Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)

Game 12
Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting

(x) X (x)

In the rendition of events that Duo eventually relayed to Quatre, Heero had apparently attacked and tried to rape him, and the condition Trowa had found them in had merely been a result of self-defense gone seriously awry. But Quatre, who was by no means the passive drippy kid most people tended to take him for, managed to put together a much more plausible (less biased) story after comparing notes with Trowa about Heero’s version and taking into account the classic “Maxwell-Has-A-Knack-And-A-Tendancy-For-Making-Stories-Far-More-Dramatic-Than-They-Really-Are” factor. Even still, there was clearly something that one or both of the involved boys was failing to mention, but what Quatre ended up with at least made a lot more sense than what he had been initially presented with. He later told Trowa that he was lucky he got to at least hear the saner side of the story, though probably much more condensed than the one he had gotten from Duo.

From what Quatre had been able to deduce, things had started out fairly simple when Heero and Duo first left the house. Neither said a word to each other as they made their way across the small backyard to the low two-car garage that sat at the end of the driveway at the property’s edge.

“I swear to God though,” Heero said to Duo as he unlocked the side door of the ivy covered garage, “if I find one little thing in worse condition than it is now, I’ll slit your throat.”

“Yeah, like I ought to really be scared of the Big Bad Yuy,” Duo scoffed as he entered the garage, completely forgetting Heero the second he stepped over the threshold and caught a glimpse of the Cooper. The only illumination in the dark room was streaming in through the small windows in the large doors of the garage, dust swirling in the shafts of sunlight as they danced across the shiny red hull of the Cooper and accentuating its outline in a metallic glow in the shadows. “I would never do anything to hurt a car like that,” he whispered more to himself than anyone as he stared dumbly at it, “Even if it is yours, I think it’s something I could easily forgive.” He quickly picked up his slack jaw and wiped away the foolish looking string of spit that had started drip over his lip in his dazed awe. “Oh so easily....”

Heero was ignoring Duo’s mutterings, figuring that whatever he was yawning on and on about was probably some derogatory comment about him. He reached up and tugged a long piece of brown twine, clicking on a series of bright light bulbs screwed in overhead. “What are you, a vampire?” he asked when he saw Duo cover his eyes at the sudden flood of light. “You might as well be,” he said to himself, staring at the longhaired boy wearing tight leather pants, combat boots and tight black muscle shirt.

“Where did a dope like you even manage to find a beauty like this?” Duo gushed as he approached the car, daring to run his fingers lovingly across the hood. “They don’t even make ‘em anymore! What kind of moron would sell it?”

“Who said I bought it?” Heero asked wryly, following Duo closely as if to make sure he really was not going to try anything funny. It was clear he really did not trust Duo around his machine no matter how fabled Duo’s skills with a wrench were supposed to be.

“Eh, who’da thought you had it in you, Yuy?” Duo said with a smirk, landing an intentionally hard smack on Heero’s shoulder. “Stealing a car. Heh, thought you had the soul of a choir boy.”

“I didn’t really steal it in the literal sense,” Heero said plainly, sounding as if he were worried that Duo might try and rat him out, therefore endangering his ownership of the Cooper. “And I haven’t been in a church since forever, so I can’t have a soul, much less one of a choir boy.”

“Then where’d you get it? Black market or something?” Duo asked, for once actually sounding interested in what Heero had to say. It was not every day that eighteen-year-old California kids came home with an out-of-make sports car and he wanted to know how Heero had managed to pull it off.

“Well, some street rat I ran into said that if I paid him five hundred dollars and could find a way to get it home, I could have it. Took Trowa, Wufei and I an entire day to push it here. Still needs a lot of work though,” Heero said vaguely, not wanting to tell Duo too much for fear that it might get the braided idiot talking. Talking was something Duo was almost too good at, Heero noted. “I mean, being as I bought it off some kid who’s probably in a gang suggests that the thing was stolen in the first place. But it probably came from out of state anyway, so it’s not like anyone around here is looking for it. Kid probably took most of the engine out to sell or use for something else or whatever and just sold me what’s here.” He gestured towards the Cooper as if he expected that to explain the rest.

“Right, good story,” Duo muttered darkly as he lifted the hood. A blurbling stab in his gut was making him feel like the kid Heero had gotten the car out of was none other than Solo or one of the other White Fang guys, but he did not want to ask any questions about the kid’s looks for fear that Heero might start drawing some conclusions that he would rather him not. The last thing Duo wanted was to start being connected with White Fang, worse still if rumours like that got around to White Fang itself. Then they would really be out for his blood. Another thought that bothered Duo was the notion that Solo had juiced Tallgeese up with parts from a Mini Cooper. Granted that the old Porsche was a pretty formidable car in a drag race, it was a very old model that had initially just looked nice before White Fang got its hands on it. It had been good before, but now Duo was starting to worry how Tallgeese would be now if it was that much better.

“Maxwell? Maxwell!” Heero’s voice cut through his thoughts like a meat cleaver and for once, Duo was not unhappy to hear that plain monotonic drawl. He really had not been fond of the road his thoughts had been travelling down.

“Oh, uhh,” Duo quickly shook himself into mechanic mode and started rambling off the first modifications the car would need as they popped into his head, even if he was sure that Heero could care less, so long as the car moved. “Needs a completely new starter, and this--ehhh--this could go too. Hmm, let’s see, bad spark plugs, might as well get a new battery while we’re at it, radiator’s shot.... God I’m almost afraid to look at the actual engine....”

“That bad?” Heero asked, coming around to look over Duo’s shoulder. He frowned as his eyes darted across the twisting and turning insides of the machine. “It looks even worse than the last time I looked at it.”

“Right, let the mechanic do his job,” Duo said snidely, giving Heero a rather unnecessary shove back. Even as he was executing it, Duo could feel that he had pushed Heero much harder than he had meant to and watched in horror as the short Japanese boy stumbled back and lost his balance, the row of temporary shelves along the wall behind him there to painfully break his fall.

“You asshole!” Heero growled, steadying himself crookedly against the bookshelves. He launched himself off of them and sidelong tackled Duo to the ground, a loud clatter rising up around them as a bunch of paint buckets and sports equipment rattled to the floor as Heero launched himself at Duo. Now straddling Duo’s stomach, he grabbed his jaw in a bruising pinch and bent down over his face so he could look Duo right in the eye as he addressed the snarling animal beneath him. “You have one set of rules for everyone and a completely different set for yourself. You’re the martyr, the victim, the tragic fucking hero!”

Duo stared defiantly up at those intensely burning cobalt eyes as Heero’s heavy breaths clouded over his nose and mouth, for a second giving Duo thoughts that were best left forgotten in the back of his mind. He found that the firmly set sneer on his own face was mirrored frighteningly well above him, quickly banishing any ideas that strayed from the context of a fight, only while he could feel his vision reddening with emotion and passion, Heero’s eyes seemed outright empty and dull. Seeing that blank expression struck a nerve inside of him, suddenly invoking old gang instincts. He tried to struggle, to get away, but found that there was no escaping Heero’s death-hold on him. Instead, all his bucking and moving beneath that powerful and disturbingly sensual little body was revisiting ideas that Duo was sure he had buried the moment he had gotten a loving spoonful of Heero’s attitude that first fateful day they had met.

“Oh no you don’t,” Heero was whispering in that low growling voice of his. “You’re not getting up until I say so, and that won’t be until you hear every last word I have to tell you.” He leaned down a bit closer so that their noses were just brushing each other. “I’m tired of you acting like you’re the only one whose life is a problem,” he whispered seriously, though he was still dangerous sounding and intimidating. “You act like you’re the only person in this hellhole honky-tonk town that’s ever had a traumatic experience or two and that allows you the right to dictate how everyone else ought to be.” He put on a snide tone that was intended to be a mockery of Duo’s voice, “Oh, they don’t understand me, so they won’t understand you, Quatre. Can’t be friends with Trowa now, can you? Wow Coach Treize, for a jock, you know a thing or two about art. What a shock. Hey, Meilan, what the fuck were you thinking hiring Yuy to work at your surf shop? The fuck were you thinking when you hired Yuy period? Oh and let’s not forget Wufei, the fucking source of all knowledge that has anything to do with ME!!!” Heero shouted the last bit about himself extremely loud, completely startling Duo.

The little jump that came with Duo’s surprise at Heero’s sudden yell and the downward inclination of Heero’s head that came with said yell resulted in what Duo had later told Quatre was ‘sexual assault’. Duo’s slightly parted, surprised lips came in full contact with Heero’s, which were still quivering with the emotion that had just exploded with his words. Duo could practically feel the worm of light that raced around the edge of his widened purple irises, like a confirmation light his mind was setting off once the thought “I’m kissing Heero Yuy” finally registered. An explosion of images and mixed feelings from all corners of his psyche roared through his disorientated brain at such an unimaginable rate, his skull felt like it was going to shatter. He could feel the physical makeup of his lower body start to waver slightly, as if they were trying to slide as far away from those dangerously beautiful Japanese lips as discreetly and swiftly as possible. But for some reason, the rest of him was remaining at a surprisingly stable level, considering his predicament. Especially his lips. He could feel his hot, red pulse all concentrated in his mouth, a very surreal sensation to say the least. Of his entire body, his lips felt the warmest and most alive, despite the fact that they were currently iced to the coldest flesh of any person Duo had ever met.

But it seemed that Duo was not the only person taken aback by this sudden turn of events. Heero seemed frozen on the spot, unable to move his cold lips from Duo’s as he panted heavily from his screaming. The fingers of one hand were still clamped tightly around Duo’s chin, the other spread out flat beside the side of his head, pinning Duo’s long thick braid beneath it. It was a few seconds that seemed to tick by in at least an hour before Duo got the nerve to rebel against Heero in his brief inebriation. He forced Heero off with an upward heave of his hands, freeing their lips from the surprisingly warm touch and sending Heero catapulting a few feet away with a final kick in the stomach.

“That never happened, you hear me, Yuy?!” Duo shouted angrily, thinking that Heero would be more than ready to forget such an embarrassment.

But Heero seemed not to hear him. He was still sitting on the concrete floor where Duo had just knocked him, one arm wrapped around his bruised middle the fingers of his other hand lightly padding at his bloody bottom lip as if he were not sure what had just happened. His eyes were blank again, and Duo was given the haunting image of an empty doll that was no more than a wooden shell.

“Do you hear me!?” He shouted again, a little more desperate this time. He really wanted to have mutual assent between the both of them that the kiss had never happened. He was afraid what sort of gateways something like this could open. Heero was far too sexy in Duo’s eyes, and the memory of sharing a kiss with him, voluntarily or not, would certainly be something that would let his gutter-logged brain wander down paths that should not--could not--be traveled. “DO YOU HEAR ME OR NOT!?!?!” he screamed, louder than both other times combined.

That last shout startled Heero out of his daze, but just a moment too late, much to his worsening luck, as he reawakened to the sight of Duo falling out of the air above him in what could be classified as nothing other than a pounce. This time it was Heero who was pinned, and Duo was not about to let that advantage slip away. He started working his fists, pummeling Heero across the cheeks, blind with unbridled and unfounded rage. It was not until blood started to spatter his knuckles and Heero’s cheeks that he began to let up, a sound mistake as the moment he did, he was suddenly on his back again and about to become a Duo pie.

Panicked, his hands started groping about the floor around him in search of anything he could use to defend himself. All he came up with was a paint bucket that seemed to be full enough to do enough damage to allow himself enough time to get away. Unfortunately, the tin lid of the bucket had not been properly nailed down by the last person to use it and, even more unfortunately, it was not filled with paint, but by some kind of rubbery paste that fell in cascades all over Duo’s arm and coated the hand that Heero was about to bring down upon him.

Duo threw the bucket away and used his glue-covered hand to try and hold Heero off, which worked at that particular moment, but also left Duo’s palm stuck on his shirt. Pulling away would only result in tearing skin and blood, so he left it alone and contemplated how Heero would manage to murder him now. Heero seemed to have realized the predicament the hard way as well. Before he realized that Duo’s hand was not coming off of his shirt, he had rolled onto his back and had accidentally gotten his own hand stuck onto the back of Duo’s tight black shirt, a very bad spot for them to be in. Duo’s braid had gotten tangled in all the rolling around and was now wrapped around both their bodies like a binding rope, the feathery curling tail of the long torrent of hair caught on Heero’s belt. The only solution either could think up was to scream at each other, the same way they had been dealing with just about everything that had to do with one another since the day they had met.

So when Trowa and Quatre finally showed up in the nick of time, right before the pair of them did something detrimental to both of their healths (it was pretty obvious that each would be more than willing to kill himself if it meant taking the other out with him), even Duo was willing to forget what he thought of Trowa long enough for said boy to help them get free of each other.

“Don’t say a word,” Trowa had said as he threw the cap off a bottle of peroxide and started to just empty the whole thing over their glued body appendages, “I just don’t even want to know. I’m afraid to know. Just... Just... wow....” And with that, he just started shaking his head disaprovingly at them as he continued to let the cool alcohol come glugging out of the bottle, ignoring the shouts of pain that came from Duo when the stuff came in contact with the scrapes he had earned durring the whole escapade. “You better watch out,” he said as he finished his silent first-aid session, absently tossing the empty peroxide bottle over his shoulder to be lost amid the junk and clutter of the garage, “because the next time, I’ll leave you two stuck together until you’re best friends and little pink kissy hearts are floating up between you wherever you go, got it?”

In other words, they would be joined forever, a thought that not one of them, Trowa and Quatre included, really wanted to think about. It was a threat that worked almost far too well.

“See you next week, Duo,” Trowa said to him once Quatre had managed to accomplish his own mission of freeing Duo’s braid from Heero’s belt. “I think you’ve had enough of an experience this go-round. The Mini will be here whenever you’re ready.”

“Let’s not forget who owns the Mini,” Heero growled to his brother as Quatre rushed after Duo, who was stalking quickly and angrily down the driveway towards the street. “You have a very sadistic sense of humour, Trowa.”

“Do I ever know it,” he grinned at Heero. “Do I ever.”

(x) X (x)

Duo’s groan reverberated through Deathscythe’s engine compartment as the sound of the ringing phone caught his ear. “Some people have such godawful timing,” he moaned, straightening up and banging his head on the lid of the hood with a very hollow crack. “Owww! My luck is crap,” he complained, rubbing his hand vigorously over the growing bruise on his forehead as he trudged over to the still whining phone.

“Yeah, what?” he said when he answered it, making sure the caller knew exactly how he felt about being interrupted while he had been working on Deathscythe.

“Kid,” an angry and familiar voice whispered through the earpiece. “I hear you’ve been bored lately.”

“Solo....” Duo’s fingers wrapped tighter around the slightly curved receiver. “What do you want?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or not?” Solo answered smoothly, though there was definitely an uncomfortable underlying tone to his words. “I think you know the answer.”

“You sound smug about something,” Duo bit out darkly. “Get to the point, Solo.”

“Want to meet up for a race?” Solo went on that same glib manner. The whole conversation was very surreal and frightening to Duo, even though he had only ever lost to Solo twice. “I think it’d be worth your while. A pleasant surprise, if you will.”

“How long did it take you to think up that speech?” Duo spat back, stepping jerkily to the side a few paces, a hand on his hip. He was trying hard to keep himself together (literally) so he could finish this up with Solo. Much as the guy made Duo rage, he was never one to turn down a good challenge, and that, Solo definitely was.

He was so absorbed in the conversation, he did not hear the door open on the other side of the garage, the sound of muffled feet shuffling across the concrete floor as the door’s catch clicked softly in the jamb as it was closed behind the intruder.

“Alright, fine, seven o’clock on Sunday,” Duo finally huffed into the phone. He stomped his foot irritably. He was still ignorant of the person slowly approaching from behind. “Okay... Okay! Bye, asshole!” He slammed the phone on the hook with a violent slam. He glared at it, making sure that it did not dare have the audacity to fall off and dangle wryly from its coiling cord.

Suddenly, he jumped in alarm when a pair of strong arms wound themselves around his waist and pulled him back towards a muscled torso. He squired around in the tight embrace, getting extremely edgy when a hard chin pressed itself into his shoulder, the low breathy voice of Heero Yuy whispering into his ear, “Do you want me to kiss you again, lovely?”

Duo reached around with his far hand and knocked the person’s head away with an annoyed growl, disappearing into a torpedo of buzzing atomic cloud as he wormed himself free. Pressing himself against the door of the nearby refrigerator, he stared angrily at the small Japanese boy standing in front of him, a smug grin toying with his lips. He ran a hand through his mop of messy dark brown hair as he licked his lips, still staring at Duo hungrily. His eyes seemed lighter though, more of a light crystalline blue instead of their usual smoldering brackish cobalt. Duo’s glare became even darker, something that did not seem possible considering how nasty his expression already was. An amused smile was the only reaction that the stare was able to rise out of the strange-eyed Heero.

“Dorothy, that’s not funny at all!” Duo finally managed to shout at the Heero imposter, his face the very picture of bright red embarrassed rage. “If you heard that story from Quatre, I’ll kill him for failing to keep a secret!”

“Wait, he really did kiss you? So that’s what Q was rambling about.” Dorothy said as her features began to rapidly shift from the sullen and severe countenance of Heero, melting back into the more delicate feminine features that were familiar to the mischievous doppelganger. The only feature that remained the same were Dorothy’s pale blue eyes, which never changed, no matter what form she took on. “I was just trying to be a pain in the ass.”

“Well it worked,” Duo snapped back, crossing his arms with a pout. “Q gets extra asshole points today for telling you that, I might add. Where is that little nutcase? He’s been out to get me lately, I swear.”

“He went with Hilde to go pick up a pizza,” Dorothy shrugged nonchalantly, not seeming to notice how annoyed Duo still was at her for trying to come on to him disguised as Heero.

“Conveniently,” Duo muttered under his breath as he stalked back over towards Deathscythe to resume his work on the engine. He jerkily went about the tune-up, calling back to Dorothy in a gruff voice, “Q put you up to that, didn’t he? How do you even do that?”

“It’s something with my DNA. My system is able to copy the DNA of anyone I come into contact with somehow. Then, all I have to do is access this little spot in my head and it streams the copied DNA throughout my body. It’s all very interesting. You should do some research on your mutation too. You might find something worthwhile,” Dorothy replied with a careless twitch of her shoulder, sitting in her usual place on the couch by the jukebox. “Oh, and don’t get mad at Q. he was just joking. Really, I thought he was kidding when he told me that story about the Cooper and that brawl and that it would be fun to egg you on. Bet you never thought you’d get that lucky, didja?”

“Lucky my ass,” Duo called from the other side of the garage. “I think I drank a bottle and a half of mouthwash when I got home. I’ve never been so humiliated in all my young life.”

“Bet you’re wrong,” Dorothy answered as if she were trying to be confrontational.

“Bet you’re right,” Duo whispered quietly to the engine, not intending Dorothy to hear the comment. While a kiss from Heero Yuy, even if it was just an accident and meant nothing, was nowhere near the top of his list of favourite things, or even on that list at all, Duo was pretty sure that he had been through worse. Quite frankly, it was the sort of place that Duo did not like to mentally visit, no matter what the occasion, and when it came right down to it, Duo told himself, at least Heero was one fine piece of ass. It could have been much worse. He shuddered. “Oh yeah, could’ve been wa-a-a-ay worse.”

“You know, there are girls who would have killed to be in your predicament,” Dorothy threw out smoothly. She had this way of making comments that were obviously meant to lead up to something or to make some roundabout point. She could be very frustrating to talk to sometimes, because it was hard to tell what she was really trying to say with some of her words. “I bet that if Relena Peacecraft knew you’d kissed him, even if it was just a mistake when he was reading you the riot act, she’d kick your ass.”

“Oh yeah, I’m afraid of a cheerleader who wears pink every day to school. What’s she gonna do, beat me with her pom-poms?” Duo sneered with a roll of his eyes. “She can go ahead and kiss his brains out for all I care. He’s nothing more to me than a pretty addition to the scenery.”

“Right, of course that’s all,” Dorothy said, her voice suddenly much closer than it had been before. Duo jumped again with surprise when he realized that Dorothy was leaning over his shoulder and practically chewing on his earlobe. What got to him even more was the fact that she had changed back into ‘Heero’ and was currently putting her arms around Duo’s neck. “I bet you’d want to do it again,” she cooed, her voice now the deep rumbling growl that always thrummed of Heero’s vocal cords when he spoke.

On a side note, Duo mentally stowed away, while Dorothy’s shifted form was a very good copy, Duo decided that she really did not compare to the real thing. On the other hand, at least Dorothy was his friend whereas Heero was certainly not. “Stop doing that, Dorothy,” Duo batted her away, his hands waving about almost frantically. “I don’t want you to kiss me. I don’t want Heero to kiss me, for sure. I don’t want to be kissed ever!”

“You’ve got a couple screws loose and rolling around upstairs,” Dorothy said, twisting her index finger in a circular motion next to her temple as she reverted back to her usual form again. “You probably wouldn’t even let your own mother kiss you goodnight.”

“If I knew her! The most mother-like thing I ever had going for me was this pretty little blonde haired nun who used to take care of me when I was a brat until she got killed. Boom! Gone forever!” Duo shouted angrily, making hand motions to illustrate the destruction of his childhood home. Wrenching himself straight up and banging his head on the hood’s lid again, he went on his tirade, ignoring the rising lump on his forehead. “The last person I ever kissed was my best friend from way back when, and that was when we were young and stupid and didn’t even really know what kissing was!”

“There’s a point to this story. I can feel it,” Dorothy said cynically with a shake of her second finger, playing the part of the stand-up comic with grace and pride.

“You got a lot of nerve, showing up like... like that, and going on and on about things you don’t know jack shit about!” Duo swaggered off to the other side of the car, as if he were trying to keep his distance from Dorothy. “I hate him!” he punctuated his moaning, little teardrops budding in the corners of his large violet eyes.

“You hate him,” Dorothy repeated flatly, crossing her arms and settling her weight on one side. “If that’s true, then why do you obsess over him so much? What the hell are you even looking for, Duo?”

“I don’t know,” Duo whispered quietly, calming down a little, sniffling a bit as he wiped the small tears away from the upper curve of his white cheeks. “I’m just looking for... for ‘it’... whatever ‘it’ is....” He paused for a moment, staring down at his grody black boots, the oil splotches spattered across his toes lit with a bright sheen from the flickering lightbulb screwed in overhead. “But that’s got nothing to do with anything!” He raised his voice as he directed his eyes towards Dorothy again. “You got no right!”

“No right to what? To ask about your love life?” Dorothy’s eyelids were lowered in a sly expression, her swimming blue eyes rimmed with this odd greenish ring. “I’m your friend! I’m allowed to pry into your life! Face it, you got a big, fat crush on Heero Yuy and you know it!” Her body shifted into Heero’s appearance for a flickering second as if to taunt Duo further.

“I do not! I do not!” Duo insisted, slamming his balled fists against Deathscythe in one angered motion. “He hates me and I hate him. You hear me, Dorothy Catalonia? Hate!”

“You have a lot of inner rage,” Dorothy answered in her usual smug way, turning with a sweeping whirl of her long skirt as she returned to the couch to sit. “I think you should learn to deal with reality better. You like to keep yourself bottled up. Not healthy, you know.”

“Go away,” Duo moaned bitterly, turning his back on her. “Why would you think I have a crush on someone I hate? That’s ridiculous. I don’t like Heero Yuy at all.”

“So you’ve said,” Dorothy replied, leaning her elbow on the squishy arm of the sofa, cupping her cheek in her thin willowy hand. “But since you seem to obsess over it so much, I tend to think you’re thinking about him a lot.”

“I think about his eyes and his ass,” Duo admitted in a somewhat singsong voice, still with his back towards Dorothy.

He paused, pondering what he had just said. Dorothy made a rather audible noise in the well of her throat, as if to provoke Duo into saying more. It seemed to work, because Duo started rambling out loud again.

“And that stupid shaggy hair of his,” he went on, his wiry brows knitted together in a wrinkled knot over his slender nose. “It’s always hanging over his eyes so I can’t see ‘em. Makes those crazy stares he gives me even weirder. God, I bet he’s never seen a hairbrush in his entire life....”

“Crying shame, that,” Dorothy sighed, looking over at Duo from the corner of her eye. She tucked her legs underneath herself, rearranging herself into a more comfortable position. “See, you do think about him a lot!”

“Admiring doesn’t mean crushing, Dorothy!” Duo snapped out of his musings, flying around the car with the stentorian pounding of his heavy boots on the concrete floor. “Why do you gotta always be on my back?”

Dorothy was silent, pretending to be ignorant of the looming form of Duo that was hovering right over her, as she slid of the couch. She stood up and dusted at nothing on her flowy skirts. Flipping her long, whitish gold hair over her shoulder, she turned towards Duo at last, the look on her face illustrating surprise, as if she had not been aware of his presence. She crossed her arms and stroked one of her dark eyebrows with one hand, “Something you needed, Duo?”

“I don’t know why we’re friends at all!” Duo said, his tone choleric as he slid his fingers through the thick chestnut tresses swept back across his head into his customary braid. He grabbed the long rope of hair and gripped it nervously, his fingers playing over each woven plait. “All you ever do is sit there and make comments against me and Hilde and Quatre and Noin and everyone! It’s damn annoying! We don’t need a peanut gallery here!”

“Uh huh, yeah,” Dorothy cocked her head to the side, stroking her other eyebrow with the other hand. Her ambiguous thin-lipped smile crossed her mouth. “Sometimes it’s easier for outsiders to notice things about other people that they’re too stupid to notice themselves.”

“Oh, so now we’re suddenly an expert on Duo Maxwell and his psyche. Why don’t you go write a fucking biography on it,” Duo barked at her. Ever since Heero, Trowa and the rest of that alien prep crowd had entered his life, things had been totally thrown off keel. Duo was pretty sure it had something to do with all his sudden outbursts and his closest friends. Though he had always had a short temper, he found himself much more prone to raging at even the tiniest things than in the past. “Let’s hear it then, Miss Observation,” he challenged, spreading his arms akimbo with a wild vellicating motion. “What do you think you know about me?”

“I’ll indulge you this once, just to humour you,” Dorothy answered, sitting down on the sofa again as if she was preparing for a long speech.

Duo put a hand on each hip and stared at Dorothy, ready to hear it. He was set in his opinion that there was no way Dorothy had managed to figure him out. He did not like it when people were aware of his twisted soul inside. It scared him; certainly it would scare everyone else he knew away. Lord knew that was the case with Solo and White Fang.

“Once there was a queen, a queen named Relena, who ruled large court with many lords and ladies. Some were silly and false, the ones who liked to cling to the queen and bow to her every whim just to win her favour. Yet, there were still some who were idealistic and ordinary, who were simply familiar elements of the court but could care less for the queen and her entourage,” Dorothy started off. “It wasn’t such a big deal to everyone though. They kept to their cliques, the queen was happy, her courtiers were happy, and all was well.”

Her storybook explanation intrigued Duo, totally taking him by surprise. He had expected a tirade that cut and sliced at everything until he was naked and vulnurable. But this, oh this was something new. He was caught in her web of words before she had even gotten to the meat of her story.

“The smaller, outward band of lords and ladies were often isolated from the rest of the court. They were not as rich or as powerful as the other courtiers were, or perhaps had some sort of other difference that set them apart,” she elaborated. It was obvious by the look on her face that she knew exactly what kind of power this sort of storytelling would have on Duo and she wielded the power with skill. “But the court jester, the cheerful joker all decked out with bells and colours, was always there to help the lower outsiders forget that they were not as prestigious as the rest. He knew that despite their lack of social power, they were all worth much more than money or status could ever win for them. He laughed a lot and played many pranks, always keeping life fresh and running at a fast pace in the bland noble court.

“Strange, though, don’t you think,” she said slyly, touching her spindly fingers to her pale rose lips, “that the beloved court jester was only laughing loud to drown out the sound of the screaming demons inside. You see, the jester was once a wanderer, who experienced things in his youth that some of the other lords and ladies had yet to encounter. He was rough around the edges and had suffered much in his childhood. And as much as he loved his friends, he worried that the demons inside and all around him might ruin them too. He was afraid inside, you know. Afraid of the demons, the demons that were everywhere.”

“I am not afraid!” Duo suddenly shook from the story’s trance when the meaning of Dorothy’s words finally sank in. “What you see is what you get! There’s nothing inside of me! I’m empty! An empty soul! The God of fucking Death!” he screamed so violently his head began to spin and whitish purple clouds began to spatter his vision.

“Duo, what are you trying so hard to hide from us?” She stood up and closed the distance between Duo and her. She reached forward and poked Duo in the chest, holding her finger against his chest, his heart thudding irregularly underneath. Her form began to shift as she exerted her mutant power upon herself. Soon, it was no longer Dorothy standing there with her finger jammed hard against his ribs, but Heero once again. The dim light even managed to mask the lighter aquamarine crystal of Dorothy’s eyes, making them seem dark and mysterious, just as the real Heero’s eyes were. Duo felt himself becoming entranced again. ‘Heero’ wrapped his free hand around the back of Duo’s neck, bending his head down so they were looking each other straight in the eye. His low purr of a voice whispered softly up to him, “Maybe if you took the time to let your demons out, I could let you play with mine. You should reach out a bit more. You’ll self-destruct from the inside out if you don’t. Your locked up emotions will kill you....”

“Heero, I’m hiding from people like you,” Duo said softly, his voice sounding flat and dreamy, like he was completely shot with drugs. “You wouldn’t understand. You’d laugh.”

“You’re hiding from everybody. You’re even hiding from yourself,” ‘Heero’ emphasized. He dropped both his hands and tried to step away, only to find that Duo’s hands had found a grip on his sleeves.

“Stop that,” Duo moaned desperately, his fingers loosening from ‘Heero’s’ sleeves. He was quivering, a few stray and impatient particles of his atomic makeup starting to rise up in somewhat glowing smoky gray coils around him.

Seeing the effects of Duo’s extreme nervousness become visible, Dorothy returned to her normal female form. She flipped her hair and stroked her eyebrow, turning on her heel and heading towards the door without another word or a backward glance at the still quivering Duo.

“Hey, wait,” Duo called after her, reaching out a hand as if he were trying to grab her by the collar, even though she was far out of his reach. Her still retreating form fell out of focus as his eyes fell upon the closer vision of those excited gray particles looming around his large shaking delicate hand. He gritted his teeth and felt the tingling change inside as his entire body began to fall apart and join with the shielding haze dancing around him. He flew like a speeding shadow flying through a dark night, engulfing Dorothy as he sailed ahead of her, solidifying in front of the door to bar her path. “Wait....”

“Yes, Duo?” she said, halting her walk to hear whatever he had to say.

“I... uh,” he scratched the back of his head in thought, unsure of how to proceed before he finally got the nerve to just spit the words out. “Thanks, Dorothy, I think. I’ll give some thought to what you said.”

“Well I’m just glad that someone was finally able to get into that thick skull of yours,” Dorothy answered in her usual way, knocking Duo’s forehead with an affectionate pat. She stepped around him and he made no move to stop her again as she opened the door, saying over her shoulder, “Maybe we should try having more of these interventions for you, Duo. They seem to do you a world of good.”

(x) X (x)

a/n: It starts. *evil smirk* I expect a lot of luuuuurve for that chappy, hehe. Chappy name’s an Elton John song. Shut up; I like Elton John. Bet you all can’t wait for the next part, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. ^___^

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