The Game of Questions
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Title: The Game of Questions
Author: Genji
Part: 1/1
Warnings: Sap, weirdness, jumping times...(you'll see...sorta like the flashbacks they had in EW...never did announce 'em, so you had to pay attention, otherwise they're gonna getcha!)
Category: Response to 91 fic challenge
Pairing: 4 x C
Notes:
Quatre's POV
~/flashback thought/~
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They say the best thing to happen is to fall in love with your best friend. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out if your best friend happens to be a guy-- which is just my luck. However, my fate is not all that black. Having become acquainted with the man I call Trowa, though he insists that he is nameless, during the war, I have kept in touch with him. For the longest time I didn't have any interest in his sister.
It was August 27th, AC 205 on the Spanish coast at the traveling circus's last performance for the year. I had attended with the hopes of catching my friend afterwards. It was during his act that my attention wandered from where Trowa was standing, defying the knives that flew at him, to the source of the blades. She was beautiful, like a faerie out of a story that began, "Once upon a time..." A desert rose that bloomed from the arena's sand, if you will. Even from my seat, high above the floor, I could feel her aura-- vibrant and full of life, so different from those that normally surrounded me.
At the end of the show, which had been complete with fireworks, I slipped away from the chattering crowds and took off to the only place Trowa went after a production. He was standing near the lions' cage, talking quietly so that no one would notice. I knew of these conversations, though.
He reminds me much of a boy named Chang Wufei, who talked to his mobile suit. We all did, but Wufei came to believe that 'Nataku' was more than simply a hunk of metal and wire. She was his lifeline in a turbulent time. However, when the waves calmed, he learned to let go. We all did.
"Trowa?" I said quietly, not sure if I were walking in at an inopportune time. He turned and looked at me. Those eyes hadn't changed in the decade I had known him. However, I'd gotten better at reading them. They were tinted with pleasure that evening.
"Quatre. What brings you here?"
"What always brings me here?"
"Should I know?"
"Do you?"
It's a game we play. Answer every question with another. Juvenile, I know, but there were times when we all needed mental stimulation. It makes you think. I still haven't gotten out of the habit. However, eventually the diversion slowed, and we talked normally.
"Are you free for dinner, Trowa?"
"When?"
"Tonight."
Trowa shook his head, and motioned to the pacing felines. "They have to be made ready for shipping."
There was a chuckle from the tent flap.
"Trowa, are you turning down a free dinner?" Catherine walked inside, dressed in jeans and a button down short-sleeve blouse. She was absolutely breathtaking in the simplicity of it all.
Courtesy prompted me to pose the proposition to her.
"Sure. I'm sick of eating nothing but soup. To be frank, I'm surprised ol' one-eye over there doesn't jump at the chance for a different type of fare."
I couldn't believe my luck, as I walked out of the tent, bidding goodbye to my friend, with the prettiest damsel in all the world on my arm.
The quiet evening turned into a night of surprises. I learned about her separation from her brother at a young age, and how she had learned to throw knives with such deadly accuracy. She opened up to a sympathetic ear, and confided in me that she'd never really loved anyone, save for her brother. In fact, her biggest fear after they found each other was losing him once again. After dining at a reasonably priced restaurant (she had insisted on nothing fancy), we climbed a hill and watched the stars. We passed the night there, talking and being silent when we felt like it. Everything felt so right when the sun came up that morning.
The relationship proceeded as most long distance relationships do-- I was left chasing after dreams. But sometimes, just sometimes, fantasy became reality. It was Trowa that made me realize that what I feeling such confusing emotions.
I was perched on a rock, watching the surf, and the sun tinting the clouds, in a symphony of color and sound. It was heavenly. He came on cat feet, leaping from craggy rock to craggy rock with the silence of a sigh, and the ability of a mountain goat. The man I had gone through so much stood behind me, and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Quatre?"
"Trowa?"
"Why do you toy with her?"
"Does it appear that I am?" I responded, starting the duet that we both were too well experienced with.
"Don't you know what you are doing?"
"What am I doing?"
"Do you know why she went to dinner with you last year?"
"Why?"
"Don't you know how she's felt since then?
"Does she know how she haunts my dreams? Does she know how many times I've wanted to say what I felt, but couldn't, never knowing if she'd turn away, disgusted? Does she know how much it hurts to simply be nothing more than a 'friend'?"
"Why don't you take a risk?"
He walked away from the game then, leaving me the victory, but what had I won? Only more questions.
~/Why don't you take a risk?/~
It's been seven years and counting since we exchanged vows under the Iberian sky. Duo was my best man. Who else did you expect it to be? Trowa was the one who walked my faerie down the aisle, and growled quietly in my ear to treat her right. I think he's pleased with the arrangements. The ringmaster seemed thrilled to get a new trapezist.
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© 2001 by Genji. Please do not remove without permission.
