Part 6
Trowa thought frantically, preparing to fight. However, something stopped him, which was rather lucky.
"Can ye guess who I be?" demanded a voice. Trowa relaxed.
"Hello Quatre," Trowa said. The hands moved. Quatre grinned up at him. He was holding a small bundle.
"This be yer 'ome? 'ow do ye na get lost in it?" Quatre asked, looking at the house so he couldn't see Trowa tremble. Trowa put a hand on Quatre's shoulder and led him inside.
"You get used to it. Stay close to me, and you won't get lost. I'll show you your room now." Trowa smiled at him, explaining in a general sort of way what was in the rooms they passed. Finally, Trowa opened a door to Quatre's room. Quatre looked around in an astonished sort of way.
" 'Tis bloody 'uge!" Quatre exclaimed. Trowa shrugged, though he imagined he'd felt the same way the first time he'd seen his own room. This one contained a large poster bed with a frosty green quilt and two large pillows. There was a mediumish white desk off to one side, along with a chest of drawers, a wash stand and a wardrobe. Quatre marvelled at the room, which was half the size of his aunt's flat.
Quatre moved to sit on the bed, but Trowa stopped him. Quatre glared at him.
"You might like to wash first," Trowa suggested, though it was more like an order.
"I 'ave washed!" Quatre protested, and he had. But 'clean' is a word that is often interpreted differently, depending soully on the opinion of the person who is or is not 'clean'. Quatre believed himself to be clean, and by his standards he was. There was only a small layer of grime on his face, and his clothes were quite clean, the soot had mostly washed off and now there were merely streaks.
"Not washed enough," Trowa said grimly, and at that moment he had the perfect revenge for Quatre. He swiftly picked Quatre up, who immediately became an armful of moving limbs and squawking child. He carried him to the bathroom and opened the door. He could see someone had drawn a hot bath for him. Perfect, he thought and dumped Quatre in the tub, clothes and all.
Quatre began to sputter and nearly jumped out of the tub, but Trowa held him firmly in place. Quatre then proceeded to call Trowa all sorts of dreadful names.
"Will you wash yourself or must I do it for you?" Trowa interrupted calmly. He tried his best to keep from laughing. Quatre glared and proceeded to tell him exactly what he thought of him, in the most impolite of terms.
Trowa took this as a negative response and stripped off his coat and shirt, and knelt barechested beside the tub. Quatre gulped but came up with a new string of curses all the same. Trowa sighed to himself and undid Quatre's shirt, fingers slipping a bit on the wet buttons.
Quatre's eyes grew wide. "Whaterya doin'?!" he demanded nervously. Trowa looked at Quatre, a mild look of exasperation on his face.
"I'm going to wash you," he said simply. Quatre squawked and began to protest, but at that moment, Trowa removed his shirt, dropping the sopping mess on the floor. "We'll have to burn that..."
Quatre opened his mouth to protest when Trowa reached to undo his pants. He stopped, utterly silent as Trowa stripped off his pants and tossed them on the floor next to his pants. Trowa uttered no comment about the now naked boy in the tub, though his mind brought up a persistant point.
'He's certainly not a child!' he thought. He picked up a cake of soap and rubbed it on his hands, making it a soapy lather. He then began to scrub the boy, and Quatre once again began to yelp. Trowa found himself enjoying this, not because Quatre was in pain-- he suspected he was fudging it-- but because he was touching the blond boy.
He washed Quatre's front, back, arms and was beginning to wash his legs when Quatre caught his hands.
"Stop," Quatre whimpered. Trowa looked at him, startled, and saw an expression that he didn't recognise. It was fear and... something else. Trowa abruptly rinsed his hands.
"Don't forget to was your hair," Trowa mumbled, and went off to look for towels. He shook his head as he pulled out several large, fluffly towels. 'What's wrong with me?' he thought to himself and returned to the bathroom, where Quatre was trying to rub the soap cake into his mostly dry hair. Trowa sighed, plucking the soap from Quatre's hands.
"Like this," Trowa said, scooping up a handful of water and dumping it on Quatre's head. Quatre sputtered, but Trowa repeated it until Quatre's hair was wet, then he lathered his hands and began to rub the soap into Quatre's hair. Quatre went still, and closed his eyes.
Tha' feels good! Quatre thought as Trowa massaged Quatre's scalp with soap. All too soon, Trowa pulled his hands away and began to rinse Quatre's hair. Quatre, at this time, chose his revenge. He reached out, grabbing Trowa's shoulders and pulled him into the tub, soaking the taller boy completely.
"What did you do?" Trowa demanded as he tried to move and ended up in a naked tangle of limbs with Quatre. Squirming only brought him nose to nose with the laughing blond boy.
"Now yer all wet too," he said with delight. Trowa did not like the feeling of being laughed at. So he shut him up. By kissing him.
Clean. He tastes... clean, Trowa thought blindly as the blond meeped under him. He quickly came back to himself and heaved himself, dripping wet out of the tub. He walked out of the bathroom shakily to his own room, to change clothing. The entire time, he could not stop shaking.
TBC...