Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Passions Victims ❯ Troubled Feelings ( Chapter 4 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: scandalousbehavior 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.02.2001 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.7K | Visits: 287 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.02.2001 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.7K | Visits: 287 | Status: Work In Progress
AN: I know, some of you are upset about the Quatre/Ariel angst, but hey not all relationships last forever. What is Treize's plan? You'll have to wait and see.
Here is the next part with more angst, more plot, and more lemony-freshness.
WARNING: NC-17, to those of you that means it has mature themes and sex in it.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gundam Wing, only use the characters for entertainment.
Passions Victims
Chapter 4: Troubled Feelings
Written by: Scandalous Behavior (scandalousbehavior@yahoo.com)
------~------~------~------~------< br>
Ariel spent the day with her journal writing in the wooden cushioned swing on the back deck of the house of her Dad's as she had every summer in high school. Escaping into her words. Leslie was kind enough to realize that Ariel wanted time to herself, she was the greatest of stepmothers, and had Jack and Izzy play next door at the neighbors. Knowing that she was going to have to leave, since the last person she wanted to talk to was her dad after Quatre saw him, she had already stopped by the Winner Mansion and visited with Raberba's daughters, her ex-stepsisters for a little bit. The breeze blew her shortened hair that felt so good to her head so light now that all that cumbersome hair was gone. Blowing her journal pages as the edges of them she shut the journal, having finished writing.
Standing she walked down the wooden steps off the deck to come right into Trowa coming up those same steps. She stopped and the two of them stared at each other before Ariel turned her head away.
"What are you doing here?"
Trowa could sense the uneasiness of Ariel and watched her turn around and head back to the swing she had been sitting on, while he took a chair across from the swing.
"Finding you, what else."
"You didn't have to come all the way out here. You guys have a concert tonight."
"Coming here seemed more important at the moment."
Ariel put her legs up on the swing and glanced over the lawn, bright green and with a small pool and toys from her stepsiblings.
"Always did know how to find me." Grudging she told him.
"Someone had to keep tabs on you."
"Are you here to say that what we did was a mistake, that I regret it and you'll be fine with us being friends, cause if you are I don't want to hear it. Things changed, Trowa and that just can't let things go back to the way they were."
"I'm here to make sure you don't try to go back to the University without an escort, Ariel. Nothing more."
"So you don't want to talk about it?"
"Are you still in love with Quatre?" Trowa simply replied.
Ariel gave him a surprised look.
"Honestly," Ariel finally admitted, "I don't know what I feel for him."
"You were writing," Trowa gestured to the blue leather notebook in her hands, "you must know something about what you feel."
"Why is it so important to what I feel?" Ariel demanded standing and towering over him.
"Because you're the one in the relationship, Ariel, not me. The one with my best friend, the friend that you found out has been sleeping with some other girl last night."
"So you feel guilty about this, right?"
"You can't tell me you don't, I know you too well. You were or are in love with him and sleeping with me doesn't change that."
Ariel turned away from his green-eyed inquiry.
"I didn't ask if I felt guilty, I asked if you do." Ariel repeated when she leaned against one of the wooden beams that held the swing in place.
"What I feel has no purpose, you are the one that has to face him and decide for yourself what it is you feel."
"That's a real cold blooded way of looking at it."
Trowa stood up and came within feet of her. She could feel his presence, without even looking at him.
"I don't have another way of looking at it, Ariel. My feelings aren't to be put out there until I figure out what you feel. If that was a one-night stand, caused by emotional over load that I took advantage of or real feelings you have for me. If you are still in love with Quatre or have things changed. Those are things that you need answered and so do I before any thing about what I feel can come into this."
Ariel saw him lean closer and she felt her body instantly move towards his, seeking his warmth and comfort that Trowa always had for her. Though her body was more aware of him now, full of quivering, unseen spirals of feeling. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him to her, placing her head on his chest listening to the unsteady heartbeat that she hoped was being caused by her presence. Trowa wrapped his arms around her as to keep her next to him and as she leaned back in his embrace she spoke softly.
"Trowa, I don't know really what all that I feel right now but last night was," Ariel paused searching for the words, "beyond anything I ever thought could happen. I would never regret it cause if I had to do it all over again I would want things to happen exactly as they did. I care about you too much for that not to mean something to me but the whole Quatre thing has me thrown off," Ariel laid her head back on his chest taking in his warmth, "I thought we'd always be together and then finding out like that…It opened my eyes. I admit it scared me at first, I never expected it to happen and somewhere deep down I think I knew it might and it confused me. That I have feelings for my boyfriend, the first guy I ever truly loved and then for my oldest best friend. I didn't mean to do this to you and put you in this position and I want you to know that I need you and want you in my life, that won't ever change. I just need time to figure out just where I'm at with Quatre right now."
"I expect that, Ariel. You got me confused as well, though I expected that if this ever did happen it would. Quatre is a person I care about and then so are you, so take whatever time you need to figure this out, Ariel but remember that if you don't decide something soon you will never know just what Quatre or I truly feel for you, okay?"
Ariel just sighed and nodded, as they pulled back from one another.
"I really don't deserve to have you be this great about it." Ariel whispered.
"Just promise that the next time I leave you won't feel the need to chop more of your hair off." Trowa teased lightly and she smiled.
"Don't like it, huh?"
"No, it fits you actually makes you look more mature, like a adult."
Sticking her tongue out at him for that comment, when he knew she hated to be called an adult since it made her seem like a different species or something when at times she thought most adults were.
"That was mature." Trowa chuckled.
"Wasn't it though? Jack and Izzy think so too."
"I told everyone about the attack," Trowa announced, making her frown, "they had to be told."
"So that's a reason you're here so that I go back on campus a confirmed target to be guarded?"
"We just want you safe, just like all the other girls."
"What about you guys?"
"Let us worry about us."
Ariel shrugged.
"Far be it for me to say that you're the weaker sex, big bunch of worry warts and over protective bulldozers," Ariel criticized, "you'd think we were made of glass or something."
"Well, since you put it that way," Trowa bent down before she knew what he was doing and picked her up over his left shoulder, then with a wave to Leslie standing at the kitchen window, took her down the stairs to their cars and put her down after she yelled at him.
"Damn male chauvinist pig," she accused him.
"Feminist witch," Trowa replied, "now get in your car and follow me to school, understand?"
"You'd swear you were my protector or something," she murmured under her breath, "Sir Trowa."
"Get in the car, Ariel. Now."
Rolling her eyes at his firm commanding tone she got in her car and followed his Dodge Ram truck.
---~---~---
Quatre needed to talk to Ariel, it seemed to him that she had purposefully left him in the room with his father and hers, to get him to confess something. As if she knew…that thought stopped him in his tracks as he stood in the middle of the east quad heading for Ariel's dorm room.
Did she know? How could she? Quatre thought to himself.
It wasn't impossible it wasn't like Mariemaia and him were actually keeping it that well guarded a secret when they could barely keep their hands off one another whenever one was around the other. But how could Ariel know about it? She had a lot of things going on in her own schedule and the last thing he needed was for her to find out by herself.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Treize, standing there in the shadows with his right hand holding a cigarette inhaling it into his mouth and lungs in a tailored outfit as if time had done nothing to him. His nose was a little crooked thanks to Zechs getting to him after the situation with Noin but he only seemed to be tanner and more calculating. Surprising the hell out of Quatre.
"I thought they locked you away?" Quatre inquired.
"You know as well as I do how well money talks, Winner."
"Come back to torment us again?"
Treize had the most disturbing smile come to his lips as he inhaled another puff on his cigarette, before letting it drop to the cement sidewalk and snuff it out with the toe of his Italian leather shoes.
"Seems like you are the least of the people I need to worry about having to torment, seeing as how you are giving yourself a guilty conscience all by yourself."
Quatre didn't like what he was insinuating.
"And what exactly why would I be doing that?"
"I may be out of the loop about some things, Winner, but I was never accused of being stupid. About Mariemaia of course," Treize moved around, circling Quatre but keeping a safe distance away, "you didn't think she came around just by herself with no agenda did you? What a fool you must be to think that. With her using you, you hurting that girlfriend of yours, and so on."
"What brings you here, Khushrenada, besides to try to play God with peoples lives again?"
"What else? To see you suffer, to see you become the scum that you are. That people think you are such a great guy when really you and I are on the same level, low that it might be. We use people, it's just who we are. Like you used Trowa, used Ariel and are now using Mariemaia though my dear sister is using you as well. Sad to think that a relation of mine is actually the perfect match for you."
Treize paused letting his words sink into the depths of Quatre's mind, like it had when Marian had died.
"You honestly think that she wouldn't find out? Mariemaia was told to leave that door just a little open so that Ariel, who I knew would want to talk to you after that conversation with Duo's slut, would come and see for herself just how low you actually are. How truly devious and backstabbing her beloved boyfriend is. You're armor has been tarnished, Winner and she's got herself a new protector," seeing Quatre's eyes narrow, "you knew she would, didn't you? Encouraged it even. How sad that you knew you would have to give away the first person you truly loved because of your true nature. Give her away to your own best friend," Treize smirked, "though those years ago you did accuse her of sleeping with him and now three years later she has. Thanks to you. Because when all is said and done it comes right back to you. How you needed her love and secure in that you neglected the first person you actually let yourself be open with. Not truly open with, as she became open and seeking comfort from another, didn't she? How fickle women are," Treize moved away coming to be in front of Quatre, "women are a temple built on a sewer, isn't that how it goes? So what did you truly expect? For her to be faithful when you were anything but?"
"And what does any of this have to do with you?" Quatre hissed.
"Nothing and everything. You'll see."
Quatre watched him walk away, too over loaded to want to go after him. Because what his mortal enemy had said was all true. He had used Trowa, then Ariel for his own ends. Loved them only to neglect and hurt them.
Closing his eyes against the overwhelming feelings of the betrayal he had done to them, how betrayed he felt by them for turning to each other when in truth who was he to judge, and how was this going to affect everything when Treize let his true plans show. Because if this was just a preview of what kind of mind games he was going to use then the whole group was in way over their heads. Especially him.
---~---~---
The GW concert that night was at an actual auditorium concert hall, where all the guests were in more upper class attire than the usual jeans and t-shirt outfits that befitted a rock group fan. It was a benefit that they had agreed to perform at for charity months ago. So no matter what they couldn't get out of it, as they had wanted to since this new development of Treize and his plans.
Trowa managed to get Ariel to her dorm to shower and change into the concert dress she had bought with Hilde a week ago, but left her with Hilde, Relena, Sally and Noin so that he could talk to the band, who would have to deal without Quatre, who hadn't shown up for one practice and for that one of Duo's friends from his outgoing personality of friends-with-everyone was filling in for Quatre.
While the girls all were shocked by Ariel's hair cut and about the attack only Relena and Relena wanted to know what was going on between her, Trowa and Quatre. Ariel just told them she would talk to them later.
Zechs came to escort all the girls to the concert hall, as the only male not in the band as he took in what Ariel looked like with her new hair cut and the very seductive one-piece gray dress that was see-through around the stomach area and fit her new look to perfection.
At the hall, Duo looked at the girls kissing Hilde like he hadn't just seen her as they stepped into the large dressing room that was mainly used for the plays that took place there. Relena went instantly to Heero, Sally to Wufei, as Noin leaned against the white tuxedoed Zechs while Ariel stood there looking at Trowa, with a small smile.
"What's with the new look, hot stuff?" Duo questioned.
"Nothing much, trying something different. Isn't that a girls prerogative?"
"You look sophisticated, Ariel." Heero took over, as Duo shrugged as if to say 'What'd I do?'.
"How is your injury?" Wufei asked.
"Fine, thanks for asking. So are you guys gonna stand around here when you have loyal well-dressed fans dying of tie-strangulation out there?"
Chuckling Zechs indicated that Ariel was right and they filed out the door, as Ariel hung back still with Trowa standing behind her looking too good in the black tux that him and the guys were forced into and touched Duo's arm as he nodded to Hilde and the others to go on stage.
"What's up?"
"I have a favor. I want to sing a song I wrote and wondered if it would be hard to get you to let me on stage?"
"Sharing the spotlight, eh?"
"I am sure your ego won't suffer too much from it, Mr. Diva."
Duo nodded to Trowa.
"Keeping her out of trouble is a full time job, I see. Better watch it or she'll be calling the shots in the relationship, Tro," causing them to both startle as Duo implied with a grin, "like anyone with eyes couldn't see you two and your frustration it's like when Hilde gets in one of her moods, it's like a living aura."
At that Ariel had to laugh at his reference to Hilde, a classic Duo move.
"Just don't get too carried away with the microphone, hot stuff, or I'll have to get a extinguisher to put out the flames from over worked male fan hormones."
"Anything you say, boss." Ariel quipped.
Duo winked at her and left them alone in the room, calling out that they had five minutes until Trowa had to be on stage.
"Uncanny how well he sees people when everyone thinks he's just a goof ball." Ariel broke the silence.
"Part of Duo's character makeup," Trowa got closer, "you dress like that for a purpose?"
"Purpose? Why is it took much, cause you know I could always," she moved a hand to her shoulder sleeve to brush it off her skin and saw his face become clouded with emotion.
"Don't." Trowa got out.
"Why not? Aren't I allowed to be spontaneous? Or am I too under emotional distress for you to realize what everyone else seems to have figured out?"
"We agreed."
"You agreed, I listened. I know my heart Trowa. It causes trouble, picks the weirdest times to show itself and cause me heartache but it still tells me when things are right. Quatre can't even me man enough to tell me himself that he doesn't want me anymore," Ariel had to look away from his all-seeing green eyes, "let me find out by seeing for myself what I tried to deny, that deep down I knew. You thought I'd wake up ashamed about what we did, didn't you?" Glancing up to see him towering over her, so close she could almost touch him, "do you think I could kiss you like I did, if I didn't sense that what we feel, you and I, wasn't right? That I could make love to you and it been seeming to be like a one-nighter? All that talk on the deck just got me to thinking that it was meant to be. Maybe a little off in timing, but it was. You know it and don't say that you don't cause you know it's true."
"What about Quatre?"
"Quatre and I are done, the minute I started being paranoid and then my fears confirmed it was over. I love him," she saw Trowa falter, "I will always love him, but Trowa," she moved closer and touched him with her hands on his chest, "I am in love with you."
"You can't know that you are. You aren't thinking clearly."
"Tell me you don't love me. That's all you have to say and I won't say another word. Won't talk to you ever again about it. We'll go back to being friends," she drew out the last part in a way that she knew men hated those words from the beginning of time, "is that what you want?"
"What I want," Trowa took her hands drawing her closer into his arms, leaning his face down to brush his lips casually, light as a butterfly over her own, "is for you to tell Quatre and then say those words again."
She froze looking up at him with gray eyes to his green ones.
"You can't put it off and I won't accept any relationship with you until you do. He's your boyfriend, the first guy you've ever allowed yourself to be in love with and you can't just say you love me when you haven't confronted him yet."
Ariel felt his hands leave hers and his heat move away from hers.
"Why do you have to be so rational?" she cursed under her breathe, as he smiled and used his right hand to cup her chin and make her look up at him.
"That's how things are, my angel, and I won't accept anything until I know for sure what you feel is complete with regret about Quatre."
"He's the one who cheated."
"So he did and for that even I am angry about it but you can't and I can't continue this until you know for sure by looking at him and talking to him that it's truly over between you two."
Ariel let her eyelids hide half her eyes as he let his thumb run along her chin bone.
"And if it's not?"
"Then it's not."
Ariel was going to say something else but never got the chance as that was how they were found, so close to each other that only their clothing touched with his almost-innocent touch just on her chin as Quatre Raberba Winner walked into the dressing room.
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~Scandalous~
May 15-27, 2001
Due to the whole moving process from Washington State to my current home in Nevada, this one took longer to get out. Please excuse the lapse, but what can I say? This way all my three stories all have four chapters apiece before I start seriously working on them again. And to let my more devoted readings know that on June 1st I will be starting my new job that might interfere with how much time I have to write, so they might be farther apart in updates, just to give you all some insight. It might or might not, just a caution.
Reviewing Is: Letting you express your opinion, so why not do it?
Here is the next part with more angst, more plot, and more lemony-freshness.
WARNING: NC-17, to those of you that means it has mature themes and sex in it.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gundam Wing, only use the characters for entertainment.
Passions Victims
Chapter 4: Troubled Feelings
Written by: Scandalous Behavior (scandalousbehavior@yahoo.com)
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Ariel spent the day with her journal writing in the wooden cushioned swing on the back deck of the house of her Dad's as she had every summer in high school. Escaping into her words. Leslie was kind enough to realize that Ariel wanted time to herself, she was the greatest of stepmothers, and had Jack and Izzy play next door at the neighbors. Knowing that she was going to have to leave, since the last person she wanted to talk to was her dad after Quatre saw him, she had already stopped by the Winner Mansion and visited with Raberba's daughters, her ex-stepsisters for a little bit. The breeze blew her shortened hair that felt so good to her head so light now that all that cumbersome hair was gone. Blowing her journal pages as the edges of them she shut the journal, having finished writing.
Standing she walked down the wooden steps off the deck to come right into Trowa coming up those same steps. She stopped and the two of them stared at each other before Ariel turned her head away.
"What are you doing here?"
Trowa could sense the uneasiness of Ariel and watched her turn around and head back to the swing she had been sitting on, while he took a chair across from the swing.
"Finding you, what else."
"You didn't have to come all the way out here. You guys have a concert tonight."
"Coming here seemed more important at the moment."
Ariel put her legs up on the swing and glanced over the lawn, bright green and with a small pool and toys from her stepsiblings.
"Always did know how to find me." Grudging she told him.
"Someone had to keep tabs on you."
"Are you here to say that what we did was a mistake, that I regret it and you'll be fine with us being friends, cause if you are I don't want to hear it. Things changed, Trowa and that just can't let things go back to the way they were."
"I'm here to make sure you don't try to go back to the University without an escort, Ariel. Nothing more."
"So you don't want to talk about it?"
"Are you still in love with Quatre?" Trowa simply replied.
Ariel gave him a surprised look.
"Honestly," Ariel finally admitted, "I don't know what I feel for him."
"You were writing," Trowa gestured to the blue leather notebook in her hands, "you must know something about what you feel."
"Why is it so important to what I feel?" Ariel demanded standing and towering over him.
"Because you're the one in the relationship, Ariel, not me. The one with my best friend, the friend that you found out has been sleeping with some other girl last night."
"So you feel guilty about this, right?"
"You can't tell me you don't, I know you too well. You were or are in love with him and sleeping with me doesn't change that."
Ariel turned away from his green-eyed inquiry.
"I didn't ask if I felt guilty, I asked if you do." Ariel repeated when she leaned against one of the wooden beams that held the swing in place.
"What I feel has no purpose, you are the one that has to face him and decide for yourself what it is you feel."
"That's a real cold blooded way of looking at it."
Trowa stood up and came within feet of her. She could feel his presence, without even looking at him.
"I don't have another way of looking at it, Ariel. My feelings aren't to be put out there until I figure out what you feel. If that was a one-night stand, caused by emotional over load that I took advantage of or real feelings you have for me. If you are still in love with Quatre or have things changed. Those are things that you need answered and so do I before any thing about what I feel can come into this."
Ariel saw him lean closer and she felt her body instantly move towards his, seeking his warmth and comfort that Trowa always had for her. Though her body was more aware of him now, full of quivering, unseen spirals of feeling. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him to her, placing her head on his chest listening to the unsteady heartbeat that she hoped was being caused by her presence. Trowa wrapped his arms around her as to keep her next to him and as she leaned back in his embrace she spoke softly.
"Trowa, I don't know really what all that I feel right now but last night was," Ariel paused searching for the words, "beyond anything I ever thought could happen. I would never regret it cause if I had to do it all over again I would want things to happen exactly as they did. I care about you too much for that not to mean something to me but the whole Quatre thing has me thrown off," Ariel laid her head back on his chest taking in his warmth, "I thought we'd always be together and then finding out like that…It opened my eyes. I admit it scared me at first, I never expected it to happen and somewhere deep down I think I knew it might and it confused me. That I have feelings for my boyfriend, the first guy I ever truly loved and then for my oldest best friend. I didn't mean to do this to you and put you in this position and I want you to know that I need you and want you in my life, that won't ever change. I just need time to figure out just where I'm at with Quatre right now."
"I expect that, Ariel. You got me confused as well, though I expected that if this ever did happen it would. Quatre is a person I care about and then so are you, so take whatever time you need to figure this out, Ariel but remember that if you don't decide something soon you will never know just what Quatre or I truly feel for you, okay?"
Ariel just sighed and nodded, as they pulled back from one another.
"I really don't deserve to have you be this great about it." Ariel whispered.
"Just promise that the next time I leave you won't feel the need to chop more of your hair off." Trowa teased lightly and she smiled.
"Don't like it, huh?"
"No, it fits you actually makes you look more mature, like a adult."
Sticking her tongue out at him for that comment, when he knew she hated to be called an adult since it made her seem like a different species or something when at times she thought most adults were.
"That was mature." Trowa chuckled.
"Wasn't it though? Jack and Izzy think so too."
"I told everyone about the attack," Trowa announced, making her frown, "they had to be told."
"So that's a reason you're here so that I go back on campus a confirmed target to be guarded?"
"We just want you safe, just like all the other girls."
"What about you guys?"
"Let us worry about us."
Ariel shrugged.
"Far be it for me to say that you're the weaker sex, big bunch of worry warts and over protective bulldozers," Ariel criticized, "you'd think we were made of glass or something."
"Well, since you put it that way," Trowa bent down before she knew what he was doing and picked her up over his left shoulder, then with a wave to Leslie standing at the kitchen window, took her down the stairs to their cars and put her down after she yelled at him.
"Damn male chauvinist pig," she accused him.
"Feminist witch," Trowa replied, "now get in your car and follow me to school, understand?"
"You'd swear you were my protector or something," she murmured under her breath, "Sir Trowa."
"Get in the car, Ariel. Now."
Rolling her eyes at his firm commanding tone she got in her car and followed his Dodge Ram truck.
---~---~---
Quatre needed to talk to Ariel, it seemed to him that she had purposefully left him in the room with his father and hers, to get him to confess something. As if she knew…that thought stopped him in his tracks as he stood in the middle of the east quad heading for Ariel's dorm room.
Did she know? How could she? Quatre thought to himself.
It wasn't impossible it wasn't like Mariemaia and him were actually keeping it that well guarded a secret when they could barely keep their hands off one another whenever one was around the other. But how could Ariel know about it? She had a lot of things going on in her own schedule and the last thing he needed was for her to find out by herself.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Treize, standing there in the shadows with his right hand holding a cigarette inhaling it into his mouth and lungs in a tailored outfit as if time had done nothing to him. His nose was a little crooked thanks to Zechs getting to him after the situation with Noin but he only seemed to be tanner and more calculating. Surprising the hell out of Quatre.
"I thought they locked you away?" Quatre inquired.
"You know as well as I do how well money talks, Winner."
"Come back to torment us again?"
Treize had the most disturbing smile come to his lips as he inhaled another puff on his cigarette, before letting it drop to the cement sidewalk and snuff it out with the toe of his Italian leather shoes.
"Seems like you are the least of the people I need to worry about having to torment, seeing as how you are giving yourself a guilty conscience all by yourself."
Quatre didn't like what he was insinuating.
"And what exactly why would I be doing that?"
"I may be out of the loop about some things, Winner, but I was never accused of being stupid. About Mariemaia of course," Treize moved around, circling Quatre but keeping a safe distance away, "you didn't think she came around just by herself with no agenda did you? What a fool you must be to think that. With her using you, you hurting that girlfriend of yours, and so on."
"What brings you here, Khushrenada, besides to try to play God with peoples lives again?"
"What else? To see you suffer, to see you become the scum that you are. That people think you are such a great guy when really you and I are on the same level, low that it might be. We use people, it's just who we are. Like you used Trowa, used Ariel and are now using Mariemaia though my dear sister is using you as well. Sad to think that a relation of mine is actually the perfect match for you."
Treize paused letting his words sink into the depths of Quatre's mind, like it had when Marian had died.
"You honestly think that she wouldn't find out? Mariemaia was told to leave that door just a little open so that Ariel, who I knew would want to talk to you after that conversation with Duo's slut, would come and see for herself just how low you actually are. How truly devious and backstabbing her beloved boyfriend is. You're armor has been tarnished, Winner and she's got herself a new protector," seeing Quatre's eyes narrow, "you knew she would, didn't you? Encouraged it even. How sad that you knew you would have to give away the first person you truly loved because of your true nature. Give her away to your own best friend," Treize smirked, "though those years ago you did accuse her of sleeping with him and now three years later she has. Thanks to you. Because when all is said and done it comes right back to you. How you needed her love and secure in that you neglected the first person you actually let yourself be open with. Not truly open with, as she became open and seeking comfort from another, didn't she? How fickle women are," Treize moved away coming to be in front of Quatre, "women are a temple built on a sewer, isn't that how it goes? So what did you truly expect? For her to be faithful when you were anything but?"
"And what does any of this have to do with you?" Quatre hissed.
"Nothing and everything. You'll see."
Quatre watched him walk away, too over loaded to want to go after him. Because what his mortal enemy had said was all true. He had used Trowa, then Ariel for his own ends. Loved them only to neglect and hurt them.
Closing his eyes against the overwhelming feelings of the betrayal he had done to them, how betrayed he felt by them for turning to each other when in truth who was he to judge, and how was this going to affect everything when Treize let his true plans show. Because if this was just a preview of what kind of mind games he was going to use then the whole group was in way over their heads. Especially him.
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The GW concert that night was at an actual auditorium concert hall, where all the guests were in more upper class attire than the usual jeans and t-shirt outfits that befitted a rock group fan. It was a benefit that they had agreed to perform at for charity months ago. So no matter what they couldn't get out of it, as they had wanted to since this new development of Treize and his plans.
Trowa managed to get Ariel to her dorm to shower and change into the concert dress she had bought with Hilde a week ago, but left her with Hilde, Relena, Sally and Noin so that he could talk to the band, who would have to deal without Quatre, who hadn't shown up for one practice and for that one of Duo's friends from his outgoing personality of friends-with-everyone was filling in for Quatre.
While the girls all were shocked by Ariel's hair cut and about the attack only Relena and Relena wanted to know what was going on between her, Trowa and Quatre. Ariel just told them she would talk to them later.
Zechs came to escort all the girls to the concert hall, as the only male not in the band as he took in what Ariel looked like with her new hair cut and the very seductive one-piece gray dress that was see-through around the stomach area and fit her new look to perfection.
At the hall, Duo looked at the girls kissing Hilde like he hadn't just seen her as they stepped into the large dressing room that was mainly used for the plays that took place there. Relena went instantly to Heero, Sally to Wufei, as Noin leaned against the white tuxedoed Zechs while Ariel stood there looking at Trowa, with a small smile.
"What's with the new look, hot stuff?" Duo questioned.
"Nothing much, trying something different. Isn't that a girls prerogative?"
"You look sophisticated, Ariel." Heero took over, as Duo shrugged as if to say 'What'd I do?'.
"How is your injury?" Wufei asked.
"Fine, thanks for asking. So are you guys gonna stand around here when you have loyal well-dressed fans dying of tie-strangulation out there?"
Chuckling Zechs indicated that Ariel was right and they filed out the door, as Ariel hung back still with Trowa standing behind her looking too good in the black tux that him and the guys were forced into and touched Duo's arm as he nodded to Hilde and the others to go on stage.
"What's up?"
"I have a favor. I want to sing a song I wrote and wondered if it would be hard to get you to let me on stage?"
"Sharing the spotlight, eh?"
"I am sure your ego won't suffer too much from it, Mr. Diva."
Duo nodded to Trowa.
"Keeping her out of trouble is a full time job, I see. Better watch it or she'll be calling the shots in the relationship, Tro," causing them to both startle as Duo implied with a grin, "like anyone with eyes couldn't see you two and your frustration it's like when Hilde gets in one of her moods, it's like a living aura."
At that Ariel had to laugh at his reference to Hilde, a classic Duo move.
"Just don't get too carried away with the microphone, hot stuff, or I'll have to get a extinguisher to put out the flames from over worked male fan hormones."
"Anything you say, boss." Ariel quipped.
Duo winked at her and left them alone in the room, calling out that they had five minutes until Trowa had to be on stage.
"Uncanny how well he sees people when everyone thinks he's just a goof ball." Ariel broke the silence.
"Part of Duo's character makeup," Trowa got closer, "you dress like that for a purpose?"
"Purpose? Why is it took much, cause you know I could always," she moved a hand to her shoulder sleeve to brush it off her skin and saw his face become clouded with emotion.
"Don't." Trowa got out.
"Why not? Aren't I allowed to be spontaneous? Or am I too under emotional distress for you to realize what everyone else seems to have figured out?"
"We agreed."
"You agreed, I listened. I know my heart Trowa. It causes trouble, picks the weirdest times to show itself and cause me heartache but it still tells me when things are right. Quatre can't even me man enough to tell me himself that he doesn't want me anymore," Ariel had to look away from his all-seeing green eyes, "let me find out by seeing for myself what I tried to deny, that deep down I knew. You thought I'd wake up ashamed about what we did, didn't you?" Glancing up to see him towering over her, so close she could almost touch him, "do you think I could kiss you like I did, if I didn't sense that what we feel, you and I, wasn't right? That I could make love to you and it been seeming to be like a one-nighter? All that talk on the deck just got me to thinking that it was meant to be. Maybe a little off in timing, but it was. You know it and don't say that you don't cause you know it's true."
"What about Quatre?"
"Quatre and I are done, the minute I started being paranoid and then my fears confirmed it was over. I love him," she saw Trowa falter, "I will always love him, but Trowa," she moved closer and touched him with her hands on his chest, "I am in love with you."
"You can't know that you are. You aren't thinking clearly."
"Tell me you don't love me. That's all you have to say and I won't say another word. Won't talk to you ever again about it. We'll go back to being friends," she drew out the last part in a way that she knew men hated those words from the beginning of time, "is that what you want?"
"What I want," Trowa took her hands drawing her closer into his arms, leaning his face down to brush his lips casually, light as a butterfly over her own, "is for you to tell Quatre and then say those words again."
She froze looking up at him with gray eyes to his green ones.
"You can't put it off and I won't accept any relationship with you until you do. He's your boyfriend, the first guy you've ever allowed yourself to be in love with and you can't just say you love me when you haven't confronted him yet."
Ariel felt his hands leave hers and his heat move away from hers.
"Why do you have to be so rational?" she cursed under her breathe, as he smiled and used his right hand to cup her chin and make her look up at him.
"That's how things are, my angel, and I won't accept anything until I know for sure what you feel is complete with regret about Quatre."
"He's the one who cheated."
"So he did and for that even I am angry about it but you can't and I can't continue this until you know for sure by looking at him and talking to him that it's truly over between you two."
Ariel let her eyelids hide half her eyes as he let his thumb run along her chin bone.
"And if it's not?"
"Then it's not."
Ariel was going to say something else but never got the chance as that was how they were found, so close to each other that only their clothing touched with his almost-innocent touch just on her chin as Quatre Raberba Winner walked into the dressing room.
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~Scandalous~
May 15-27, 2001
Due to the whole moving process from Washington State to my current home in Nevada, this one took longer to get out. Please excuse the lapse, but what can I say? This way all my three stories all have four chapters apiece before I start seriously working on them again. And to let my more devoted readings know that on June 1st I will be starting my new job that might interfere with how much time I have to write, so they might be farther apart in updates, just to give you all some insight. It might or might not, just a caution.
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