#5xd

“Oooh. Lucky you!”

Trowa, in the middle of wiping the black greasepaint and charcoal powder from his face while he glared at his reflection in the dressing room mirror, paused and looked over to see Marianne, the wardrobe mistress.

He arched an eyebrow at her.

He was covered, head to foot, in charcoal powder, it was caked in his hair and ringed his nostrils and ears and lucky was about the last thing he felt.

Marianne clearly knew what he was thinking. She rolled her eyes and walked over to him. She grabbed a towel, dabbed it into the open jar of cold cream that was now streaked with black, and started on the left side of his face.

“I heard about the invitation to the Lion’s Den.”

That.

The beachside estate of Treize Khushrenada, owner of Zodiac Studios, wasn’t actually called the Lion’s Den - it was something like Casa del Mar, Trowa had once heard - but everyone working for Zodiac Studios called it the Lion’s Den.

Trowa shrugged and cleared his throat, wincing when he swallowed what had to be charcoal.

“You should go in my place,” he muttered, forcing the words out as slowly and precisely as he could.

Marianne met his gaze in the mirror, her eyes wide in sudden understanding and sympathy.

“Oh, Trowa. I didn’t even think -”

Trowa shook his head, cutting off her apology.

She sighed, her fingers tightening on the cloth in her hand for a moment before she forced herself to relax and go back to wiping the makeup off.

“Well,” she said, her voice brisk, “Cathy will be there - won’t she?” Marianne waited for Trowa to nod. “Good. Everyone knows she does enough talking for three, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

Trowa felt his lips twitch. He should defend his sister, probably, but Marianne spoke the truth. Cathy did talk enough for three people, and while it annoyed the hell out of Trowa sometimes, most of the time it was a relief.

“I heard the Boss is inviting all of his favorite stars,” Marianne continued. She started to unbutton Trowa’s shirt and he untucked it from his trousers to assist her.

They removed the stained dress shirt, the undershirt that had once been white and was now nearly gray and streaked with black, and then started to work on wiping off his chest.

Marianne’s hands were as brisk as her voice, methodical and there was only the faintest pause, the slightest tremor, as she encountered one of the many scars on his chest and back.

“I wonder if he will invite Duo Maxwell, though… did you hear about the shouting match they had last week?”

Trowa lifted his eyebrows. He hadn’t, but then again, Duo Maxwell tended to get into shouting matches with everyone.

The brash young man had been discovered on a ranch somewhere in Oklahoma, had ripped up the first contract Treize offered him before writing his own and insisting that his best friend, Heero Yuy, also get the same deal. That had been two years ago, and despite all of the headaches Duo had given the studio - insisting that Heero get paid exactly the same as him for every film they made together, insisting that he and Heero personally inspect the living conditions for all of the horses used in their films, insisting that the studio donate a percentage of the film profits from each of his movies to whatever Indian tribe was inevitably featured in the western film and - most irritating of all, Trowa had heard, Duo insisted that whatever love interest the writer’s threw into the script saved herself instead of waiting for Duo and Heero to save her. Despite all of the headaches, Duo had made the studio buckets of money - his films were the perfect blend of adventure, romance and comedy, and his good looks and charm came across even without any spoken words.

Still, Trowa - and most of the Zodiac employees- wondered just how many times Duo would be able to get away with demanding things be done his way before Treize got tired of him.

“Zechs Merquise will be there, of course.”

Of course. The matinee idol was Treize’s favorite, and he certainly acted like it. Trowa had had to deal with him exactly twice - his first day on the lot when Trowa had gotten lost and found himself in Zechs’s dressing room and the man had assumed Trowa was a prostitute and unzipped his pants and demanded that Trowa get on with it. The second time had been at the premier of Trowa and Cathy’s most recent film, Manhattan Holiday, and Zechs had posed with Trowa and Cathy, giving the photographers his glittering smile, before whispering in Trowa’s ear that surely his mouth was good for something.

Even thinking about it now, Trowa felt his throat constrict and his hands tighten on the towel in his hands.

Zechs was a bastard - a rich, coddled, beautiful man who thought he owned the world and who used his cruelty like a weapon to devastate the field around him.

Trowa entertained the brief fantasy of Duo Maxwell going after Zechs. Trowa had seen the cowboy in full crusade mode - had seen Duo go after a director with a sledgehammer after one of the extras had been paralyzed on set because the director insisting he try a stunt that Duo had insisted would get him killed. Duo hadn’t actually managed to catch the director - had chased him across the lot with the sledgehammer until the director took shelter in a car, which Duo proceeded to smash the windows out of, until the driver finally gathered his wits and took off for safety. Duo had been fined, the director fired, the extra and his family given a house and a lifetime pension.

“Oh - and I bet Relena Darlian will be there too,” Marianne said with a dreamy sigh.

Trowa had to smirk.

Relena was Treize’s newest acquisition - he had stolen her away from a rival studio, winning her contract in a card game if rumors were to be believed - and her first picture with Zodiac, Glamour, had already made the studio more than a million dollars.

The studio had started parading her and Duo Maxwell around together - as each other’s dates for their premiers, arranging for them to be “discovered” having dinner together at all of the most romantic restaurants in town.

Trowa envied Duo the chance to spend time with the woman who was not only beautiful but - according to Duo’s one-sided conversations with Trowa in the studio cantina - was smart, kind, funny as hell and had a thing for doing stupid shit like flying planes and going skinny-dipping in the ocean at midnight and bailing Duo out of jail last month when he got into a fight with some cops that he thought were harassing some kids for no reason.

The fact that Marianne was half in love with Relena was further testament to just how impossibly perfect she seemed to be. Marianne hated everyone with the exception of Trowa. She hated Cathy and Duo less than most people, but she only seemed to have patience or kind words for Trowa. And now, Relena.

“Well, I think that’s the best we can get until you take a shower,” Marianne sighed in frustration.

Trowa looked at his reflection again. It was better. There was still black rimming his eyes, nose and hairline, still smudges of it all over his chest and face, but he didn’t look like he had just climbed up a fireplace - the bit from the film he had been shooting - and that was something.

Trowa started to strip out of the trousers and  - damn it all - his flannel boxer shorts were streaked with black as well.

Marianne made a clucking sound and held out her hand, waving it impatiently when Trowa hesitated before stripping out of the boxers as well.

“I’ll pull something from wardrobe for you, dear. Oh - do you have a tux?”

Trowa shot her a look and her lips twitched.

It was an old joke, that everyone but Trowa found funny.

Growing up, Cathy and Trowa had been on the vaudeville circuit, had delighted audiences with their dancing, acrobatics and pratfalls. Cathy, five years older, gorgeous and vivacious, had dressed in sparkly gowns while Trowa had been put into oversized tuxedos - the pant legs hilariously long and the sleeves so long he had to keep pushing them up while fighting with a top hat so big it constantly fell over his eyes. They had been signed by Zodiac the same week Trowa turned eighteen - but before they could even pack up and move to California, Trowa had been drafted into the army and shipped to France.

He rented a tux for the film premiers, which Marianne well knew.

She smirked at his dark expression.

“I’ll just pull one of those for you, too?”

He nodded, though, letting her have her joke but appreciating that she would bend the rules for him.

“And a dinner jacket,” she said over her shoulder as she left the room, door slamming behind her.

A dinner jacket and a tux.

Trowa supposed that some actors would be thrilled to be included on the guest list for the four day “weekend” celebration of Treize Khushrenada’s birthday. But Trowa was about as far from thrilled as he could get - the thought of four days at the estate, rubbing elbows with other stars and wealthy friends of Treize, filled him with dread.

He sighed and looked at his reflection again. There was charcoal in his pubic hair.

Trowa thought about putting on the robe draped over his chair but hesitated - he didn’t want to get it as filthy as he was.

It was, of course, during his moment of hesitation that the door opened again.

Trowa didn’t bother to turn around or cover himself - Marianne had seen him naked enough times over the past three years.

“Oh. Oh. I’m - I’m so sorry.”

The voice was not Marianne’s.

Trowa whirled around and of course. Of course it was Relena Darlian, her cheeks pink, her lips open and eyes wide as she was confronted with the sight of Trowa’s naked body.

“I -”

Trowa felt her gaze rake over him, felt each second like an agonizing lifetime as she looked at him, as she saw the scars, the twisted flesh that the camera hid so well.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated again before turning and fleeing.

By the time Marianne came back, two garment bags in hand and a bulging cloth bag in the other, Trowa still hadn’t managed to look away from the door, hadn’t managed to put the horror on Relena’s face from his mind.

“Well, lucky for you that film on Lot C just got cancelled - the high society drama with that awful title - what was it… oh, that’s right Downtown Angel. Ugh. Dreadful. Anyway, Ralph Kurt is just your size and all of his wardrobe is untouched so I thought you could store a few pieces for us, hm?”

She winked at him and Trowa managed to nod. It was generous of her - definitely against the rules - but Trowa was having a hard time feeling gracious.

By the time he made it home in 1921, Cathy was already a star for Zodiac and Trowa… Trowa had suffered through the trenches, mustard gas and influenza. He had scars on most of his body, shrapnel wounds and burns from the gas. His face had been spared, the gas mask he’d picked up from a German corpse protecting his skin but, lacking actual filtration cartridges, doing nothing to protect his throat and lungs from the gas. Trowa had almost died on the battlefield, had almost died again in hospital from infection and then, just as he was regaining the use of his legs, he’d caught influenza and nearly died again.

Lucky, the nurses and doctors had told him as he lay in a hospital bed. Lucky, they reminded him when he struggled to speak and instead found himself coughing up blood. Lucky, they insisted when he finally managed to growl his name, the effort painful and the result cringeworthy. Lucky, they repeated even when there was no improvement. Lucky, they sighed when he finally had the strength to leave.

“Now, let’s get you dressed so you can go home and get the rest of this off of you.”

Marianne pulled a clean pair of boxer shorts and an undershirt from the bag.

Trowa pulled them on, grateful to hide away the worst of his body.

Lucky. To have the most glamorous movie star stare at his body in horror.