I do not own any rights to Gundam Wing or its characters. This work is not for profit. This was started as a birthday gift for TheManwell... I'll hopefully finish it soon-ish.
The smell of lavender drifted on the breeze as Trowa made his way to the coffee house down the street from his work. The tall imposing building he worked in as an attorney for the less fortunate generally made his very specific clientele not want to show up at it. But he couldn't help the building the company he worked for owned, so he did his best to meet his clients on their terms. Hence his going to a small coffee house at two in the afternoon. The smell on the sidewalk had him wondering if some woman with far too much perfume had recently walked by. While the sidewalks weren't crowded there was a flow of people milling about on them, so it was possible. He wasn't generally one for drinking coffee as the very smell of it was nauseating to him. But his newest client had insisted on the coffee house. He figured he would get an ice tea or something while he was there, maybe convince his client to let him buy his coffee.
After his meeting with the poor man who just wanted the right to visit his daughter once in awhile he headed back to the office. It was always the same dynamic, he couldn't understand what was so hard to understand. Why couldn't 'normal' people understand that having a mental disability didn't somehow make the person with it... not a person. They were people just like everyone else and they deserved to see their children or use the bus, to be able to get into buildings for work, food, housing, or whatever else the building could be for. The still lingering smell of lavender on the air at the same location as previously had him jerking from his thoughts and stopping to look around. He stood next to a two story building with a filigreed window that claimed the business within was called Manwell's Water Refinery, the door was open. Curious in spite of himself Trowa wandered through the door.
There were several women listening as a man stirred a boiling pot over a bunsen burner. Trowa presumed that was where the smell was coming from as the man seemed to be explaining how to make lavender perfume. The man looked up and glanced Trowa's way just as he was about to turn and leave having deduced what he had entered to find out, suddenly Trowa was a deer caught in headlights. He couldn't move, and honestly didn't want to. He'd noted the man's long braid, his t-shirt stretched enticingly over well-formed muscles, the jeans that fit just right, even the black combat boots the man was sporting. But before he turned to look at him he hadn't realized just how beautiful the guy was. His skin was the kind of bronze from too much sun, his sable hair so thick it made Trowa's fingers twitch wanting to touch it, his eyes were violet of all colors, and his face was sculpted perfectly, those sensuous lips quirking at the corners the longer he stared.
"And that's all there is to it." A happy voice penetrated his sudden stupor and Triton shook himself mentally and blinked several times. He had never been under any illusions about who or what he was sexually attracted to but he had never been so completely floored by a man's looks before. His voice was sexy as hell too, a deep, furred, roll in the hay if he'd ever heard one. "Is there something I can help you with?"
Trowa nearly jumped out of his skin not having heard the man walk over to him, or all of the women leaving as he was now alone in the room with the man. "Sorry. I was just wondering why the sidewalk smelled of lavender."
The man chuckled, "Yeah, leaving the door open is my only real selling tactic. That and word of mouth."
"This shop is new isn't it?" Trowa asked as he finally looked around the narrow space. The walls were lined with bottles of various shapes and sizes, jars of ointments, and seemingly empty containers.
"Yeah, I just opened two days ago. I make custom perfumes, oils, and ointments."
"Ahh." Trowa nodded his head, that explained a lot. "Were you teaching a class just now or?"
Another chuckle, Trowa could get addicted to that sound. "Yes. I teach the basics of perfume to people willing to learn. My friend Hilde told me that the classes should be something I offered from the get-go when I opened here."
Trowa nodded, classes for something so unique would pique the interest of the monied class in the city.
"You'd been about leave hadn't you, when I looked over?"
The question brought his eyes over to meet the store owner's. He swallowed hard, fought the butterflies in his stomach and answered. "I was, yes."
"So why didn't you?" The man's eyes narrowed slightly like he was suspicious of Trowa's motives.
Trowa blushed, there was no stopping it. "Sorry, I." DON'T FUCKING SAY THAT! HE'LL THINK YOU'RE SOME KIND OF CREEP! His mind screamed at him making him pause. The delicate brow quirked at him had his only true answer spilling from his mouth anyway. "I wasn't expecting you to be so gorgeous."
Violet eyes blinked at him, a stunned expression washing over the man's face.
"I'm sorry, but you asked." Trowa shrugged a shoulder, then his pager took that moment to squawk at him, looking down at it he frowned. "Shit. Um, I've gotta go. Sorry." He didn't look at the other man again before racing out the open door and back down the sidewalk to his office building as he was late for his next meeting. And Trowa T. Barton made it a point to never be late to meet with a client.
Duo had decided to set up shop in Detroit at Hilde's insistence. One, she lived there so he'd actually get to spend time with his best friend. Two, the place was a hot spot for the strange and fae-like so his seriously pointed ears wouldn't stand out so much, hers didn't after all. Third, hmmm, he'd had a third reason... oh yes! His business of perfume making wouldn't seem so strange either and people there would actually be able to afford it and want to buy it. Ah, and four, he wouldn't have to expend himself using so much magic in order to stay in business. You know, because people in Detroit would actually want to buy perfumes and pay for his services in making custom scents. The need to put compulsions on his wares hopefully wouldn't be needed. His earnings had been rather meager even with the compulsions on his wares in Colorado Springs, he sincerely hoped it would be better in Detroit.
Also at Hilde's insistence he posted up that he would be teaching classes on making perfume from opening day, though he set the price for classes rather high. He had only begun with the classes in Colorado Springs when he couldn't even break even with the compulsions. It was only the second day open in Detroit and he had already taught two classes that morning, was currently in a third, and had another planned later in the afternoon. Hilde was a genius.
He looked up as the small chime he'd set up on the door jingled in the back room, barely perceptible to the human ear, but quite loud to his own. A tall man, maybe only a few inches taller than himself, in perfectly fitted black and grey pinstripped slacks, black loafers, a light grey button-up shirt with the collar laid flat, and a black tie stood just inside the door. Duo mentally shrugged, he wasn't the first man to enter the building since he'd opened it, and went back to teaching his class. After a few minutes he realized that the man was still standing there a curious look on his face, so Duo met his eyes this time, actually physically moving his head up to look at the man.
It seemed he was about to leave, and Duo would have shrugged it off again, but then the man just stared at him like meeting Duo's eyes had somehow made him go retarded, the idea made Duo smile. Duo finished his class and walked the ladies to the door before coming back to stand beside the human statue in his shop. "Is there something I can help you with?"
He watched with a smirk as the man jumped slightly before stumbling over an explanation. The man asked a few questions and then shocked the hell out of Duo by saying he was gorgeous. The man left at a run before he could come up with a response to that. Was the guy into really old decrepit men? Duo knew his glamour hadn't slipped, it never slipped, he was cursed with it for fucks sake. Both he and Hilde had royally pissed of their Queen and she had cursed them to look like decrepit humans with overly large pointed ears. It was horrifying. He knew people spoke to him only because the elderly generally knew what they were talking about with the kinds of things he did in his shop. Plus, no one else worked at his shop, so they didn't have much choice if they had questions. Yes, that man was very weird indeed.