|
"Family Dining"Written By: Dentelle_noir Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing AC or the
characters. GW belongs to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. This
is a work of fiction and written for fun, not profit Rating: PG 13 Warnings: AU, fluff, sap - Sequel to Fine
Dining,but can be read stand alone. Pairings: 3x4 Summary: A surprise guest at Trowa’s restaurant
precedes a welcome face and the promise of more. "Family Dining" It was a quiet Saturday morning in the Barton family restaurant in the aftermath of the Christmas rush and Trowa was back in his element, topping up Angie’s decaf behind the counter while Cathy took a new table on the floor. The restaurant had been standing there for years and years before it came into Trowa and Cathy’s hands. There was still the ding by the fridge where Trowa had hit it with a stray baseball when he was ten, and the little stencil decal by the roof that Cathy had touched up with a fresh coat just last month still bore the little flourished signature of their teenage mother from 1982 beside Cathy’s own with 2007. The little bell atop the door rang merrily, announcing a new arrival, and Trowa looked up to smile in greeting. The man beelined straight for the counter and then decided to stand ‘casually’ with his back to a window, ignoring the seats. He was huge, with pitch black sunglasses and matching suit on top of a crisp, blinding white shirt adorned with a perfectly straight black silk tie. His gaze seemed to travel right over to Trowa, but he didn’t move a muscle. Lifting a brow (and conscious of the leery stares being leveled at the strange man by most of his customers), Trowa walked over, pot of coffee dangling gently from his left hand, and leaned closer to the man in a show of trust, “Coffee?” The man raised a brow and let out a curt, “No thank you.” Well, that was interesting. Why would someone come to stand in his diner without ordering even a coffee? “So, how long have you been in the CIA?” Trowa joked with a lopsided grin, switching the pot of decaf for regular. The man did not look amused. His hand began to move slowly towards his pocket... The bell atop the door chimed merrily again, admitting a brightly smiling man Trowa recognized immediately. Quatre Winner, CEO and previously named most difficult patron of Huître’s, walked in purposefully, leveling that charming smile on Trowa as soon as he saw him. It had been about two weeks since the blonde had run out of Huître with his waiter, but Trowa had been disheartened to not have heard anything from the man since. Quatre began to sit at a counter-seat, only a few feet away from Big and Creepy, when Trowa quickly cut him off, “That spot’s dirty. Over here.” He said, urging Quatre over to a spot as far away from that man as possible, but not too far that he would have to walk away from him often. Quatre shot him a confused look (the spot was immaculate as far as he could see), but followed anyway for sake of ease. Once seated, Trowa leaned a hip against the counter, putting his back between Quatre and the man in black. He offered Quatre a coffee with a gesture to the pot, and kept an eye on the reflections in the windows. “Please.” Quatre accepted the coffee, a hint of weariness in his voice already. Trowa noticed that, while casual, Quatre was in perfectly pressed pants and a sport coat--office attire for a Saturday, he assumed, even though it was barely 11 am and a weekend just after Christmas. Getting the blonde a mug while watching the now uneasy looking Man in Black, Trowa returned to his protective posture while he poured. “How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since you were making the maitre ‘d shake in his boots.” Trowa joked, dropping a pile of creamers in front of the blonde. Quatre grinned evilly in memory, “I’ve been good. Busy as usual, but nothing too extreme: A few hostile takeovers, some lawsuits, and scaring the new interns with threats of locking them up with our copy machine over Christmas. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Trowa chuckled deep in his chest, unable to stay too surly with Quatre around. Another pair of regulars came into the restaurant, waved happily, and then sat down at a table. In the time it took Trowa to wave back, moving his gaze away from the reflective windows for that moment, the Man in Black moved and was now standing ‘casually’ with his back against the middle of the counter. “That guy’s really starting to creep me out,” Trowa confided quietly to the blonde, keeping his eyes locked on the stranger’s movements through the windows again, “I didn’t want you anywhere near him.” Quatre turned to find the object of Trowa’s heebie-jeebies, but Trowa hissed a ‘don’t look’ under his breath. “I tried to joke with him earlier, but he started to reach for his pockets! I don’t know what he’s got in there, and I don’t want to.” Quatre dropped two creamers into his coffee and idly stirred, using the motions as an excuse to scan the restaurant for the ‘creepy’ guy. The Man in Black moved and took the stool one over from Quatre. Trowa glared outright, ready to take it to a fist fight if need be. The man was in HIS restaurant, and he had every right to kick his ass out for looking at him wrong. Quatre looked at Trowa, then to Mr. CIA, and broke out into bubbling, hilarious laughter. The black-clad man scowled and reached towards Quatre. A menu came down with a threatening ‘crack’ in the way of the hand, “We have a strict hands-off policy at the counter,” Trowa said with menace, wielding the laminated paper like a wall--or guillotine. The man growled low in his throat and began to size up Trowa’s muscles under the fitted royal blue button-up uniform. Cathy stopped serving her table to watch, ready to call the cops in a heartbeat if it got physical. Quatre burst out laughing, pushing the menu-wall down to touch Trowa’s forearm and putting his other hand on the black-suited man’s chest to gently keep him down. Mr. CIA turned his gaze to Quatre and scowled, “You are to pretend that you do not know me, Master Quatre. How else will I protect you without being noticed?” The black-clad man whispered in protest. Trowa’s jaw just about dropped, his eyebrows reaching his hairline. “If you were going for inconspicuous, you failed, Buddy. You stick out like a sore thumb.” Trowa stated bluntly, earning him a few agreeing chuckles from the patrons who’d all been watching the scene since the man walked in. “Trowa, meet Rashid. Rashid, this is Trowa.” Quatre introduced, a wicked smile on his face the whole time. It was obvious he was getting a sick thrill out of the whole thing, but Trowa couldn’t blame him. With a lopsided smile of his own, Trowa turned to Rashid, “Well then, I’m sorry for treating you so suspiciously. Let me get you a drink on the house to make up for it.” A moment later he came back with a bright pink strawberry milkshake, complete with a triple-wide flamboyant purple straw in a huge flower-speckled glass which Cathy used to hold spoons. He dropped it in front of the no-longer threatening man with an innocent smile, and then topped off Quatre’s coffee in the plain old white mug. The bell atop the door rang merrily again, and in walked Shelly and her husband Greg; Both had been patrons of the dinner since before dinosaurs ruled the earth. Both waved hello and, after a second’s consideration, came over to sit at the counter on Quatre’s other side. Trowa already had one coffee and a tea poured before they even got settled and took their usual breakfast order. Shelly turned towards Quatre and smiled, “You’re a friend of Trowa’s?” Quatre nodded, “Hello. I’m Quatre.” He said politely, holding out his hand to shake. She took in eagerly and shook with a broad smile on her face, “How old are you?” Quatre immediately turned from smiling openly to scowling, “Twenty-Four.” “Too old for Amanda, Shelly, try again,” Trowa mediated, giving the woman a mock-condescending look. “Lord have mercy on teenagers,” Shelly said, gesturing wildly, “Do you know what she did yesterday! She came home and her beautiful blonde hair’s blue. She was always such a doll, just like her mom, and then she went and did that! Can you imagine; Blue! It’s that boyfriend, I swear! He’s got a ring in his eyebrow, one in his lip, and I don’t even want to know where else! You sure you don’t have any younger friends, Trowa. I swear, I’m at my wit’s end!” Cathy chuckled, coming over the counter to slide a few bills into the kitchen, “Just let her be, but tell her you won’t go out anywhere with her while she’s blue. It’s her hair and her choice, right? But it’s your choice not be seen in public with her. You’re supposed to be the wise one, right? Think it out,” She advised, smiling gently as her huge spangled earrings jangled with every move. A man appeared to put up a breakfast, which Cathy grabbed expertly, and Quatre tried not to gape openly. The man was in his 50s at least, and had hair sticking straight up and through the hair net in little peaks. But the most obvious feature was the huge, discolored nose cover...or something. “What happened to his nose?” Quatre asked quietly before he could stop himself. Everyone who’d heard it began to chuckle. Shelly gave Quatre a friendly bump, “I personally think it was an injury from Vietnam. He could be old enough.” “I think he froze it off somewhere.” Greg piped up for the first time in the conversation, “S goes hunting and stuff. It could happen.” Cathy, moving out to the table with plates of food in hand gave a conspiratorial wink, “I think he hurt it doing something silly, like closed it in a door, and that’s why he’s not telling.” Quatre couldn’t help but laugh, turning to Trowa for the last opinion; “I say he pissed off Jimmy Hoffa.” “He can’t be that old,” Rashid broke his silence to ask, gaping at the mysterious man in the kitchen. Trowa simply shrugged non-commentally, “He’s been cooking here since before I was even born, and he had that nose then.” “Or it could be a perfectly normal nose under there and he just gets a kick finding out what people come up with.” Quatre played along, smiling gently. Another couple walked into the restaurant, catching Shelly and Greg’s attention. They left the counter to join them, dropping Trowa a goodbye as they packed the booth and brought their drinks with them. Now alone with Quatre (and his body guard), Trowa rested against the counter and smiled, “So, what brought you over here? You can’t like our coffee that much.” Quatre smiled warmly, taking a sip, “It is good coffee, but you’re right. I had an ulterior motive, of course.” “Of course,” Trowa repeated with a smile. “I was wondering what time you closed tonight.” “At eight,” Trowa answered hesitantly, “Why?” “I thought you might enjoy making the maitre’d shake in his boots yourself. Then maybe we could go to a movie after, or something,” Quatre said invitingly, the nearly-invisible blush dusting his cheeks the only thing intoning the outing as more then friendly. Trowa blinked a few times, and felt his own cheeks tint with colour. “I think I’d like that,” He finally said, smiling. Quatre beamed up at him brightly, and then downed the cup of coffee in one gulp, “I’ll pick you up here at 8:30 then?” Quatre said cheekily, smiling in victory. “But if you want to go to Huître, then you’re paying.” Trowa had to throw in, trying to hold back his grin and failing miserably. Quatre was already half out the door, waving brightly from behind his body guard. “All the good ones are gay or taken!” Shelly called out from the booth, sending the whole restaurant into laughter as Trowa scowled playfully and chucked his rag at her head. Grinning, Trowa picked up another cloth and cleaned up the counter, smiling when he saw a shiny white business card left under the coffee cup with a cell phone number scribbled across the back. He didn’t plan to let Quatre go anytime soon.… or anytime at all, if he had his way. “I might be gay,” Trowa called back, watching
Shelly’s smirk grow, “but I’m still working on that
‘taken’ part!” He slid the card into his pocket reverently,
and smiled brightly at the first few flakes of snow for today. It
was going to be a lovely Saturday, if he did say so himself.
|
