To See A World In A Grain Of Sand

Chapter Four

Trowa awoke confused.

His body was warm and sated. There was the still heady scent of sex on the air...

And his bed was empty, save for him.

Trowa groaned, tossing a hand over his eyes. What had he done? He'd taken Quatre to bed... his bed, where no other sexual partner had been before. Hell... Quatre wasn't a sex partner. He was a *lover*, something Trowa'd never had before. Hell... Trowa'd never been in love before, either. And now... he was alone.

He sat up, and pulled his knees up to wrap his arms around them and settle his chin on them. How badly had he screwed up? He hadn't thought he had... but maybe Quatre had become afraid? Maybe he'd thought things over and changed his mind?

Quatre was smart and successful. What would he see in a lower class glorified *librarian*? Trowa didn't have any self esteem issues. One couldn't go as far as calling him arrogant, but Trowa was a rather normal blend of modesty and vanity. To him, he thought his life was just fine. But he thought that Quatre might think otherwise.

It was at that point that Trowa realized there was music playing. In his home, stuck in the city as it was, he often heard what other's radios were playing. But this wasn't from somewhere else... it was from his living room.

Curious, Trowa got out of bed and pulled on a pair of cotton PJ pants and made his way down the hall. Out of the bedroom, the scent of maple and bacon teased his nose and the clear strains of Creed's 'Rain' greeted his ears.

'What the....' he thought, stopping in the doorway to the kitchen. The CD player in the living room was on, and Quatre was in the kitchen... cooking. The blond looked utterly adorable, baby soft hair sticking this way and that, wearing nothing but his boxers and his shirt, the latter of which was left unbuttoned. He was even barefoot.

Trowa's first instinct was to smile at the image.

His next was to frown as he berated himself. To think that Quatre would abandon him like that. No. Quatre wouldn't do that.

His faith reaffirmed once more, Trowa smiled again and settled at the bar to watch Quatre waltz around the kitchen.

"I hope you don't mind," Quatre said, taking a wet rag to wipe down a spot of flour he'd spilt onto the countertop. He moved about, tinkering with this and that, piling two plates with pancakes and bacon and setting the bottle of maple syrup on the counter. " I was riffling through the music, and I was just wondering about some of those songs. I like this one. I think I like this 'Creed' band in general. I thought you might be hungry... and I've got to make you breakfast before."

"It's fine," Trowa replied truthfully, cupping his chin in his hands and leaning his elbows on the bar. "I kind of like the image. And I guess it's nice to be pampered once in awhile."

Quatre laughed. That gusty, beautiful, musical laugh that Trowa loved. "Everyone deserves to be pampered a little at some point or other. And you deserve it, Trowa." The blond had noticed that Trowa always acted surprised when he did things... like this. Small, insignificant things.

"Has no one ever made you breakfast before?"

"No one's ever slept over before," Trowa replied, stating the truth again.

Quatre's eyes blinked up to his. "Never?"

Trowa shook his head. "No. I've never let any... acquaintance... into my home. You... you're more than that."

Quatre blinked, then laughed again, settling a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of his lover. "Trowa, you never 'let' me into your home. I picked the lock."

"Wherever did you learn that anyway?" Trowa asked, digging into his food. It didn't fit the overall image of Quatre.

Quatre chuckled, attacking his own plate with a little more dignity. "My friend Dorothy. Didn't I tell you? Dorothy went through her rebellious phase. I picked up a few tricks from her when she did. Lock picking, hotwireing cars... among other things."

Trowa lifted and eyebrow. "Wow. I'm dating a theif."

Quatre glared. "I am not a theif. That's despicable... taking something that belongs to someone else."

Trowa's amusement was suddenly tempered. His emerald eyes darkened a bit.

"I've stolen before.." he admitted.

Quatre met his eyes. "Would you steal now?"

"Probably not," Trowa replied. "I have no reason to now."

Quatre nodded. "Then that's all that matters. I believe people change."

Trowa shook his head. "No, Quatre. I'm still mostly the same person I was then. I haven't changed... only my position. I grew up on the streets. I *had* to steal to live. Some nights I couldn't, I went hungry. My friends went hungry. It was steal or starve. I have done some pretty horrible things in my life. I've stole, I've fought. I've killed. But I had my own reason for everything. Reasons, while they weren't the best... I think they justify what I had to do, at least to me."

"I don't care about that, Trowa. I care about who you are now, what you do now."

"I'm still that same person, Quatre. These hands," he reached a hand up, softly stroking it along Quatre's face. "These hands have blood on them. That's a stain that won't come off. Ever. Can you really love a murderer?"

"You may have killed," Quatre said, a trifle uneasily. "But you are NOT a murderer, Trowa Barton. That I do not believe." There was a fire in those eyes, and no argument was going to fly; Quatre would shoot any opposition down. He was just that stubborn.

But Trowa could see the blond was uncomfortable with the talk of Trowa's less than exemplary past. Of course, brought up as he was, Quatre would no doubt have all sorts of crazy ideas about how it had been on the streets, of how his friends were.

Of course... some of those ideas were probably true. But Trowa knew Quatre could see beneath all of that. Beneath the dirt and the dust, down to the diamonds and jewels that glittered underneath.

"Listen," he said. "What would you say to meeting a few of my friends?"

"What?"

"My friends. I want you to meet them. They're like my family. Think of it as sort of 'meeting the parents'."

"But... what if..." Quatre's eyebrows knitted together as he thought. "What if they don't like me?"

Trowa couldn't help it. He laughed. He'd expected horror. Worry- yes, he'd expected that. But not for this reason.

"Don't worry. They'll love you. In fact, they should all be at Solo right about now. Well, at least in an hour or so; they usually gather there if they're not working.

"Solo?"

"A bar. Come on." Mind made up, Trowa pulled his smaller lover to his feet, towards the door.

"Wait. Trowa, wait. I don't know about this." A bar in the middle of the day in this part of town, with people from Trowa's life... from his past. It was daunting and just a bit frightening.

Stoped by the tone of Quatre's voice, Trowa spun around, pressing his mouth against the blond's to quell any other argument.

"Quatre, please. You need to see," he said when he pulled away. "You need to understand."

"Okay," was the weak reply. "I'll go.... but can I at least put some pants on first?"

Solo wasn't *quite* the dark, seedy place Quatre had imagined. The lights were dimmed, but not all the way. A section in the back had a few people playing around a pool table, and there were about three people at the bar. Some of them wore black leather jackets, some plain white tanks, and some just looked... normal. The music wasn't as loud as he'd expected, and it was rather similar to the music he'd listened to back at Trowa's. Certainly not Creed... but it was still that rock kind of sound.

Trowa's hand on the small of his back guided him through a maze of empty tables towards a booth and table grouped together in the back. There were about seven or eight people in the group.

"Hey, guys."

"Trowa," the closest one greeted. "How's it hangin'?" Quatre peered closer. It seemed to be a male, from the face and the deep voice... but the hair! Quatre had never seen such long or well-maintained hair on anyone except a woman... well, and Zechs Merquis- but Zechs did not count. Dressed in all black, he sat on a backwards chair scooted up right next to the booth's seat, shoulder to shoulder with a young Japanese man with blue eyes. "Who's this? Not the new beau you were goin' on about?" The boy jumped up from his seat. "I'm Duo. You must be Cat, right?"

"Hold up, Duo. Give him a moment. Quatre, these are my friends- my family. You've just met Duo. That's Heero." The stoic looking Japanese man didn't even nod in greeting. "That's Hilde and Cathy." The two girls next to Heero nodded to him with small waves. Hilde was short with short cropped dark hair and Cathy seemed tall with curly red hair. Both wore, from what he could see, short mini skirts and tight fitted T-shirts with leather jackets. "That's Joshua" a black haired boy whose tan skin made Quatre think he was at least half Native American, sitting in between Hilde and Cathy. "Ralph's the one sitting on the table," another nod from the older man in chaps and a Harley Davidson denim jacket. "And the beautiful woman sitting on the booth, we call her Belladonna."

Quatre looked. The woman in question wasn't sitting in the booth's seat, but rather perched on top of the backrest, long legs crossed in front of her. She wore skin-tight light wash blue jeans, black flip-flops, and a strappy black tank top. Her ash-blond hair was pulled into two medium length twisty braids over her shoulders. She had about three simple earrings in each ear lobe, excluding the single hoop that shone in the carilage of the right ear. Based on that, Quatre wouldn't have been surprised to see her... or several of the others here... if not in his own usual haunts, then at least at the mall, even at the university he once attended.

It was her tattoos that stunned him, though. He saw the fierce head of a dragon over her collarbone. The coiling body draped over her shoulder. Vines, set with various figures, wrapped up her arms, twisting and snaking up until it intertwined with the dragon, and continued on down the other arm. Quatre knew there was probably alot more that he couldn't see, but the fact that he could see this much floored him. This woman wasn't like Trowa. Trowa's life was written onto his skin, and he refused to bare it in public, constantly wearing long sleeves, even in summer. He had a feeling this woman's life was written in her tatoo's as well, but she had no problem letting the world read it. But the question was... did they understand what they read?

"Why do they call you Belladonna?" he asked before he could stop himself.

Joshua and Duo laughed aloud, Ralph and the girls snickered. Belladonna smiled, as one would with a child, her gray eyes twinkling.

"Because that's her favorite way to off the guys that try to come onto her," Duo snorted.

Quatre's face must have shown his horror and shock, because Belladonna laughed and threw a balled up paper napkin at Duo.

"Don't listen to him, kid. They call me Belladonna.... because that's my name." she smiled, bowing a little at the waist. "Sally Belladonna Po, DVM, at your service."

"You're a vet?" Quatre asked, surprised.

"Yeah," she nodded. "You sound kind of floored to hear that. Heero here is a computer programmer and owns 78 percent of Wing Computer Corporation. Duo's in the Air Force... he's a pilot. Cathy works at the circus outside of town- she's an acrobat. Joshua's a legal aide to ADA Noventa. And Hilde's co-owner of a great mechanics shop with her uncle Howard, who adopted Duo. Ralph... he's a General Contractor- if you ever need to build a house, call on him."

Quatre's eyes went kind of wide.

"Wow..." he said. For the most part, these people looked and seemed like pretty normal, everyday people. Nothing like the thugs, gangsters or general no-goods that he'd thought. But of course, a part of him reasoned, how could you expect Trowa to associate with that type of people? Perhaps they were all just like Trowa himself... having crawled their way out of a bleak past to a successful future?