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"Puppy Love"Written By: Waterliliylf Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. All rights
remain with Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. No profit being
made here. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: sap, angst, fluff, Alternating Trowa/Quatre
POV, AU Pairings: 3x4 get together, Background 1x2, 5x6
Summary: quatre gets a new puppy and has ot take
it to the vet. "Puppy Love" Trowa's POV: Chapter 15: Unsurprisingly, I dreamt of Quatre. I would have to start doing laundry fairly soon, or else buy some extra sets of bed-linen. Still, I put off that chore until I'd called him, just in case he was up for a bout of early morning 'phone sex. 'Hey, gorgeous.' 'Good morning, Trowa,' he responded. I smiled at the formality; such lovely manners. Even when he'd been offering oral sex, he'd remembered to say please. 'Sleep well?' 'Not really.' 'Me neither,' I grinned at the memory; both of our real live sex and the dreams that had followed it. 'I dreamt about you.' 'Oh.' Well, that wasn't very enlightening. 'Is everything OK?' 'Fine.' Hmm. Well, maybe he just wasn't a morning person. Although I'd spoken to him before work a few times already this week, and he'd been bright and cheerful. 'Did that Dorothy girl do anything else to upset you?' 'Hmmm? Oh no. We talked last night; I think we've sorted some things out.' 'Good.' 'I should probably let you go,' he said after a few moments' silence. 'I know you have to be at work soon.' 'Quatre, if I did something wrong, I'd really appreciate it if you just told me? You don't have to freeze me out like this.' 'I - just,' he hesitated. 'Maybe we can talk later, when you're not rushing off.' 'Or you could just tell me what's the problem,' I tried to sound concerned, without pressuring him too much. He was quiet for so long that I wondered if he'd hung up. 'I'll call you later, if that's all right? We can talk then.' What the fuck was that all about? OK, I could deal with sensitive and highly strung; I wasn't sure if I wanted to handle three-sixty degree mood swings. One of the things I'd liked about him was that he'd been honest from the start. OK, the whole sex embargo hadn't exactly been a welcome development, but he'd come straight out and told me what his boundaries were and I'd respected that. Was that what this was all about? That he was regretting what we'd done? I was pretty damn sure that he'd initiated it. He'd practically dragged me into the bedroom. Even then, I'd have been happy with a hand job, or bit of mutual fondling. Whatever he was willing to give basically. Instead he'd practically begged to go down on me. What the hell was I supposed to have done? Turned him down? And he'd damned well seemed to enjoy it. He hadn't been anywhere near as shy as I'd somehow imagined either. Instead, I'd somehow got the impression that he enjoyed taking charge between the sheets. I fumed about it all the way into work, trying to work out whether I could have offended him somehow, or whether I was just reading the situation wrongly. Damn, but I hated these stupid games. If he had a problem, why couldn't he just tell me? Cathy was standing in Reception when I arrived, looking over the day's appointments. 'I didn't think you were working this morning.' 'I wasn't,' she yawned widely. 'But Lindsey called in sick; Mark's away for the weekend and there's too much on the work-list for you to cope with by yourself.' She took a page out of the printer and handed it to me. 'Here you go: I've worked out the schedules for next week. If you don't mind working a couple of evening shifts, you can take a half day next Saturday and have Sunday off. Is that OK?' I shrugged. 'Thanks for that, but it probably doesn't matter any more. I don't think Quatre will want to be going anywhere with me.' 'What?' She gaped at me. 'But you guys seemed to be getting on so well yesterday. What happened?' 'I don't want to talk about it.' Her face fell and I felt like a total bastard. Damn. This really was my day for pissing people off, wasn't it? She was only making an effort to be interested in me, after all. Quatre would probably have given anything to have one of his sisters wanting to be that involved in his life. 'Sorry,' she muttered. 'No, I'm sorry. You were only asking. Anyway, it was OK, I guess. We stayed in; I cooked dinner for us, we talked for a bit after we'd eaten.' For about ten seconds maybe…. 'That sounds fun,' Cathy offered a bit uncertainly. 'Um, why did you say you 'guess', though?' 'Yeah. I thought it was fun. Then I called him this morning and he was, I don't know, just really offhand with me.' 'Well, it was early,' she suggested. 'He was probably still half asleep.' I shrugged. 'Maybe. But he's usually OK in the mornings. And he said he'd call me later so we could talk.' 'Oh!' She considered. 'Well, maybe that's good. Communication is always good.' 'Yeah, right,' I muttered. God, aren't women supposed to be good at this relationship stuff? 'Trust me, talking is never good.' Cathy shot me a wicked little grin. 'Anyway, it'll probably do you a world of good to have some guy not falling at your feet, for once in your life.' 'What exactly is that supposed to mean?' I demanded. 'I do not have guys falling at my feet!' 'Oh please,' she snorted. 'I grew up with you, remember? We went to school together for years. All my girlfriends wanted me to set them up with you, even though you were three years younger, and then when you came out, all my male friends got interested. So don't you dare tell me you're not used to that sort of attention.' 'Maybe,' I had to admit. 'But it doesn't do me much when the one guy I'm seriously interested in doesn't seem to reciprocate.' 'Oh, don't be stupid,' she snapped. 'Of course he likes you. I saw the two of you together yesterday and he was sneaking little glances at you every time you weren't looking.' She smirked at me. 'I think he liked that vest you were wearing, actually. Or maybe the amount of skin you were showing.' 'Cathy!' 'Just chill out,' she reached out and tugged my bangs gently; something she'd use to do when we were kids. Then it had driven me mad; now, it didn't seem too bad. 'Honestly, I don't think you need to stress too much. It's probably got nothing to do with you.' She bit her lip. 'I know him a little bit, just from him coming in with Duo, and I gather he was really cut up about his last boyfriend leaving him. As far as I know, you're the first guy he's been out with since then; in his place, I'd probably feel a bit off balance as well. He's probably just scared of getting hurt.' 'I'd never hurt him.' 'I know,' my sister told me gently. 'But he doesn't know you that well yet. Don't rush him, Tro. Let him get to know you a little bit better and then I'm sure he'll start to trust you.' I nodded. 'Maybe you're right.' Damn, I never thought I'd admit something like to my sister, especially not over relationships. 'So ...what should I do? Call him back?' Cathy shrugged. 'You told me he said he'd call you, right? Just let him say whatever he has to say, and don't pressure him. If he really is falling for you, he probably just wants a little bit of space to figure that out. You two have only known each other a few days, anyway. You don't need to get serious right away. See if you like each other as friends, first?' I nodded, not entirely comfortable with telling my older sister that my boyfriend and I had already got beyond the 'just friends' stage. 'And lighten up. Maybe he was worried about something totally different? You said he has that girl living with him; it could be that they're not getting on and he's stressed about that.' 'That's true.' I brightened up a little bit. 'That girl - Dorothy - sounds like a real piece of work. And her Chihuahua sounds like a monster.' 'Dorothy?' Cathy's eyes narrowed. 'That wouldn't be Dorothy Catalonia, would it?' 'I think so. Why, do you know her?' 'Oh, I know her,' she informed me grimly. 'Her and her monster dog. The little brute savaged Lindsey's hand last year when he came in for his shots. Lin needed stitches and everything. After that, we asked her to find a new vet.' 'Why didn't you sue her ass off?' 'I wanted to, believe me. But her uncle is Duke Dermail and he plays golf with half the judges in Sanque and he was at school with the other half. Besides, she's Lady Dorothy and you know how stupid people here are over the aristocracy.' She shrugged. 'I mean, half the people in this country still think of the Peacecrafts as royalty and the country hasn't been a monarchy for decades.' I grinned at that; ranting about Sanque's royalist traditions had always been one of the few things she and Wufei had in common. I'd grown up listening to the two of them going on about it. 'Tro?' 'Yeah?' I turned back to look at her. 'Be careful, all right? I know you don't plan to hurt him, but he's not your usual type, is he? Just listen to him and try to understand where he's coming from. He's a really sweet guy, from what I've seen, and he's already been hurt pretty badly. I'm guessing if he likes you, it's scaring the hell out of him, and he's already taken a chance just by going out with you. Give him some slack, OK?' 'I guess.' I think it was a bit of a relief at that point when the day's first customer rang the surgery bell. I wasn't used to asking for my sister's advice on relationships, wasn't used to talking to her about personal stuff in general. The next couple of hours were fairly hectic; Sunday is usually a quiet day but for some reason every dog, cat, guinea pig and goldfish in Sanque had chosen that day to need some sort of help. My cellphone rang just as I was about operate on a German Shepherd that had swallowed half the pieces of a Scrabble set. 'Wufei? This isn't the best time; I'm just about to start a procedure.' 'Well, this is a professional call,' he paused. 'Speaking purely hypothetically, how does one know when is a squirrel is dead, and is there any way it could be resuscitated?' 'What? Don't tell me that damn dog of yours has started massacring wildlife as well as domestic pets?' 'It's not my fault,' he said despairingly. 'It's my grandmother; she totally spoilt Nataku and now the creature refuses to accept any form of discipline.' 'Well, maybe you should just keep her on the leash in future?' I suggested, and he grunted. 'According to my grandmother, she needs to run free for at least an hour every day. And if she isn't exercised properly, she is even more destructive than usual.' I grinned. 'Yeah, I noticed teeth marks on the futon you lent me.' He snorted. 'I trust that my furniture is still unsullied.' More or less. 'Oh, come on. You can't tell me it never saw any action in your apartment!' I teased. 'Relax, Chang. It's as innocent as the day it was made.' Well, pretty nearly. 'So ..how did you like Quatre?' 'I hardly met him for long enough to form an opinion,' he said carefully. Typical lawyer; he never commits himself. 'But he seemed quite taken with you. Very unlike your usual type.' 'What the hell is that supposed to mean?' And why the hell was he echoing my sister's words? 'Intellect larger than his ego, for one thing. Actually speaks in words of more than one syllable. And doesn't constantly admire his reflection in every possible surface.' 'Hey!' I protested, knowing that I wasn't really on solid ground here. A number of my past boyfriends had fitted that description exactly, and it was perfectly true that Quatre was very different. 'None of them was important,' I told him haughtily. 'It was fun at the time, but Quatre's more than that.' Shit. It was true. I did want him to be more than that, and that was bloody scary in itself. 'He's more? How long have you had to get to know him?' Wufei's voice dripped disapproval. Wufei knew perfectly well how long I'd known Quatre. Why was he being so judgmental? 'You know exactly how long I've known him!' I snapped. 'Precisely six days, isn't it?' Seven now, actually. 'And you've met him a grand total of three times. That's hardly long enough to decide how much he means to you.' Only the intensity of Wufei's voice was scarier, possibly, than thinking about how Q was changing the patterns of my life. 'I thought you said you liked him. I mean, you've actually known him for longer than I have. I don't get why you've got such a problem with this.' He was silent for a few moments, probably making notes. 'My problem, as you call it, is that I don't see you two as compatible. I only know Quatre very slightly, but he is very unlike the guys you normally date. I think he probably wants something deeper than just a bit of fun.' 'Yeah, well, maybe I want that too,' I snapped defensively. He snorted. 'Since when? Really, Trowa, I've never known you to be serious about any of the guys you've been with. Even with you found out that Elliott had been cheating on you, it was mostly your pride that got hurt.' 'It's different with Quatre. It just is.' 'That,' my legally-gifted friend informed me, 'is not a valid argument. Not for anyone over three years of age, at any rate.' 'This isn't a courtroom!' 'You don't ask a lawyer for advice unless you want the legal argument! I just think you shouldn't rush into anything until you at least know each other slightly better. I get the impression Quatre's been badly hurt by somebody in the past. I know how that feels, but I'm not sure if you do. If you really are serious about him, then I suggest you give serious thought to just how you expect the relationship to develop. Or is it just a physical thing?' 'Of course it's bloody not just physical! ' 'Well, well,' he chuckled. 'Trowa Barton, admitting to some sort of deep emotions! I expect your surgery will shortly be inundated with flying pigs.' 'Oh, fuck off,' I muttered. 'Look, I'd better go. I have to remove half the alphabet from a dog.' 'And what about the squirrel?' God, I've forgotten the poor squirrel. This was what Quatre was doing to me; even making me forget my patients. 'If you think it has any chance at all, bring it in and I'll see what I can do. It might just be in shock. Give it a few minutes and see if it stirs; if there's no movement by then, it's probably a goner.' Like me if Quatre doesn't call soon….. I wasn't sure if I could handle having to wait a whole
day for him to call.
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