04_after | (no subject)

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not really oom

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Quatre has a tendency to view parts of his life as projects. They have stages, with roughly forecasted deadlines, and detailed plans of action. This works pretty well for him, to a point.

The problem is: unlike projects, relationships can't exactly be checked off a list. It's not safe to put them on the backburner, or reschedule the review meeting for next quarter.

It's not that Quatre's been ignoring Trowa, because he hasn't (and he can't). But this morning he realized with a guilty start that he has been taking him for granted the past several months. Sure, he's been busy – he's a CEO, he's always busy (it's not a good enough excuse). He knows, too, that the main reason behind his cheerful taking-for-granted is because Project: Trowa Being Comfortable in a Relationship (with Quatre! The best part), has reached a successful close.

So, when he has a moment, he types a quick e-mail.

From: awinnerisq@freesky.net
To: bangbangbang@freesky.net

Trowa,

I hope your afternoon is going great! I'm sorry to hear about Catherine's cold, please pass along my sympathies. I hope she feels better soon, though I'm glad it's during time off.

Speaking of that, I was wondering if you have plans tonight? I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner around UTC 2300. Otherwise, I'm available this week for most non-work hours, except Tuesday.

Quatre

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It's a very Quatre email. (As usual.)

Trowa regards it with tolerant amusement. Quatre has something on his mind, clearly; he never makes small talk that assiduously unless he's trying not to be businesslike, and he rarely schedules Milliways visits this far ahead.

Then he writes back:

I'll tell her. She usually recovers pretty fast, anyway.

Tonight's fine.

He considers, then adds Have a good day. Quatre will get the joke. (The joke is that it's polite small talk, and this is Trowa.)

He hits send, and heads into the kitchen. Cathy with a cold means Cathy subsisting mostly on soup (which she insists on cooking anyway) and toast, so it's probably about time to make sure nothing's burning. And to make her more tea.

Quatre grins at the reply, before closing the e-mail and returning to his overview of the proposal being sent to the L3 government.

Several hours later he can be found sitting at the bar, reading a slim book on efforts to modernize accessibility in L5 put out by Red Cross Red Crescent.

He got here early, to catch up on his reading, but he's already wearing "date" clothes -- for a guy who dresses up most of his life, this is a pair of jeans and a light sweater. Still.

Trowa's 'date' clothes are . . . basically the same as his other clothes, since Milliways is not somewhere with a dress code. So jeans and a turtleneck.

But he notices Quatre's! And correctly parses the reason.

His smile, as he starts towards the bar, is brief, and faint almost to the point of invisibility -- but not quite.

Quatre glances up and brightens, glancing at his page number before standing from the stool and setting his book on the Bar. It disappears, along with his mug of tea.

When Trowa is close enough: "I was thinking Xinjiang," he admits, though he's not quite feeling whimsical enough to switch to Mandarin. "Opinions?"

"Sure."

Quatre knows better than to expect any other answer when proposing food, right?

(Trowa knows he knows, and knows Quatre keeps trying to get an opinion out of him anyway, which is why there's a certain undercurrent of amusement here.)

Quatre turns to the Bar, and asks "Would you --" before a set of takeout containers pops up, with two small bottles of kvass. Quatre can't help but brighten at the containers (there's even two sets of the weird plastic cutlery).

He turns to hand two containers and a bottle to Trowa, cheerfully.

On the long, long list of things that Quatre is inexplicably charmed by, takeout containers are a fairly recent addition.

Trowa accepts his half of dinner placidly.

Quatre stacks the other three boxes (the one with the cutlery taped to it on top,) and tucks the bottle under his elbow.

It would be easier, Quatre thinks, if Trowa had a set of things he liked that Quatre knew about but didn't usually do. Like, if he were like Olivie -- he would have greeted Trowa with a kiss, even though his back feels uncomfortably unexposed at the idea of being so much himself in public. It would be worth it. But Trowa would dislike that as much as he would.

Oh, well. Food gathered, they head towards the stairs.

If Quatre ever greeted him with a kiss in public, Trowa would probably conclude that they were under surveillance and Quatre needed to play a role to mislead someone.

So yeah.

Instead, he follows Quatre up the stairs and to his room, at close-platonic-friend distance.

The room is pretty easy to get into, even with his hands full, so Quatre enters and holds the door open for Trowa with his foot as the main room light blinks on. The low table in the front of the room already has floor cushions laid out, and Quatre sets what he has down, carefully arranging the plates so they're all within easy reach.

Table set, he glances to Trowa with a half-smile.

Trowa's been adding his own collection of food to the arrangement.

At Quatre's glance, he doesn't smile back, except with his eyes -- but for Trowa, that counts.

He lets the back of his hand brush lightly against Quatre's as he straightens up, too, and that also counts.

Quatre tips his hand quickly so he's holding Trowa's, and runs his thumb across Trowa's knuckles.

His smile's more confident, though also a shade embarrassed. "I--," he pauses a moment, changes course, "would you mind?"

With context of experience, this is clearly if I kissed you. Quatre doesn't always ask, anymore, but-- sometimes.

Trowa never minds. (There are plenty of circumstances in which he would -- but they're essentially all ones in which Quatre would mind too. It works out well.)

He's not sure why Quatre's so uncertain today, and if it has to do with whatever he was thinking about earlier, but this answer is easy.

"Okay," he says, and the planes of his face relax infinitesimally with affection; his fingers curl a little closer around Quatre's.

Quatre's free hand goes to Trowa's side, as he moves the few degrees down to kiss him.

It's unhurried, and Quatre starts to relax.

Trowa was already relaxed, but he rests his hand against Quatre's hip (hooking a thumb loosely through his beltloop; jeans allow for this, and so does a secure private space where keeping his hands free doesn't matter), and kisses back.

It's comfortable.

(Trowa remains very much a fan of this whole dating Quatre thing.)

(Quatre's a fan of it, too.)

"It's good to see you," Quatre says quietly, a bit later.

Sure, there's dinner, so they'll have to move soon, but for the moment he hasn't.

"Yeah."

They have an exchange along these lines more or less every time they see each other. It remains true, though.

And the fact that they only see each other once every couple of weeks even with Milliways means it's generally worth repeating, too.

Trowa's head is tipped lightly against Quatre's, and Quatre's face is slightly blurry with closeness. Trowa's half-smile is a little more visible than usual; he doesn't move away either.

Eventually, Quatre laughs and pulls away with some reluctance.

"Dinner," he reminds Trowa, with a quick grin.

Trowa is, in fact, kind of hungry. He has a fast metabolism, and he hasn't had dinner yet.

But he never really cares if food cools off anyway.

Still. Dinner!

With amusement, and without disagreeing, he follows Quatre's lead towards the coffee table and its collection of takeout containers.

Xinjiang cuisine isn't something they eat so often for there to be a "usual selection," but nothing that Bar's provided comes as a surprise to Quatre. He wouldn't feel like he could say for Trowa, but he's not surprised by his boyfriend's calm acceptance of the meal's contents

"Has Abir contacted you, yet?" he asks, after they're part way through the meal.

Trowa's lips twitch slightly.

So that's a yes!

"I sent her a couple of our boilerplates."

Abir is nine years old, and doing an impeccably polite and very enthusiastic research project on non-traditional business structures. Such as, say, circuses. Luckily, her uncle has some convenient friends!

Trowa doesn't actually assume that Abir will wade her way through all the dense legalese of a boilerplate contract, but he doesn't assume she won't. Anyway, he figures she should be given the opportunity to try.

Quatre bites his lip slightly as he laughs, not willing to put in enough effort to stop himself but feeling kind of sheepish for how amusing he finds the mental image of Abir diligently following up the terminology and grammatical implications with one of her lawyer-relatives.

"I'm guessing," he says, tearing a piece of naan into a useable size, "that I'll be hearing new vocabulary soon."

Knowledge memes travel fast among the younger generation of the Winner household. Having over twenty children living in one building will do that.

"Probably," Trowa agrees.

Well, it's true.

"Feel free to ask," he adds, deadpan -- because it's true, but also obvious, and also if Quatre is the family expert then he runs the risk of being consulted by a lot of earnest children about circus terminology.

. . . Which, okay, is not unamusing either.

Quatre laughs, again, a bit helplessly, setting down his piece of naan.

"I'll e-mail you for consultations," he promises, once he's recovered.

Trowa does not grin.

But if he were somebody else, he would be.

Instead, he placidly has some more noodle soup. (Fact: Quatre is entertaining.)

"I love you," Quatre admits, intensely fond of his weird, weird boyfriend.

"Have you been reading anything more interesting than boilerplates?"

(This is, for the record, the first time either of them has actually said that sentence aloud.

Trowa doesn't notice. It's not as if it hasn't been an obvious fact for years.)

He does let his amusement show a little more, in the subtle crinkling of his eyes.

"Sure," he says.

Hmm.

"A couple of the recent back issues of Applied Physics had interesting articles."

Trowa is not especially a physicist, so some of the articles are more comprehensible to him than others. But you don't become a Gundam pilot or a Gundam mechanic without getting a crash course in certain aspects of this stuff, and Trowa likes challenges. (At least it's applied; theory's never been his primary interest, without some real-world applications to make it relevant.)

(Quatre didn't notice, either.)

Quatre's eyebrows raise, curious. "I haven't read it for awhile," he says, "but people have been talking about an article about supercooled nanofoams and dust."

Carbon nanofoams are one of the main methods of blocking radiation space dust for spacecraft and colonies; for the past 200 years they were taken for granted until scientists renewed research into their more unusual properties about a decade ago. Quatre hasn't read the article, but he's read the abstract of one of the scientific papers it draws from.

"Anything you found interesting?"

"Yeah."

Because it's Quatre, he gets more detail. Because Quatre is genuinely interested in this material, that detail includes summaries (albeit laconic ones) of the articles in question.

The one about supercooled carbon nanofoams is one of four Trowa deems worth expanding on, so this conversation stretches a while.

Quatre'd taken his shoes off before they started to eat; during the conversation his right foot might end up tucked near Trowa's right knee.

Heat conservation and all. Important stuff.

If so, Trowa will fail to move away.

For reasons of heat conservation. Totally that.

(It's a good thing his boyfriend is so pragmatic and sensible about these things.)

Once a comfortable silence has fallen, he . . . will continue to fail to move away.

Yep.

Trowa is so practical. There are reasons they get along!

Comfortable silence has turned into, on Quatre's side, being overly aware of how every single thing that comes into his mind would be incredibly awkward to speak. It started with the only slightly too cheesy so, I want to kiss you forever and devolved with additions of maybe we should brush our teeth first, before he realized that that was even worse, and now he's staring at the table trying to find an out to his own thought process.

Oh, he knows!

Quatre stands up, smiling slightly. "Do you want any tea?" he asks.

They've already stacked the take-out boxes and dishes, so it's no trouble to pick them up.

Trowa glances up at him, faintly (and fondly) amused.

Trowa's childhood did not contain enough normal social training to give him any hosting compulsions. Quatre, on the other hand, falls back on them multiple times an hour.

However: "Sure."

He has no objection to tea!

Quatre smiles back (even though, to anyone else, Trowa's reaction probably didn't count as a smile).

"I can surprise you," he says, cheerful now that he has something to fall back on.

(It won't be that surprising. He doesn't have any new tea.)

He disappears with the cartons.

Trowa will wait with bated breath.

. . . Not really.

He gives Quatre a little time to putter about with the kettle and tea leaves before he rises silently to follow. He'd bring the rest of the dishes, except that Quatre already got them all.

Quatre has just set the mint tea to steep, and s leaning against the counter. His besocked feet are stretched out in front of him, and he is watching them when Trowa comes in; he glances up with a smile.

"Hey," he says, even though it is definitely unnecessary, and extends his hand to Trowa.

"Hi," Trowa replies solemnly -- well, deadpan, anyway -- and accepts Quatre's hand. (Unsurprisingly.)

He was planning to settle against the counter next to Quatre, but Quatre can overrule that if he wants.

Quatre's hold on Trowa's hand is loose, thumb curled up over the top, so he's more supporting it in his palm than anything else.

"I've been distracted," Quatre says, after a moment. "For a few months, I mean. And that's -- I'm busy, and I like being busy. But I'd rather not be distracted, when I'm around you."

It's not a promise, or anything; he's not so unknowing of himself to do anything like that. He doesn't even know if Trowa's really noticed -- but knowing Trowa, he has noticed that Quatre's been hyper-aware of himself today, and Quatre'd rather let him know why. It's polite.

Trowa was kind of waiting to see if there was a specific catalyst for Quatre's fretful self-consciousness, yeah, though he wouldn't have been bothered if Quatre didn't say anything. It didn't feel like one of Quatre's occasional attacks of guilt, though -- or, at least, not beyond his general tendency to find cause for guilt in everything.

It takes him a few moments to find words to reply. In part that's because he has to run it over in his mind a few times to figure out what Quatre thinks the problem is.

"I don't mind," he says.

"You're not that distracted."

"I mind," Quatre says, and smiles slightly.

His demeanour says I'm okay, because he is (and because he doesn't want Trowa to worry).

"I'm pretty selfish," he admits, "when it comes to spending time with you. Everything else gets all the rest of my time, it feels... wasteful to let it have this, too."

Trowa's smile is only in his eyes.

And in the way he shifts his weight slightly to rest his shoulder more comfortably against Quatre's.

"Okay."

He still doesn't mind the distraction. But he doesn't exactly object to this sentiment, either.

Quatre squeezes Trowa's hand slightly before letting go. He puts the tea bags on the dish laid out for that, and hands Trowa's over.

And, yes, leans back lightly against his shoulder.

Trowa accepts the tea.

And the companionably leaning (and sparklingly happy, silent or not) boyfriend.

Look, Quatre wouldn't call himself particularly subtle in his day-to-day life, however good he is at strategizing battles and organizing political alliances and business maneuvers.

Still, he is pleased by the sharpness of the mint as he slowly drinks it, letting it linger in his mouth. This is way less awkward than suggesting tooth brushing.

It's pretty good.

Trowa would drink it if he didn't like it, too; he eats and drinks what he's given, as a rule. But he likes mint.

When the mug is about half empty, he shifts it to his right hand, and leans over for a quick kiss.

(There are a few reasons for this. Among them: the fact that it's pretty sweet when your workaholic boyfriend says he doesn't want work to impinge on boyfriend time; the fact that Quatre is always inordinately happy any time Trowa does anything like this; the fact that Trowa wants to.)

Quatre smiles, startled, into the kiss (inside he is feeling triumphant, and surprised, and touched). It's mild, a hello-I-like-you reminder, but Quatre shifts slightly so it's easier to keep kissing, setting down his tea on the counter as his free right hand goes to Trowa's left arm.

Maybe kissing forever is an unlikely goal, but kissing for right now is something he is all in favor of.

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