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"While You Were Out"Written By: Dentelle_noir Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing AC or the
characters, nor do I condone evil bitter bus drivers. GW belongs to
Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. This is a work of fiction and
written for fun, not profit Rating: R Warnings: AU, Romance, Fluff, one or two hard
curses, the terminology of one who watches WAY too many designing
shows, Jason bashing (if you don’t know who I mean, then it won’t
really matter), and the use of the ‘While You Were Out’
Show. Pairings: 3x4 Summary: Decorating for a moving reality-design
show doesn’t leave much time to get to know people. But more
goes on behind the scenes than what the cameras catch. " While You Were Out" Epilogue: Picking out Curtains "Purple and gold pillows are the colour of love, Trowa." "But, the bedroom sheets are grey." “...Not for long" Quatre muttered under his breath, moving towards another bolt of fabric and running his fingers along the hand-stitched beading. He was thinking...Bedouin bedroom. Definitely. One look at Trowa stopped that line of thinking flat. He was starring at the little sparkling bits hanging from the edges of the fabric unable to even mask his absolute disgust. Quatre had to change design gears quickly, but he was a professional designer, the best on the show, and he could swing with a fussy client easily (although Trowa was special). And it was Trowa’s place, his apartment on top of the Antique shop, that Quatre found himself designing. Quatre wanted to move their relationship past the plateau they had reached. They were a close couple, and Quatre more or less lived at Trowa’s, even though he needed to keep his New York apartment for his almost monthly jaunts he had to make there. But he had already brought his cats to stay with Trowa (poor Snowball hadn’t taken to having competition for attention OR all that woodworking machinery of Trowa’s constantly howling) and he wanted to move on with their relationship. And there was only one way Quatre knew how to show his love—Design! So when Trowa finally relented to letting Quatre, the professional designer (he had to constantly remind his change-resistant lover), fix up his disgustingly drab kitchen after Quatre had accidentally set the drapes on fire—destroying the rooster-pattern’s strangle hold on the kitchen. He had quickly set about destroying all that remained of Cathy’s “housewarming gifts” by bundling up the matching placemats, oven mitts, and salt’n’pepper shakers to give to Goodwill as soon as he cleaned up the charred remains of the drapes. Trowa had asked him point blank if he had almost set fire to his entire house, endangering both their lives and his entire shop just to be rid of the roosters. Quatre was thankful that he honestly hadn’t meant too, or Trowa would’ve been Very Pissed--capital letters included. So, he had brought Trowa along with him to all sorts of stores ranging from Oriental silk markets to import shops to department stores looking for replacements. He had flipped through numerous catalogues, sent back hordes of parcels, and tried hundreds of different designs, but Quatre was never happy with anything he found. So Quatre decided to make the drapes himself. That had been 4 days ago. Since then, Trowa had been hijacked to every fabric store within three counties surrounding his shop. Still, Quatre hadn’t made up his mind about ANYTHING. Trowa knew better than to try to persuade Quatre to get something he didn’t truly want, but after 4 days each bolt of ‘maybe’ fabric piled into his arms were crushing his last nerve. The worst was that once Quatre started looking he had found tons of things; he found a new spread for the bedroom, moved all the living room furniture to make way for a converting table/ottoman, got colour-coded organizing baskets for Trowa’s shop (which were very handy, he would agree), and he bought a whole new set of dishes, but he STILL hadn’t found new drapes. Trowa really didn’t like every patron of his shop getting a show into his bathroom through his wide open kitchen window, yet Quatre STILL hadn’t made up his finicky mind! "And LOOK at this texture, the depth of this fabric! Don't you just want to dive into it?!" "Quatre...I thought you were looking for drapes.” Trowa voiced a barely civil compliant, “This fabric is 100 wool.” Quatre had missed the signs of a cranky and fed up Trowa, though, as he was already wading through the sale fabric ends scouting for deals for his next project. “Quatre!” Trowa cried barely containing a growl of frustration at being ignored in favor of decoration. He KNEW it was Quatre’s life, and his job, but this whole thing was getting out of hand! “What? Dry-clean only doesn’t mean it’s got leprosy!" Quatre called back, fingering another bolt of electric blue taffeta for living room curtain lining. That was it! Trowa would not take being ignored a moment longer. He turned on his heel and moved towards the cutting counter, dropping the 15 bolts of fabric he held onto the desk with a resounding thud. The woman looked up startled, her little glasses falling from her hand, but thankfully saved from a gruesome demise by the tacky little string attached around her neck. Trowa simply pointed to Quatre, and left. Back at Trowa’s apartment, Quatre was busy “not talking” to Trowa as he pulled the aged-cream wool fabric through the machine for a decorative throw to lighten up the living room. Quatre was willing to admit that it was mostly his fault (Trowa had been gone for almost half an hour before an elderly sales woman pointed him to his missing fabrics and asked about his ‘handsome friend” that Quatre had realized he was alone in the store). But it was Trowa’s fault too. He knew how single minded Quatre got when he was designing. He had only been in the fabric store MAYBE an hour before Trowa ran, which was nothing compared to the 6 hour shop-a-thons Quatre regularly roped him into doing with him. Trowa didn’t usually complain. Trowa was just as bad with his own projects. When they were on the road they had to stop at every god damned antique, going out of business, or garage sale within a 100 mile radius of whatever road they were on, and Quatre didn’t complain then! It was just part of who each of them were. If Trowa couldn’t understand that, then...What did they have? What was he even trying to do? Quatre took a moment to wipe moisture from his eyes as he had to snip the bobbin-thread again, re-threading the old singer Treadle once more, he took stitch-cutters to the snagged fabric. He could just barely hear Trowa moving around in his workshop over the scream of the power sander he was using. Quatre started the machine up again, sliding the material through absently. What the hell was going on between them? Trowa and he had hit it off within moments of their first meeting, and now Quatre just didn’t understand what was going wrong. Damn it, everything was going wrong! Quatre had to use the scissors to clear lengths of thread from his fabric, something working horribly wrong to create such a mess of tangled string. Before he knew what was wrong with himself he was crying rivers as he tore out malformed stitches, wiping his eyes more than not. The sound of the power sander stopped. But Quatre couldn’t stop his turmoil from pouring out. Trowa appeared in Quatre’s field of vision, the much taller man crouching low to look up at his blonde between the table and the machine, looking at Quatre’s upset with disbelief. “What the hell is wrong?” He asked, looking at his lover through yards of material and a mess of cut threads. Quatre stifled a whimper at the harshness in Trowa’s usually kind voice. It made Quatre want to sob out loud, but his pride bit down hard on his tongue. “The machine won’t work. The bobbin string keeps catching.” He replied as steadily as he could, lifting the almost ruined fabric up for Trowa to see the damage. There were loose threads hanging out in all directions, the seams crisscrossed and uneven, and the half-finished length hung limp and pathetic from Quatre’s unsteady hands. Just seeing how bad his ideal had turned only refreshed his despair, and fresh tears began to flow down his face, unstoppable. “I can fix it.” Trowa said finally, handing Quatre a discarded length of fabric to dry his eyes. Trowa avoided looking straight at him, and examined the treadle, jimmying the bobbin out of its casing and delving into the inner workings of the machine. He spotted the problem immediately. “The bobbin casing is broken; it’s getting snagged while turning. I’ll need to replace it. I think I got something for it. But it’s going to take me a bit.” Trowa said quietly, unable to stay mad when his lover was so upset. He quietly excused himself to his workshop, finding the part on another treadle which was almost beyond repair (not that Trowa couldn’t do it, just that it was worth more as spare parts than as a working machine). When he came back into Quatre’s area of the living room-cum-workshop, he saw that Quatre had discarded the horribly snagged fabric to begin hand-stitching some lengths of antique-blue fabric. It was really quite nice, and with a start, Trowa realized he couldn’t remember when Quatre bought it, or any other things for that matter. He had just been so sick of doing it all that he must have blanked out completely. Trowa crouched down to get into the machine and took a screwdriver and elbow grease to it, trying to remove the broken pieces from their rightful places. “What the hell is so damn important about some stupid curtains, anyway? You’re all upset.” Trowa remarked, burying himself in his task so he didn’t need to look at Quatre if he responded badly. Quatre didn’t say anything for a long time, long enough that Trowa was in the process of securing the new casing in place of the broken pieces and Quatre had almost moved onto the third seam of whatever he was making. “Because they aren’t just some stupid curtains,” Quatre said quietly, his voice melancholic. “I thought they could be, you know, our...stupid...curtains.” He drifted off softly. Trowa looked up from the nearly repaired machine in surprise, his eyes locking with Quatre’s. Like a flash he remembered clearly just how important one light fixture or the exact height of a boarder was to Quatre. He lived though his designs, expressed himself and his feelings for others. Trowa had just let Quatre do as he wanted with the place as long as it wasn’t too off the wall, but he had hardly put in any input. That was why Quatre was still looking for a curtain. Because Trowa hadn’t picked one out yet. Feeling his chest tighten, Trowa moved away from the machine and took Quatre into his arms, dropping kisses into his hair in apology. “I guess I haven’t been too helpful, then, have I.” He said gently. Trowa touched the soft cotton of the antique-blue fabric in Quatre’s hands, the imperfect lines of Quatre’s stitches standing out against the fabric, “You know what, Quat.” Trowa said, drying his lover’s eyes with chaste kisses, “That thing you have there is the most perfect things I’ve seen yet. Can we put something in it up in the kitchen? With your stitching?” He asked sincerely, running his hands along the thread Quatre had painstakingly woven. Quatre broke out into a little smile. He lifted the half-sewn project up above his head so Trowa could see it entirely. Trowa smiled despite himself, the obvious contours of curtains making him chuckle. “Psychic or what?” Trowa had to ask, looking at Quatre in disbelief. Quatre shrugged morosely, sliding his needle in and out again and again until he tied off the edge. “I picked this fabric out the first day knowing you’d like it. But you didn’t even notice. I figured if worse came to worse, I wouldn’t leave you without some decent curtains up.” Trowa moved in quickly, stealing the needle and fabric out of Quatre’s hands, and sliding one arm under his knees and another behind his back. With one swift motion Trowa had his blonde angel away from the disaster area and into the bedroom, dropping him onto their bed with ease. “You thought you could be rid of me that easily!” Trowa taunted, landing tickling kisses everywhere he knew sent Quatre into mad hysterics. His tickling soon turned into soft caresses as he reminded his lover how much he loved him, despite the hell of picking out curtains. As they both cooled down, Quatre dozing on top of Trowa’s work-toned arms. Trowa propped himself up on his elbow and gave his lover a playful look, “Just for all the hell you put me though these last few days, this weekend, I’m going to drag you to just as many garage sales and antique markets as you can stand, and then, I’m going to bring you to Home Depot to find lumber!” He threatened, Quatre groaning despite himself, “No! Anything but LUMBER!” Quatre wailed, “There’s only so much wood-products I can stand before all that saw dust ruins my shoes!” “Nope. Too bad for you, and nothing you can say will change my mind,” Trowa said grinning. Quatre quickly took to the game, smirking evilly he rolled himself to sit straddled across Trowa’s waist comfortably, “Oh really?” Quatre suggested, a glint in his eye. By the time he was finished, Trowa had not only taken back his threat, but promised to move the furniture in the bedroom for that queen-anne night table Quatre had been eying for weeks. Score one more for the designer.
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