Everything To Live For
Title: Everything To Live For
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Characters/Pairings: Trowa, Nichol
Word Count: 1700
Summary: Nichol’s switched with his ten-years-younger self. Trowa’s assigned babysitting duty and cannot resist the opportunity to pry.
A/N: aquatinted. I drew that one picture and thought I’d write a story for it. Written largely for my own amusement, this proved to be more difficult than I thought and somewhat flaky. Oh well. Haha. The ten-year bazooka is a device used in the mafia-based anime KHR which swaps a person with their ten-years OLDER self, but I kind of used it backwards.
***
“He has you listed as his emergency contact,” Une explained. But nothing she’d said quite sank in. Trowa looked at the number on his phone then put it to his ear again. It had been a very nice afternoon. In an unprecedented decision, he had purchased tickets for a tour of the American southwest. Three weeks on a different continent after six years doing various assignments for the Preventers.
He glanced up at the vaulted ceilings of the hotel room. He hadn’t even unpacked his swimming trunks.
“He’s a minor. I’d gladly hand him over to Dorothy, but…” Une offered.
“No, don’t do that,” Trowa raked his fingers through his hair. “And you’re certain he doesn’t have any other family?”
The silence on the phone line was indication enough that no one else had magically appeared in the past few minutes. Magically, he scoffed. “And you’re still investigating this weapon?”
“Of course, Wufei already has a lead in Italy,” Une’s reassurance was tainted with impatience. “When can we expect you to pick him up?”
“I’m already booking a flight.”
***
Nichol’s approximately seventeen and only has his memories up to that age. He doesn’t know about his military career or any world events of the past ten years.
Trowa reread the brief Quatre had sent to him. Apparently, Nichol had been undercover working his way into the reforming Italian mafia. Nichol wasn’t exactly the favorite officer who transitioned from OZ service into the ESUN led Preventers, but his experience with the underground sounded about right. The man had been savvy enough to spot infiltrators, perhaps the opposite was also true.
It didn’t explain why the man had listed Trowa as his next-of-kin. They weren’t related. Besides a lingering mutual appreciation, the men were definitely not friends.
Une had a car waiting for him. Hefting his bag, he threw it in the trunk and took one glance around the sunlit pick-up area before getting in the back. He stopped mid-sit when he saw he wasn’t the only passenger.
“Nikolai?” Trowa pulled his legs in and closed the door. The younger man had watched Trowa the entire time with a curious tilt to his head and an open expression. Trowa had previously considered the former OZ lieutenant an open book, but this young man didn’t seem to have a scheme behind his face. It was somewhat unnerving.
Nichol nodded and then looked away. He almost looked bashful as his fingers tugged at the somewhat too long shirtsleeves.
He goes by Nikolai, and speaks modest English.
“Do you know who I am?” Trowa asked, after the driver confirmed their destination to the house Trowa rented.
“They showed me pictures,” Nichol said, his voice lilting over the words as if shaping the sounds rather than speaking them. “You are Trowa, yes?”
The kid’s hair was longer than the soldier Trowa remembered, almost like what he would have expected on a soccer player. And Nichol hadn’t grown into his shoulders yet, although he definitely had more substance than Trowa did before his year with circus.
“I’m not sure why everyone here calls me by that name,” Nichol admitted, speaking in the general direction of his own stomach.
“What do you prefer to be called?” Trowa leaned into the seat and almost missed the sharp sideways glance from the other passenger.
“I am Mikhail Petrik,” the boy sighed heavily. “Iosef must have put me on that train, because I don’t know how else I ended up here. They wouldn’t let me go back home. Will you take me?”
“Mikhail?” Trowa started to clarify, when Nichol nodded.
“Or Misha would be fine.” For some reason Nichol’s face had flushed darker than the shadows of the backseat.
This most definitely was not in Quatre’s report, Trowa raised his eyebrows, asking, “Why didn’t you tell someone before me?”
“I did not know them. You, I saw I wrote your name in my own handwriting, so you I must trust,” the younger Nichol said earnestly.
“Who is Nikolai, then?” Trowa relaxed somewhat, letting loose the tension he’d been holding in his stiff shoulders.
“I haven’t sent those papers yet,” Nichol sank deeper into his seat. “I hadn’t told anyone.”
“You’re enlisting under a false name?”
“Many people do that,” Nichol said, somewhat huffily reminiscent of the person he would grow up into. “I only have a year, and whatever Iosef gave me to drink had courage in it. I’m ready.”
When Nichol… Misha… was sixteen I was barely ten. Trowa remembered another time, so long ago, when he had put his luck with the mercenaries. Being sent on dangerous climbs to the highest points of the worn down mobile suits, monkey-thin limbs clinging to the robots in all sorts of weather and listening to the mechanics shouting reconstruction instructions from below. Many children did what they had to in order to be seen as useful, to earn their bread. But Nichol had managed somehow until he was able to steal his way into the military.
“Did they explain to you where you are?” Trowa asked, choosing to rebuild from scratch everything in Quatre’s report.
“The future?” Nichol’s face wrinkled as if he’d eaten something bad.
***
Once at his house, Trowa had unloaded his belongings after showing Nichol to a spare room. The boy had almost immediately fallen asleep with the limp arms and legs of a person who had been waiting for the first place that felt safe.
Trowa glanced in to be sure that Nichol was still asleep and found the youth still sprawled on his stomach in the same position he had started.
A quick pot of tea revived Trowa’s travel weary senses, and he sat at his computer to access the Preventer computer system. Une had probably realized at some point Trowa had gained access to security levels to which he had no official clearance, but if she did she said nothing about it. On dull assignments, he passed the time by reading the confidential files on his peers and the upcoming classes of Preventer agents. But he had no prior reason to search for Mikhail Petrik.
The intelligence listed was limited to a few newspaper articles. One brought up a fuzzy photograph of a fifteen year old accepting a science award. “Mikhail Petrik, along with his mother Katrina Petrik and grandfather.”
“Image search,” Trowa instructed drawing a square around the grandfather’s face. Then he sat forward with the flood of results. Then with an unexpected rush of mirth, he bit his knuckles to keep from laughing. ‘Oh Nichol, with all these connections you could have been anything… so why choose OZ?”
***
“So what’s the last thing you remember?” Trowa asked, watching as Nichol slathered with butter and syrup the pancakes Trowa had made.
“I remember, ah! Iosef getting us enough alcohol to last a month,” Nichol replied. His thoughtful face split into a broad grin. “We had it nearly finished in a few hours.”
“Trying to poison yourself?” Trowa shook his head. “You must have been very unhappy.”
Nichol grimaced, “I told you. It was for courage. I had to leave my mother. It was to keep her safe. Balalaika had found out about me…”
“The younger half-brother,” Trowa nodded. “It happens that some powerful men take lovers.” Nichol growled so ferociously Trowa had to hide his surprise.
“That man chose to bring up his own family. I do not see him as a father!”
“But your paternal grandfather?” Trowa remembered the picture. “He found you.”
“He said that the family… their family was in danger.” Nichol glanced away. “I could either go with them or be killed. I would put my mother in danger.”
“So you plan to enlist instead?”
“Forget them,” Nichol said with conviction. His accent became more and more thick. “I will do things my own way. No more orders of Misha this or Misha that…”
Oh, what changes you? Trowa thought, once again hiding his smile behind a thoughtful posing of his hands.
“You think I will fail?” Nichol huffed, clearly expecting some sort of response. Waiting for something, but Trowa didn’t know what.
“No.” Trowa shook his head the same. “I think you should definitely join the military. Watch out for sly kids who want to undermine you, but go easy on them...”
Nichol’s brow furrowed. “I do not understand.”
“And if you have to, just admit you have strong romantic interest in him-because it’ll be rather obvious… although that might change the past,” Trowa said, mostly to himself.
“What?” Nichol had paused from his cutting. Then he shrugged and went about eating with a somewhat amused expression at Trowa’s rambling.
“I like this you.” Trowa leaned on his arm to watch the boy eat. Nichol smiled brightly, his lips glistening from the excessive maple spread. His dark curls were framed in the distance by the kitchen window and the light spilled around like a fuzzy halo.
Then the glow unexpectedly turned into a violet light. With a sudden brightness like a camera flash, the boy was gone.
Then a familiar voice exclaimed, “What the hell?” A properly aged Nichol stared at his surroundings.
Trowa picked up his empty plate and pushed away from the table. Either everything had gone back on its own or Wufei had successfully found a way to reverse the Italian magic.
“Barton?” Preventer agent Nichol said, rather incredulously.
“So where have you been?” Trowa asked, rinsing off the plate and then resigning himself to the company of the older Nichol.
“I was… in that ally in Moscow…” Nichol frowned. “Old Moscow…”
“With Iosef?” Trowa sat down again. “You can eat that if you want.” He pointed at the pancakes Misha had been unable to finish.
“No, Iosef had abandoned me… I didn’t even have the ticket anymore,” Nichol seemed dazed. Then he shook himself into the present. “How did you know about Iosef?”
“Ah, that’s the mystery,” Trowa smiled, somewhat sadly. Perhaps Misha didn’t remember anything and the strange incident in time did nothing to impact their future. Nichol’s brow furrowed with a deepness Misha hadn’t discovered yet.
“I thought I had dreamed this?” Nichol whispered, taking a second survey of his surroundings. “And you,” he blushed, directing his frustration onto Trowa. “I see it now. Damn it, Barton, what did you say to me?”
“Oh,” Trowa smiled broadly. “You do remember?”
“Like some heavenly vision, my ass!” Nichol set his forehead into his open fingers. “Why didn’t I recognize you were the same angel… ah, the same person, the same Trowa Barton, back then? You!" His volume dropped to a pitiful muttering. "I actually joined the military because of you. Because you told me to…”
Suddenly flushed with heat across his own cheeks, Trowa said more quietly, “Okay, maybe... let’s leave that part out when Une asks for a report, agreed?”
“Absolutely.”
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Characters/Pairings: Trowa, Nichol
Word Count: 1700
Summary: Nichol’s switched with his ten-years-younger self. Trowa’s assigned babysitting duty and cannot resist the opportunity to pry.
A/N: aquatinted. I drew that one picture and thought I’d write a story for it. Written largely for my own amusement, this proved to be more difficult than I thought and somewhat flaky. Oh well. Haha. The ten-year bazooka is a device used in the mafia-based anime KHR which swaps a person with their ten-years OLDER self, but I kind of used it backwards.
***
“He has you listed as his emergency contact,” Une explained. But nothing she’d said quite sank in. Trowa looked at the number on his phone then put it to his ear again. It had been a very nice afternoon. In an unprecedented decision, he had purchased tickets for a tour of the American southwest. Three weeks on a different continent after six years doing various assignments for the Preventers.
He glanced up at the vaulted ceilings of the hotel room. He hadn’t even unpacked his swimming trunks.
“He’s a minor. I’d gladly hand him over to Dorothy, but…” Une offered.
“No, don’t do that,” Trowa raked his fingers through his hair. “And you’re certain he doesn’t have any other family?”
The silence on the phone line was indication enough that no one else had magically appeared in the past few minutes. Magically, he scoffed. “And you’re still investigating this weapon?”
“Of course, Wufei already has a lead in Italy,” Une’s reassurance was tainted with impatience. “When can we expect you to pick him up?”
“I’m already booking a flight.”
***
Nichol’s approximately seventeen and only has his memories up to that age. He doesn’t know about his military career or any world events of the past ten years.
Trowa reread the brief Quatre had sent to him. Apparently, Nichol had been undercover working his way into the reforming Italian mafia. Nichol wasn’t exactly the favorite officer who transitioned from OZ service into the ESUN led Preventers, but his experience with the underground sounded about right. The man had been savvy enough to spot infiltrators, perhaps the opposite was also true.
It didn’t explain why the man had listed Trowa as his next-of-kin. They weren’t related. Besides a lingering mutual appreciation, the men were definitely not friends.
Une had a car waiting for him. Hefting his bag, he threw it in the trunk and took one glance around the sunlit pick-up area before getting in the back. He stopped mid-sit when he saw he wasn’t the only passenger.
“Nikolai?” Trowa pulled his legs in and closed the door. The younger man had watched Trowa the entire time with a curious tilt to his head and an open expression. Trowa had previously considered the former OZ lieutenant an open book, but this young man didn’t seem to have a scheme behind his face. It was somewhat unnerving.
Nichol nodded and then looked away. He almost looked bashful as his fingers tugged at the somewhat too long shirtsleeves.
He goes by Nikolai, and speaks modest English.
“Do you know who I am?” Trowa asked, after the driver confirmed their destination to the house Trowa rented.
“They showed me pictures,” Nichol said, his voice lilting over the words as if shaping the sounds rather than speaking them. “You are Trowa, yes?”
The kid’s hair was longer than the soldier Trowa remembered, almost like what he would have expected on a soccer player. And Nichol hadn’t grown into his shoulders yet, although he definitely had more substance than Trowa did before his year with circus.
“I’m not sure why everyone here calls me by that name,” Nichol admitted, speaking in the general direction of his own stomach.
“What do you prefer to be called?” Trowa leaned into the seat and almost missed the sharp sideways glance from the other passenger.
“I am Mikhail Petrik,” the boy sighed heavily. “Iosef must have put me on that train, because I don’t know how else I ended up here. They wouldn’t let me go back home. Will you take me?”
“Mikhail?” Trowa started to clarify, when Nichol nodded.
“Or Misha would be fine.” For some reason Nichol’s face had flushed darker than the shadows of the backseat.
This most definitely was not in Quatre’s report, Trowa raised his eyebrows, asking, “Why didn’t you tell someone before me?”
“I did not know them. You, I saw I wrote your name in my own handwriting, so you I must trust,” the younger Nichol said earnestly.
“Who is Nikolai, then?” Trowa relaxed somewhat, letting loose the tension he’d been holding in his stiff shoulders.
“I haven’t sent those papers yet,” Nichol sank deeper into his seat. “I hadn’t told anyone.”
“You’re enlisting under a false name?”
“Many people do that,” Nichol said, somewhat huffily reminiscent of the person he would grow up into. “I only have a year, and whatever Iosef gave me to drink had courage in it. I’m ready.”
When Nichol… Misha… was sixteen I was barely ten. Trowa remembered another time, so long ago, when he had put his luck with the mercenaries. Being sent on dangerous climbs to the highest points of the worn down mobile suits, monkey-thin limbs clinging to the robots in all sorts of weather and listening to the mechanics shouting reconstruction instructions from below. Many children did what they had to in order to be seen as useful, to earn their bread. But Nichol had managed somehow until he was able to steal his way into the military.
“Did they explain to you where you are?” Trowa asked, choosing to rebuild from scratch everything in Quatre’s report.
“The future?” Nichol’s face wrinkled as if he’d eaten something bad.
***
Once at his house, Trowa had unloaded his belongings after showing Nichol to a spare room. The boy had almost immediately fallen asleep with the limp arms and legs of a person who had been waiting for the first place that felt safe.
Trowa glanced in to be sure that Nichol was still asleep and found the youth still sprawled on his stomach in the same position he had started.
A quick pot of tea revived Trowa’s travel weary senses, and he sat at his computer to access the Preventer computer system. Une had probably realized at some point Trowa had gained access to security levels to which he had no official clearance, but if she did she said nothing about it. On dull assignments, he passed the time by reading the confidential files on his peers and the upcoming classes of Preventer agents. But he had no prior reason to search for Mikhail Petrik.
The intelligence listed was limited to a few newspaper articles. One brought up a fuzzy photograph of a fifteen year old accepting a science award. “Mikhail Petrik, along with his mother Katrina Petrik and grandfather.”
“Image search,” Trowa instructed drawing a square around the grandfather’s face. Then he sat forward with the flood of results. Then with an unexpected rush of mirth, he bit his knuckles to keep from laughing. ‘Oh Nichol, with all these connections you could have been anything… so why choose OZ?”
***
“So what’s the last thing you remember?” Trowa asked, watching as Nichol slathered with butter and syrup the pancakes Trowa had made.
“I remember, ah! Iosef getting us enough alcohol to last a month,” Nichol replied. His thoughtful face split into a broad grin. “We had it nearly finished in a few hours.”
“Trying to poison yourself?” Trowa shook his head. “You must have been very unhappy.”
Nichol grimaced, “I told you. It was for courage. I had to leave my mother. It was to keep her safe. Balalaika had found out about me…”
“The younger half-brother,” Trowa nodded. “It happens that some powerful men take lovers.” Nichol growled so ferociously Trowa had to hide his surprise.
“That man chose to bring up his own family. I do not see him as a father!”
“But your paternal grandfather?” Trowa remembered the picture. “He found you.”
“He said that the family… their family was in danger.” Nichol glanced away. “I could either go with them or be killed. I would put my mother in danger.”
“So you plan to enlist instead?”
“Forget them,” Nichol said with conviction. His accent became more and more thick. “I will do things my own way. No more orders of Misha this or Misha that…”
Oh, what changes you? Trowa thought, once again hiding his smile behind a thoughtful posing of his hands.
“You think I will fail?” Nichol huffed, clearly expecting some sort of response. Waiting for something, but Trowa didn’t know what.
“No.” Trowa shook his head the same. “I think you should definitely join the military. Watch out for sly kids who want to undermine you, but go easy on them...”
Nichol’s brow furrowed. “I do not understand.”
“And if you have to, just admit you have strong romantic interest in him-because it’ll be rather obvious… although that might change the past,” Trowa said, mostly to himself.
“What?” Nichol had paused from his cutting. Then he shrugged and went about eating with a somewhat amused expression at Trowa’s rambling.
“I like this you.” Trowa leaned on his arm to watch the boy eat. Nichol smiled brightly, his lips glistening from the excessive maple spread. His dark curls were framed in the distance by the kitchen window and the light spilled around like a fuzzy halo.
Then the glow unexpectedly turned into a violet light. With a sudden brightness like a camera flash, the boy was gone.
Then a familiar voice exclaimed, “What the hell?” A properly aged Nichol stared at his surroundings.
Trowa picked up his empty plate and pushed away from the table. Either everything had gone back on its own or Wufei had successfully found a way to reverse the Italian magic.
“Barton?” Preventer agent Nichol said, rather incredulously.
“So where have you been?” Trowa asked, rinsing off the plate and then resigning himself to the company of the older Nichol.
“I was… in that ally in Moscow…” Nichol frowned. “Old Moscow…”
“With Iosef?” Trowa sat down again. “You can eat that if you want.” He pointed at the pancakes Misha had been unable to finish.
“No, Iosef had abandoned me… I didn’t even have the ticket anymore,” Nichol seemed dazed. Then he shook himself into the present. “How did you know about Iosef?”
“Ah, that’s the mystery,” Trowa smiled, somewhat sadly. Perhaps Misha didn’t remember anything and the strange incident in time did nothing to impact their future. Nichol’s brow furrowed with a deepness Misha hadn’t discovered yet.
“I thought I had dreamed this?” Nichol whispered, taking a second survey of his surroundings. “And you,” he blushed, directing his frustration onto Trowa. “I see it now. Damn it, Barton, what did you say to me?”
“Oh,” Trowa smiled broadly. “You do remember?”
“Like some heavenly vision, my ass!” Nichol set his forehead into his open fingers. “Why didn’t I recognize you were the same angel… ah, the same person, the same Trowa Barton, back then? You!" His volume dropped to a pitiful muttering. "I actually joined the military because of you. Because you told me to…”
Suddenly flushed with heat across his own cheeks, Trowa said more quietly, “Okay, maybe... let’s leave that part out when Une asks for a report, agreed?”
“Absolutely.”