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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 to take
it to the vet. "Puppy Love" Trowa's POV: Chapter 6: 'Your damn cat bit me again,' Cathy greeted me at the front door, one hand swathed in tissues. 'What?' I blinked stupidly at her; I'd been thinking about Quat all the way home from the beach, wondering when I could call him without seeming like an obsessive stalker. I couldn't imagine why 'my' Quat would want to bite my sister, though I quite liked the thought of him being mine. Now, if he felt to need to bite me, just the occasional nibble, that would be a totally different story. 'Your cat,' she somehow managed to draw out the one syllable word. 'Leo. I was only trying to coax him down from the wardrobe, and he sank his fangs into me.' 'I told you, he's better off being left alone.' I somehow managed to suppress the annoyance that she'd obviously been in my bedroom. 'He's still not used to living here, and your dogs scare him.' I couldn't help feeling sorry for poor Leo; I only got him a month before I moved here. He'd been brought into the practice where I'd taken a temporary job, just after I got back from Peru, by one of the volunteers from a local animal shelter. If I hadn't taken him in, he would have been put down. 'Well, never mind about that,' Cathy followed me into the kitchen and plonked down in her favourite chair, all ready for a nice sisterly gossip. 'How was the date with Quatre?' She gave me a smug little grin. 'I knew you two would get on.' Oh, we'd got along, no problem. The next thing would be getting down and dirty with him…. Except he wanted to take things slowly. Well, that was fine. I could do slowly. Slow is good. 'It was good.' Cathy rolled her eyes at me, obviously expecting a great deal more that that. She's always been resolutely fine with the whole gay thing, carrying it to extremes sometimes, wanting to know about my various boyfriends in way too much detail. 'Oh, before I forget, Wufei called. He said he'd tried your mobile and it was switched off.' Well, of course I'd had it switched off. Couldn't have anything interrupting my date with Quat now, could I? 'Thanks, Cathy. I'd better go and call him back.' And thank you, Wufei, for providing the perfect excuse not to have to sit and have my nosy sister try to interrogate me about Quatre. Not that I didn't want to talk about him; I just don't want to have to answer all Cathy's questions. She'd want to invite him over and be his new best friend and have cosy discussions with him about me. 'Wufei? Hey, it's me. Sorry I missed you earlier.' He grunted. 'Instead, I had the pleasure of a conversation with your sister.' They never got on particularly well, those two. Wufei and I have been friends since we were twelve. His family had just emigrated to Sanque from China; I'd just come to live with my dad and Cathy after my mother's death. I'd been the weird kid who'd actually lived with a travelling circus; something these overly-privileged kids in our new school just couldn't imagine, and he'd been the foreign kid who spoke English with a weird accent, and spent all his spare time in the library. As the two newbies in a class of kids who had known each other forever, we would have been thrown together anyway, but we'd actually found we liked each other. Cathy had always driven him insane; when we were kids, she'd tried to act like his surrogate older sister; as a teenager, she'd tried to hook him up with the younger sisters of her friends, and when he'd come out, she decided he and I would be the perfect couple. Somehow, our friendship had managed to survive all that, and even though we'd ended up going to different universities, we'd always kept in touch, and met up whenever we could. 'I gather you still haven't killed her then? Or have you finally cracked and you need a good lawyer to defend you?' 'Not quite. Not yet anyway: I'd forgotten just how damn annoying she can be when she wants. I actually got told off on Saturday for going out without telling her when I'd be back. It's like she still thinks I'm twelve years old.' Wufei laughed. 'You know my offer still stands; my futon is ready and waiting if you have to get away.' 'Thanks. I'd be over there in two seconds if I didn't have Leo; he's scared enough of Cathy's dogs without bringing him to your place. That hellhound of yours would give him a heart attack.' 'Nataku isn't a hellhound,' Wufei defended his pet. 'She merely believes that a dog of ancient Chinese lineage shouldn't have to share the planet's resources with such inferior creatures as cats.' 'Charming.' Wufei sniggered. 'Well then, it sounds like you're stuck with Cathy for a bit. You're looking at some apartments tomorrow, aren't you?' 'Yeah. I've got three viewings lined up. None of them sounds great though. The best of the lot is nearly an hour's from the practice. And they all looked pretty grotty on the agency's website.' 'That's what you get for swanning off to South America for a year, when you could have been establishing your career. If you hadn't done that, you could afford a decent place.' Wufei spoke with all the smugness of someone who'd gone straight from university into a highly paid career. 'Well, I didn't and I definitely don't regret it,' I said calmly. 'Anyway, you know I needed to get away for a bit.' After I'd made the unpleasant discovery my boyfriend of over two years hadn't been quite as faithful as I would have liked, was what I meant. 'I'll find a place somewhere. I just didn't think it would be this hard. Cathy promised to find some possible places before I arrived, but she 'forgot'. I think she had fantasies of me deciding to move in for good, and the two of us could bitch about evil boyfriends and go shopping together.' Wufei snorted at the idea. 'Still at least she's stopped trying to set you up with her idea of perfect partners.' 'Um, not exactly.' 'Oh, tell me she isn't trying to match-make for you again. Don't women ever learn to stop meddling?' He has a huge extended family and even now some of his older aunts think he's still going through some sort of rebellious phase. At family gatherings, they invariably keep trying to pair him off with suitable young women. 'Well, this one actually worked out OK,' I admitted, smiling at the thought of Quatre, the first time I'd ever seen him, totally engrossed in the little dog on his lap, and his answering smile when I'd walked into the room. Damn, I really wanted to call him. Would he think it was weird just a few hours after our first date? I didn't want him to think I was taking things too fast. 'He's called Quatre; I just met him today and we're going for dinner on Thursday.' 'Quatre? That wouldn't be Quatre Winner, would it?' 'You mean you know him?' I asked excitedly; damn, so much for playing it cool. 'How come you never told me?' 'What, I'm supposed to furnish you with a list of all my acquaintances?' He wondered dryly. 'And I don't really know him as such. I've just met him through work a couple of times.' No, you don't have to tell me all your acquaintances, just the cute blond ones who'd be perfect for me. Damn, I could have met Quatre years ago if he'd ever bothered to introduce us. We could be a couple by now. It took a minute for the second sentence to sink in. 'What do you mean, you know him through work? How does a music teacher know a criminal lawyer through work?' There was a minute's silence on the other end of the line. 'He hasn't told you then?' 'What? Told me what?' 'Well, you have only just met,' Wufei mused slowly, 'and it's not as if he was ever convicted but that's mainly because juries always fall for how innocent he looks.' 'What?' I exploded, and then he burst out laughing. 'I can't believe you fell for that one, Barton! I met him last year when I went to give a talk at a careers seminar at his school. Also, he gives some voluntary music classes at the youth club where I teach martial arts.' He started to laugh again. Bastard. I shook my head, trying to get rid of all those visions of Quat in tight leather pants, with a couple of tattoos, and maybe a piercing or two in strategic places. He'd look positively delicious in leather...and then I could peel it off him,and get my hands on all that pale skin and... Stop it, Barton. Now. Wufei started to say something about how I'd never used to be that gullible, but my mind was far, far away, imagining Quatre straddling a motorbike.. And that blond hair all mussed up by a helmet….and one of those short leather jackets that just skirted his ass. Oh, boy. 'Trowa? Are you still there?' 'Yeah. Sorry. Just thinking about something.' 'Or someone,' Wufei remarked perceptively. Or then again, maybe it was rather obvious what - or who - was on my mind. Since I couldn't have him on any other part of me just yet. 'I can't claim to know him well, but I have had the impression that he's been hurt by someone in the past.' 'He's told you that?' I couldn't help feeling ridiculously hurt. Quatre had told me nothing more than that his previous relationship had ended badly; he obviously hadn't wanted to elaborate and I'd gathered it took him time to trust people. But maybe he did go around spilling the details to even casual acquaintances. Maybe he just hadn't wanted to tell me? 'No,' Wufei snorted. 'He's a very private person. But we've had coffee a couple of times in the club, and he never talked about himself, about his personal life. I know a couple of the other volunteers have asked him out, even just as friends, and he's always refused.' 'Really?' I perked up at that. He had to like me then, right? We'd already been out together, and he'd seemed pleased to be invited out for dinner. We hadn't talked much on our walk back to our cars; on a sunny Sunday, the beach was starting to get crowded. I'd wanted to kiss him so much before he got into his car, but I'd settled for sliding my hand over his as he gave me Maggie's leash while he searched his pockets for the keys. I'd hated letting him go. Maggie had been looking out of the window as they drove away, and I'd stood and waved until they were out of sight. 'You've really got it bad for him, haven't you?' Wufei commented. 'You haven't heard a single word I've said.' 'Sorry. Sorry, 'Fei. Listen, are you busy this week? I'm free on Wednesday or Thursday if you want to meet up.' 'Wednesday should be all right,' he mused. 'Can I check my diary and call you back?' 'Sure. Later, OK?' I dialled off with almost indecent haste, because there was a 'call waiting' on the other line. And it was Quatre's number.
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