Punishing

When he got to his apartment, he had enough time to dive in and out of the shower.

Then he found himself with an interesting surplus of time that he used for slipping in and out of clothes, trying to decide on the best one. He was halfway sthatthat this meeting was a semi-date, especially since Quatre now knew that Trowa no longer represented a one Ms. Trixie soon-to-be-ex-Winner.

With a sliver of time to spare, Trowa made a jittery exit from his apartment still unsure if anything about himself looked right. He feared, a little too acutely for comfort, that he looked like a 1950\'s beatnik (a fashionable hail from his highschool days). The only upside to it, insofar as he saw, was that it wasn\'t a suit.

++

Quatre was already at the cafe, in the windowed booth that they\'d shared not long before.

Trowa hung back a moment in the main body of the establishment to watch him a little before invading the silent seclusion.

Quatre appeared quiet and contemplative. His posture was relaxed and open, like a normal person. Absently, he ran his fingers through his hair, letting it fall back into his eyes; then, he glanced at his watch, a guy anxious on his first date. He was dressed as if he\'d just gotten off from work, his briefcase sat like a watchdog by his feet.

It felt a little dirty, but Trowa interrupted Quatre\'s reverie, anyway.

He knocked on the door as he entered, \"Were you waiting long?\"

As if a switch had been flipped, Quatre\'s eyes clouded and grew distant, his back straightened, and a sardonic smile scratched away the resigned frown that had been on his face only moments before.

\"Don\'t flatter yourself,\" he teased as Trowa took the seat opposite.

Trowa smiled slyly, \"But, is it not flattering to be in your prescence?\"

Quatre\'s smile turned severe, \"Speaking of \'kiss-ass\'...Where did that joker come from?\"

\"Under a rock,\" Trowa replied, trying not to let his unease surface in his face.

Folding his arms across his chest, Quatre shot back, \"I gathered as much.\"

Trowa managed a crooked smile, \"He and Ms. Trixie seem well-matched, maybe they\'ll get married.\"

\"Maybe when cows fly,\" Quatre scoffed. \"That Schapery is fruitier than holiday door-stops.\"

It took a moment for Trowa to make the connection before he said, \"Oh...\" and left it at that.

\"But, what about you?\" Quatre asked, taking the subject onto a tangent.

\"What about me?\" Trowa\'s smile evened out, and he looked penetratingly at Quatre.

Quatre looked pleased, in a strange removed sort of way, \"Have you indulged in sexual relations with a man?\"

If Trowa had been drinking something, it\'d have been all over the table. No matter how rude or cold a person Mr. Winner was, he\'d never expected such a frank personal question so casually dropped by those cherubic rose-bud lips.

Quatre, who had a drink, partook of it and raised a brow as he did so at Trowa\'s inner distress. He\'d just taken a sledgehammer to some of Trowa\'s more fantastical musings.

\"In college...\" Trowa answered tightly.

Whatever warmth was in Quatre\'s smile fell away like a brushed-aside cobweb, \"How many?\"

\"Pardon?\"

Quatre\'s smile acquired a hint of incredulity, \"Goodness! Do I have to repeat my every question?\"

Trowa tried to force some serene qualities to his face while he answered, \"Eric, Justin, Andrew, Tim. All with protection.\"

It was Quatre\'s turn to say, \"Oh.\"

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, at least on Trowa\'s part, Quatre added onto his one-word response, \"It\'s good that you\'re honest.\"

\"Are you testing me?\" Trowa asked, not entirely sure whether he was serious, joking, or hurt.

Immediately, all the hostility disappated from Quatre\'s features, and he fell into a sort of coquettish grace that he knew that Trowa would find endearing. He dipped his chin into his chest allowing a light blush to powder his cheeks, \"I didn\'t mean to make you feel bad. I was just curious.\" He looked up at Trowa from under his long curled lashes, \"I just want to know you better.\"

Trowa\'s brain was reeling from this new Quatre act. He knew that he should\'ve known better, but he could just feel all of the tension he\'d been building up melting away under Quatre\'s bewitching eyes. \"You...\" he managed to say, but couldn\'t even back it up with the accusatory tone he\'d wanted.

\"After,\" Quatre went the extra step and took Trowa\'s hand, \"after the divorce is finalized, I\'d like to stay friends with you. So, I would like for us to be as candid with each other right now as if there were no divorce at all.\"

Trowa liked the way that Quatre\'s hand felt over his, and was loathe to associate it with ill-intent, but he had to ask, \"What exactly are your intentions?\"

He knew that Quatre would probably lie to him, but he craved reassurance, even empty promises.

Quatre\'s face sobered a bit. He looked tired, and, maybe, a little lonesome (or, so Trowa would have liked to believe), \"I just want to get to know you better, Trowa.\"

\"You,\" Trowa couldn\'t hide his regret, \"are a dangerous person.\"

Quatre winced, \"I know.\"

Whatever had begun to eat at Quatre continued nibbling at him the rest of the evening. He had taken on a more docile personality and tactfully turned the conversation to pleasant small-talk. Even more amazing, he managed to pluck a lot of personal facts from Trowa without divulging any of his own, and made it seem, all the while, that the conversation was two-way.

He learned about Trowa\'s likes (soccer, poetry, taking things apart and reassembling them, instrumental music, etc.), his dislikes (Trixie, Schapery, bell peppers, Japanophiles, etc.), his cat Mr. Bojangles (a gray striped cat with bright yellow eyes and dwarfing anemia), and his sister Cathy (who always insists that she knows exactly what\'s best for him regardless of circumstance and experience).

\"Sorry to run out on you,\" Quatre began, taking a quick look at his watch, \"but I\'d better head home before Rashid dies of worry.\"

\"Who\'s Rashid?\" Trowa asked.

\"Personal servant,\" Quatre replied, an old mischief lurking in his eyes, \"I keep him in a cupboard next to the laundry room sink.\"

Trowa smirked and stood with Quatre. They went dutch with the bill, and left together.

\"You\'re following me,\" Quatre looked back at Trowa.

\"I\'m walking you to your car,\" Trowa corrected him.

\"Stalker,\" Quatre teased.

\"Guilty,\" Trowa admitted.

Quatre laughed quietly, and stuffed his free hand into his pocket.

\"Don\'t walk too close to me outside,\" he warned, \"unless you want reporters up your ass for the next two months.\"

The parking lot was mostly dark save for a few twiggish lamps here and there.

Trowa saw Quatre off to his car safely, and watched him leave. No matter how much he twisted his mind over it, he couldn\'t figure out what Quatre was up to. His mood changed so quickly that it was hard to pin him down on anything. It was enough to fill Trowa with the strong urge to curl up somewhere with an aged bottle of vodka and nurse himself into careless slumber.

\"Heaven help me,\" he muttered as he got into his own car.

++

To his immense enjoyment, Trixie was having a terrible morning.

Schapery was holding up well, but, it was probably because he was a career drinker. Getting sloshed, for him, was probably as normal as picking up dry cleaning. He kept pushing water on Trixie, and tried to get her to eat something good and filled with carbs. \"Easy energy,\" he kept telling her, a little too cheerfully for her hung-over liking.

The trial date was set two weeks and four days away.

Neither Trowa nor Schapery seemed very concerned about it, but Trixie seemed antsy, now that she couldn\'t force money out of her soon-to-be-ex-husband the good old fashioned \"I just hate you\" way. At trial she would have to appeal to more people than just herself, and for the first time since her pre-teen years, she was doubting the power of her hefty breasts.

When Schapery suggested that she get a breast reduction for sympathy votes, she balked and held them to herself protectively. As stupid as the idea seemed, Trowa could see where a story could be spun off it; for example: Poor Ms. Titiana Winner only kept her two-ton breasts for the benefit of her estranged husband, and now that he no longer found them appealing, there was no point in keeping them.

With every stray idea that Schapery bounced off Titiana, she looked to Trowa for support, but he was good at looking impartial. He was supposed to be \"learning,\" after all. When she asked him why he wasn\'t helping her, he allowed some satisfaction to tug at the corners of his lips with his reply, \"I\'m no longer your attorney. I don\'t want to be liable.\"

Trixie pouted at his words and at the physical distance that he\'d recently enforced since declining to be her counsel. He sat at the far end of the table and only spoke to tell her how completely he\'d disengaged himself from her troubles.

\"It\'s him, isn\'t it?\" she said aloud to herself, conjuring a particularly demonic image of her soon-to-be-ex. \"I\'ll fucking kill him.\"

She tore through her tin of cigarettes viciously, and pretended that it was really Quatre that she was burning, wasting, and rending.


TBC...


note(s):
1. sorry the chapter\'s so late and so short. I\'m playing catch-up^_^; After all my finals were over and everything, it\'s been a little challenging to re-visit these fics. I have to re-read them and remember where I was/was going, so, please bear with me and these meandering chapters! thanks!
2. And, thanks for all the spiffy reviews! I really appreciate it! And I hope for more^_^; thanks~~
3. If I make any pokes at Christianity or any particular denomination, I don\'t mean for it to be offensive. I, myself, am of no particular faith. I used to be Christian, but have found myself estranged from it since fifth grade, about five or six years, give or take. I\'ve had some unfavorable experiences with it, and...I suppose, I\'ll just leave it at that.
4. more updates to come on all fics! please watch out for them!^_^