04_after | (no subject)

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trowa

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When Quatre's watch goes off, he wakes up immediately, the late evening light drifting in through the window. He'd fallen asleep on top of the covers, though he expects the workers here wash them regularly. It was as much for comfort as anything else.

He changes into the clothes the bar gave him--the same black linen pants and practical shoes as it gave him after the Cullen party, but a soft blue-grey sweater instead of a long sleeve shirt. He carefully stores his already folded business clothes in the bag, and takes it down with him to the Bar (locking the door behind him).

He drops the bag and key off at the bar, and peels the tangerine he'd picked up while sitting with Trowa and Cass, and he waits for the former.

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"She was very friendly," Quatre explains, as he unpeels carefully (it's coming off in almost one piece).

"She clearly trusts you."

"We've been friends a while." This is agreement, not explanation; it's perfectly possible for Trowa to know somebody for years and not trust them.

It's also worth noting, though, that the number of people Trowa refers to as 'friend' is vanishingly small. Even if this is telling Quatre nothing he doesn't already know.

"A lot of people have a hard time understanding her."

Which baffles Trowa slightly -- it's not as if it's hard, so long as there aren't too many abstract concepts involved -- but he's known for a long time that most people are astoundingly unobservant. So.

"A lot of people think if you can't speak, you can't understand," Quatre says, with a slight shrug.

Mm, tangerine.

"When you went to her world, was it to help with the--ah, parapolicing?"

A lot of people think stupid things. But they knew that!

Trowa nods slightly, depositing his tangerine's peel in a more or less tidy coil on the haybale in front of them.

"She didn't need the help." Benefited from, but didn't need. "But it was informative."

Also: fun. Trowa doesn't quite bother to articulate that to himself. (Because Trowa sucks at having fun and noticing it.)

But, you know, bar brawls and rooftop acrobatics. (Bat-grapples are awesome.)

"It's non-lethal enforcement," he adds, although he doesn't expect that to come as much surprise. Quatre's met Cass, and Quatre is perceptive. And Trowa volunteered for the mission when he wasn't absolutely needed, which says things on its own. "Disable and confine for the official authorities. Gotham's got a very high level of criminal activity, from what I saw."

"Then they're lucky to have her," Quatre says, and if he sounds faintly wistful--that's because he is.

Then, slightly sheepish: "Do you mind if I switch out of English? My brain is still a little -- off. I'll try to keep to French for you."

Versus the french-arabic mixture (not exactly a creole) that tends to be used in L4.

Trowa's sidelong glance is (impassively) faintly affectionate.

"It'll be good practice," he says, which means, sure.

"You would think that," Quatre says affectionately (in French), before having another piece of tangerine. "What do you think about Gotham, and her?"

Talk, Trowa; you clearly have the brainspace to form sentences.

Well, of course he'd think that. It's the practical way to see it. (In Trowa's opinion.)

"[The technology is different,]" he says. "[More or less the 20th century. I don't know if it matches precisely.]" In French, because this might as well be practice speaking too. He needs that more than listening anyway. (Trowa's accent is good, but on certain sentences his syntax goes a little foreign.)

But, since this is talking to a genuinely bilingual friend, he'll drop into English for anything he isn't sure how to say with proper connotations in French.

"[They have people they call] metahumans. With powers. [A variety, I think. I'm not sure of the precise range. Cass's team seems to focus primarily on those criminals.]"

Quatre presses his lips against the fabric on Trowa's shoulder. "Are they metahuman also?"

Trowa shakes his head slightly. (And notes the French word for future reference.)

"[The ones that I have met don't seem to be.]"

He does need the practice; he remembers the slightly more natural way to phrase that right after he's committed to the other.

Oh well. That's what this is for.

"[Cassandra and her roommate both come here. And another friend named Steph. I think there are more, but I don't know if they come to Milliways.]"

"[Barbara Gordon is her roommate. A red-haired woman in a wheelchair.] She's a general information specialist." This has the air of a quote, for the very good reason that it is. It also has faint amusement attached, because Trowa is well aware of exactly how blandly vague a description that is. "[She seems to function as the coordination and dispatch for part or all of the team. I would guess all. If she's a metahuman, she hides it well.]" Which could be the case, of course. Trowa assesses and deduces but he tries very hard not to assume.

Assumptions get you killed. Trowa tries to avoid habits that do that.

Quatre laughs, quietly. "Maybe it's for the best that neither Une nor her daughter come here," he smiles slightly. "Either that or it's a shame."

Quatre straightens a little, to take out his handkerchief and dry off his hands of the worst of the tangerine juice. He leans back as he does so, though.

"Do you know if she's plotting anything here?"

Quatre's leaning back against the hay bales mostly, but his shoulder is a warm weight against Trowa's own. His words are a little slower, a little more deliberate, than usual; you'd have to know him well to hear the drowsiness underneath, but Trowa does.

It's faintly strange, this situation, but not unwelcome.

It's Quatre, and they're in a private place with no deadline, and Trowa can keep watch. So there's no reason to rouse him to alertness.

"[Probably in the background,]" says Trowa, who doesn't see why anyone wouldn't do so. That's what contingency plans are for. "I haven't seen signs of anything focused. [Milliways isn't the] Bats' [jurisdiction. They seem to be mostly off duty here.]"

"Hm," Quatre agrees, after a moment. "That makes sense. Do you know a Will Scarlett, here?"

"[We haven't met.]"

Which doesn't mean Trowa hasn't seen him, or heard the name. But he doesn't know much about him, and in this case he hasn't seen enough to really put name and face together.

"Mm."

Quatre sighs, and looks up towards the roof, before glancing over and smiling slightly at Trowa. "He's supposed to be pretty well connected, but I haven't met him yet either."

Trowa accepts that.

With some curiosity, but if Quatre doesn't volunteer anything, he'll ask again sometime when Quatre's not half-asleep. It's not immediately pressing.

The funny thing when you're trying to stay awake is how, without outside stimulation, even the thoughts towards staying awake become a sort of lulling influence.

It only takes about a minute for Quatre to drop off.

The conversation lulls. But quiet is something that Trowa's always been comfortable with, and Quatre relaxes into companionable silences too.

Oh.

Well. All right.

Quatre sleeps sitting up with the ease of someone used to long private shuttle flights.

That's also why when his right hand falls off his lap, he murmurs something which sounds like excuse me in Arabic, as he moves it back without actually seeming to wake up (he, um, doesn't).

Trowa doesn't mind Quatre falling asleep next to him. It's a safe place in which to do so, private and with clear lines of approach, and Trowa can and will wake him if anybody comes. And he learned to occupy himself with his own thoughts years ago; this is, in its way, just another kind of companionable silence.

It's just . . . different.

(Cathy falls asleep on his shoulder once in a while, but that's Cathy. She's a special case.

And Quatre did something similar once before, years ago, but that involved a lot more blood loss and adrenaline crashes. Passing out can be its own demonstration of trust, but it's a somewhat different paradigm.)

Quatre's leaning back against the wall of haybales, chin pillowed on his chest, but his shoulder is a warm weight against Trowa's own. The mechanics of muscle relaxation mean, inevitably, that he's leaning more against Trowa than he was.

It's comfortable enough. And there's no reason for either of them to be elsewhere for at least two hours.

Trowa settles back against the bales himself. He's good at keeping company with silence and his own thoughts. Altogether -- it's more than comfortable enough.

There's a moment about twenty minutes along, where Quatre's shoulders tense and his eyes suddenly jerk open.

He doesn't move, other than taking a slow breath, before he relaxes again. There's a momentary pause, and then he straightens. He smiles at Trowa, embarassed, and checks his watch.

"Sorry," he says in English, because he's awake enough to realize that's his default with Trowa but still just-woken-up enough to forget that they were speaking French before he drifted off.

Trowa hasn't moved.

"It's fine."

You'd still have to know him well, or be very good at reading tiny expressions, to note the affection under the words.

But it's a little less hidden than sometimes.

Quatre's smile loses its sheepishness (though not its tiredness) as he leans over to kiss Trowa softly, right hand settling near the bottom of Trowa's left ribs.

He doesn't seem inclined to deepen the kiss, but neither is he particularly inclined to move right now.

He hasn't seen his boyfriend in awhile.

Yeah.

Trowa may be less tired than Quatre, but he's no more inclined to move away. They live far apart (and the diplomats' visit forced a rescheduling of Quatre's recent plans to visit), and even with Milliways their paths only cross every few weeks at best. Phone and email aren't at all the same.

So -- this is nice.

A few minutes later, Quatre breathes a half-laugh by Trowa's chin.

"I should probably look into that coffee, so I don't fall asleep on you again."

He presses his lips against the side of Trowa's mouth and (regretfully) pulls away.