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"Keep In Time"Written By: Dentelle_noir Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing AC or the
characters. They belong to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. This
is a work of fiction and written for fun, not profit Rating: R Warnings: AU, sap, angst, fluff Pairings: 3x4. Summary: A suspicious accident leaves Trowa without
a skating partner, sentencing him to a year without competition. Quatre
is an injured dancer, trying to find a way to live without his joy.
Together, they make new rules and find a new path. "Keep In Time" Chapter 18 After hours of July’s layback instruction, nearly throwing his whole back out and losing his balance, and falling completely over a few times, almost smashing his head on the floor, Trowa finally mastered the layback on the ground. He planned to work on it on the ice tomorrow, then add in the spin. He was getting used to the idea of having autonomy about his skating. While skating pairs, Cathy almost always picked what they would do, and what music they would do it to. It was nice to have some control. He worked out in the weight room for a while, and then tried again, once more, to show Dimitri and Petra what he learned during his day off school, and then he was confident enough to go to Quatre’s house. Quatre wanted him to learn a layback, right? He learned it. He hoped that was a demonstration of how much he cared about Quatre. He also had flowers in the back of his jeep if the layback failed to impress. Quatre had been texting him all day, but Trowa had been too upset last night to respond, and by the afternoon, he knew a simple text wouldn’t be able to convey his apology. He needed to apologize in person, and show Quatre that not only did he listen to him, but he respected his decisions as an athlete. He even wore his body suit and dance pants, just because he knew Quatre liked that outfit on him best. He was ready for this. Totally… Really… Mostly... He pulled up to Quatre’s driveway… and sat in the Jeep for far longer than he needed to. He was so nervous! Crap! But this was no different than a competition, right? Everyone got nervous… But winner’s overcame that and preformed anyway. With that in mind, Trowa finally kicked his feet out of the Jeep and stood, walking boldly towards the door with his game face on and the flowers for Quatre in his hand. He stood on the stoop, fixed his hair, made sure his breath was nice (tic tac!) and then… let his finger hover over the doorbell. He could do this. He could do this! Come on! Step up, Trowa! He imagined a rink, filled with spectators and a panel of judges… him standing at the entrance to the ice, all by himself. Without Cathy this time. Could he do this? Could he really do something big without Cathy? Yes. Yes he could. He pushed past the trepidation, and pushed the doorbell. It took just a moment, but the door opened abruptly. Trowa found himself face-to-face with his worst nightmare. Worse even than Heero Yuy. Standing there, glaring at him, was none other than Heero Yuy’s biggest fan, and Quatre’s best friend, Duo Maxwell. And he did NOT look happy to see Trowa there. “What the hell do you want, Barton?” he growled. Why was Duo even there? What bad timing… “I wanted to talk to Quatre… Please?” He heard himself asking, trying to be as pleasant as possible. This was Quatre best friend, right? He had to impress he best friend… “Quatre’s not here.” He said with a glare, “So hit the road.” Trowa, though, was not going to be throw off so easily, “… Are you sure he’s not home? He shouldn’t be in stretch class now…” “He’s not here, dude. He left with some idiot with purple hair to see a movie. I don’t know what happened to his taste! I swear to god! He had good taste until I left for Russia! Team Lowe got Gold, I’m sure you heard…” Duo tried to push his nose into it… but Trowa looked stricken. “He… He’s out with Jason. A-already? We just… we just broke up yesterday…” Trowa stammered, shocked. Duo, sensing weakness, pounced immediately. “Well, yeah. The guy was texting him all day. He kept thinking it was you, but nope, Purple-Dude it was. I don’t really like him, but at least he’s better than you. Quatre must think so too. They seemed pretty cozy.” Trowa looked stricken, and he stood on the doorstep like a gaping fish for a moment, then the betrayal and anger began to churn in his stomach, building up inside him like a storm. He was shocked. Stunned even. How could Quatre be out with Jason? It was like a knife stabbing through his heart, cutting worse than Heero! At least with Yuy, Trowa had known deep down that Quatre wasn’t really romantically interested in him, but Jason? How could Quatre do that to him? Trowa snorted, looking at the cement of the foyer, thinking about that. After the way Trowa had treated him, did he even deserve Quatre’s forgiveness? Probably not. Duo was probably right to be gloating at Trowa’s pain. He couldn’t believe that Quatre would do that, though! After all the messages, and texts… after only one day? Had Trowa fucked up so badly that he couldn’t make it right again? Or had Quatre been leading him on the whole time! Out with Jason behind his back after all those messages that he wanted to talk about all this? Something didn’t add up, but it was pretty friggan obvious that Quatre wasn’t home and there was no way that Duo could have made up the description of a guy who looked just like Jason. He had to be telling the truth. Which meant that Quatre had been fucking with his head this whole God-Damn TIME?! He could barely think straight! He was so hurt he could barely manage to swallow the ache in his throat. The flowers hung limply from his hands, a symbol of how stupid and gullible he had been. Stupid gullible Trowa again. He had no idea that Quatre had been manipulating him too, but then again, he had no idea that Cathy was a snake either. Apparently he couldn’t trust anything that he thought he knew about the people in his life. And while all this was going on, Duo just watched him with a gloating sort of smirk. He snapped, letting his temper block out his hurt, lashing out at the closest thing. Duo. “I guess Quatre’s not the ‘spying’ type after all,” Trowa hissed at Duo, his eyes blazing in fury, masking the hurt twisting in the depths of his stomach. “He’s the backstabbing type.” He took the flowers and mashed them into Duo’s hands, smacking him in the face with the bouquet that he had bought for Quatre. It wasn’t like he would need them. It wasn’t like Quatre actually cared about him. This was all just some game. He was stuck up in another fucking GAME! Everywhere he turned, he was the pawn in someone else’s game! He was SICK of it! Duo sputtered, lily petals stuck in his mouth before he could let out a curse or anything as Trowa turned on his heel and stomped out, climbing into his Jeep and hitting reverse.
Quatre batted Jason’s hand away from his waist for the seventh time, and they were still in the concession line! He paid for the drinks and popcorn (two separate bags, so Jason had no excuse to touch him!) and then turned to his movie companion with a frigid glare. Jason put his hands up in a sign of surrender, and led them towards the theater, but as they walked through the door into the dark theater, Quatre distinctly felt Jason’s hands brushing up against his hip again. This was getting annoying. Really, Really annoying. Jason didn’t even know about Quatre and Trowa’s argument; Quatre hadn’t told anyone at school. Quite honestly, Quatre didn’t trust any of the people he was supposedly friends with at school with something important to him. Time and time again his group of friends had shown themselves to be narrow-minded, distrusting, and oddly enough, they were very aggressive towards people who held different views than their own. Quatre found it pretty hypocritical for people on the fringe of High-School society to ostracize him for not conforming to their non-conformist ways. But all too often he found himself changing what he was wearing, or not saying how he really felt about things just to fit in a little better. Quatre suggested some seats around the front-middle, because they were the best to see the screen, but Jason refused, touching Quatre’s wrist and leading him higher, towards the back of the screen. He pulled in close, talking in Quatre’s ear for no reason.“I like the back better.” Quatre rolled his eyes, but slid into the row. He didn’t want to cause a fuss. Especially since he and Trowa were having a fight, he thought he should be careful not to lose his friends. “So, I heard the movie was supposed to be really good.” Quatre said, starting conversation. Jason nodded, “Yeah, that’s what I heard too.” He replied back, leaning way over and brushing their shoulders. Quatre glared, “Jason. Stop it. We’re here as friends, because I owed you a movie.” “Relax, Kitty-Quat,” Jason said, sliding his hand up onto Quatre’s shoulder and massaging his neck, “You’re too tense.” The movie hadn’t even started and already Quatre was getting fed up with this bullshit. He was upset enough without worrying about Jason’s unwanted advances. “I’m relaxed about as much as I dare to be around you.” Suddenly Quatre felt hot breath and a wet, slick tongue sucking on his earlobe. He jerked in surprised, but Jason just snickered a little, “Mmm. Quit playing so hard to get. Everyone knows you want me.” What did he mean ‘everyone’? “Pardon?!” Jason leaned in, wrapping his arm around Quatre’s shoulders, “Come on. You just dated the jock strap to make me jealous. He’s not your type. I get it. I wasn’t chasing after you hard enough.” “Trowa’s my boyfriend!” Quatre hissed, “And you don’t even KNOW my type! You wouldn’t know it if it bit you on the ass! Just because we’re fighting right now doesn’t mean I don’t still care about him!” Oh shit. He didn’t mean to spill that! Jason’s face lit up like Christmas, “Fighting, hmm? And here you are, with me instead. I told you. Everyone knows you’re hot for me. You keep sending all the signals. Let’s just cut to the chase, then?” And Jason pushed forward, grabbing Quatre’s face and crushing their lips together. But that. Was. IT! Quatre didn’t need to take this shit! Not from Jason! Not from anyone! Just to stay “friends” with people who obviously didn’t know a thing about him? It wasn’t worth this aggravation! He was SICK of playing the part of some femmy little bitch so he fit in! Quatre grabbed Jason’s shoulder and SHOVED, using all his weight, making the taller boy slam backwards, shocked at the power Quatre had. Obviously he had no idea how much a male dancer had to be able to lift! Quatre stood, fury blazing in his eyes, “You want a signal?” He yelled, heard over the previews. The entire cinema turned to look. Quatre grabbed the bag of popcorn and up-ended it over Jason’s spike purple hair, emptying the whole bag with one fell swoop. He cocked a hip out, glaring, “There’s your fucking signal and the only one I’ve EVER given you, Asshole! Fuck off and leave me alone! I’m NOT fucking interested. I’m GLAD my boyfriend gave you a black eye. I don’t care if you never speak to me again. I don’t want your friendship. I don’t want anything to do with you, or your friends, Ever. Again. And if you ever try to talk to me again? I’ll kick you in the balls. You got it?” Jason gapped like a fish. A fish covered in popcorn, that was… Quatre turned on his heels and walked out of the cinema, just as the lights went out for the previews to begin. Well, at least that freed up his evening. And suddenly, knowing that he didn’t have to deal with those people anymore, his so-called friends, he felt free. No more pretending he was something else just to fit in. By Monday the private school was going to merge with their high school meaning that Duo and Heero, Relena, July, and all of his friends from ballet class were going to be there, hanging out with him. And hopefully, Trowa was going to be ready to forgive him soon enough, and might even let Quatre skate with him again. Letting out a sigh, Quatre went to the bus stop and hopped onto the first one that came by, getting as far away from Jason as possible, and closer to his real friends. He even considered going to Trowa’s place, but he thought that Cathy would never let him in anyway. All he could do was wait for Trowa. He wasn’t going to plead and beg. He was going to wait until Trowa came to his senses and came to him.
When he got home it was to find his door stoop littered with leaves and broken stems. A lily lay there, broken halfway down the stem, and a little white petal was hanging off the porch light. Worried, Quatre picked up the broken lily gently, cradling it in his hands. It was so sad… he loved lilies. Who would break it on his door step? He had a very bad feeling about that, but he had no choice but to unlock the door and face whatever happened head on. The entranceway was littered worse with the carnage of lilies, and there was a groan from the kitchen. Quatre had noticed his sister’s car already in the driveway, so he wasn’t surprised to hear her voice ordering someone to sit still. And when he got in there, he was less surprised to see that the person squirming was Duo. Iria had out the first aid kit and was applying some antiseptic spray to Duo’s face as he made faces and tried to get away. He had little scrapes all over his face, and a leaf stuck in his hair still, even though it looked like Heero had been picking them out, from a little pile he was making of stems and petals on the table beside him. When Duo spotted Quatre, he glared, “Your Ex is a fucking MENACE! I told you that guy was violent!” Quatre cradled his flower closer, protectively. “Trowa’s not a menace! And… he’s not… really violent!” Although just saying that reminded him of Trowa knocking Jason one in the eye. He suppressed the smile at that thought. Thankfully, Heero came to his rescue. He brought over a glass with some water it in, and helped Quatre prune the broken stem. One lily survived. “He’s not that violent. I would have done the same thing. He came over with flowers, and Duo told him you were out with Jason. He didn’t take it well. I don’t think he meant to hurt Duo with the flowers” “He meant to kill me!” Duo protested, “I’m lucky I wasn’t fatally maimed!” Heero rolled his eyes, and handed Quatre the glass. “…he was pretty upset that you were out on a date already…” Oh fuck. FUCK. How much worse could this GET?! Quatre held his head in his hand, “I wasn’t on a DATE. I owed him a movie, and I ended up throwing my popcorn over his head because he kept trying to cop a feel! FUCK! I told you that it wasn’t a date! What did you tell him, Duo?” Duo guiltily looked up at Quatre, “Well… I didn’t say it was a date. I just… didn’t specify it wasn’t. I really don’t like that guy, Quatre! He’s Heero’s fucking biggest rival!” Quatre had just about enough of all this! “You know what, Duo? GROW UP! Heero’s got rivals everywhere, but he’s got friends too! Trowa is a really nice guy! He always treated me well! And I really liked him! Now he’s never going to talk to me! He came over here to apologize to me, and you let him think I’d dropped him for Jason already?! What’s that make me look like, Duo?” Quatre wasn’t holding back any punches now, too pissed off at this whole friggan circus! “So stop doing me anymore FAVOURS, Duo! I don’t think I can handle anymore right now in my life!” Quatre turned on his heel and stalked upstairs, holding his little lily in the water glass tightly… trying not to break down. When did his life turn into a soap opera?! He SLAMMED the door behind him for good measure, knowing it echoed all the way down to the kitchen, and set his flower beside his computer screen, then crawled into bed. He didn’t even care that he was still dressed with his shoes on; he didn’t want to deal with all this anymore! Trowa had tried to apologize, and instead he was met with all this? No wonder he wasn’t returning any of Quatre’s texts! As tears threatened to fall, Quatre kicked off his shoes and curled up on the bed, pulling out his phone to check and make sure he hadn’t missed a text from Trowa. Nope. Nothing. But this had gone too far now. Quatre had to make sure he knew the truth. He dialed Trowa’s number, letting the cell ring. And ring. And ring…. “You’ve reached Trowa. I’m unavailable. Probably skating. Leave a message. BEEP!” Holding back a sob, Quatre clutched the phone, then left the first message of many that night: “Trowa… This is Quatre. Your flowers were very nice. I managed to save one… I’m looking at it right now. Listen, baby, It wasn’t like Duo said it was. Please… call me back. I have to talk to you and set things right again, okay? Okay, please… Please just… call me back? I miss you.”
Dimitri was teaching a class of four young male skaters- the Men’s Juvenile division. Out of the four, three had qualified for regionals, and the 15 year old was the favorite to dominate in the men’s short program. They were working through the single lutz, jumping up from the side of their skate blades into wide arches, landing on the opposite side of the lean and continuing on into a camel spin, keeping their bodies parallel to the ice and spinning on only one skate. One at a time, each boy tried the maneuver and then skated a lap around the ice to get to the back of the line again. They were good. But they weren’t as good as Trowa. He skated out to the ice, sliding into position behind the previous skater, and he launched into the lutz and camel spin, then kicked off into a lap, moving in sync with the other skaters easily. But of course, he hadn’t blended in THAT easily. Dimitri pointed at him, a disproving look on his face, “Trowa, you know you can’t disrupt another group’s ice time! I’m teaching the men’s division right now.” Trowa nodded, keeping in time with the other skaters around him. “I know. That’s why I’m here, Dimitri. I’m going to skate singles from now on.” The other three skaters stopped abruptly, jaw’s dropping, and Dimitri looked like he was extremely confused. He shook his head for a moment, peering closer at Trowa as if he’d grown a second head, “Are you serious, Boyshka?” Trowa nodded, and kept skating around the rink. The movement was soothing. Allowed him to focus his thoughts better. It took him a minute to put it all in order, and then looked at Dimitri seriously, “Cathy doesn’t want me. I’m finished with Quatre. I don’t like skating with July. And I’m not going to move away from this city in order to try out a hundred different partners. I can do it, can’t I? I know there are different moves, but…” Trowa smirked, watching Dimitri stew for a minute. He had figured this part out just now, watching the other men’s skaters practice. He knew all those moves, even if they weren’t his usual element. “You’ve been training me to be able to do Men’s singles for years, haven’t you?” Dimitri looked over Trowa critically… Unsure.. “I don’t know, Boyshka. I don’t know if you’re ready for that. You’re not thinking straight. You’re too upset about your boyfriend.” Not answering that, Trowa sped up the lap, then jumped up, tightening his form and spinning around once, twice, and then half around again before he landed the double axel, then moved into a camel spin. Perfect. Each movement was perfect. Then he pulled up out of the camel spin, holding his hands aloft, and began to slowly bend…bend… backwards lower and lower into a layback spin, letting his hands open, then fall at his sides like a flower in bloom. He straightened, pushing the hair out of his eyes, looking at Dimitri with a confidence and pride that he hadn’t seen since the accident. Trowa was serious. “Let me try out Men’s singles. I’ll stay in pairs training too, until you’re convinced I can handle it. I’m not able to compete in either until next year anyway. I’ve already missed the qualifying for both Mens and Pairs. What’s there to lose?” Dimitri didn’t have an answer to that. He just hoped Trowa knew what he was getting into. And that he wasn’t doing this just to get back at Cathy and Quatre for leaving him.
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