16-Jun-2000
I actually don't know how to classify this. It got stuck in my head as a what-if, since the series never really told us what happened to Trowa in the time between being blown into space by Quatre and Catherine finding him on the street. Here's my little interpretation. Enjoy.
Category: Got me. Quasi-Angst-like, Quasi-Humorous
Rating: PG
Pairings: None. But has an original character or two
Spoilers: None
Feedback: C&C
Notes: Think of this as a what if.
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters belongs to Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu Agency and are only being used for non profit entertainment purposes.
Hello there, friend! Let me buy you a drink. Why? Well, you look like you could use one. Now I realize that I don't know you from Adam, but I've have a bizarre month and I feel like telling my tale. Oh, don't give me that look! I'm not trying to sell you anything. I promise this tale won't be boring either. It's a tale about my encounter with the undead.
Ha! Well, that certainly got your attention! Barkeep! Set up my friend here and I'll have another boilermaker. Just put it on my tab, you know I'm good for it!
Let me tell you some basic facts about myself. M'name's Mel and I'm the captain of a space barge. Okay, so it's more like a garbage barge, but it's mine anyway. Hey, don't give me that disgusted look! Collecting busted mobile suits and the occasional dead left behind in space by Oz is an honorable profession. Alright, well it pays the bills and it's honest work.
One evening not too long ago I was gathering the remnants of mobile dolls and such when I saw a body floating in space. My co- captain Bill retrieved it with the mechanical arm of our ship. Well, you know there has to be a family member somewhere on a colony or earth wondering where their loved one may be, so they can make funeral arrangements. Thus it's not so unusual to find a corpse floating. The weird thing was I hadn't heard of any fighting in the area where we found it.
My barge is fairly large. We keep scrap metal in one area and corpses in another. So while Bill continued to gather scrap metal, I went into the meat locker to see if there was any identification on the stiff. Why do you look green? Oh. You know you have to develop a sense of humor about stuff like this or you'll go wacko. Now where was I?
Oh yeah, I'm in the locker when I notice that the space suit is in pretty good condition and it has an OZ insignia on it. I figured I would i.d. the corpse then if it wasn't too decomposed, I'd have me a new spare space suit. Don't look at me that way! Space suits are expensive and it's not like this guy was going to need it anymore. Anyway, I noticed over the insignia was the name: T. Barton. I made a mental note to myself to write that down so we could report it to the proper authorities once we got back from our run.
I looked into the helmet and noticed the person in the suit didn't look that far off. In fact, he almost looked like he was sleeping. I figured he must have been newly dead. Which like I say was weird because there were no battles out in that area that day. Anyway, I held my breath and slowly pulled off the helmet. I decided it might be safe to breathe. I looked more closely at my little stiff with the name T. Barton.
He looked pretty young. A teenager maybe. But damn what a good-looking guy. Brown hair with bangs too long to be OZ regulation length. Smooth, clear complexion embarrassing better than my own. He looked at peace. My curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know what color his eyes were. So I lifted an eyelid to reveal a beautiful emerald green eye, who's pupil reacted to the light. That woke me up. I'm not a medical person, so I wasn't sure if even in death a pupil would react to light. So I fished out a flashlight and did my science experiment again. Again the pupil reacted.
I tried staying calm. I've had pranks pulled on me before. So I decided to feel for a pulse. So I placed two fingers by his jugular. There was a pulse. A faint one. I jumped up and ran to the intercom to yell to Bill that we had a live fish.
Bill came in and helped me drag the boy into our guest quarters. Who would want to spend time in the guest quarters of a garbage barge? Well Bill's kids for a start. They think of it as taking a trip. Thankfully, Bill's kids were at home this trip. We stripped the comatose man of his suit and put as many blankets on him as we could find. We altered the thermostat in the room to a high temperature, then we took turns looking after the kid.
Huh? Why didn't we take him to the nearest hospital satellite or colony? We have a job to do. I have deadlines to keep. We figured if the kid survived, great. If he didn't, maybe he wasn't meant to. But I did start to worry about him a little. How do you feed a comatose man? What? Of course, we tried to wake him! You thought we liked hauling unconscious folks around?
Since we weren't a hospital and we couldn't feed him intravenously, my mind had stumbled upon something I remembered reading a long time ago. It was an article about how to get a baby who doesn't want to eat to feed. Well, to _breast_ feed, but I figured the concept was the same. I decided to try to feed T. Barton some water. How?
Don't laugh. With a baby bottle. Yes, a bottle. Where did I get it? It was a gag gift from Bill. He keeps telling me I should find some young man and settle down. What? Me and Bill? Get real. He's married and old enough to be my dad. Anyway, this article said to lightly tease the mouth of a newborn by placing a finger on the lips and gently rubbing. If done correctly, the child will attempt to suckle. Replace finger with nipple. I hoped Barton's instinct would do the same. We were almost three weeks away from the nearest colony. I would hate to think the poor guy starved to death in my guest quarters.
I waited until Bill went on his shift of collecting metal. It would have been embarrassing to have him tease me while attempting this experiment.
So I filled a bottle with water at room temperature. I approached the prone man. He was still in the same position we left him when we put in the room two days ago. I figured if my experiment worked I'd also have to remember to shift him so he wouldn't get bedsores. Yeah, I know. Who would ever think of me as a nursemaid? I sat on the bed, placed the bottle on the night stand and reached out to him. I had him laying with his head on my shoulder, half-sitting up like you would a baby. For a tall boy, he was incredibly light.
I placed my index finger on his lips. Nothing happened. I remembered the article said tease the mouth, but it never really said how. So I slowly and lightly traced the outline of his lips. I saw a small twitch. That encouraged me some. I continued to lightly outline his lips while occasionally dipping my finger between them. His lips reacted slightly. I gently forced my finger in, slightly forcing open the teeth and touched his tongue. His lips and tongue started to suckle weakly. I felt like a hentai, because that was the most incredibly erotic feeling. I almost forgot my initial objective! So I reluctantly took my finger away, picked up the bottle and rubbed the rubber nipple along his lips and he parted them to take the bottle.
Huzzah! My ecchi fogged mind rejoiced. But I made sure not to give him too much water. I wasn't trying to make him sick. I just wanted him to not to be parched. With one fourth of the contents empty, I pulled the bottle away. All sucking motions ceased. I started thinking up feeding schedules and what we should be feeding him. Soup seemed the safest bet. I laid the boy back down, this time on his side and left the room.
Feeding time was my favorite time needless to say. Although the boy at this point had a Pavlovian reaction to just the bottle nipple to his lips, I still liked "teasing" him before giving him a bottle. Imagine my surprise when I walked into his room after a week to see emerald eyes staring back at me!
I didn't rush him to speak to me. But I did wonder if he was alright. He told me that he couldn't remember anything. I mean anything. When I asked what the T. stood for in his name he looked at me like I was from another planet. Told me he didn't have a name. Or at least he couldn't remember having a name. We told him his name was T. Barton, but we started calling him Barton.
It took a few days before he was strong enough to get out of bed. And we started putting him on bland solid foods. He wasn't a very talkative guy, but that could have been because he didn't have anything to say. I mean what can you talk about when you can't remember a blessed thing about your life?
He seemed to need things to do to occupy his time and I was happy to oblige. He got really good at picking up scrap metal with the mechanical arm of our ship. He became our cabin boy doing the chores that Bill and I were either too busy or just too damn lazy to do. He never complained. Not even about my cooking, which if you ask anyone who knows me will tell you is the worst stuff known to mankind.
We were finally near colony L3. Bill and I had a long talk trying to decide what to do. We really liked Barton and we didn't want to just dump him at the nearest colony. But we also knew we were in no position to help him recover his memory. I can't imagine what I would do if I couldn't remember anything from my name or the first time I was ever kissed. So we asked Barton what he wanted us to do.
He wasn't any more helpful to our earlier conversation than we were. He seemed to like being with us and didn't really want to go. But he also knew he couldn't live in a fog forever either. We decided that we would take him to L3 and find him some help. We gave him our radio frequency in case he decided he hated being there and wanted us to get him. By this time, I was more than willing to deviate from schedules if it meant helping our shy friend.
That last night he was with us, he told me he wouldn't forget us and our kindness to him. It made me feel a little guilty that I tried to procure his space suit as a spare. I told him we wouldn't forget him either, he livened up what would have been a rather dull, monotonous trip for us. But I told him, if he ever remembered what the T. stood for, he should send us word because I really was curious.
We dropped him off at L3 a week ago. The doctors there said they would do all in their power to help him. Ah well, I guess I've bent your ear for long enough.
Oh! Hey Bill, what are you doing here? I thought your Margaret forbade you from coming to bars. What? You did? What did he say? Hmm.
Trowa, eh? What a nice name.
~OWARI
Okay. I know it's written in the heinous first person perspective. It's also kind of my ode to the "salty sea captain's tale" in space. Thoughts? Comments? I can't say that this is a Mary Sue ("Oh no!" I hear the masses scream), but if you think it is, sorry. There's just no other way to write this except as Trowa. And that would consist of stuff like "Who am I?".
Alright, I'm shutting up now.
(:./babaca/resurrect1)
