine whether I was alive, then I had no way of knowing that I was not a simulation. Except I was conscious, something subjective enough that even its illusion required its existence. Odd.

\"This one,\" I said to Trowa as we propped the framed print against the chair, \"is a Sixteenth Century depiction of Hell.\" I pulled the blanket off.

Silence followed my words; Trowa looked at the painting. He remained standing this time.

\"What do you think?\"

The android frowned, as if in concentration. \"This painting is very different from your other ones. Though the death motif is present, here is it more grotesque. Is that the right word for it, Quatre? Grotesque?\"

\"Yes, that\'s right.\"

\"There are many distorted and inhuman figures.\"

\"The souls of the damned and demons,\" I told him. \"And the central figure is called Meg, a symbol of Madness, perhaps.\"

\"Why do you have this?\"

I shrugged. \"After my father died,\" I started. \"It\'s difficult to explain. I had been feeling very morbid, and somehow very comforted by indulging my own misery. When I saw this, it suited my mood, my own particular madness then.\"

\"Is that why you have so many paintings depicting death?\"

\"The others I got later,\" I said. \"To remind me I\'ll die someday too.\"

\"Why would you wish to remind yourself of your own ending?\" Trowa\'s puzzlement appeared genuine.

I sank to the floor and sat cross-legged. One of my favourite figures in the painting was the fish looking demon eating a man. Only the man\'s leg remained outside the fish-demon\'s mouth. I smiled at it. Dark yes, but whimsical. \"Death isn\'t really about endings so much as it\'s about change,\" I said.

\"But it is an end?\" Trowa sat on the floor next to me.

\"For the person who dies, I suppose it is. For the people around him, though, it\'s change, and change that profound is hard to accept. Changes like death, we\'re rarely ready for. I want to be ready for it, for my own and for those of others.\"

\"You were not ready for your father\'s death, then?\"

\"No.\" I reached and tugged the blanket down over Bruegel\'s vision of Hell, but I did not stand.

Softly the android asked, \"Could you tell me about it, Quatre, please? I want to understand you.\"

\"Understand me?\" I said, but kept my laugh caged in my throat. \"Good luck. I don\'t understand myself.\"

\"I don\'t understand that,\" Trowa said; his rueful smile echoed mine.

\"My father,\" I began, inhaled and exhaled deeply. The knot was still there in my chest. \"Where do I start?\"

\"Anywhere you like,\" Trowa said.

I nodded. \"I guess I should tell you how he really wanted me to do this, what I\'m doing now, with the business. My great-great-great grandfather founded the company, early twentieth century. We\'re a private company, and\'ve been in the family the whole time, so it was important to my father that I take up the mantle after him. That sort of thing—legacy—is important to a lot of people.

\"But, \" I sighed. \"I didn\'t want to. I hated studying business and economics and accountancy and management. They\'re the most boring things humans have invented.\"

Trowa smiled, and I returned it. He was apprehending my humour well now—reasonably consistently too.

\"So,\" I continued. \"After my second year at university, I decided I needed a change. I couldn\'t do what he wanted me to do. It was suffocating me.\" I leaned back on straight arms, and Trowa half turned to maintain his facing of me. \"I didn\'t know what else I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted something different. I had some other interests—like Music and Art and Classics—that I thought I could pursue. For the following year, I thought maybe I should enroll in a variety of classes, see what might appeal. I chose some science, some art. Other things too.

\"When my father found out, he was furious. We had a big fight. The details aren\'t that important, but I told him how he\'d never understood me, how he didn\'t really care about me—who I truly was. All he cared about was what he thought he saw of himself in me, and that it was all an illusion. Wishful thinking. I wasn\'t anything like him. In fact, I told him I hated him.

\"Then I left. I got a hotel room, and sulked and felt sorry for myself.

\"I didn\'t speak to my father again. I dipped into my savings to rent my own place. I didn\'t even go home to get my things, not that first week.\" I sighed again. The memory weighed heavily within me. My spoiled self-indulgence, my ingratitude and cruelty to my father.

\"I left home on the Saturday night we fought. The following Thursday, my sister tracked me down to tell me father had died. An aortic tear. It was completely unexpected. Just one of those things that happens, I guess.

\"That\'s what happened,\" I said. \"That\'s how he died.\"

Trowa slowly inclined his head in acknowledgement of my monologue. It was the most I think I\'d told him about myself. I\'d never told this story to anyone else. No one else knew. No one. My father and I were the only ones who had witnessed that ugliest fight. We were the only ones who knew the last thing I\'d said to him was that I hated him.

I expected to be crying, but my eyes were dry. The lump in my chest was still there, but I felt disconnected from it, like it belonged to someone else: the grief, the regret, the shame. It was there, but it was distant.

\"Thank you for telling me,\" Trowa said.

I smiled. Sorrow and an unexpected peace mingled within me. We put Mad Meg away.

Three more blanket shrouded pieces remained, smaller than the other two. \"The others aren\'t paintings,\" I said. \"They\'re photographs. Do you still want to see them?\" I asked hoping Trowa would decline. Thoughts of death and of my father should not be the thing to precede the pornography.

\"Yes, please,\" Trowa said. \"Unless you are sleepy.\"

\"Well,\" I said (sleepiness was returning) and withheld the sigh that asked for release. \"We can look at one more tonight.\"

\"All right,\" Trowa agreed.

My hands were a little unsteady as I pulled the first photograph out from under its blanket. I had no way to know which of the pieces I was retrieving. I hoped it wasn\'t one which would be difficult to explain to Trowa. Or perhaps, being pornography, he would not need any help from me in interpreting the image.

It was the one of the naked man in the domino mask surrounded by his (all male) troupe of admirers, each identically clad in a tuxedo and top hat. With their white gloved hands they touched him as if he were the centerpiece of the room. It was worshipful. And he held his arms overhead, permitting their covetous touches. The masked man\'s skin was hairless and smooth, like Trowa\'s. Under glass, his musculature glowed in the sepia tones of the photograph, stark contrast to the black and white formality of the others\' clothes.

\"No death here,\" I said to Trowa. I moved to stand behind him as he studied the photograph. Now that a different—but just as primitive—part of my psyche was on display, new apprehension flitted in my belly. My psychology might have been the primary variable input into the design and manufacturing of Trowa\'s brain, but I still experienced vulnerability. I did not think he would judge me for having such photographs in my collection; I did not know how he would react to it.

\"Do you find this piece erotic as well as beautiful?\" Trowa asked.

\"Yes,\" I said, for I did. The nervous flutter of my blood sank lower as I gazed upon the photo. Something about it entranced me. mind and body. The anonymity of the nude man, with his mask, inviting touch, displaying himself with his air of self-conscious prurience, and yet something about him remained almost chaste and untouchable. The tuxedoed men could look and touch with their gloved hands, but—maybe—that is all they were allowed.

And they, the admirers, also somehow anonymous. No, not quite anonymous, but lacking in individuality due to their cloned wardrobes and demeanors. Who were they, the party-goers?

Trowa was silent for a while. Then he asked me another question, a stranger one:

\"With whom do you identify most in this photograph? The man being touched, or one of the men touching?\" The android turned and looked into my face, his query bright in his eyes.

This time, I had no ready answer for Trowa.


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