A Regular Schmendrick

A GW AU Ficcie for Murasaki, written for her by The Queen of Blueberry Toast, who 
loves her with all her heart and wants to wish her a very happy birthday.

I.

The cloying aroma of late morning had nearly lulled the class to sleep, this lasting only 
until Matthew Potts found it was his turn to read. His professor had expected no less 
attention bestowed upon the pompous, disagreeable athlete, gods knew just what it was 
he played. He (the professor that is) cared not one bit, and chose instead to wish he could 
find excused for at least one of two things; leaving to wander the indiscriminate and 
shady paths of the university ground, or at least, tell Potts what he thought of him, and 
doubtlessly what would be thought of him once he was booted into the real world. 

The bluebirds outside had just finished reciting their hymnal and the lupines nodded 
against the plaque which commemorated their existence to Duessa Spencer. Ah, given a 
choice, wandering was by far the greater temptress. But he would have, and shortly did, 
settle for the latter. 

Potts read from the gym-bag crushed remains of his composition, " 'Well,' the drag queen 
answered, 'I assure you I'm gay as a Gundam pilot and just as flighty!'." 

The gallery enjoyed one fleeting moment of laughter before their instructor cracked his 
metal lectern on the floor with such force the worn linoleum beneath it snapped. 

As for the jock, and in the professor's mind he deserved such an insult, his fingers 
decided they wanted nothing more to do with his papers and thusly allowed them to 
flutter to the ground- the only further noise that could be heard in the lecture hall. He had 
quite gone the color of old porridge. 

"Mr. Potts! That is a completely and utterly inappropriate remark for this class let alone 
any polite situation you should have the misfortune to encounter!" The professor's shouts 
proved more acid than anger, not that this was particularly reassuming. Several of the 
more astute students in the back applauded him silently though, for they did not care for 
Potts at all. He was much less interesting than wondering on how such a small, lithe man 
as their teacher could make such a terrific noise. 

"B-b-but!" Potts stammered while making an attempt not to smirk unwisely. And 
attempted that failed rather miserably. "The Gundam pilots *were* gay." 

"Yes, and this is also the third century AC, young man. Your work is rife with intolerance 
and flat out rude. I will not have you insulting the other so inclined students in this class 
any longer. Moreover, I will not have you insulting your colony and the people who had 
enough courage and heart to treasure it before you were even born! Your childish, 
faithless, asinine behavior will no longer be tolerated here. You need an English credit? 
Fine! Ask what's open while your down at the office explaining why you've been forcibly 
withdrawn form my class!" 

The future exile's gaggle of teenage girls giggled like a vacuous blonde cloud behind him 
as even more students joined the gifted ones who, still presently self-relegated to the back 
row by the windows, were giving an utterly soundless standing ovation. The professor 
found their behavior oddly touching. Regardless of what was said of him between 
classes, he honestly *didn't* hate his students. 

Just Potts. 

Who apparently endeavored to attract even more rancor than before being made to leave 
in shame, for he muttered rather loudly on his way out, "Ch'! Earth wouldn'ta even been 
pissed at us if we hadn't sent fags to trash 'em." The next thing he clearly recalled 
involved confirmation of the stories regarding his teacher's phenomenal grip. The slender 
fingers might have put the holds of manacles to shame, but it was the two eyes like, 
starless, flaming nights behind their oh so innocent wire-frame spectacles that kept him 
fixed on the professor's face. 

"Don't you recognize me, boy? I know the years have not been kind to me but once when 
our people were the slaves of the earthers and mindless creatures like you were finally 
starting to dwindle but not vanish completely, I climbed into a mobile suit meant for my 
dead wife and I fought for your sorry ancestors alongside the finest men I have ever come 
to know. Don't you know that twenty years ago that pilots of 01 and 02 sat in this very 
lecture hall and listened to the great professor Spencer's lectures as he tried to take his 
wife's place? Don't you know that the pilot of 02 nearly killed himself in the very forests 
you skulk through on your weekends and that he is only living to-day since the pilot of 01 
has taken care of him since then? Don't you know anything, BOY!?" 

"N-n-no, Sir!" Potts blabbered staggering backwards the moment he was released, not to 
mention flying out the door, never to return. Silence usurped his seat. 

"Professor Chang?" Tori called from her rather hidden spot. 

Aa, he remembered that it was indeed where he used to find Heero, many years ago, as he 
peered through the windows of the auditorium door, waiting to take him home.  A sigh 
escaped him.  "Sorry about this, everyone.  All I can say is at least we shan't be disrupted 
so again for awhile, nor do I suppose I'll be able to go on until you've gotten this little 
surprise out of your systems so... Yes, Ms. Blackwood?" 

The little poetess of the back row got to her feet as if doing so would make her meek 
voice somehow more impending.  The gesture was appreciated, though it quite failed.  
"You're... THE Chang Wufei then?" 

He nodded and smiled upon his gallery of bright and fascinated eyes.  "Yes, I quite am.  
Maybe it's not the most appropriate past for a professor of literature, but it's what I am, or 
was.  Besides which, part of my surreptitious curriculum involves teaching the lot of you 
to expect the unexpected, as it were, especially when it comes to the staff of this 
particular university." 

Some knowing giggles.  One of the resident medical staff had been a dancing girl.  
Professor Spenser had started out as a Chemistry instructor.  Tori, still standing, raised 
her hand once more.  "Umm, I hope you don't mind me asking, but what's... err... become 
of the pilots of 03 and 04?" 

"No, no.  That's a perfectly valid question.  Thank you for not asking after the other two 
at any rate, as I would have to answer that they were never alright.  There, now don't.  As 
for Quatre, please pardon my use of the familiar, he lives in a small cottage with a few 
confidants.  I'm not at liberty to divulge where, it's a philosophical thing.  Trowa? I hear 
from him now and again." He became somewhat aware of this point that he had rather 
trailed off, or at least his voice had seemed to waver against the backdrop of his 
recollections. 

"Umm... when's that? Well, it's only... he was kinda my idol when I was little.  Sorry." 

"I said you were to get it out of your systems, now didn't I? Don't apologize, I still don't 
bite.  Now and again? Well, in my Terra, it is every three months or so, but it has been 
longer in the past.  I've become talkative in my dottage." 

She laughed.  Everyone laughed.  The atmosphere was not completely wasted.  If 
anything, his outburst had made it more peaceful.  Irony abounded everywhere. 

"I haven't actually SEEN him in five years, though." 

Tori's companion Jules chuckled one last time.  "You sound like Frodo waiting for 
Gandalf to visit." 

"I'll take that as a compliment, though I've yet to see too many hobbits drop kicking Oz 
officers." 

"No offense, sir, but we can't see you doing it either." 

"And with good reason! As they say, it was a long time ago, and it was not this world." 

In all spite of what he has said, and how he had smiled, to Wufei there were and had long 
been days, weeks, entire years where time where time had passed though him 
undisturbed, save by the silk strings bearing the last vapors of memory.  Many an hour he 
had lost to the troubled voices of his ghosts, chosen one book over another in desire not 
to head them or hear them at all, wishing he was but a little hobbit, or an elf resigned to 
remain on Middle Earth.  Even a lord rather exiled to the English moors of long ago; a 
frozen saint left standing in an abbey.  He reminisced as if ages had passed since his first 
grey hair, though as fact stood, he was barely forty.  But no, as a mere child he had 
already believed his purpose had been served, and his golden years had gone into full 
blossom from there. 

All his life became the biding of time, remaining merry as he could.  He had done what 
once was wished upon him, would not unravel one of his actions.  No, not for all the 
forsaken gaiety that ever was. 

For he had known not of gaiety, but rather the satisfied echoes of smiles only.  Recent 
learned was any kind happiness he bestowed upon others.  This only because of his tired 
spirit. 

And his accepting.  Of many things. 

Such as where he presently abided. 

Professor Chang was one of the few instructors of Orlando University who lived within 
walking distance of the campus.  He had no fondness for cars, and found himself recently 
looking absurd upon any motor bike.  So he walked and enjoyed it, even when it poured.  
Magnificent this city was not.  Indeed, it felt older than the colony which straddled it, 
familiar as a sitting room.  He almost could have found himself comfortable enough in it 
to go about naked if he liked, though the other citizens were doubtless not as accustomed 
to him as he was to the city. 

For a long time, he and his companions had lived in the Blake Street Apartments, but 
fortune found them now put up in two adjoining townhouses that shared the same entry 
way.  From a distance, their building appeared to be made of mint green icinged 
gingerbread, left creamy brown within.  Though gingerbread does not creak, need 
refinished or bear the aftertaste of high summer even in December.  Yes, the inner rooms 
were rather done in dark and jewel Victorian compared to the cheery facade,  but a 
homey sort of darkness, like and old photo or slipping dream. 

Wufei opened his door and hung his brief case on the crystal pummel of his own banister 
before tapping on his neighbors' door.  It was seldom he went into his own quarters first 
anymore. 

And all for the same reason an illusory fog of forgetfulness pervaded the rooms of this 
house. 

"Duo?" he called, parting the door ever so slightly. 

No answer came save a drowsy moan from the shadows beyond the window, its 
grenadine sunset panorama.  His eyes adjusted with the swiftness of a cat's... would that 
the rest of his body still responded with such skill, but no, no time to worry on that now.  
Across the room on the low, round, purple lounger with it's half-moon ottoman, two eyes 
of even more intense violet glinted at him from the furry depths. 

"I'm alright." And even thinner voice that usual finally spoke. 

"Did you take your pills?"  

"Yeah... I did, that's why I'm so sleepy." 

Wufei heaved a sigh as he slipped further into the gloom... he was only a few inches from 
Duo when he finally managed to make him out- a pale, creamy outline flung over the 
lounger, looking like a mere apparition or a child in dreamland, save that his eyes were 
more or less open, his body a tangle of bones wound with satin hair.  No, nothing about 
him fit any longer.  He could only glance up at his house mate and murmur, "Would you 
close the blinds please? It's so bright out..." 

Professor Chang made no answer save the motion of his hands as they grabbed the wand 
of the shades.  They fell shut with a soft click, banishing the light that differentiated Duo 
from his chair.  Made hi vanish.  The years had taught him there was nothing left to be 
done in this dusky little corner his friend confined himself to- the one that was so 
perfumed with his meaningless grief that no amount of pills and no amount of kindness 
could banish.  At least while he abided in the body he so often felt possessed to abandon. 

Wufei swept a few strands of his own pewter hair behind his ear and started up his own 
staircase to his own vacant chambers.  These quarters of his, he had never felt anything 
close to a need to change how they appeared: the verbose stuffed chairs, the William 
Morris Tapestries, the intaglios of colored glass that hung from the faded amber curtains- 
they had all been like this when he moved in, left by the victims of the war who had 
never returned to anything save the earth.  He did not think he believed in ghosts, save 
the faded stranger of the Maxwell boy, yet in these spaces, pretending was easy.  Too 
easy.  Indeed, he confined his own possessions mostly to the attic, and did no more to the 
downstairs than request the maid merely dust it.  Years had passed before he even felt 
worthy to lift the gilt hand mirror left upon what was now his dresser,  re-arrange the 
glass sweets in their dishes, pour away the old colognes and refill their bottles with tinted 
water so they looked just the same.  Little things could not be left to him.  These were not 
his...nothing was. 

Presently, he gave no more thought to it and felt out the key for the vasaline daisy and 
button lamp [1] that stood on the end table between his  windows and opened the curtains 
of his canopy bed so the faceted light would fall upon his comforter.  This done, he 
rooted out his laptop from among his portfolios of correction-spattered term papers and 
carried it with him up onto the bed, realizing just in time he was about to break his own 
rule regarding shoes on the bed, and so kicked his loafers into a corner. 

Then he began to write amid a swirl of anachronistic Sonny Criss jazz that came slinking 
through the wall between his townhouse and the pleasingly unincredulous neighbors.  
(He had been over several times about it, insisting that no nuisance existed, provided it 
was only played between the hours of six in the morning and ten at night.) 

[Dear Trowa, 

It has been far too long since we last spoke properly and entirely my fault that letters 
between us have fallen by the wayside.  I write now because I was reminded of you rather 
comically by a student this morning.  That this has come at last- that children know more 
of my past; for this a other things I am sorry. 

Presently, Duo continues, Heero mentors young as William did to Adso (though with 
fewer incidences of minor battery I hope) while I myself still pursue the Sisyphean task 
of teaching fine literature to students who have never before held a real book of their own 
derision.  Needless to say, last year I finally abandoned all attempts of teaching Ada or 
Ardor.  Pity this, as it is a fine book and I know you were rather partial to it.  All this and 
I should say it is more to less not a bad life, though what would the likes of us know of 
that?  I am glad, mostly.  That is enough.  Though I do wonder of you, in spells like 
alighted insects hovering amid the gossamers of my thoughts.  Only now do I see the 
words traced by their wings, head their presence.  Whatever have you been doing, 
Trowa? I do not even know what you do with your days any longer. 

Little perhaps could ever be done to amend... anything in the weeping world I suppose, or 
these twenty years of languor and regret.  I would offer though what I can.  Come visit 
me.] 

Wufei pinched his nose as soon as he had typed that last line, for his cheeks began to 
ache with an alien heat.  He batted the air before him, seeking to dissipate the bothersome 
veils of spirits who, despite quite possibly not existing, had struck his face.  He tried to 
put their incidence form his mind as he continued then with his now familiar lecture on 
how to find his house in the event of a scholarly emergency.  Trowa, however, was much 
less than likely to appear, with or without a late paper. 

But the professor nonetheless signed his letter  and cast it into the abyss of incorporeal 
mailboxes that was the basis of cyberspace communication.  He then checked to see if 
any panicked students had written him any desperate notes pertaining to their lost essays, 
stories, or poems (depending on the class) (none had) and that done, left his laptop's 
wordpro humming on the screen in case he suffered a sudden bought of insight while 
reading. 

It had been far too long since he'd last written a paper for the Orlando University Press to 
type set poorly and afflict other teachers of literature with.  He, in light of his sideways 
remark regarding it, chose his copy of Ada or Ardor- the cheap paperback version with 
the index torn out, despite that not a mark otherwise remained upon the remaining pages. 

He read: 

[Was she ever really pretty at twelve? Did he want- would he ever want to caress her, 
really caress her? Her black hair cascaded over one clavicle and the gesture she made of 
shaking it back and the dimple on her pale cheek were revelations with an element of 
immediate recognition about them.  Her parlor shone, her blackness blazed.  The denim 
he wore was becomingly tight.  Even his bare limbs were so free from suntan that one's 
gaze, stroking his porcelain could follow upon them the regular slants of fine honey-
brown hairs, the silks of his boyhood.  The irradial emerald of his serious eyes had the 
enigmatic clarity of an oriental hypnotist's look (in a web-based banner advertisement) 
and seemed to be placed higher than usual between the lower rim and the moist lower lid 
a cradle of crescent white appeared and started straight out at you...]

The laptop made a very peculiar sound.  It rang as if struck; not a tinny ejaculation of the 
speakers, but a sound that made the whole thing shudder like an iron bell. 

He remained quite alone; the notebook exhibited no further peculiarities in the frozen 
moments that passed between he and it, save that in his mind's eye, the contours of its 
edges began to began to sag as if its inner circuits had been
seized with guilt.  He touched the thing at last- it's only vibration came form the fan.  He 
put the whole thing off as a settling of one of the colossal girders beneath the house... but 
checked the memory banks for bugs just in case.

It came back clear.  The only new file in the system appeared to be a notice for an 
innocuous letter in his mail box.  That was it! "I thought I told you not to make noises 
when I got junk mail." he grumbled in reprimand of his computer.   Indeed, he found that 
command remained in place.  "Bother, better reboot you after I get rid of it."

His eyes lingered on the address though: Schmendrick@L3.col Class: Personal "I don't 
know that one, it's not on my students list.  No attachments.  What's the worst it could be?  
Bloody mail filter malfunction, that's what!"

He still had a read.

[Holy shit.]

/Umm... alright.../

[Wufei! Where have you been all this time? Good god! I've missed you.  Sorry about 
switching addressees on you, but I'm not allowed to access my account at the circus 
server anymore- haven't been for ages and I finally wormed in a forwarding program this 
afternoon, but that's not important. 

I've been meaning to tell you, or rather, not tell you.  I quit ages ago, years by now.  It 
seems like only yesterday and you know my memory's always been bad.  I'm too old, 
Wufei.  I've been too old.  I was born too old.  I tried working as the accountant, but it 
didn't go well, especially after Cathy died. 

The fact is, I'm utterly ashamed to be alive at all.  Since I left, I've been drifting or 
whatever they call it now.  I'm hold up in a New Brazil hotel right now, and I don't know 
why.  You have no idea how happy I was to hear from you! I needed something to pull 
me out of this damnable timeless haze.  No one's told me how they are in months, I don't 
even have reliable access to a terminal, and hearing from you... just that hello... God! I 
don't know! I just don't know!  That at least.  But I know I'd love to come see you if you 
don't mind. 

You didn't even know Cathy was gone, did you? 

Thanks for writing! Trowa] 

Wufei read the letter... twice... three times.  Almost once more.  Watching the timestamp 
grow older and older. 

/But if you haven't been getting my letters... and it almost sounds like you haven't... then 
who has?/ 

Yes, these were not the cries of someone deserted for merely three months... not even of a 
year? No, Wufei had lived several of his existence in such stasis, and he had never 
begged, had never sworn of it. 

And then he realized he had never exactly been Trowa. 

His mind flew back to their few precious hours together those five years ago.  Which 
somehow, in all of his days since and the moments present in his tripping heart, had gone 
blank, but for the shadow of Mr. Barton. 

/We went to the park together.  We were with Duo and Heero, out on a boat in the lake.  
The Duo started to bawl and we.../ 

/Went home./ 

/Without him./ 

So he wrote back, almost curtly.  [Yes! Come visit me at once! I insist.] 

This done, he scratched out a few notes on the meanings of Terra and Antiterra, forsook 
supper, and fell into his pile of pillows with a dreamless sleep before his eyes. 

Awareness did not in truth return to him until the end of the next day's composition class.  
His lecture had fallen lifeless from his tongue, the giggles instilled upon the air  forgotten 
of his ears.  Once it had all ended, he found himself slumped into his chair, groping for a 
glass of water... but then the scent of Lilly-of-the-Valley descended upon him. 

"Professor Chang?" Tori asked.  And he was awake. 

"Yes, Ms. Blackwood?" 

"Umm..." her humble blush began, "I don't mean to impose and be rude at all, but you 
look awfully tired and I think after yesterday I..." 

He dismissed her words with a wave of his hand.  "It is nothing if not arthritis, my dear." 

She giggled. 

"Though that's somatoform I suspect.  I began a paper last night and now I haven't any 
idea where to go with it." 

She laughed again, but this time, reached over to give his shoulder a pat.  "After all those 
you've assigned us?" 

"Well, they don't get any easier, you know." 

"What's it about?" 

After several swigs of his water, he finally answered.  "I don't know." 

Then they both laughed. 

"No, no! I really haven't the faintest.  I took notes intended to write a thesis on the various 
interpretations of Terra and Antiterra in Ada, and when I looked at them this morning, 
they didn't seem to fit into that at all! I think it's much more likely the paper shall be 
about memory in ALL Nabocov, if indeed that's a coherent idea and I manage to cut out 
all the bizarre ramblings about my last trip to the park with the erstwhile pilot of 03!" 

"Oh my! Give yourself some extra credit for that! What on earth inspired such a rotten, 
nasty idea? I'd like to know if you'll be using it in your twentieth century lit class.  I was 
planning to take that..." 

"Bah, don't worry.  I don't teach Ada anymore.  Or any Nabocov for that matter." 

"Oh! Drat." 

Gesturing with his more or less drained glass, "That doesn't mean you can't read it on 
your own.  As for what prompted my idea.  You did." 

"I'm honored!" Spoken quite truly. 

"I wrote to Trowa last night, and he wrote me back and then... I experienced that sort of 
warped specialty of recollection Vladamir always wrote of.  Or really more of the lack 
thereof, since they-re so hard to tell apart.  You see, I have thoughts of him from that last 
time, but I can not tell you how well he looked, what sort of a mood we shared or even 
just what we did in the park besides go home! I feel as if what I do know was told to me 
during my training all those years ago- like base locations and missile ports.  But Trowa's 
face? I know Trowa's face.  I can see him at fifteen.  Seventeen.  Even twenty.  but not 
now.  Like they're all stuck together wrong in my mind." 

Tori said nothing, her professor sighed. 

"Sorry." 

"No, 'course not! That's a pretty heavy treatise, and we do rant about that sort of thing to 
you." 

His fingers grazed hers.  "I'll probably never finish meet... I mean, finish it.  Though this 
would be the first time I hadn't." 

"First time for everything." 

II. 

Days fell into nights and drowned, girders creaked beneath him.  Duo wept.  Heero was 
never home.  Time passed and he gave up trying to save it in a goblet on his dresser.  Yet 
another thing that did not belong to him. 

When would Trowa consent to appear? Sometime on Thursday, fifth day of the week, 
fifth of time, somewhere in the shelter of the haut couture district where such valkyries as 
they had once not dared tread.  But in which world? 

For the first time in ten years, Professor Wufei Chang declined going to class.  He left 
merely a post-it note regarding his vanishing.  His classes all ended up cancelled at only 
the very last minute, leaving flocks of timid book-sparrows stranded and cheeping at his 
door, many doors, and the grave of Duessa Spencer.

Time passed.

Wufei gave up on time, he read Ada three times.  No mortal feat.  

By the last one, the words seemed to be falling off the page with acid whimsies.  But no, 
only his own mind conjured that illusion, while still it conjured none of Trowa.

He wanted to weep all the way to the coffee house where he was intending to find him, 
illusion or no illusion.  

What if there had never been any Trowa- that this was all some incredible joke the lost 
soul of Duo had been playing, year after year? What if Trowa had hidden himself 
somewhere in the gears of the universe never to return, and only feigned his feelings for 
the rest of existence?

What if he was loosing his mind?

He felt like it.  

But he didn't care. 

"Perhaps it is too late for anything," Duo told him one evening. 

"I don't know, and you who have lived with only yourself for so many years, what do you 
know?" 

"Nothing, but I am just like you." 

At first, Thursday morning, he attributed the lines of his companion to his pills, 
somehow, as if they were acting as harbingers like the smokes of the sibyls.  As if they 
could have told him what would be awaiting him come one of the clock!  He doused 
himself with cologne from one of the bottles on his dresser, only to remember halfway to 
the arcade that the bottles had contained nothing but colored water.  Then why did he 
smell of the sea? Here, where otherwise no sea stood? And why did he keep trying to 
flick his hair behind his neck, when ages ago he had cut it off?

Even before it had turned grey. 

/Not as if there's been signs in me otherwise lately that I'm Chinese... sometimes I forget 
myself./ 

/But I forget an awful lot./ 

However, he found himself fortunate enough to have recalled quite clearly the appointed 
meeting place.  It stood beneath the glass canopy of the shopping district like a fern 
sprung up from a cliff of solid white.  A bit of verdance in the city of heaven where 
nothing dared otherwise exist without a virtuous lack of color. 

Fragoletta's Coffee and Tea. 

How long had the place stood hidden among the beaming catacombs of ordinary life, he 
dared not know.  That he knew, it had always been, would always been. 

He also got there just as it opened, and so, found himself the first one to chose a table 
from the seafoam and birch selection of them.  A small one.  Two seats beside the front 
window... 

Were the windows even green? Could he tell? No, not really. 

A laugh, a familiar voice, but a girl's. 

"Meiran?" 

"No, stilly! Professor! It's me! I work here on Thursdays since I get off at noon." 

His two black eyes tilted up and saw her their, wrapped in the pinafore uniform, but 
otherwise, the very same Tori he had known the day before, many before.  Here, now... 
encroaching on a flash of the past? 

"Ah, double late, extra cinnamon," he told her with a smile. 

"Sure thing." Scratch scratch of her pen across the tablet.  "Who's Meiran?" 

"No one." 

"Ah, of course." A wink, and she bent down as close as she could to his ear.  "I'll leave 
you alone, I promise." 

For some reason, Wufei shuddered at her words though she did indeed vanish, send a boy 
to wait his own tables.  He did not see her ever again that day or for many days which 
came after.  In the mean time, out of Terra, he had not heard the door of the shop jingling 
behind another pair of hands- just caught it sliding shut from the corner of his eyes.

/Meiran? I spent less than half my life with her... I wonder if she was real./

He moaned to his reflection in the gloss-lacquer of his table.  "I'm hopeless, aren't I?"

"I'd say so!"

There came a spell of lines he seldom paid much attention to, in Ada.  All about how time 
truly was but the spaces between heart beats.  And one could not know it with such pulses 
to interrupt.  If he had been elsewhere, in other days, he should have leapt to his feet and 
run laughing down the street.  An Archemedies who had at last known one of the great 
stuffs of the universe.

His heart had stopped, after all.  Or at least, his form no longer felt inclined to feel it.  

This was no man who hovered before him.  This was but a boy, seeming to have been 
snatched from the skies of AC195.  Plucked like a seraph flower and thrown here, at his 
feet.  Young as day he had fished Wufei from the heart of the ocean; a wood sprite with 
the confines of mortal clothing to obscure him all over.  The two emerald eyes still 
outshone true specimens- and there the only trace of age.  Trowa's eyes had never been 
young.  Never, nothing close to it.  

But neither had they laugh lines so lovingly pressed into them.  Now...

He was smiling as if completely unaware of any war, or any thunder in the world where 
he stood, chained like Schmendrick! It had to be.  If anything, he had grown younger.

Wufei found himself completely and utterly ashamed of himself.  His old, worn self.  

His companion laughed then.  Oh, beyond eerie was the tone, and not for the wish of 
death, but rather the sheer life of it.  "You're blushing.  Is my fly undone or something?"

"No!" The professor rebuked at once, waving his hand as he might have done to a 
student.  "I was only daydreaming about something from a long time ago.  I couldn't 
think of anything better to do while I was waiting."

He shrugged, and kicked his chair out before flopping down on it, folding his hands on 
the table and propping his chin on his hands.  What a terrifically childish gesture! And 
the way he batted his eyes... "You're early."

"So are you."

"We made good time."

"You do realize that we haven't bothered to say 'hello' even.  Just like you were here the 
whole time."

Trowa shrugged somehow even from his rather eccentric position .  "Alright then.  Hello.  
It's nice to see you again.  How's that?"

"Perfect.  It's nice to see you as well but you..."

"...don't seem tired or as damn gloomy as I did over the computer?" 

/Now just how is it that you can finish my sentences yet! What's become of you.  This is 
utterly sad.  I think sad is the word.  No, no, that is only what I am now.  I guess.  
Bother./ ... /If not jealous./ A moment of flicking at his faded hair again.  "More or less."

The former pilot of 03 produced a marvelous excuse then.  "I was drunk." 

"On what? I can hardly picture you as a maudlin..."

"Tequila." 

The professor rather raised his eyebrows to this.  

"What, think it's not sophisticated enough for me or something?" Another laugh, this one 
just as their waiter appeared, bearing the frothing, liquid puffball of a latte.  "Here's 
sophisticated then.  I'll have a mocha cappuccino on the rocks with a shot of Irish 
Cream."  The present boy nodded, and headed off at once, the past one called trowa 
watching him, as if willing him to take his place in whatever year he had indeed appeared 
from.  

His companion dove into his coffee and hid there for entirely too long, finally asking, 
without looking up.  "I trust you had a pleasant flight then?"

"I wouldn't know, I slept thought it."

Slurping some errant cream from his upper lip, "Which explains why you're so hyper 
then." /If he is a child suddenly, I shall point that out and see if he cares!/  "I almost don't 
want you to have coffee."

"On the off chance you aren't being sarcastic, I'll happily call that boy back and tell him 
to drink it himself." Spoken with a wave to the counter, and the flushed face of Tori, who 
wasn't able to wave back.  Trowa didn't seem to notice, rather he tracked their servers 
movements as he scurried around, half hidden by the counter.

"It's been too long," Wufei stated plainly, though rather cracked his cup too hard against 
it's saucer.    Then again, it was an awfully large, clunky thing.  

"I thought we went over that already?" his guest asked, truly, truly perplexed by the 
remark, not to mention fiddling with his earring.

/He still has his ear pierced?/

"What about you?" 

"What about me?" Could he feel indigence for this foolishness? His own foolishness? He 
didn't.  He just went back to watching the bubbles on his beverage thin and meet 
oblivion.  As if the two green eyes would burn him.  A lot of as if's, weren't there?

"Well..."

/You never used to say, 'well'./

"Why did you give up teaching Nabocov? We all know kids these days are idiots.  I'd 
thought maybe you wanted to... fix that.  There's no justice in it after all."

A comment regarding the somewhat incongruous nature of the 'justice' inclusion danced 
on his tongue, but then he remembered once upon a time there had been such vagaries 
slipping from him on a regular basis.  What an old in joke! "I couldn't deal with it.  I am 
utterly, utterly spoiled.  I miss having someone to speak on it who is my equal."

Speaking of old jokes, Trowa promptly retold one, "Terra is a place that exists only when 
Ada and Van are together."

"Ah, someday I'll prove you wrong on that."

"But not for awhile, I'm entirely tooooooo incorrigible, aren't I?"

"If Terra exists only in their union, how is it that Van manages to write 'Letters from 
Terra' while Ada is away?"

" 'Letters from Terra' doesn't exist itself until the end.  The six copies of it aren't read by 
anyone until then.  But after that... everyone reads them, so to speak."

"But not as they were intended to be 'read'."

"I said Terra exists only when Ada and Van are together.  I didn't say it was a concrete 
concept."  A wink.  His cappuccino had materialized by then.  Trowa reached behind his 
chair and caused a straw to spring into his hand, which he disrobed and plunged into the 
fire and ice of his glass.

Then he blew bubbles in it that popped and gave off a liquory steam.    

Wufei said nothing.  He just stared.  What else was he supposed to do?

Made to speak by the attention, his companion swallowed loudly and added.  "And that's 
the thing about ANY letters from Terra.  Any Terra, if there could be more than one.  
They only appear to two people, and at odd times.  You 'mailed me' form our Terra, did 
you not? I got it! I came.  It had been years, but we are back together."

Thoughtfully gurgled from the nether regions of the latte.  "That has absolutely nothing to 
do with Ada."

"Of course it does! Didn't you bring up the book at once in your letter? I'll bet you sat 
down to read it after you were done with me, and if anything, you've proved my point, 
but you don't even know it."  This laced all over with giggles, as if he knew he was all but 
speaking in tongues.

The professor said nothing, only rather absently molested a stray spatter of froth that had 
come to rest upon his saucer- smoothed it until it became but ordinary cream.  "How did 
you know?"

"Because you're so predictable."

"Am I now?"

"More than ever."

"I wonder..." he seemed to be wondering to no one at all, but instead speaking to 
salamanders.  So Trowa? So anything.  Yes anything but green, where everything was 
green.  How long had they been sitting together in the green, green, coffee shop? "If you 
would still say that, old friend if you saw me with Duo some days.  I get to feeling I am 
his lover, since he does nothing but break Heero's heart, and so I watch one of them and 
see the other cry.  It scares me.  Do you believe I can be afraid? How can I be on Terra if 
I am afraid still?"

"Don't know."

"And we are apart more than Ada and Van.  There is no whimsy in our friends, only 
death.  Which Cathy has plunged into.  Just like Duo... and Heero... and Quatre I suppose.  
They are all dead to the world, and so are we."  He had just taken to wringing his hands a 
bit beneath the table, when something hard and leathery jammed into his shin and startled 
his fingers from their seat on his lap.

With a voice as airy as a spring morning, "You told me about them! I want to hear about 
you."

Looking up into that wickedly charming face of a child, Wufei could not help but try to 
smash his ensuing half-smile away.  "But they're our friends."

"You just said they were dead, which I don't believe one bit, and I don't believe you do 
either.  You're just being dramatic, since there's something you don't want to talk about.  
You were like that, even BEFORE you got you Shenlong, I imagine.  It's a very bad 
habit, but I do kinda like it."  

Wufei's cup nearly smashed its saucer, and yet he said, eyes distant as what lies beyond 
black holes- "You don't remember last time at all, do you? Well, neither do I!"

A silence between they two, while even the window seemed to be speaking about the 
crush of chatting people wandering the arcade around them, and the shop where they had 
hidden themselves.  A girl's laugh.  Wufei shuddered.  

"I do remember though.  Unless you don't want me too.  Five years ago, you told me to 
forget, quite plainly.  I had it in writing for awhile, but I didn't think to take it when I left 
the circus.  Hmm? What do you want me to do, Chang?" And then that oh-so-not Trowa 
purr of bright coercion.  The cappuccino was pushed to the end of the table, and 
languished there, having utterly surrendered its capabilities to be interesting.  The straw 
dangled from it with a trace of lipstick on the very edge.

The professor noticed... and held his gaze there, upon the pink smudges, blossoming like 
infatescimal flowers on the lip of the white plastic.  But his eyes came back to his 
companion's.  Settled there, traced over that smile that should not have been.

 "How can you do this to me?"

"Because you asked me to.  I'll do anything you ask..."

"How can you remember?"

"Because I have nothing else to remember.  What do you want?"

"How can you smile at me like that?"

"Because you made me glad to be alive. What do you want?"

To hell with the room.  He cried out in a voice so weak with tears, he might as well have 
whispered. "Make me young again, Trowa, I'll do anything..."

So the boy then pushed the glass and china remains of their drinks onto the floor, lunged 
across the table and kissed him as hard as he could.  The lipstick smeared between then 
with the faint aftertastes of two expensive coffees.  "Anything?" And there he was in his 
chair again, wiping his mouth with his sleeve while Wufei's mouth remained glistening 
and ruined.

"I can't do..."

"... that? Yes you can." 

True silence.

"... I AM older than you, Wufei Chang.  I was.  I am not now only because you have 
made me what I am yet.  Five years of waiting and dancing with the faeries will do that to 
a man.  But you're not... you're not OLD-OLD for goodness sake! You're beautiful.  Just 
like I said five years ago when you asked me.  Even if you hair has gone grey with worry.  
I don't care.  The offer still stands." And that one line, spoken for the last of all times.  
"What do you want me to do?"

Batting under his glasses with a handkerchief, even though his whimpers had been stilled.  
"Come with me and leave this shattered world behind."

Tori, aghast as she would ever be in her small life, watched them leave Fragoletta's with a 
flurry of bills and hands reaching for one another.

They checked into the first hotel they came to, in spite of or because of the fact it 
happened to be the most utterly expensive one in their part of the colony- had themselves 
a room prepared on the very spire of the looking-glass ribbed tower which they dove into 
while blatantly ignoring the pleas of porters who seemed to think they bore luggage that 
had been lost after their entrance into the lobby.  As if they would have carried them up 
with them to take this final dive.

Trowa had Wufei's shirt off before the door had even been latched securely, and he stood 
with it for many minutes, suckling at the professor's neck, both of them lost in an ocean 
of gleaming light and the reflection of the colony above and below.

Where they hovered in the center of all things it seemed...

"I have betrayed you, I remembered everything." This Trowa remarked as he cast away 
the garment he had held.

"You've saved me... but I don't remember myself any longer." But no matter, his glasses 
tumbled to the floor and he buried his face in the soft, honey brown fluff of his 
companion's head.

Sighed succulently into one ear.  "Then let me tell you a story while I take you."

The professor, still feverish all over, became rather sill, his black eyes half lidded, his 
shoulders bobbing up and down with his rapid breath.

"That is what you asked me to do," his companion reminded him as he reached for his 
scarf, cast it away to get at the clasps to his own shirt.   "But I don't have to." 

Smoothing his grey hair properly for its length now... Wufei pondered for a moment? 
/Shall I spoil myself at last for you? Give into everything at once for you? Play Ada too 
you and pretend that nothing ever was./  At last a smile came to his lips and he fell to his 
knees, cheeks going slick with tears of regret.  "Be quick about it!"

As for Trowa, he applauded of all things, with a willful solemness , and yet could not 
bring himself to pass up the offer, and so unfastened his trousers, allowing them to fall 
and puddle about his feet.  Nothing underneath them save for an enticing rosy glow that 
cloaked him between his legs.  "You start."

"I know we went to the park."  That was all he could find himself ready to say.  His 
companion's sex was too tempting, and in truth, little else did he recall, save aching 
himself that summer's day, as they both had begun to do.  He pressed his lips to his damp 
tip, savoring, and draping his arms around the narrow hips.  Cradling everything with his 
mouth and accepting a few gentle thrusts into it.

"Yes, you took me there with out friends under the guise of going for a walk.  It was quite 
clever of you-." This choked off in a quick little moan that only made the professor loose 
another sliver of his scholarly side.  Long, battered fingers took to his hair and stroked it 
as he savored that which he had wishing for so very long.  Ages of long nights, caressing 
himself in that empty room with its armada of voyeur ghosts.  

But the hands pushed him away, and Trowa bent down to kiss him, but not too far did he 
stoop.

So Wufei was obliged to creep upwards on his knees, leading to a most peculiar upside 
down affair at first, until they both settled on the floor, and those same hands unsnapped 
his dockers and slid up tight against him, squeezing almost roughly. "Ah..."

"Do you remember, or are you whimpering for me?" Asked with a solicitation of one 
response, nibbled into his ear.  

"Both, you little minx."

"I'll get you for that!" A long, throaty laugh, still ticked with concern.  They reached and 
cupped one another's cheeks at nearly the same moment.  "You ever done this before? 
You wouldn't tell me..."

"I may be an old maid, but I'm not a virgin!"

"Take off you things and prove it to me." A sweet, mocking offer, rather than an order.

So Wufei obeyed only once he had pranced across the room, twirling his pants over his 
head with no care for the window at all, which still gaped over everything, blind as they 
might have been now.   He had gone stiff himself by now, and blushed all over, but he 
kneeled on the edge of the bed and pressed one of his fingers into himself, biting his 
tongue to keep from crying out.  Two could play this game, as it was.  "Continue your 
story or I shan't do anything more interesting."

"And you call me a minx! Well, you suggested we ought to rent a pair of boats and go out 
on the lake.  It was a splendid day to do it.  You and I took one, and the couple that 
knows us so well took the other."

"Oh, that's not very juicy!"

"Well, you also rowed the two of us under the bows of this ancient weeping willow, and 
we just hovered there, beneath our little cape of green."    

"I see..." And he did at last permit himself a bit of a whimper as he pushed a second 
finger deep inside himself, curling into an ivory and pewter ball on the cradle of the 
sheets.  His body burned awfully for his slender digits never did the job, nor did the 
mouth which pressed against his opening, drizzling it with wet kisses, and yet it still 
inspired many an erotic chuckle in him.

"I see that I myself was right to answer yes when you asked if I thought you were still 
pretty.  I thought it was an odd question."

"But you were still happy to answer."

"I like to tell the truth... so in this..." Two long, scared arms encircle him the, unfolding 
him like a delicate fan.  Trowa's body settled against his bare belly at first, and his two 
hands took his wrists, suspending them above his head.  The kisses were too grand to 
permit protest.  Spoken to one of his wet cheeks as it was licked clean.  "... you are more 
than beautiful."

"I am a wretch."

Wufei found himself smacked playfully across his thighs.  "Stop that, or I shall have to 
do this again and again until you are convinced otherwise."

"Then what happened?"

"Shh... mustn't rush..." 

Many more moments of bruising kisses that split his lip in the end, only to lave it with 
apologetic licks.  Their bodies ground together until the warmth grew unbearable.  The 
sheets came off, and fluttered down around them- as if their bower of the summer long 
gone had turned pure in the spaces between, become substantial enough to hide them.

"Oh Trowa... Trowa please..."

"No, no... Oh Wufei... Wufei please..." He reached down and cradled his lover's ass upon 
his own thighs, softer than milk, strange as that could be, for they, with the same opening 
acts to their past, found now that one had such smoothness to his form, and the other a 
musky sort of scratch feel above his muscles.  Trowa crouched above him, panting with 
his eyes shut tight as he pushed into him.

The professor cried out and shivered between the long deep shoves that followed, writing 
and begging wordlessly when made to be without their grating sensation all through him 
inside.  

"You told me you wanted me..."

"... I do..."

A kiss pressed to his ankle where it rested on his lover's shoulder.  

"...and I was too glad to submit, for I kissed you at once."

"...I...I...I..."

"Shh... don't speak.  You don't have too." He swayed back and forth then, deciding on his 
words or the place he wanted most to caress inside with his member.  "Let me be the 
brash on.  I was that day.  Duo saw us and..."

"...he cried."

They nodded together, sinking into one writing puddle of limbs and soft moans.

/So it is indeed over then, and nothing remains to be told./

"I'm a fool, Trowa! I never should have told you to leave.  Never, I didn't mean to! I 
didn't!"

But Wufei's lover bore down in him then, delicately squeezing his penis thought his 
fingers, over and over.  Holding his hands, wrapped together as the rest of their forms had 
since become.   

"No no! You can't! it will all be over too soon.  You can't d this to me Trowa... you can't 
make it stop.  I need you... I need you in me... I need it... I need it... I need it..."

And then he could scream no more but words until the lips softened his lonely ache and 
quieted his tongue.  

"You need, old friend, a sense of wonder..." Replied a soft and sated voice above him.

And he looked up into two eyes that remained: older than time, dead as Duessa Spencer, 
brilliant as the heavens and flowery prose, young as his most recent breath, sweeter than 
all his life so far.  

"Wonder of what?"

"Maybe of yourself..."

Trowa reached down and tugged at tresses of his beloved.  They were blazing black.


Finis

October 31, 2001




[1] He has a yellow lamp with a flower and faceted circle pattern pressed into the glass.  

[2] Ada, or Ardor by Vladamir Nabocov can not be read without the aid of it's index, 
which is, in a perverse sort of way, part of the story.  Well, maybe if one has a passion for 
absurd literary puns and polysyllabic foreign words.