Title: Catholic Schoolboys Rule!
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairings: 1=2, 3=4, mentions of others
Stuff: AU, pokes at religious institution, fluff/sap, angst, lemon topping and a bit of drag XD
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Sunrise, Bandai and a lot of other people who aren't me. +5 skill points if you guess the title reference.

Filling a request for Rainya, because she feeds my geek needs. Thanks to Natea for the once-over.

++++

II.

++++

"In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti." The abbot's voice boomed over the congregation of tired, bleary-eyed students. Most of them were present at morning prayers in body only, their minds all far-gone. The sun was hardly in the sky, its pale rays slowly beginning to filter through the stained glass windows that caked the chapel walls.

Amid the sea of half-awake chapel goers, a trio of girls stood shoulder-to-shoulder, trying hard to make it seem like they were paying the utmost attention for the benefit of the nun sitting two pews back. However, they had more important things to discuss than the salvation of their eternal souls.

"Hilde, where's your boyfriend?" said the girl with honey blond hair in the middle of the group, leaning in to the shorthaired girl on her left. The blonde reached up to tighten the large blue bow holding her hair in a loose ponytail behind her slender neck.

"I bet he's passed out somewhere," Hilde whispered back, her eyes darting between the altar at the front of the chapel and the girl beside her. "I think he went out partying last night."

"Without you? Don't you think that's bad form?" the dark blonde asked, sounding vaguely appalled.

"Of course it's bad form - just like everything else Duo Maxwell does," said the third girl, a taller blonde with hair that shone with a more yellowed, gold sheen than the one in the middle.

"Dorothy!" the middle blonde hissed.

"Don't worry about it, Relena," Hilde assured the girl next to her. "Dorothy just doesn't like the dirty names Duo calls her."

"She probably deserved them, whatever they are," Relena muttered under her breath as she sent Dorothy a dark stare from the corners of her crystalline eyes. Dorothy had always taken some sort of ill pleasure in goading the world around her but simply couldn't stand when the same sort of treatment was dumped right back onto her plate.

The three girls were an odd mishmash of friends - though 'friends' probably wasn't the best word to describe it exactly. Dorothy Catalonia and Relena Darlian were both daughters of very upstanding, high-ranking government officials and had known each other long before they were ever schoolmates. (Relena's father was a diplomat for Earth on L1 and Dorothy's was an ambassador of some kind.) A sort of amiable rivalry often crackled between them, but there were times where the good-humored air was scraped rather thin. Hilde, on the other hand, was just a regular local girl with no real social connections and had really only ended up in the Darlian-Catalonia posse by mere circumstance - namely the amount of classes the three had shared in freshman year. There were times where Hilde felt very much on the fringe with the other two.

On top of that, there was the fact that she had a boyfriend and neither Dorothy nor Relena did. And even then, there were things she knew about Duo and the nature of their relationship that she would never dream of telling her supposed best friends, who, like many of the girls at Saint Magdalena's, were blissfully unaware of the devious life Duo led by night. Hilde was actually one of the few females on campus that knew Duo was even gay at all - and that was only because she had seen him playing tonsil hockey with one of the busboys at the Siamese Cafˇ in town.

"Oh my, who is that?" Relena purred into Hilde's ear, jarring her from her mental tangent. "There, up three rows on the other side of the main aisle - next to Wufei."

Craning her neck to peer around Dorothy's tall form, Hilde saw who Relena was talking about and she did have to agree he was pretty easy on the eyes. "I have no idea," she admitted as her eyes reveled in the sight of the slender boy with messy brown hair and pouting lips. His uniform was clearly not the familiar Saint Magdalena's wear, and she found herself wondering where he'd come from. "Maybe you should ask Wufei after prayers."

"Never!" Relena breathed, trying hard to muffle her sharp gasp. She wasn't particularly fond of Wufei; he always seemed ruffled for a debate, and she hated the way he targeted her father's politics.

"I've got a boyfriend already," Hilde protested as, just then, the entire congregation sat down en masse at the abbot's direction. The irony of the statement was obviously lost on Relena, and there were times Hilde wished that Duo had a better best female friend to keep up pretenses for him. She often got weary of constantly having to cover Duo's ass while he rode through life by the seat of his pants.

"All the more reason as to why you should be the one probing for information," Relena shot back impatiently. "No one would suspect the girl who's already taken."

Hilde wasn't sure if Wufei was aware of Duo's tendencies, but she was willing to bet he wouldn't take kindly to her nosing around either way, especially on the behalf of a girl like Relena. She didn't feel like listening to him complain about her for a half hour. "Maybe you should just go up to that boy yourself and say something - cut Wufei out altogether," Hilde suggested.

Her cheeks suddenly bright red, Relena started worrying the hem of her vest. "What on earth would I say to him?"

On Relena's other side, Dorothy was just short of sneering at her. Straightening her back and putting on a mocking face as she said, "'Hello, my name is Relena Darlian." Then she turned out her hand extravagantly, as if she were offering it to someone: "What's yours?'" Despite her serious demeanor, it was obvious she was trying to stifle a chuckle or two.

"Shut up, Dorothy," Relena huffed, crossing her arms with malcontent. "It's not like you have a boyfriend to show for all your efforts."

Hilde had to bite down on a finger to keep from braying with laughter. "All the boys are scared to date Dorothy," she managed to say around her muted giggles.

Perturbed didn't adequately describe Dorothy's face just then. "I can get a boyfriend anytime I want," she hissed under the dirge-like hymnal that was currently rising up from the congregation. She sent a snake-like glare across the aisle towards the handsome stranger Relena had picked out. "Look, there's another one," she whispered harshly to Relena, nodding towards the unfamiliar blond also standing with Wufei. His uniform was different from the one Relena had noticed, but it also was definitely not Saint Magdalena's either.

Relena turned to meet Dorothy's meaningful stare dead on, and neither one had to say anything for the unspoken wager to take effect. Watching the two of them, Hilde just rolled her eyes and whispered to the pair, "It's not a competition...." She wasn't permitted to say much more, though, since both of them turned their heated glares upon her for daring to intervene.

"Vade in pace," said the abbot in his booming voice, his hands stretched out over the student body in blessing. Hilde sighed as she muttered a halfhearted "Amen" with the rest of her peers. It was no good to try and hold Dorothy and Relena back when either of them got going on something; she just hoped for everybody's sake that wouldn't cause too much harm when they would inevitably get too carried away.

++++

Though he hadn't yet spent twenty-four hours on Magdalena's campus, Heero was fairly certain he didn't like it there. In addition to the fact that he very much hated feeling so conspicuously out of place, he had wanted to get much further from the moon than just Earth. The blue planet was too well connected with the lunar colonies, and the last thing he wanted was for his estranged family to come treading on his toes.

Despite his discontent, Heero figured there wasn't much he could do about his current situation for the time being. As he headed for his first class of the day, he crowd of students streaming out of morning prayer was finally starting to thin, and Heero felt like he could breathe again. He had very little interest in joining up with the others for breakfast and decided he'd rather get to the classroom early to enjoy a little private time, especially after that girl with the big blue bow in her ponytail had intercepted him on his way out of the chapel to ask if he'd like to attend a party she was having. He had a sneaking feeling that solitary moments were going to be very hard to come by for the next few months. At least this class would be an easy A for him; it was just a general history and social study of the ESUN, and his grandfather was the leading professor in that very subject at Saint Anthony's, back on the moon.

He found the classroom on the second floor easily enough, but was disappointed to find that he wasn't the only person who'd thought to skip breakfast. Lounging in the teacher's chair with his feet kicked up on the desk was none other than Trowa's troublemaking roommate, Duo. His uniform was in better order this time, though Heero was sure that it would deteriorate as the day went on. The blue flip-flops, which seemed to be customary for the longhaired teen, were hanging by their thongs between his bony toes. Duo's eyes were closed, and Heero was sure he was lost in a deep sleep, judging by the faint snores that escaped him every now and again. Heero walked by him as quietly as possible to find a place to sit.

Each of the four vertical rows of old-fashioned desks that were all connected as a single unit, the front iron legs of one desk curling into the back legs of the chair in front of it. Heero selected a random seat in the middle of the room, hoping that he'd be less noticed once the other desks filled up around him.

Heero felt sort of like he'd been caught in a time warp as he took in his surroundings. The physical room, like the rest of the building, was of white plaster walls and wood trim, with rows of narrow windows that had diamond ribbing in the glass. But then there were little amenities - or the lack thereof - that Heero was actually rather surprised by, like the fact that there was a real chalkboard instead of a holographic monitor at the head of the classroom, or that there was a bookshelf of texts in one corner, and that none of the desks were outfitted with computers. Far more used to the cutting-edge technology of the lunar colonies, he wondered if every school on Earth was like this. Then he found himself thinking how he just really needed to get back to space.

There was a hollow clatter as if something was hitting a desktop near the front of the classroom, and it startled Heero's attention back to reality. Duo was now awake and in the process of bringing his feet back to the floor. Leaning an elbow on one thigh, his wide eyes, which were a startling bright blue, suddenly darted up and settled directly on Heero, lingering on him in the most unsettling way for almost twenty full seconds. Heero narrowed his eyes as menacingly as he could in response; reputations notwithstanding, he wasn't about to let just anybody walk all over him.

"Hey, Spaceboy, just what the heck is your deal?" said Duo, standing up and striding heavily over towards Heero. He flattened his palms and spread his fingers on the top of Heero's desk, leaning in and directing that disconcerting cobalt stare straight into his eyes once more.

"What's yours?" Heero countered smoothly, angling his head a bit to break eye contact with the other boy.

"Just so you know," Duo said in a warning tone, "if you think you can come crash-landing in here like some white-hot meteorite with that dark, mysterious attitude of yours like it's really gonna roll, you've got another thing coming, you got me, buster?" He jabbed a finger into the desktop to emphasize his point - whatever it was.

"That still doesn't tell me much," answered Heero distastefully. "I haven't done anything to you. Hell, I don't even know a thing about you!"

Duo snorted and straightened, towering significantly over Heero as he crossed his arms over his broad chest. "Maybe if you play your cards right, you might find some stuff out," he said with a bit of ambiguous swagger. "But at moment, you're batting a perfect zero - get the fuck out of my seat."

Heero blinked up at him incredulously, an expression of utter disbelief smeared across his face. "There are twenty-three other empty desks in this room, and you're trying to tell me that you need to sit in this very one?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you, now get the fuck up," Duo said jabbing a thumb over one shoulder, indicating the space behind him. "Unless" - here, Heero felt very uncomfortable with the way Duo's voice dropped even deeper and his gaze seemed to take its time wandering up and down his figure - "you want me in your lap for the whole class period."

"Stop bullshitting me," Heero said with a shake of his head as gave Duo a slow once-over himself, though his expression was much more contemptuous. "If you're out to give me a hard time, I can tell you right now I'm not going to fall for that kind of behaviour."

Arching an eyebrow, Duo took a few steps back so he could lean on another desk. "Oh ho, got some balls of steel, do we?" he sneered contemptuously. "Just get it clear, Spaceboy," he went on, gesticulating with an angrily pointed finger, " make my own fucking rules around here. You want to be on my good side, don't throw off my groove; you go be a mensch and make trouble for me, you won't be a happy camper, you got me?" He slid onto the desk behind him, crossing his arms and glaring at Heero as if he was watching what he'd just said sink into Heero's skull.

Unimpressed by Duo's words, Heero sat back in his chair and answered simply, "Then I expect the same out of you. Stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours." He was distracted for a moment as the classroom door opened to yield a few more members of their class, but was quick to return his attention to Duo. "Do you give these kinds of lectures to all the new kids here?"

Duo let out a tiny laugh that shook his shoulders. "Just the ones I think are gonna be trouble for me, Spaceboy," he said matter-of-factly. "Pat yourself on the back that I thought you were worth the effort." And then, seeming to have forgotten about the whole desk issue, Duo ambled off, plopping himself down in a desk a few seats ahead of Heero. What Heero didn't know, however, was just what kind of trouble Duo meant.

The room was starting to fill up more steadily now. So far, Heero didn't really recognize any of the other students, but then again he really hadn't been there long enough to say he knew all that many in the first place. All the students seemed to have a routine seat in the room, or at least people they regularly sat with. However, Heero did notice that none of them made an effort to sit near Duo with the exception of one girl with short, dark hair who gallivanted into the room and bounded right onto Duo's desk to embrace him in a friendly hug. Heero thought it was all very bizarre, and yet he couldn't help but tune in on their conversation.

"Oh Jesus, what a night last night was," Duo told her with a languid stretch, all traces of the hostility he'd been assaulting Heero with completely gone.

"Yeah? What made it so good?" asked Duo's female friend, who was now sitting with her legs dangling off the side of his desk. Heero could tell that they were quite comfortable with each other, and, despite what little experience he had with Magdalena's resident hellion, he found that he was actually a bit surprised that Duo would be so close with another person.

Duo leaned close to her, pressing his temple against the side of her torso. "Oh man, babe, the fucking. What I'd give to fuck as much and as hard as I did last night," he swooned unabashedly, obviously uncaring of who heard him. "It felt so good."

Heero was loath to admit that their chatter had suddenly become rather interesting. He hoped his listening-in wasn't too conspicuous, but he was curious to watch Duo when he was just being himself, even if it was slightly voyeuristic to overhear a couple talk about something as intimate as sex. Duo was odd in the most unnaturally fascinating way.

"Well, Duo, I'm fairly certain it won't be long before you're at it again," she said, not seeming to have a problem talking about it in such a public place either. Heero couldn't tell if she was trying to lace her comment with any innuendo or not.

"Not until I need it!" Duo protested, jerking away from her with an indignant snort.

The girl rolled her eyes, twiddling her long, spiky bangs between two fingers. "Duo, you always seem to need it. I've never met a person who loves to fuck as much as you do."

Duo chuckled, and Heero imagined that if the longhaired boy's back hadn't been facing him, his mouth would have been twisted with a sort of sadistic mirth. "Oh no, sweetheart - I beg to differ," he said, grabbing the short tie around Hilde's neck and using it to jerk her ear down to his lips as he started to whisper something to her. At first Hilde's mouth was split into a large, joking smile, but as Duo went on with whatever secrets he was telling her, a sly grin on his face on his lips, her eyes grew wider and her cheeks redder.

By the time Duo was finished, he had rendered her just short of speechless, her jaws flapping uselessly as she stared at her friend with shock scrawled all across her features. "Duo, you're incorrigible," she finally managed to gasp.

"Yeah, and you love it," Duo wrote her off nonchalantly.

Heero watched Hilde slide into the desk next to Duo's, reevaluating his thoughts. He came to the conclusion that Duo Maxwell was definitely someone to be wary of - especially since even Duo himself seemed to be unaware of where the fanfaronade ended and where he began.

++++

Trowa had informed Heero that the fencing team was practicing after school that day, so when the final bell tolled after the last class, Heero headed straight for the gym. He had been one of the best fencers on the Saint Anthony team, and despite the fact he had very little intention of ever returning to the moon, it was a skill he didn't particularly want to see fade away. At any rate, it had been a good escape then and he didn't see why it should be any different now.

Thinking about Trowa reminded Heero of what Duo's tall roommate had told him when he'd mentioned his malcontent for Duo's strikingly rash behaviour. "A lot of the whole Maxwell extravaganza is just Duo trying to make a statement," Trowa had explained amid the chaos of the lunchroom. "Duo's father is a pastor and they don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, so Duo makes a point to upset his applecart whenever he can. The entire reason he was sent to a school like this one was an effort on his father's part to morally correct his prodigal son. As you can see, it's done a lot of good. "

Personally, Heero thought too many people made excuses for Duo, problems at home or not. Though on the other hand, he reasoned as he continued down the hill, perhaps acting the way he did was the only way Duo knew how to take charge of his own life. Remembering how adamant Duo had been about his ability to keep making his own decisions, Heero decided that made the most sense. Still, it didn't mean he had to like it.

Heero promptly forgot Duo when he arrived at the gymnasium and wandered inside. It was a newer structure than the buildings on the hill, and though there were two large basketball courts inside the building, each surrounded by a maze of hallways, locker rooms and smaller training spaces, it didn't take Heero long to find the fencing squad. There weren't many of them - only eight - but just after a little observation, Heero was fairly sure he could best any of them.

One of the white-clad fencers approached Heero, lifting the mesh mask that obscured his face and revealing him to be Wufei. "Glad you could come, Yuy," he said. "You're interested in joining the team?"

Heero's face remained dull as he stared at Wufei apathetically. "I'm interested in staying in practice," he informed the Chinese teen flatly.

Indignation registered upon Wufei's rounded face as he clipped back defensively, "Well, I'm only interested in recruiting people with potential."

A rather dark smirk settled upon Heero's lips, almost as if Wufei's comment was some sort of joke. "If that's the case, then, I'd be more than happy to prove that I do." Without waiting for Wufei's approval, he walked over towards one of the other fencers and wordlessly claimed his mask and foil for himself. Pulling the mask over his face, he lined himself up across from Wufei, holding the foil out in his upturned palm, his other hand pressed firmly against the small of his back.

Wufei understood that he was being challenged and immediately replaced his mask also. He held his foil out similarly and then waited for a few moments, hoping to let Heero stew in anticipation for the first strike. Without warning, he suddenly lunged forward, hoping to catch Heero off guard and easily score himself the first point of their impromptu match, but Heero proved surprisingly fast and blocked him. The parried back and forth, each delivering blows with force that made the supple foil blades quiver and shake against one another.

"You are pretty good," gasped Wufei after a few minutes of carrying on in that manner, the match still tied at zero. He was surprised to note that he was actually a bit out of breath; he'd never had to work so hard to defend before, and though he was a little reluctant to admit that Heero might actually be a superior fencer, he was also glad to have someone truly challenge him.

Heero grinned smugly, though Wufei couldn't see the way his lips were twisted behind the mask. Seeing an opening, Heero managed to cut in, thrusting upward with his weapon and pressing the tip of his foil against Wufei's chest, ripping the white fabric of his protective garb a little.

Silence reigned amongst the fencers, punctuated only by the yells and sneaker squeaks emanating from the other gym, until a female voice piped up from the sidelines. "Looks like someone finally managed to best you, Chang," she said as Heero relaxed from his lunging position and straightened again, removing his mask and tucking it under one arm.

"Fuck you, Dorothy," Wufei muttered under his breath, refusing to meet the girl's eyes, which were an exotic, glassy blue. Her long golden hair was tied back into a loose ponytail.

Heero decided her presence was inconsequential. "Do I make the cut or not?" he asked Wufei, ignoring her for the time being.

The rest of the fencing squad was staring at Wufei expectantly as he took his time removing his mask and watching the floor thoughtfully. Wufei seemed torn between accepting a glowing talent to his team and admitting that there was a fencer out there who was far superior to him. At long last, he muttered a quiet, "Fine," to his feet, finally conceding defeat.

Heero nodded with acceptance and, having proven his skill, went to sit with the rest of the team on the bleachers so Wufei could continue to administer the training session in his usual way.

"So you're on exchange, is that it?" Dorothy's voice said from his right.

Heero turned his head, a little surprised to see that the blond girl had taken a seat next to him. She had a certain haughty air to her, though whether or not it was detracting to her character was ambiguous. He nodded slowly, unsure of if this was really a conversation he wanted to get involved in.

"Who's the other one? That light blue uniform?" she wanted to know, leaning her chin atop one dainty fist and crossing her legs at the knee. The whipping sound of foils and epees sailing through the air sang in the background.

"His name is Quatre - he's from the L4 Cathedral School," Heero informed her, his attention far more drawn to the pair of fencing matches Wufei was refereeing at the moment. He found it strange that they weren't using the typical electric scoring equipment often found in this sport.

Dorothy clapped her hands in delight. "Oh, exotic!" she cooed. "Tell me, what's he like?"

Heero felt himself getting a little impatient with the constant barrage of questions. "How should I know? I only just met him!" he said a bit sharply, hoping she'd just leave him alone. "He seems like a bit of push-over to me."

Stroking her neck, Dorothy's face became a bit more thoughtful. "Is he now?" Her hair flew behind her like a long banner as she adopted another leaning position, this time cupping her face in both hands as she leaned on her knees. "I think I'll meet him," she sighed, sounding very wistful. The tone made Heero uncomfortable, and he subconsciously scooted an inch or two away from her.

"So," she went on, striking a more conversational pose and angling herself more towards Heero, "I saw you met my dear friend Relena after prayers this morning."

"Re...lena?" Heero sounded like he was unsure of how to even pronounce the name. He furrowed his brow, striving to remember who she might have been amongst the sea of unfamiliar faces. He thought of all the girls he'd come in contact with as if he'd be able to somehow match the strange name with the strange face. "Did she have - "

"Big bow," Dorothy filled in for him, holding her hands about a foot apart on either side of her neck. "That would be her."

Suddenly, Heero knew exactly who she was talking about, but the knowledge didn't really console him. The girl - Relena, his mind filled in for him - had been very forward, almost precocious, in asking him to some kind of party as if they were old friends. In fact, he'd been rather annoyed that she'd followed him out of the chapel with that very purpose in mind. "I wish you'd tell her not to bother me," he said to Dorothy, hoping she took his words seriously.

Dorothy let out another unsettling laugh. "Oh, don't worry," she said, covering the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand as she regarded him slyly. "I'll be sure she gets the message."

"Good," Heero muttered, pointedly crossing his legs and angling himself in the opposite direction. Maybe if he had a foul enough impression on everyone, they'd be more than happy to forget him when he moved on.

++++

With his pants rolled up to his knees, Quatre sat on the edge of the dock by the campus boathouse, his bare feet dunked in the cool river water as it flowed by. His discarded blazer and brown loafers lay strewn next to him, his socks messily balled up and crammed down into the toes. The breeze was rustling in the large trees along the riverside and churning up fresh scent of wet moss and sand from beneath the dock, filling Quatre's nostrils. Quatre decided that he thought Earth was beautiful; even the most advanced technology in the universe could never truly replicate this feeling, despite what the lead scientists of the era claimed.

Above the playful breeze, there was the rhythmic shout of "eight, nine, ten!" faint in the distance at first, but growing steadily louder as it came 'round the river bend. Quatre looked up curiously as a long boat came cutting through the water, a line of eight rowers crammed into the narrow vessel. Perched at the stern was a male student with tightly curled hair coaching the crew, his hand on the skeg as he steered the shell down the river. With boats and water sports being an extreme rarity in space, seeing such a regimented team of athletes pulling the oars in such perfect unison made quite an impression on the blond exchange student.

As the shell passed by, Quatre caught sight of Trowa, who was sitting in the seat second closest to the curly-haired coxswain. When he'd first met the tall rower, Quatre hadn't expected him to be so muscular, but seeing him now, bending forward and pulling back with each stroke in nothing more than a tank top and a pair of swim trunks, proved otherwise.

They glided by and disappeared around the river bend with Quatre's eyes trained upon them all the while. The river looped around the town and forked off a bit further down the way, one branch feeding into the bay and the other doubling back around to an inlet close to the other end. The Magdalena crew was lucky in that they were able to more or less row in a giant circle during practice. Quatre waited for them on the docks, even if it was just to watch them to pass by every hour or so. It wasn't until the sky was starting to become stained with orange and pink that the shell stopped its seemingly endless circuit and returned to the boathouse.

"You sure look like you're enjoying yourself," said Trowa as he approached Quatre's spot on the edge of the docks. The blonde was silhouetted against the vividly dyed sky with a faint, coral pink corona rimming his frame.

Quatre started at the sound of Trowa's voice, not at all expecting him to creep up on him like that. He'd thought Trowa had gone with the rest of the team to loft the shell in the boathouse. "It's relaxing here," Quatre answered, hastily getting to his feet and stumbling over his shoes in his rush to do so. "L4 seems stale in comparison."

"Then you should stay," Trowa responded with a gentle smile that was hardly more than a little upward flick of one corner of his mouth.

The wind tousled Quatre's bangs a little as his eyes followed the line of the river, for a moment becoming a bit distant. "What I would give to," he murmured, his mouth barely moving as he thought out loud.

Trowa was silent, though there was something in his dark green eyes that suggested he wanted to respond somehow. He parted his lips, but just as the words were going to come out, there was a series of loud yells from inside the boathouse, punctuated by a frightful crash. The strange hint in Trowa's eyes suddenly faded into a look of alarm as he whipped around and started to jog down the docks, Quatre not far behind.

The scene they arrived upon was chaotic. Somehow, while the team had been lofting the boat back into its spot, it had slipped and had come crashing downwards and split along the keel. Otto, the coxswain, was pinned beneath its weight. He didn't seem too badly off, though his arm was pinned unnaturally beneath the shell's bow. Both Trowa and Quatre rushed to help the other rowers hoist the destroyed boat off Otto's limb.

"God fucking dammit," swore Alex, who was the team's stroke, as he and a few others helped Trowa move the boat aside. "How are you, Otto?" he asked, though the question was a bit of a tossaway, his attention more drawn to the grim way Trowa was staring at what had once been their shell.

One of the other guys was squatting next to the coxswain, trying to assess the seriousness of the injury. Otto was hissing in pain with every light touch to his forearm, though. Someone had the ingenious suggestion he go to the infirmary about it.

"I sure hope he's okay," Quatre commented later, as he and Trowa were slowly making their way back to the dormitories. "What will you do if he's too hurt to be on the team? You guys have a backup, right?"

Trowa scratched the back of his neck. "Not really, no," he admitted a little hesitantly. "I'm sure everything will work itself out, though. Somehow, it always does." Trowa was in a strange frame of mind, torn up about the ridiculous expense it would take to replace the shell.

"Of course," Quatre agreed brightly, smiling wide, keeping secret his inner opinion that the team's chance of doing well in a regatta would be sincerely decreased without someone sitting in Otto's position.

They walked the rest of the way in general silence and parted ways at the top of the stairs in the dorms. Trowa, for his part, was completely beat after practice and then the added drama with Otto, and he was more than ready to crash for a good night's sleep. The thought of snuggling deep in his bedcovers became more and more appealing the closer he got to his room and was almost unbearable by the time he was turning the brass key in the lock.

Of course, the God that kept his watchful eye on Saint Magdalena's was out for a bit of vindictive fun that night, because when Trowa pushed the door open, he was greeted with the sight of an extremely frenetic Duo Maxwell. "What the hell is wrong?" Trowa wanted to know with a weary sigh as he watched Duo scurry this way and that, restless as a caged animal.

"My pendants," was Duo's hurried response as he fell to his knees in front of the dresser and ripped open the bottom drawer to rifle through the clothes stuffed hazardously inside. "The chain with those pendants Helen gave me - I can't find it."

Trowa stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, determined to at least sit on his bed. He was almost bowled over by Duo as he charged to the opposite side of the room, this time intent on digging through the trunk that sat at the foot of his bed. "Well," Trowa started, trying to be the voice of reason, "where did you have it last?" He knew that Duo often failed to look at things logically when he got going like this.

"I just took it off for boxing after school," Duo said rapidly, moving back to the dresser to go tearing through another drawer. "I thought I left it in my duffel in the locker room, but now I'm not sure if I took it off up here before I went down or what!" Duo's words were coming out so fast, they almost didn't make sense, especially to tired Trowa's ears. "This is all extremely frustrating and stupid." He slammed the drawer he'd just pulled open closed with an angry swing of one fist.

"What were the pendants, again?" Trowa asked, thinking maybe he could just help Duo look and speed along the gap between the present and his blissful nap.

Duo made a circle with his thumb and forefinger about the size of a small coin, saying impatiently, "The Sacre fucking Coeur de Jesus and the damn Coeur Immacule de Marie, you remember? The platinum ones."

Trowa squinted, vaguely recalling what Duo was talking about. He knew that the charms were very dear to Duo, but since his roommate often wore them under his clothes, he didn't really have a clear memory of them. "Maybe you should give it a rest, Duo," Trowa advised after a moment of thought. "You might remember what happened if you let it lie for a bit."

"Fuck that," Duo snorted, clearly not keen on that suggestion. "I'm sure that they're in my possession somewhere - unless someone jacked them or something." At that, Duo suddenly popped up to his feet, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Oh good God, Duo," Trowa said, collapsing onto his mattress and throwing his arms over his eyes. "You can't seriously think they were stolen."

"Well, I'm sort of running out of options here, Trowa!" Duo snapped poisonously. He stood with his arms crossed, brooding in the middle of the room for a few seconds before suddenly turning on his heel and marching resolutely for the door.

Trowa propped himself up on his elbows when he heard the sound of Duo clomping out of the room. "Where are you going now?" he asked.

"To Mother Superior," Duo answered succinctly, pausing in front of the mirror to primp himself up a little bit. He combed his fingers through his hair in an attempt to make it seem less wild and smoothed out his rumpled clothing. "If someone fingered my shit, I want to make sure she knows about it."

Trowa was completely dumbfounded. "Whatever for?"

Duo tossed his head and snorted as if the answer was obvious. "So that when other people's stuff starts vanishing, she doesn't start pointing fingers at me." And with that, he approved his appearance and wrenched open the door, slamming it moodily behind him on his way out.

++++

TBC!

++++ Major thanks to mahavidyas who corrected me on a bit of the technical bits concerning the crew team. The Wikipedia article I read for research was a bit jumbled.



<< Last