Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)

Game 18
Still Rainin’, Still Dreamin’

(x) X (x)

“Hello, may I help you?” the middle-aged woman greeted Duo amiably when she opened the door. She had wavy, light brown hair that was pulled into a half-ponytail behind her head, little ringlets sticking out here and there around her ears and over her forehead.

His nerve suddenly gone, Duo’s face turned bright red as he fought to get his words out. “Uuuh, sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Barton,” he stammered, eyes downcast, “but I....”

“Why don’t you come in out of the rain, dear?” Mrs. Barton offered kindly, opening the door wider and allowing Duo space enough to step into her dark little entrance hall. “So, you’re that young mechanic friend of the boys,” she said knowingly, coming up behind Duo after she had closed the door and helping him off with his wet jacket. She looked down at the pretty, gold wristwatch she was wearing while she walked over towards the little hall closet to hang up Duo’s coat, saying, “My though, don’t you boys have a game going on right now? You... are the manager of the lacrosse team, aren’t you?” She turned around and smiled warmly at the braided boy standing in a puddle in the middle of her foyer. “Duo Maxwell, correct?”

“Gee, ma’am, you sure are good at this guessing game,” Duo said, his cheeks still flushed light pink as he scratched the back of his head. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me about my childhood friends and the parents I never knew!” He laughed at his comment, though it was painfully obvious that he was forcing it.

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. I just hear a lot about you from Heero and Trowa,” she chuckled. Compared to Duo’s fake laughter, she sounded so happy and simple. Duo would have given an arm, a leg and his severed braid if it meant he could have found such contentment, but alas, his life and his character were way to complex for anything to ever be that easy, no matter how hard he tried.

“What sort of stuff do you hear?” Duo asked suspiciously, following Mrs. Barton into the kitchen, where he was promptly offered a steaming mug of tea, which he refused. “Bet I’m your dinnertime joke.”

“Well, I have heard quite the funny story about you here and there, Duo,” she said, pouring a disgusting amount of cream and sugar into the tea she had just extended to Duo and starting to drink it in tiny sips herself. “I’m sure there’s a funny story as to why you’re here, and not over at OZ, for the game. Aren’t you required to attend all of them?”

“I’m supposed to, but today’s been a really hectic and weird day,” Duo said softly, leaning on the nearby counter. He had taken off right after that whole incident in the locker rooms, speeding as far away and as fast as possible from OZ High in his newly-repaired Thunderbird, which now going by the name Deathscythe Hell. (They had spiffed the wrecked car up even more than it had been, and Hilde had insisted that it get a cooler name than the one it had before.) In any case, Duo needed the joy of just driving, and was out to look for a welcome distraction. “I just couldn’t deal with it, so I decided to just ditch it and drive over here to do some more work on that Mini. It’s good stress-relief for me. Don’t ask me why, ‘cause I couldn’t even begin to explain it to ya.”

“Hmm, well, to each his own. Everyone deserves a break now and again,” she answered agreeably as she took another sip of tea. “You can go on out to the garage any time you like. I think it’s unlocked.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Duo nodded, briskly walking towards the back kitchen door, not even bothering to go back to the foyer to grab his coat. It was only about twenty yards through the pouring-down rain; no big deal.

“He really appreciates what you’re doing, you know,” Mrs. Barton piped up from behind, just as Duo was about to step out into the back yard. Peering over the rim of her tea mug at a pair of curious and shocked violet eyes, she clarified, “Heero, that is. Even if he doesn’t say so, he really does. What you’re doing, it’s... well, it’s really nice of you, Duo.”

“Tch, well, I’m only doing it ‘cause Quatre asked me to,” Duo answered coldly, trying to step around the point. “So he gets his damn car. Big whoopin’ deal. It’s just another job. Trowa hired me, I do the work, and then he pays me, end of story.” After a breath of air and a glimpse of the shocked look in Mrs. Barton’s eyes, he quickly amended, “Not to be rude or nothin’, ma’am, but it’s the God-honest truth.”

“I see,” she said quietly, nursing her mug as the curls of steam stroked her cheeks lightly. “Well, it was just... by the way Heero was telling me about you and the things you do, well, it just seemed like you were trying to be nice. It made me feel good to think that Heero was actually making some friends besides Trowa. He’s been with us three years, you know, and no one else has ever done anything nice like this for him before. I guess I just thought....” She sighed, unsure of how to construct a coherent sentence that pertained to the tender subject of her adopted son and just let it be, shaking her head sadly. “Never mind an old woman’s ramblings, dear. You run along and... and do your work.”

Even Duo, whose glass emotions had been locked away in a steel heart-shaped box, couldn’t bring himself to look back at Mrs. Barton as he left the kitchen, sure that it would make him cry to see a mother sobbing over her misunderstood and lonely son.

He sped through the misty, unyielding rain to the garage, throwing the rickety side door open and slamming it behind him, panting for breath in the warm sanctuary. Pulling the cord attached to the lights overhead, he sneezed, the usual bodily reaction he underwent when any sickness taking effect. Walking over towards the gleaming red Cooper, which was still sitting just where he had left it last time he had been over, he sighed, unsure why he was feeling so nostalgic that day. There were too many things to think about--things that Duo wanted to shove far back into his mind to gather cobwebs and dust; thoughts that were laughing, mocking and confusing the life he’d been so sure he had perfect control over.

After circling the Cooper once, he made his way over towards the cluttered workbench, located right by the tall shelves by the door. They had been reorganized and cleaned up since the first time he had come over, when he and Heero had gotten into that fight: the one that found them accidentally engaged in a mind-boggling kiss. Kissed him, Duo thought back to the incident, gripping the edge of the workbench for support. I kissed Heero Yuy and... and I kind of liked it.... He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes tightly, trying to blot out the world around him, but found that all that could be found behind his closed eyelids were more visions of the Japanese boy plaguing his conscience. His eyes snapped open, his panting now more ragged than before, droplets of rain sprinkling down his face and falling onto the workbench. Fuck me, he swore inwardly, moodily snatching the toolbox and the blueprints he had drawn up the last time he had come. He’s just a hot motherfucker. Hot, but still a motherfucker. Eye candy, and that’s all.

With that mantra replaying over and over in his head, he stalked back over towards the car, dropping the toolbox to the concrete floor with a loud, rattling bang and rustling the large rolls of blueprints open, laying them down on top of the hood. Pulling out a red pencil from the toolbox, Duo started going over the drawings, making notes here and there about what he had to do to fix the engine and what parts he needed to do so. But such logical and usually easy thinking was coming hard for him that day, his mind being far too distracted to keep it focused on the task at hand. He could feel his pencil starting to splinter in his hand, a victim of all his stress. He closed his eyes again and touched his forehead to the blueprint covered hood as he tried to center himself yet again, singing quietly under his breath in an effort to calm his jerked nerves.

“Rainy day, rain all day.
Ain’t no use in gettin’ uptight;
Just let it groove its own way.
Let it drain your worries away.
Lay back and groove on a rainy day.
Lay back and dream on a rainy day....”

But that song, while the intention had been appropriate, ended up doing nothing to help Duo’s predicament. Instead, he ended up remembering the last time it had rained, a day when he had awoken in Heero’s bed and curled up in his arms. He had run out on that, frightened of the whole situation, and as usual, had tried to run crying to Quatre, who was always the compassionate, sympathetic ear in turn for Duo’s bristled, somewhat paranoid protection. But with luck like Duo’s, that whole escape, of course, ended up far from what he had planned, finding himself, instead, getting sick and inspiring Quatre to give his father the one-fingered salute before seceding from his family. It all kept coming back to that accursed morning! How could one little action like that do so much to change his entire life? What was wrong with him?

He grabbed each of the two large, tufted bangs that jutted out over his ears, tugging on them in frustration as he let out a gargling yell. “That goddamned bastard,” he was practically sobbing into the blueprints, feeling lost and confused for the first time in a long, long while. “I just want him... to go... away....” he whispered to the blueprints, his lips gently grazing the rough off-white paper. “He’s too goddamned perfect for someone like... me....” Though he was at first ashamed to find the prints damp and splotched with runny ink where his tears had smeared against them, he soon found himself lost in unbridled weeping, not so much because of Heero, but because for the first time in his life, he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

“Still rainin’, still dreamin’,
Still rainin’, still dreamin’....”

His singing came out more like a series of low whimpers, and he thought he sounded pathetic, even to his own ears. “He’s just a manipulative jerk who uses people for his own convenience,” Duo told himself scathingly, but the words were empty, and came more out of habit than sincerity. “I can’t like him. I won’t!”

But the more he said that to himself, the more he thought about it, he inevitably returned right where he had been at the beginning of all his troubles: lying in bed with Heero. “Where the fuck did that even come from, anyway?” he wondered, cheek still pressed up against the hood of the Cooper as he stared blankly at the concrete wall opposite him. “He’s the one who started hating me first.”

Ah, but you know perfectly well that you wouldn’t have let him in, regardless, a mocking voice inside his head taunted him cruelly. Damn those monstrous little demons always screaming through his brain!

“Oh, and he would have,” Duo argued back at himself out loud.

You’re just blaming him for your own problems, Maxwell, and you damn well know it, that voice came back smugly, practically laughing at him for being so vulnerable. Ha, you always did like to pin your insecurities on the rest of the world, didn’t you!? Quatre first, then Dorothy, now him. Yuy’s just an easy and convenient target! Who’re you gonna move on to when you’re through?

“Shut up!”

Hmm, touchy, aren’t we. Must be true then, the voice retorted coldly. So just who’s using who now, huh Maxwell?

“Shut the fuck up and get the hell out of my head!” Duo said gruffly, yanking at his bangs in frustration again, hard enough to really hurt this time. He didn’t howl over it though, because the pain was a welcome distraction from everything else. “I just wanna... I wanna be alone... so I don’t hafta worry about losing anyone again....”

You’re a fucking dumb-ass, Maxwell.

“I thought I told you to go away!” Duo shouted at himself, jerking his head away from the car and standing over it with his hands planted firmly atop the hood to balance himself; he felt sort of dizzy. The blueprint was hopelessly smeared in some parts, but Duo’s vision was too fuzzy for him to really discern what had been ruined by his tears and what hadn’t. “I’m like that goofy old plague, chasing people away and killing them off,” he said, angry with himself as if there was something he could do to change the way things were. “Scared my childhood buddies and put off everyone who ever tried to adopt me. Even stupid, fucking Solo abandoned me! There’s gotta be something fucked up with me that I’m too dumb to figure out. I’m just a fucking sucker for pain and I’ll never learn! I’ll always keep running back into shit and setting myself up for one big, fucking fall! I’m not gonna make that same, retarded mistake again! Ever!”

Oh, and running away from it is so much better, the demonic inner-voice retorted. For some reason, it sounded a lot like many voices all speaking at once, all his friends telling him at one time what a stubborn and idiotic bastard he truly was. Then you’ll be lonely again, Maxwell, and we all know how much you like being lonely....

“Aaargghhhh!” Duo’s fingers flew from his hair, spread wide, and clamped down forcibly on his temples, digging into the soft flesh of his face and pulling at the skin around his wide, damp, violet eyes. “Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my fucking HEAD!” he shouted, his riotous nerves and atoms emanating around him in a soft, muted cloud; overhead, the three golden, glowing light bulbs flickered and dimmed a few times. “You don’t tell me how to fucking live! I’ll choose my own way, dammit!”

The agitated yell that followed that statement caused one of the flickering light bulbs to burst, blowing out in an explosion of electricity, glass and wild light, leaving Duo temporarily blind for a moment. His vision soon returned, albeit with large multi-coloured patches sewn in here and there.

“Daijobu ka?” a soft, comforting voice whispered into his ear huskily.

Duo’s breath hitched, his eyes growing wider than they had been before as the recognition sunk in. His arms became weak at the elbows, and he collapsed back onto the hood as they gave out. “Crazy...” Duo whispered to himself. “I’m going crazy....”

He closed his eyes, feeling a dreamy warmth settled against his curved back, a hard stomach fluttering gently against his bent spine with every breath. “God, I want you bad, Duo,” that damned, sexy voice said quietly into one of his ears. Duo felt his hips twitch involuntarily, rubbing himself pleasantly against the hood of the red vehicle. “Mm, do you want me too?” the voice murmured

“No, no I don’t,” Duo said, his gruff tone sounding rather unconvincing. His stomach was flat against the hood, his lips kissing the shining, red metal that encased the little Cooper. “I don’t know what you’re doing in my head. Get out! I don’t want anyone in there!” he cried, the image of Heero wrapped around him and slowly grinding against him making him hot and hard, which both excited and disturbed him greatly.

Palms flat against the hood, he tried in vain to dispel those arousing images dancing circles in his head, rubbing himself mercilessly against the front of the hood to relieve himself of the annoying and somewhat painful tension gathering down between his thighs. “You can’t come in,” he whispered desperately, hitching a jean-covered leg up onto the hood to allow himself a rougher sensation upon the strained anatomy hidden within the stiff, blue canvas pants clinging to his hips. He felt so dirty, like a slut or a whore, bent over the car as he was, moaning for his sensual attacker to get away between pleasured groans as he ground his pained flesh harder against the car, seeking release. He almost wished that he could spread his legs and let Heero pound hard into him, even though the guy was the bane of his existence.

...Even if it was all only a secret, erotic fantasy....

“I hate you, Heero Yuy,” he said quietly to himself, slowing his frantic movements to a shivering halt as the warm release he had sought leaked embarrassingly down one leg, the stain thankfully blending in with the already rain-soaked jeans. He felt the knot in his throat that usually signaled a good sob was coming on, and let himself collapse against the car, defeated at last. “I... hate you....”

“Just what are you doing, Rapunzel? Really, my little princess, I think you need some new material,” came a dark, deep and extremely cynical voice from the direction of the garage’s side door. “You could probably do some work on your delivery too. Your performance gets a little old after a while.”

Duo snapped up straight when he heard the real Heero speak, the sound ripping him out of that post-orgasmic haze that came with his filthy, wet dream, looking quite flustered and redder than the bright candy-apple hue of the car beside him. “You should never tell someone how to act, Yuy!” he growled, his shields going up automatically, that dangerous mouth already in action, driving everyone as far away from his inner self as possible. “You’d make a horrible director.”

“I’m just suggesting you find yourself a new routine,” Heero deadpanned, leaning in the open doorway and soaking wet, the rain splattering in from the outside. He had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder and was twirling a pen absently around his fingers. “The same territorial pissing gets really old. I want to see a new act, Maxwell. But I don’t ask me; I wouldn’t want to tell you how to act.”

“Damn straight, Yuy!” Duo hollered, cracking his knuckles loudly, trying to intimidate the other boy, though the only reaction he got in return was an arched eyebrow. “My life, my part, and you’re so not in my scenes! So stay the fuck offstage and let me do my goddamned lines!”

“Bet you’re bad at improv games,” Heero muttered darkly, stepping farther into the garage and closing the door behind him, shutting out the rain and muffling its loud, grainy pattering on the driveway outside. “You say you’re different, but everything you do is by the books, Maxwell.”

“At least I wrote my own book!” Duo snapped quickly. “Why’re you always dumping on me, Yuy? I thought you had a lacrosse game to play! Can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”

“When it started raining hard and thundering, we stopped playing and rescheduled,” Heero explained, his voice flat and monotone, as usual. “And, in regard to your first question, I am not always dumping on you! You just see it that way, and that’s just your damn problem.”

“Oh, yeah, because you’re just so sweet and lovable,” Duo cooed sarcastically. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

“What did I ever do to you?” Heero snarled in a manner that certainly did not fit the question he was asking. “You’re the one who’s always acting like there’s something you need to get even with me for!”

“Even? Even? Like even-steven?” Duo outright laughed at that. “If you took your preppy ass and kept it out of my life, stopped chewing me out and playing me for the fool, then maybe, just maybe we’d be even! That would be...” he finished his short rant, drawing a polygonal shape in the air with his finger, “about square.” He suppressed the urge to let his atoms waft off his finger so that his air-drawing would still be visible when he was through. “Now leave me alone, Yuy!” he snapped, turning around and crossing his arms, nose turned haughtily up in the air. The tail of Duo’s braid even seemed to wag menacingly at Heero, as if it were condemning him on its own.

“You’re one to talk about being fair, Duo,” Heero said, his voice breathy and deep. He staggered a little bit, sort of like a drunkard wandering the streets, before he managed to grab the nearby shelves to steady himself. “I treat you the same way you treat me.”

“Because you deserve it,” Duo snapped back defensively. “Now get lost!”

“Why should I?” Heero asked. “This is my house, and my garage, with my car in it! You can’t tell me where I can and can’t be in my own home!”

“You know what?” Duo shouted, his voice cracking as it suddenly shot up three decibels higher than it had been before. He grabbed all the prints off the car and clenched them in a tight fist, hurling them angrily at Heero. “I don’t know why I even give a damn about your goddamned Mini! Not even a fucking car is worth having to put up with you!” He stiffened his back and swallowed hard, stomping purposefully past Heero and snatching the doorknob, giving the door a kick as he shoved it open. Duo glanced over his shoulder to see Heero still standing where he was, back facing the door. “Goodbye, Heero.”

Heero didn’t even wince as the door’s loud slam echoed throughout the garage; in fact, he had barely even heard it. Truth be told, his head hurt and he felt really dizzy, like he was about to pass out, and he wasn’t even quite sure where he was.

Devilish bastard....

He hardly had time to even process the thought before he toppled over in a dead faint.

(x) X (x)

“Meilan? Yo, Meila-a-a-an?!” Duo called as he wandered into the board shop. Though it had stopped raining, it was still kind of overcast outside, leaving Duo with this muggy sort of feeling as he tottered into the comfort of the air conditioned shop. “Meilan, it’s your newest best frie-e-end! Yoo-hoo? You there?”

After storming out on Heero yet again, for the second time that day, he had hopped back into his beloved Deathscythe Hell and sped around town aimlessly, just as something to do to take his mind off everything. Eventually, he found himself heading down towards the boardwalk.

He looked over to his left, at the counter, and found no one sitting behind it, though the open calculus textbook suggested that whoever was supervising the store had just run off for a second. It was near closing time, so whoever was there had gone, figuring that there wouldn’t be many customers at such an hour. Soft, jazzy, lounge music wafted from the stereo’s large speakers. He took in a large gasp of air and shouted: “MEILA-A-A-A-AN!!!”

The sound of rushing feet filled the air as someone downstairs in the basement came hurrying up the stairs to answer his call. “Holy God, whatever it is, it had better be good,” came Wufei’s irritated voice as he stampeded upstairs to greet Duo with the most unfriendly scowl he’d ever directed at the longhaired mechanic.

“Wufei?” Duo said, sounding mildly shocked, though he really shouldn’t have been so surprised to see Wufei there. After all, his and Meilan’s families had obligated themselves to one another (or so Duo had figured out through the grapevine), and even though Wufei put on a lot of hostile fronts towards Meilan, he was just a bit confused about how he should feel about the girl he was going to end up marrying one day. “Where’s Meilan? I wanted to talk to her... well... I just need to do something to... uhh....”

“What are you babbling about? You sound like a moron,” Wufei cut him off shortly, sweeping across the shop and behind the counter, resuming his spot on the stool there. “She’s gone out for the evening. Now make it quick; I have some studying to do.” With those words, he picked up a pair of bifocals that had been lying next to the calculus book, flipped them open with a twitch of his wrist and pushed them onto his nose, before immersing himself in the thick text.

“Wanted to work on some boards?” Duo offered meekly, suddenly feeling very small. Wufei’s often abrupt and cold mannerisms tended to make Duo feel like he was inferior, despite all his mental conditioning about being tough no matter what life chucked his way. When Wufei looked up from his book, black eyes glittering over the tops of his wire-framed glasses, Duo felt like he needed to explain himself; “I just need something to distract me from all my other... distractions....”

“You are a walking distraction!” Wufei snapped a bit more harshly than he had intended. “Everything has been so weird ever since you started showing up.”

“Started showing up? I’ve been going to Romefeller since I was in the ninth grade, thanks much!” Duo retorted just as bitterly, offended that he was being treated as some throw-away tumbleweed that had just suddenly blown onto the scene. “And don’t try and pin all the fucked-up shit going on with your stupid team on just me,” Duo added on as an afterthought, a hand on each hip. “Your precious Yuy causes quite a stir of his own, doesn’t he?”

“Your fault,” Wufei answered offhandedly, not even bothering to look up from his math this time. “I told you that you were a distraction, Maxwell.”

“Oh yeah? Well what about that whole injury-shindig-thing that you keep obsessing about? That sure as heck wasn’t my fault, was it?”

The sound of Wufei smacking his textbook closed screamed throughout the entire store, the force of his hand coming down on the book’s cover enough to make the CD player behind him skip. “Do not ever bring that subject up in my presence, Maxwell,” he growled darkly, his eyes now burning fiercely. “I would think that by now, even you would have the brains to figure that out.”

“God, you’d have thought he’d killed your mother or something with the way you’re always carrying on about it,” Duo sneered sarcastically, sauntering around a circular display table piled high with long-sleeved tee-shirts, heading for the basement stairs.

“You don’t know jack shit about it so just shut up!” Wufei shot back. “Since when did you defend Yuy anyway!?”

“Defend Yuy? You call that defending?” Duo scoffed, flipping his braid over one shoulder. “Believe me, that was not defending in any way, shape or form, Chang Wufei! I wouldn’t defend Heero Yuy if he was Jesus reborn and the last chance for human salvation.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in God,” Wufei prodded, trying to trip Duo up. He was still pretty ticked off about that comment Duo had made about his injury.

“I don’t! I was just making a hypothetical analogy,” Duo insisted brashly. He turned and started to head down the steps, tossing words back over his shoulder flippantly; “No wonder I always tried to avoid people like you! You just always end up pissing the shit out of me! Later, ‘Fei.” He flashed a peace sign at the still-fuming Wufei as he galloped down the stairs and out of sight.

It was a little surreal going down there when it was growing dark outside and no lights were on. Duo had to allow himself a couple seconds before his eyes adjusted to the black shadows that coated the entire basement. Once he was able to make out dim shapes, he managed to grope his way over towards his workbench and flipped on the flickering, low-wattage bulb that was screwed into the wall over it. With the flip of a switch, the little corner by the stairs was bathed in a dotty, golden glow, allowing Duo just enough light to work. Randomly grabbing one of the skateboards Meilan had left hanging on the wall by the bench for repairs, he set it down on the hard surface and plopped down on the nearby stool. He stared dumbly at the flaming skull drawn on the orange board for almost a whole minute before he was able to get enough brain cells together to start adjusting the faulty trucks and tattered blue wheels.

He eventually got to it, reaching for a wrench to loosen the wheels with. But when he was through with that, he found that there wasn’t a single screwdriver to be found on the entire workbench, which sent him into an almost insane fit. Calming down a bit, Duo got up and started make a sweep of the basement for a screwdriver, rooting through the many shelves of stock down there, knowing that Meilan was bound to have one somewhere. He turned on the larger overhead lights, walking over towards the rows of surfboards propped up in their long racks on the other side of the storeroom. He wove up and down the small aisles, his eyes glued to the floor, searching for any stray tools, such as the screwdriver he was in need of.

There were only four racks of surfboards though, so after Duo had made his way up and down three aisles, he turned to find himself out of places to look, instead standing in a small nook that had been tucked away behind the tall surfboards. But when Duo got a good look at what was hidden away there, his jaw became unhinged and his eyes grew wide, any thoughts about a screwdriver easily forgotten. The area was decorated similarly to the rest of the basement, with its hippie beads and sheets all over the place, but unlike the rest of it, it was definitely not a place used for storage. Instead of shelves and racks, this place was home to a large drafting table and a comfortable-looking hammock made of yellow, red and orange tie-dyed fabric. Duo took a few small, reverent steps forward, like he was entering a chapel, and made his way over towards the drafting table. It was covered with artwork in all kinds of media, a pile of canvas paintings leaning against the wall near one of the table’s legs. A trio of large crates sat on the other side of the table, filled with an impressive collection of art supplies, all organized neatly in each one. Another stereo, similar to the one upstairs, sat against the wall behind the hammock, underneath a small window that peered out underneath the boardwalk and down to the sea. Duo had never realized that this was a half-basement or that it had windows at all. A mess of pillows and blankets were strewn across the floor beneath the hammock, swirling around the stereo and the rather impressive collection of musty, old books stacked up nearby, a good portion of the titles hidden behind a dark, blue short board that was propped up in the corner of the room.

“Oh fuck me!” he swore as he lifted up one of the watercolours lying on the table. It was signed with that ‘W’ with the line on top, exactly like the signature that adorned the works of Treize’s favourite little artist. “This is going to kill me, I know it,” Duo decided, staring down at the loosely painted gull on the thick paper, the signature laughing and jumping out at him almost more than the actual painting did. “Meilan, maybe?” Duo wondered, turning the painting over on its head. “Maybe it’s got that line over the ‘W’ to tell you which way is up....” He shook his head, still a little skeptical about that theory. “Wufei...? Yeah right.” Duo almost laughed at the thought. Still, memories of the last art class he had attended suggested to him that the Chinese boy might actually be a pretty talented artist, though Duo had not actually seen any of his work. “Well, it could be....”

He knelt down by the drafting table and started sifting through the canvases stacked against each other by the table’s round, metal legs. There was quite an impressive collection of W’s various oil and acrylic paintings from over the years, all of them organized by the date beside that damn, ambiguous signature. Though there was a pretty good mix of subjects, Duo managed to notice that the earlier works tended to focus more on capturing people in their natural element, sitting alone at a bar, or napping peacefully on the beach. They carried a certain hasty feeling, like the moment had been quickly sketched and stolen away on the piece of canvas, the penciled lines fleshed out in colour by memory in the darkness of this secret little studio. It wasn’t that they were bad (far from it, actually), but the later paintings, Duo noted, seemed to carry a far more lifelike quality, the various figures obviously taken from life instead of fleeting memories. The later paintings generally tended to focus more on individual body parts, hands folded upon someone’s lap, raindrops on eyelashes, and even in their simplicity, carried more mature complexity than the older paintings. To say the least, the ones depicting the entire shape of a person were absolutely breathtaking, the colours and skill with which each stroke was laid so vivid that it seemed that the subject of the painting was just waiting to climb off the canvas.

Just as Duo was admiring a certain painting that zoomed in on the hips of an unknown boy and girl, where their hands were woven tightly together, a voice from behind startled him to almost dropping it. “What are you doing back here, Maxwell?”

“Aaahh!” Duo’s voice leapt up in a rather girly sounding squeal as he quickly set the painting back with the others. He bounced to his feet like a coiled spring and spun around to face Wufei, a cheesy grin in place and ready to go. “Whoa, Wufei! You scared the bejesus outta me!”

Wufei narrowed his eyes suspiciously and said nothing, not buying the act. He was usually pretty good at picking up on a person’s social idiosyncrasies, and Duo was no exception. In fact, he had been pretty easy to pick apart, and Wufei was so confident in his analysis of the boy, that he had quite a few guesses about Duo’s psyche stashed up his sleeve that he was quite willing to bet some money on. Not that he would tell Duo any of that, of course. Someone who had dissected the rules of the game as well as Wufei had was bound to be good at playing the game himself, which he most certainly was.

Meanwhile, Duo was starting to babble incoherently, as he was apt to do when he was in a pinch, nervous, or, as in this case, both. “Man, Wuffers, sorry to be rooting through your crap! But don’t take it so damn personally! It’s not like I ruined anything. You know me; I’m careful with art! I mean, it’s not like I was gonna--”

“Shut up,” Wufei raised a hand, unable to think with all that meaningless nothing streaming through his ears. “Just get out of here.” He narrowed his eyes again, pushing those spectacles of his farther up on his nose. “You didn’t... touch anything, did you?”

“Yeah, just a few paintings, but it’s not like I hurt ‘em or anything! Just looking, was all!” Duo spilled out quickly, tugging at his collar, feeling like it was suddenly getting extremely hot in that little corner. He started to pass by Wufei, hoping that he wouldn’t get roughed up too badly. “No need to get your tighty-whities in a twist, Chang!”

Though Wufei turned red-faced with annoyance at this remark, he kept it bottled, instead muttering to himself as he turned to follow Duo back past the surfboard racks to the main area of the basement. “Well, it’s nothing that can be helped if you got things out of order. I’ll worry about it later.”

By this point, Duo was already on the stairs, his instincts telling him that this wasn’t a good place to hang around either. “I might as well just move out of town,” he grumbled to himself bitterly as he stalked up the stairs, his boots beating down on the old wooden surfaces as he made his way up to the shop. “Why does my life suck?”

“I don’t know. Wahy?” Wufei said from behind him, hearing that last remark. “Your life is only as good as you, yourself, make it, Duo.”

Duo was starting to get used to hearing his first name being suddenly and randomly used by Wufei and the rest of that whole crowd. Aside from Trowa, and sometimes that Zechs fellow, he still got the rough treatment from the prep crowd. “It’s hard to make it when everyone keeps telling you that you can’t,” Duo groaned as he reached the top landing. “I’m almost starting to believe them on that one.”

“They? Who is ‘they’?” Wufei commented dryly, following closely behind Duo. “And why should what ‘they’ say matter to you? Don’t let ‘them’ shape you.”

“You wanna know something!?” Duo ground out harshly, the entire day’s happenings suddenly crashing down on him in one, painful weight that was bringing out his dark and cynical side to a point of self-destruction. Not even waiting for Wufei to respond in any way, Duo went on scathingly, storming across the shop and wrenching the door open; “Philosophy is the wrong fucking major for you, Chang!” He slammed the door behind him as he left the shop, leaving Wufei standing alone in the middle of the empty room, confused and a little worried about Duo.

(x) X (x)

a/n: And I continue to lead you all blindly through the woods! Bwahahaha!! That’s all I have to say to you this time, fools! The chappy title is a Hendrix song, which kind of follows up on the song Rainy Day, Dream Away. Get the connection? Yay, I feel so clever... only not at all... yay.... *shifty eyes and crickets chirping*