|
"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" Quatre's POV: Chapter 22: 'Maggie's fine, Quat,' Duo tells me calmly. 'She was fine when you dropped her off an hour ago and she's still fine. Now stop worrying about her, and have a great weekend.' 'OK. It's just the first time I've left her alone all night.' He sighs. 'I'm glad you don't have kids, you know that. Listen, Maggie knows us both; she knows Shinnie, and it's just for one night. She'll have a great time here.' I nod. 'I did tell you she sleeps on the cashmere sweater, didn't I? And she likes playing with the squeaky ball when she wakes up?' 'You only told me about twenty times. And left a list. And you texted me three times on your way home. Kitty-Quat, relax, OK? I promise, we'll take good care of her. We won't let her drink, or get piercings, or join a weird cat-worshipping cult.' He laughs. 'Come on. It's not like we're the ones who introduced Cruella de Ville and the evil Chihuahua into her world.' 'Ha ha. Well, you can try to stop your boyfriend from taking blood from her, for a start. Since that seems to be his latest obsession.' 'Sheesh, let it go, Q. It's not that big a deal. And he said he was sorry.' 'He stole blood samples from Trowa! I'm sure that sort of thing is totally illegal.' 'Only if you get caught!' Duo fires back. 'Look, I'm sorry. I thought he'd forgotten all about it, or I'd have kept a closer eye on him. And he's only trying to help. You know he's Mr. Protective and all.' 'I know. It would…just be nice if you didn't all act like I had to be looked after constantly.' 'Maybe we back off a bit, now that you've got yourself a nice HVG. We just worry about you, that's all.' Well, maybe I don't want my friends feeling they have to worry about me. 'Duo, I have to go. Trowa's just pulled up outside.' ''Kay. Have fun, Quat. And don't worry about Maggie; she's going to have great fun staying with us.' He laughs. 'You know, if you're still interested, you can drop by our place on the way to Lake Victoria, and borrow some handcuffs.' 'No, thank you,' I tell him primly. I really shouldn't have told him about tying Trowa up during the paint-ball game. He is having far too much fun over it. 'I'll see you tomorrow. We shouldn't be too late.' 'Hi!' Trowa gives me a quick kiss on the cheek when I open the door. 'All ready to go?' 'Absolutely. Just let me get my stuff.' When I walk back into the hallway, pulling a wheeled suitcase, Trowa's eyes widen. 'Ah, Quatre, you do realise we're only going away for one night.' 'I know,' I give him a bright smile. 'And I did try to pack light, but it's so hard to know exactly what to bring, isn't it?' I frown slightly. 'I'm still not sure whether I should bring my foot-spa. It would be so nice if we'd been hiking all day.' Trowa's eyes drift incredulously from my expression to the case at my feet, in all its lurid pink glory. 'You….are joking, aren't you?' 'I can't believe you fell for that,' I crow happily, diving back into the living room for my backpack. I'm still laughing as I get into the car; I couldn't resist. Despite her promises to tidy up, Dorothy is still leaving her possessions strewn about the house. I tidied some things into the hall closet this morning and the suitcase had given me the idea. 'I stopped at that café you like, on the way here.' He hands me an insulated cup of my favourite tea and a muffin. 'If you're not too hungry, there's a really nice diner about thirty miles from the lake. We could stop there for a late lunch, and then maybe have a barbeque tonight. Is that OK?' 'Perfect,' I say happily. The next couple of hours are, in fact, quite perfect. We take turns choosing music on the radio, and Trowa teases me over my fondness for sappy Korean boy bands, while I laugh at the his preference for country and western. By the time we get to the diner, we are listening to a guy singing about how he'd spent his whole life taking the wrong turns, until one day he let his ol' hound dawg lead him home. 'The moral of the story,' Trowa informs me as we find an empty booth, 'is always to listen to your dog. And remember that Maggie likes me.' After we've demolished giant club sandwiches, I feel like I've already been on holiday for a week. 'Fancy taking a walk before we get back in the car?' Trowa asks as we settle the bill. 'There's a really nice viewpoint about a mile through the woods.' The path leads up a hillside, and as we turn out of the car park, he reaches for my hand, and then pulls back. 'Sorry. Sorry. I know you said you don't like the whole public display thing.' This time, I take his hand. 'It's not that I don't like it,' I explain haltingly. 'I'm just - not really used to it. Simon didn't like us being too obvious in public.' 'He was a fool, then.' We walk a few more yards up the path, before he speaks again. 'Can I ask you something?' I nod, not entirely sure I'm going to like whatever he's going to ask. It's bound to be about Simon, and I'd rather not talk about him right now. 'I really like you, you know that.' It's not exactly a question, but I nod anyway. 'I just need to know that you don't still have feelings for Simon. I mean, I'm the first guy you've been with in over a year, since he broke up with you. It kind of looks like you're finding it hard to let go.' 'He didn't break up with me.' My voice, surprisingly, is very firm. 'I finished it. And the only feelings I still have for him are negative, I promise.' He tries to hide his look of surprise. Ah, he's been thinking of me as the one who got dumped. Poor sensitive Quatre who had his heart broken, and who's taken a long time to get over it. I hadn't really planned on having this conversation, not yet anyway. Still, it's probably better if he stops seeing me as some poor, tragic victim figure. 'I - ah - are you sure you want to hear all this? Now?' 'Only if you want to tell me. You don't have to, if you'd rather not talk about it.' 'It's OK. Basically, I met Simon the night of my twenty-first birthday. It sounds stupid, but I'd always planned that when I was twenty one, I'd go home and try to make up with my parents. For some insane reason, I thought that they'd want to see me, that they'd realise I was an adult, not just a kid trying to prove something, and they'd accept me.' He nods, gently twining his fingers through mine. 'It was quite incredibly stupid. My mother didn't even want to see me; Father told me that he would be glad to acknowledge me when I was willing to give up my 'perverted lifestyle'. He even offered to get me counselling; he said there were places that claimed to cure gays and turn them into normal people.' 'Duo and Hilde, that's a friend of his whom you haven't met yet, dragged me out to dinner that night, and then we went to a bar for a drink before going home.' I take a deep breath. 'I was really upset about everything, Trowa. Duo and Zechs had just started dating, and they were at that lovey-dovey stage.' 'I hadn't realised they were ever a couple,' Trowa says quietly. 'Is it an issue for Heero?' 'Not so much now. It was at the start. Zechs, well, he likes teasing people and Duo's a bit of a flirt, and Heero didn't take it too well. They're OK now, though.' I sighed. Like I said, it had been an incredibly difficult period. I'd been trying to feel glad for my two best friends, and at the same time, I'd been wondering why Duo couldn't have turned to me. It's tempting to tell Trowa all that, but he probably doesn't want to hear every detail of my entire life. 'I met Simon at the bar. He asked me to dance, and that was pretty much it. He was gorgeous, sophisticated, everything you're supposed to want. I'd only ever been out with guys my own age before. Students. Simon was a few years older, and I fell for him straightaway. I couldn't believe that someone like that wanted to be with me.' 'Was he your first?' Trowa asks gently. 'No. I was pretty stupid, when I first went to University. I was messed up from being thrown out of home, and I think at some level, I thought that if my parents thought I was such an awful person, I was going to live down to their expectations.' I say it all slowly, looking down at my hand in Trowa's, and wondering how he's going to take all this. The Life and Times of Quatre Raberba Winner, the Uncensored Version. I'd told Simon all this, when he insisted he wanted to know about my past, and he'd called me a slut. 'Anyway, Zechs sat me down one night and gave me a long lecture about how I was starting to get the wrong sort of reputation.' Trowa snorts. 'I somehow haven't got the idea that he's celibate himself.' 'I think his point was that I needed to go for quality, rather than quantity. To be honest, he was right. It was ..nice, sometimes, just to feel that someone needed me. Wanted me. Stupid, right?' 'Not at all,' he says firmly. 'Everyone does dumb things when they leave home for the first time, honey. And you were dealing with a whole load of other stuff. In your place, anyone would have done the same.' I give him a grateful glance. 'Thank you. Well, after that, I think I went off to the other extreme. I did date a few times, but never for that long. I got caught up in my coursework and I was trying to compose my own music, and well, I hadn't ever had a long-term serious relationship until Simon.' Well, apart from unrequited love for my best friend. 'What did Duo and Zechs think of him?' I shrug. 'They were pretty much wrapped up with each other at the start, and I think they were just happy I'd found someone. He could come across as very charming, perfect boyfriend material. It wasn't like they met him a lot, really. He was living in Madrid - he's a banker - but his job meant he travelled all over Europe. We had a deal, at the start, that we'd take turns to meet up in each other's city, but I usually ended up being the one who took the flights to wherever he was..' 'The long distance thing must have been hard.' Trowa comments. 'It was actually fun at the start. We went to all these amazing places, Paris and Venice and everywhere. He made me feel like a prince, you know. Like I'd fallen into some romantic novel and found my happy ever after.' 'What went wrong?' 'Everything,' I say wryly. I'm not really sure how to divulge all the next bit without sounding hopelessly naïve and foolish. 'He was really possessive; he was always finding excuses why he couldn't come to Sanque, or if he did come, he didn't want to go out with my friends. I actually liked it at the start. I thought it meant that he cared about me, that he wanted to talk to me all the time. That when we were together, he only wanted to spend time with me, and not have to share me with other people.' 'That must have been hard.' Trowa pulls me off the path, and draws me down beside him on a fallen tree trunk. 'It was. I thought that after the first few months, things would be more, well, normal. But he just got more and more jealous. He wanted to know about my ex-boyfriends. He kept pestering me, and I thought I'd just tell him and get it over with. ' I shoot Trowa a nervous little glance under my lashes. 'I wasn't that bad, really. I was always careful, and they were always people I knew, at least slightly, and trusted. It wasn't like I got drunk and went off with total strangers. Well, I told him what I'd told you and he just freaked out. I think he'd that some idea that I was this perfect, pure little virgin.' 'Hey,' Trowa slides an arm around my shoulders, and pulls me closer. 'Someone with your looks? No way. I sort of have a confession to make.' He leans to whisper into my ear. 'I'm not exactly a virgin either.' Incredibly, it makes me laugh for a few seconds. 'Things just got worse. He started calling me at work; if I didn't answer my 'phone, he'd called the staff room or the administrators and say he had to talk to me. And he hated me seeing Zechs and Duo. He said they were bad influences, and that he should have been enough for me.' 'Prick,' Trowa says succinctly. 'So.. what finally made you dump him?' 'Simon got transferred to a permanent job in Copenhagen, and he wanted me to move in with him, full time. I thought maybe it would help. Everyone says that long distance relationships are difficult, and I thought if we were sharing a house, then it would be easier, that he wouldn't have to know where I was all the time. I didn't want to leave my job, but I took a three month sabbatical to see how things went.' 'I'm guessing things got sour at some point?' Trowa says and I nod. 'Pretty much. It just got worse. It was far worse, actually. I didn't know anyone in Copenhagen, so I was calling my friends here all the time, and Simon hated that. One morning I got up early to go for a walk and get the newspapers, and I forgot to leave a note. When I got back, we had a huge row, and I finally saw sense. About a year too late. I packed my stuff and spent the rest of the day waiting at the airport for a flight to Sanque.' I've never actually told any all of this before, not all at once. All my friends know how things turned, of course, but they were there for the live show. It sounds really pathetic. I sound really pathetic. 'I'm sorry to dump all that on you,' I say quietly. He probably hadn't expected all of that when he'd asked. 'But you said we weren't going to play games with each other, and I think that was all Simon did with me. I was always trying to second guess him; to try not to set him off. He suffered from really bad depression; his family didn't want to know he was gay, and he used to say I was the only part of his life that kept him going. I can't believe I fell for it.' Trowa doesn't say anything for a long moment, just pulls me into an embrace and holds me. 'He was an asshole,' he tells me finally. 'He met you at a bad time, and totally took advantage of you. Of the fact that you're a loyal, kind person, and way too good for him. You saw through him, and you had enough sense to get out. That's the main thing; you knew you deserved better.' By the time we finally reach Lake Victoria, I've told him pretty much everything else. The time Simon threatened to kill himself if I left, the fact that I nearly lost my best friends over him. I'm actually feeling better. Like Trowa said, I finally did realise I deserved someone better. 'Here we go.' We slow down to drive through the entrance gates to the park, following the signs to the Visitor Centre. 'I just need to pick up our keys. You want to wait here for a sec?' I nod, trying to bite back the sudden surge of disappointment. I'd been imagining a lonely cabin on a picturesque hillside. Inside, there is a sprawl of brick bungalows labelled 'Staff Quarters' and a couple of gift shops and a playground. Well, Trowa did warn me that it wouldn't be romantic. 'OK.' He slides back into his seat, dangling a bunch of keys. 'We should be there in about ten more minutes. I might need you to get out and open a couple of gates on the track if you don't mind?' 'We're not staying here then?' 'God, no. There are a few cabins in the forest for the summer staff. We've got one of those. I hope you're going to like it.' I do. I love it. It's exactly what I'd been imagining, except better, because it's just beside the lake, with a little sandy beach for a front garden. 'Um, Trowa,' I ask, as I follow him inside, 'in what possible way is this not romantic?' 'Well, it's pretty rustic, isn't it? You know, there isn't a Jacuzzi or plasma TV or a four-poster bed or any of that stuff.' What there is, is a fireplace with a sagging couch before it, some hooks on the wall and two bunk beds. Trowa grins at me, a teasing glint in his eye, as he dumps his bag on the floor. 'So…you want top or bottom?' 'I knew you were going to say that!' I groan loudly, hoisting myself up to the top bunk and laughing down at him. 'Yeah?' He moves to stand between my legs, sighing as I slide my fingers into his hair, pulling him in for a kiss. Our ambitious plans for a long afternoon hike dwindle away over the next hour. By the time we've carried our stuff in from the car, collected wood for the fire, and made up our beds, over an hour has passed. We could have probably have achieved everything more quickly if we hadn't been taking frequent breaks to make out. In the end, we take a blanket and some drinks down to the little beach and just sprawl in the sunshine. 'You don't mind not doing the hike, do you?' I ask, a little uncertainly. Trowa shakes his head firmly. 'Not at all. We've got all day tomorrow, and honestly, it's just great to get outside the city.' 'Isn't it? I should do things like this more often.' 'I thought you were a real city guy, you know.' I pull a face at him. 'You're not stereotyping gay violinists, are you?' 'Wouldn't dream of it. Especially not ones who kick my ass at paint-balling. You, know there are some really overnight hikes in the area, if you'd be interested, some other weekend.' 'That would be fun.' I roll over on the blanket, resting my chin on my hands, and looking up at him. 'I should come out here more often. None of my friends are really interested in hiking, and it's not much fun going alone.' 'I thought Heero seemed like an outdoorsy guy?' 'Oh, he only likes extreme sports. Rock-climbing, and sky-diving, and deep-sea kayaking, that sort of thing. Hiking's way too tame, unless it's maybe up an active volcano or something.' 'There should be a couple of kayaks here in the boathouse. We could take one out tomorrow if you liked ? Maybe get up in time for sunrise?' 'Oh, that would be fantastic! I'd love to.' Trowa laughs at my enthusiasm and I can't help blushing. 'Sorry. I know I too excited about things all the time.' 'Don't apologise,' he leans over and strokes my hair away from my face. 'I really like it that you're enthusiastic about things. And I like getting you excited.' Another long kiss later, I lose his attention as he focuses on something across the lake. 'Quick, Quatre,' he hands me his binoculars. 'Three o'clock, d'you see them? The pair of black swans?' 'They're beautiful,' I say softly, watching the graceful birds glide across the surface of the water. 'Pretty rare, too, for this time of year.' He comments, rummaging for something in his camera bag. 'That'd be a great shot.' 'Wow.' I can't help blinking. 'That's an enormous lens.' 'Yeah, I've been told that,' he teases, fixing it on to his camera and focusing. 'Always nice to hear, though.' 'Trowa! What is this? Sexual innuendo day?' He laughs at me. 'Well, you keep setting me up. Here, what do you think?' Taking the camera, I gasp at the image he's captured. 'It's amazing. Do you think I could have a copy, please? I love swans; they're so graceful and romantic. They mate for life, don't they?' 'They're genetically programmed to do so,' he says and then notices my expression. 'Sorry. Can't help being a scientist. Species evolve in the way that best ensures their own survival. For some species, that means monogamy is the most efficient way to raise their young.' 'How do you explain homosexuality then?' 'Well, there are scientific theories, but I think we're the lucky ones. We get to do it for fun.' 'I've never thought of it like that before.' 'No?' Camera carefully replaced in its bag, he flops down beside me. 'I think, Quatre, that sometimes, you…think far too much?' 'Is this OK?' he asks minutes later, fingers hovering over my shirt buttons. It's rather a superfluous question at this point, given that I am gasping and writing under the ministrations of his tongue and lips and hands. He can take my shirt off, take everything off, and I won't be complaining. Shirt off, he moves back up to kiss me, those diabolically talented fingertips dancing their way down my torso. Oh, God. I can only moan as they sweep the waistband of my jeans, dipping down for one second and then sliding back upwards. I give another needy little moan, tilting my hips forward and trying to get him to touch me there again. 'Uh huh.' He pulls back and kisses down my neck, lightly grazing my collarbone with his teeth. 'Your rules, remember, Mr. Winner? Above the waist action only. Wasn't that what you said?' 'Trowa,' I reach up to knot my fingers in his hair, trying to pull his head back down. 'Please…' 'Later, honey.' He twists free, and jumps to his feet.
'I think it's time for dinner right now, and then I've got plans for
afterwards.'
~ * ~ |
