Title: Paraffin and Peonies 5/? (I'm not gonna estimate. It'll be done when it's done)

Major pairing: 3x4

Author: The Fablespinner ~*D*~

E-mail: fablespinner@hotmail.com

Rating: R (lemony-lime nothing graphic in description)

Genre: AU: Late 18th Century England Romance

Archive: http://fablespinner.steelsong.com/fanfiction/fanfiction.html

Author's Note: Loosely based on the Novel "The Secret Garden" Several Major Changes to story line will take place. Only similar elements will appear from the Original story.

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Disclaimer: Inspiration from many places, none of them mine, much to my lament.

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Trowa opened his eyes, when had he dozed off? And why was he naked? As the drowsiness cleared he'd figured out he'd dozed off with the Quatre's boring book, and the heat of the nearby fire. He looked over at Quatre, his head hung limp from where he sat in his chair by the table. Fast asleep with his hands still covered in clay. Trowa frowned, he'd let Trowa sleep and all the while he was stranded in that chair.

Trowa felt like a heel. He immediately got up to tend to Quatre and paused for a moment. Quatre had finished his sculpture.

"My god." Trowa breathed looking at the figure in soft clay. It was perfect; Quatre had even included the book and the sofa. "Thank you for being kind with the anatomy." Trowa muttered with a smile, gently bending down to place a kiss on downy hair before scooping him up carefully to carry to bed.

"Mmm, Trowa?" Quatre murmured as Trowa lay him down.

"Who else would it be?" Trowa asked walking over to the washbasin to get a cloth to wipe Quatre's clay coated hands with, not to mention that adorable smudge of gray mud on his nose.

"When did I fall asleep?" Quatre asked yawning, sitting up and not arguing with Trowa as Trowa washed his hands. He normally would have protested the pampering but it felt good when Trowa did it, he never made Quatre feel helpless, just loved. There was a big difference.

"I don't know. I was dozing myself a minute ago." Trowa said smiling as he swiped at Quatre's nose with the damp washcloth. Quatre smiled emitting a breathy laugh.

"I need to cover that with something, I'm not done with it yet." Quatre said and Trowa quirked and eyebrow.

"It looked done to me." Trowa said and Quatre smiled.

"Not quite yet, almost though." Quatre said leaning forward and wrapping his arms around Trowa's shoulders. "Thank you for posing for me, you're so beautiful. I'm afraid I'm not doing you justice." Quatre sighed and Trowa pulled him close and buried his lips in Quatre's hair.

"It's wonderful. You're wonderful." Trowa said suddenly realizing he was still au natural as he shivered.

"You're cold, Let me take care of you for a change, let me keep you warm." Quatre said lifting the edge of the covers. Trowa smiled.

"In a moment. Let me cover this for you first." Trowa said standing and laying a cloth gently over the table before turning back towards the bed. Where he gasped and froze in place.

In the moments while his back was turned, Quatre had divested his shirt and breeches and had tossed them to the floor. He was smiling and relaxed leaning into plush pillows and holding his arms out in welcome to Trowa.

He was divine, a porcelain china doll, a gorgeous, stunning, god in silk sheets. "Quatre… I…"

"I won't break Trowa."

"It's not that, it's just, my god you're beautiful." Trowa said drinking in the view before him. He'd seen him naked, just not like this, not when it hadn't been necessity to see him nude. This was an invitation, a vision, and being nude as well, Quatre could be in no doubt the effect he was having on Trowa.

"Quatre do you even know what you're inviting?" Trowa asked his throat parched with want.

"I told you once Trowa, I am not so naïve as you think. I may not be experienced, but I'm not unknowing if that is what you fear. I know precisely what I'm offering to you. Will you take it and my heart?" Quatre asked and Trowa crossed the floor in quick strides to slide into those arms reaching out to hold him.

"Quatre, how can you love me this much?" Trowa asked and Quatre smiled, pulling Trowa down to rest his head against a soft pink shoulder.

"How do the stars sparkle in the sky? How does the tide know when to ebb and flow? I don't know how. I just know I do. How can you love me? Can you answer that yourself?" Quatre asked and Trowa chuckled.

"No, I can't. It defies explanation." Trowa said looking up into the sublime expanse of azure pools that cast his reflection and realized he could never live a day without looking into those eyes again. Not when those eyes spoke more of love than words ever could, Trowa was home.

Quatre was his home, not this bed, not this hall, but these arms that held him, but those eyes that tolled the bell loud and clear, singing the simple truth, Quatre loved him, Trowa Barton.

Trowa rolled, pressing Quatre into the mattress, worshiping him with lips and caresses. Words no longer needed, not when two hearts beat as one. For every touch, for every breath, one gave a gift of love and the other took the offerings, only to return it ten fold.

There in the light of the dying fire, love and passion ignited, and hands dared touch plains of flesh and curves of muscle that no one dared touch before. Kisses were laid to tender skin, and tears mixed in joy and release as two souls who had never thought love possible, found each other at last.

Shyness tinged with desire tempered the flames and each found strength in the other to press forward and revel in the pleasure simple gestures of affection could create.

Fear was laid to rest in Trowa's breast as his seemingly frail lover proved looks were indeed deceiving. There was power there, in abundance, and inner strength that pushed and pleaded and desperately grasped for more.

Trowa would not let him fight too hard, just enough, then meet him halfway. And when touches were no longer enough, Trowa rolled Quatre over onto his stomach, and setting up pillows for support beneath his abdomen, just for today, for now his legs would  not be strong enough to match the iron will, but not today. Today they would need help.

Kissing and comforting as he positioned Quatre, Trowa eased into the joining.

Quatre was indeed an Earth bound angel, because this was heaven on earth.

Together they soared to new heights, and together they plummeted back to earth.

Tired, elated, spent, and full of joy, they nestled together in the heat of the bed, and of their lovemaking, and found sweet repose knowing that what began this night in trepidation and in clumsy and awkward newness, would only grow more graceful and even more beautiful in time.

Tonight was only the beginning of their lives together. Both knowing with certainty and without needing to say it, that whatever happened, their not being together wasn't an option.

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Trowa woke with the dawn and smiled a lazy and sated smile. Quatre's hair splayed across his chest like a fan of gold, one arm draped over his midsection, still fast asleep.

Carefully as not to wake him, Trowa gently slid out from under his human blanket and tucked the covers securely around him. Before silently padding across the room to dress, pulling on his clothes and boots and then silently slipping out the door and down to the kitchen.

Sally was already up and the water was boiling. "Well don't we look like the cat who ate the canary this morning?" She said smirking and pouring him a cup of tea. Trowa kissed her cheek.

"Thanks to your advice, yes. Thank you, you were right." He said and she smiled.

"I'm always right. Welcome to the human race Trowa. Faults and all, it's worth it." She said as he sat at the table.

"Amen." Trowa said drinking heavily from his cup, downing the piping hot liquid in almost one gulp before standing once more with a sigh. "And as much as I'd like to sit here and tell you all you're dying to know. It looks like more rain today, and I want to get some things done out in the garden before another downpour and before Quatre wakes up. Will you listen for his bell for me?" Trowa asked as the other women filtered into the kitchen, Duo and Heero groggily in tow.

"Will do. One of us will bring him his breakfast if he rings. Then come get you." Sally said smiling again as Trowa shrugged on his jacket and headed outside.

"Trowa certainly looks perky this morning." Duo said smirking.

"And that wasn't singing I heard last night was it?" Catherine asked Sally with an evil grin.

"Oh leave them alone. It's nice to see this house alive again." Heero said tugging one of Catherine's curls in playful scolding.

"But it's so romantic. Love at first sight…" Hilde began

"Nookie the second night…OW!" Duo finished before getting smacked by Sally in the back of the head.

"Crass bugger. It's beautiful." Sally said shoving a cup of tea under Duo's nose. "And if you think for one minute I'll let you pester and tease them, you've got another thing coming." She added and Duo just grinned.

"Would I do that?"

"YES, you would." Everyone else answered in unison.

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Trowa set to move a particularly stubborn boulder, wanting to keep the peony seeds from washing away by setting up the boulder to deflect run off when Heero and Duo appeared in the garden.

"Want some help Trowa?" Heero asked and Trowa nodded.

Both men moved in to the task to help shift the rock into place.

"So Trowa?" Duo grunted. "How was it?" He asked and Trowa looked up glaring.

"HA! I knew it, that look says it all." Duo said as the rock dropped in place.

"If you embarrass Quatre…" Trowa began and Duo held up his hands.

"Whoa, no way. I promise. We all think it's wonderful, really. I'm just poking fun at ya." Duo said and Trowa sighed.

"Thanks, I know it's a strange turn of events, It's as unexpected to me, as it is to you believe me. But thank you for the support. I may need it." Trowa said looking upset.

"It's Bitchlock you're worried about huh?" Duo asked and Trowa nodded.

"Quatre is the lord here don't forget." Heero said at last. "Despite what Tatlock thinks, does, or says. When Lord Winner is away, Quatre is eighteen, by law he is lord here in his father's stead. With our support under him, I know he'll find the courage to stand up to her. He just needs to know he has us to catch him when he falls, and that Tatlock isn't the only one here who can. So to speak." Heero said looking at Trowa.

"You're right, and I know Quatre will, he's a lot stronger than anyone of us gave him credit for initially." Trowa said smiling with no little pride.

"Fuck me, a lot more Tro. I was expecting a…well, a shriveled corpse basically. Dumb, blind, and drooling on himself type stuff. Quatre's not sick, just got some under used muscles big deal. That can be fixed in a few weeks. Hell, the king's got the clap and God know what else, and goodness knows how many other so-called lords are walking around hacking up lungs and considered 'fit'. I'm not worried about Quatre in the slightest." Duo said grinning inanely.

"Thank you both." Trowa said relieved.

"Thank you for letting us help you with Quatre. We gained from this too ya know. Friends are priceless." Duo said extending his hand to Trowa to shake.

As their hands clasped, Heero added his. "To Standing up for your friends." Heero said as all three shook.

The silence and camaraderie shattered with an ear-piercing cry of agony. "TROOOOOOOOWWWWWWA!!!!"

Trowa paled as his name was screamed in Quatre's voice. Sally came rushing out to the garden.

"Oh my God. TROWA! Hurry! I don't know when he got here; the bastard never rang the bell! The Doctor is in with Quatre and he's bolted the door!" She cried, trying to keep pace with Trowa as he bolted up the stairs two and three at a time, Duo and Heero just as angry and right on his heels.

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Quatre awoke slowly, and began to stretch languidly as he came around from his sleep. He yawned and realized then his bed was empty. Hearing movement in his room, he just sighed and snuggled back into the mattress, never opening his eyes. "Trowa? What are you doing out of a nice warm bed? Are you daft?" Quatre asked chuckling, but the voice that answered chilled him to the bone, and he sat upright with a start.

"I take it this Trowa is the person in this… this… blight to art?" The doctor asked smashing his cane down into the wet clay!

"NO! How could you?! Get out!" Quatre asked in near tears as he watched the doctor mangle and destroy the sculpture on the table.

"Not when my patient is getting worse. Now you dream phantom lovers? Worship graven images? Sin against all that is holy by your unnatural desires? Perhaps I have been too lax in my treatments. The devil is in you boy, and he must be purged!" The doctor said grabbing a now thrashing Quatre by the hair and pulling him out of bed to land with a sickening thud to the floor.

"And NAKEDNESS? Dare to tempt me now will you Satan?" The Doctor accused bringing up his cane. "BEGONE!" He said bringing the cane down with a crack against Quatre's back.

"TROOOOOOWWWWWWWA!!!!!!!!!!" Quatre cried out in agony as the doctor raised his hand to strike again.

*Crack*

"Release this boy from your depravity!" The doctor bellowed as the second blow fell.

Quatre crumpled into a ball weeping and screaming for Trowa.

"You want your demon lover? Is that who you call now?" The Doctor asked, spitting on Quatre in the process. Raising his hand to strike again when the door splintered from its hinges and Trowa flew through it in a rage. His eyes widening with fury as he saw HIS Quatre in a broken heap on the floor and the Doctor ready to strike.

Screaming in a blood curdling rage, Trowa lunged and slammed the Doctor to the wall. Grabbing the cane from his hand. "You like torture do you? Now feel what it's like from the other side of fear." Trowa said striking the doctor across the face with his cane in a full swing.

Blood spurted from the Doctor's nose as he cried out in terror and pain. Trowa raised his hand again "And this it to remind you, to never, EVER lay a hand on Quatre again." Trowa said with another sickening crack of bone under flesh as the rod connected.

"Devils!" The Doctor wailed curling up into a ball on the floor.

"I see only one devil in this room, and that is you. Duo, Heero, would you please take out the trash for me?" Trowa asked and Duo and Heero charged in.

"With pleasure." Duo said, an evil gleam in his eyes as he and Heero brutally dragged the doctor bodily from the room.

Trowa threw the cane across the room and with a sob gathered Quatre into his arms. "Forgive me, forgive me Quatre. I didn't know he was here, I'm so sorry." Trowa said weeping into Quatre's hair when a small hand came up to his cheek.

"I know. I know. It's not your fault. He's done this before, I'll be alright." Quatre said as Trowa picked him up and placed him in bed.

"Never again, I promise Quatre. NEVER again." Trowa said cradling Quatre like a babe to his chest.

Sally rushed in with rags. "Hurry, before he gets welts." She said laying cool rags on the red marks where the cane had struck his tender skin.

"Don't you worry love. None of us will let this happen to you ever again." Sally also promised, as Catherine hurried in with a cup.

"Drink this honey, it's got willow bark in it for the pain." She said doting on Quatre as well.

The room was now full of servants, never again would Quatre's cries go unanswered.

Now that they knew the truth, they had become united under their lord's banner, an army of friends who would never see him wronged again.

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tbc….

Just one more methinks….

I hope.

D