Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Shanon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)
Game 23
Nowhere Man

(x) X (x)

“Hot dog, extra mustard, little ketchup, hold the relish and sauerkraut,” Noin started down her line of friends, sitting in a row on one of the benches on the boardwalk, proffering the said hot dog to Trowa. Trowa, Quatre, Milliardo and she had pulled the reversible backrest towards the street behind them, kicked up their heels and decided to get some food while they took the afternoon easy. “Hot dog, ketchup only,” she stepped over Trowa’s long legs so Quatre could grab his food off her tray easier. Moving on, she came to her boyfriend; “Hot dog, as much of everything as they could get on.” Milliardo hungrily snatched his hot dog from Noin and immediately started chowing down while his girlfriend settled down next to him on the end of the bench with her own hot dog. “Ahh,” she sighed once she had gotten comfortable. “Nothing like beach hot dogs.”

“Sh’not qui’ th’same ina winnertoime,” Milliardo said around gleeful bites of his hot dog, looking like a little boy sitting on the boardwalk with his first real hot dog as he practically inhaled it.

“What?” Noin sent him a disgusted look, silently entreating him to slow down as she brandished a wad of napkins in front of him.

“Ah shaid,” Milliardo started, swallowing the last bite of his hot dog, which he had finished in record time, “it’s not quite the same in the winter time.”

“I agree!” Quatre chimed in, taking only his second bite. He was determined to enjoy his hot dog if it killed him. Strange as it might have sounded, but Quatre liked to savour crappy, boardwalk food more than the finely cooked meals he was served at home (which he now considered with Dorothy).

“So... umm,” Noin tried to think of something interesting to talk about; she didn’t want to be responsible for any awkward silences, especially between Trowa and Quatre, who were clearly starting to show romantic interest in one another. “...uuh, prom? Who’s excited?”

“How much money are you paying me to go this year?” Milliardo asked, narrowly missing getting one of Noin’s elbows jammed into his side. “Tsk, tsk. You’re so violent, Lucy!”

“Can it,” she hissed, her eyes sparking with a message that warned if he screwed the obvious bait up for Trowa and Quatre, there would be hell to pay.

“I mean... uhh... aren’t your friends Dorothy and Duo doing the music that night? Lucy, you sing for them, don’t you? I heard they’re pretty good,” Milliardo covered with a sheepish grin at all of them, particularly his girlfriend fearing for his hotdog’s safe digestion.

“Yeah, they are,” Quatre answered with a smile. “At least... well, at least Dorothy is.... Duo never tends to hide the fact that he’d rather come to school naked than be caught dead at something like prom. He doesn’t like school functions like that....”

“Then why did he offer to play?” Trowa wondered out loud, his eyes following the path of a wary drop of mustard as it threatened to plop onto the thigh of his jeans.

“He got threatened into it. In other words,” Quatre clarified, remembering that not everyone spoke Duo-ish, “Dorothy accepted the offer, and he got stuck doing it because he, Hild, Dorothy and me are band-mates.” He sighed, “I think I might get stuck going too. It’s the only way I’ll be able to get in without a date or Duo biting my head off for actually wanting to.”

“Do you?” Trowa suddenly asked, his eyes still trained on that rebel mustard trail. The fact that his words were still ringing in Quatre’s shocked ears was the only testimony that he had moved at all.

“Umm....” Quatre was as red as the ketchup running across the backs of his knuckles, unsure of how he should answer.

“I believe the question, Quatre, was: do you want to go to the prom or not?” Milliardo spoke up, clearing his throat. “...Not ‘Does Duo want you to go?’”

“I suppose that would be nice, though it would be really embarrassing not to go with someone else,” Quatre mumbled nervously, seriously contemplating shoving his hot dog down his throat and just suffocating himself out of his misery. What a predicament! “Which was why I was thinking I could just get in with Dorothy....”

“I never said you would have to,” Trowa replied, polishing off his hot dog. Quatre found his eyes being drawn to the way Trowa was licking the back of his hands like a kitten who was cleaning up after a meal. “I just asked if you wanted to, that’s all,” Trowa said as he lapped up the last of his wayward mustard.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Quatre blushed, adding silently that the answer only held if....

“Wanna go with me?” he asked so plainly, Quatre had to think about it a moment before he answered.

“Yes!” Quatre exclaimed before quickly covering his mouth; he felt like he had sounded almost a little too eager. The worry was dashed once he saw the contented grin spread on Trowa’s face, knowing his answer had been what the other boy had wanted to hear.

“Ask a stupid question....” Milliardo whispered to Noin drolly. “Oomph!” Needless to say the comment earned him another elbow in the gut.

That hurdle over, the quartet went back to admiring the sea as it rolled over itself, crashing tirelessly onto the beach again and again. They went on contentedly in the fashion for a couple moments until the rapid creak of feet on the boardwalk drew their attention away from the carefree ocean.

“Heero?” Trowa arched an eyebrow, surprised to see his brother standing there, sooner than expected. “What happened to you?” he asked, nodding at the laceless sneaker on one of Heero’s feet.

Duo, was the one-worded thought that rippled through both Heero and Quatre’s minds. Quatre tried his hardest to contain the surprise that always overtook him whenever he found himself thinking on the same frequency as Heero. There was just no logical, rational explanation to the phenomenon. He tripped me up, has my shoelace....

Suddenly, a fierce pain jabbed Quatre’s Sense, causing him to grab the back of his head in pain. He looked past the worried glances thrown at him to lock eyes with the only person he knew who could possibly know anything: Milliardo. He feebly gestured for him to help, batting back even Trowa when he reached over to try and console the inexplicably pained blonde.

Milliardo leapt off the bench and helped Quatre to his feet, figuring that he knew what the cause of Quatre’s suffering was and that he didn’t want to discuss it in the open just yet. When they were a good distance away, Milliardo put a firm hand on either of the smaller boy’s shoulders and shook him a little, calling his name while at the same time using his own Sense to probe into Quatre’s head. Finding Quatre’s entire head to be in shambles, he tried his best to calm him down with soothing, telepathic words.

“Oooh,” Quatre grabbed his forehead, feeling a little dizzy when the pain started to subside. “What the hell is going on with me? My Sense has been really moody lately....”

“Tell me what’s been going on inside your head,” Milliardo commanded gently, seeming to know exactly what the problem was, the first real consolation Quatre had had on the whole issue in quite some time.

“Well, lately, I don’t really know how long ago, I’ve been hearing other people’s thoughts in my head, which is totally strange, because I’ve never been able to before,” Quatre said to him, still feeling slightly muddled, though much better than he’d been when the attack had first come on. “My Sense isn’t that strong; it never has been before! I’m usually only able to pick up auras.”

“Does it happen all the time, or just sometimes?” Milliardo asked, hardly even waiting for an answer before he started drilling a few other questions: “Is it like a constant stream of voices wherever you go? Is it so loud you can’t even hear your own thoughts? Or is it only just one voice at a time? Or only certain people?”

“Only... only Heero,” Quatre said, unsure how he should feel about that fact.

“Heero?” Milliardo seemed to find it interesting and tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Really now. That’s something I never expected. Hell, Not even I’ve ever heard that guy’s thoughts, and I’m pretty much able to tap into anyone I want to....”

“He’s much more eloquent and wordy inside than I ever thought he’d be.... At least, when he’s not mad, that is,” Quatre offered. “Um, is there something wrong with me or is it something special about him?”

“Wow, strange though,” Milliardo was still rambling, almost as if he hadn’t even heard Quatre’s comment. “Here I am able to hear anyone I want, invade their innermost privacy... anyone but one person: the one person you can hear! Weird....” He looked up and smiled at Quatre apologetically for rambling. “So, what kinds of things have you heard that crazy kid think? Anything that he never voices? What was he thinking about when your head started to hurt?”

Quatre thought about it, and when he came up with an answer, he made himself think again, because the results just seemed so... wrong.... But even after reevaluating his musings, he found himself going with his initial surprising answer to all three questions: “Uhh, Duo... um, Duo... and uh... Duo to that last one as well.” He furrowed his brow and quickly threw on at the end, just to make it seem less surreal, “Oh, oh yeah, and that he hates your sister, but I think you knew that.”

“Duo? Duo?!” To be perfectly honest and frank, Milliardo looked like he was going to have an aneurysm at this bit of news. “As in your friend Duo? The lax manager? Duo Maxwell?”

“The one, the only,” Quatre said with a feeble grin and a shrug. “Ta da!” He spun around and flared his arms out to the side like a magician presenting the finale of a trick.

“Oh man, Quatre, you can think of a better one than that!” Milliardo chuckled, obviously not believing his companion. “I mean, here I was thinking like you might actually be going through a major level shift, getting more power or something.... Man, you really fooled me!”

“Is that what’s going on!?” Quatre demanded, suddenly excited. A huge level shift would have explained all these weird happenings somewhat, though he would probably have to find out more to discover why Heero of all people initiated it.

“I thought so, but come on,” Milliardo grinned, starting to laugh a little harder and slapping his knee. “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that he thinks about Duo. Come on, you’re best friends with the guy! You know they hate each other!”

“That’s not true!” Quatre insisted. “I’m sure that they’re just too damn arrogant to snuff their foolish pride and be friends! The fact that Duo can be a right asshole to people he doesn’t trust just isn’t making it easy for Heero, and Heero’s cold silences are no reassurance to Duo! But I bet that deep down, they’re just running away from each other!”

“Oh God, Quatre, that has to be the sappiest, most... most romantic thing I’ve ever heard!” Milliardo shook his head, long, loose, silvery-blonde hair swishing back and forth with the movement. “If you expect me to believe that, then you must really think I’m so-o-ome kinda stupid.”

“Heh, you just ask Heero what happened to his shoelaces!” Quatre retorted. “Bet you’ll be shocked!”

“Did Noin slip something into your hot dog?” Milliardo quipped as he started to walk back towards the bench. “I’ll have to talk to her about that. Not good form, I tell you!”

“... And you tripped over your own lacrosse stick?” Noin was questioning Heero when Milliardo and Quatre returned to sit on the bench. Hearing this, Milliardo shot a glare at Quatre, who just vehemently shook his head in disagreement.

“Tripped, Heero? Really? You?” Trowa didn’t look like he quite bought the story that Heero had been telling him and Noin. “What’d you say Maxwell did to you again?”

“He scared the shit out of me, that’s all,” Heero said defensively, glaring hard at Trowa as if to say ‘Don’t believe it, and I’ll murder you’. “I stepped back and I tripped. Lost a shoe in the fall.”

“That’s bullshit, Heero!” Quatre shouted unexpectedly, jumping to his feet and glaring hard at Heero. All of the others were stunned into silence by the surprising outburst of profanity; Noin and Trowa openly stared slack-jawed at him, Milliardo staring at Heero with questioning eyes, while Heero, himself, was breathing hard, like he had either been offended with a slap in the face or was recovering from the scare of his life.

“Quatre?”

Quatre, though he heard Trowa’s tentative voice, was still focused solely on Heero, glaring hard at the side of his head. “You’re lying, Heero,” he accused in a much more controlled tone. “Why would you tell your friends some cock and bull story like that? Why can’t you tell them what really happened? Afraid they’ll laugh at you? Afraid they’re too good for... for....” Quatre was sputtering now, his annoyance towards Heero so great, words were hardly able to come out.

“For what?” Heero demanded softly, turning his gaze towards the small blonde, eyes aimed at him like honed daggers. “Sit down before you hurt yourself trying to talk about something you don’t know anything about, Quatre.”

As if on cue, none other than Duo Maxwell himself came sauntering down the boardwalk, automatically drawn towards the little hubbub of friends gathered by the bench. Obviously, he had not noticed Heero, because he came over with a large, shit-eating grin in place and an extra-cheerful bounce in his lively step. (The shoelace incident had left Duo in a sort of dazed mood, so this costume was quite a jump from the mopey one he’d been schlepping around in only moments before.)

“Hey gang!” Duo said as he neared, waving like mad at all of them and totally unaware of the tension that was rolling in faster than the ocean’s waves. “What’s shakin’?”

Quatre looked up when he heard Duo’s voice, thinking that the sight of Duo’s face would do something to help the current situation for some reason. And whatever that reason was, it had been a good one, because sure enough, the first thing Quatre noticed about his friend was that his braid was tied off much higher than usual with an old worn shoelace that looked like it belonged on an old, beat-up sneaker. His eyes jumped from the extra-long banner of hair spilling over Duo’s chest down to the boardwalk, where they immediately trained upon Heero’s feet, one jammed into a ratty sneaker missing a shoelace that looked suspiciously like the one knotted in Duo’s hair. Bingo, Quatre grinned, looking up again. So that’s what he meant when he was thinking about Duo and his shoelaces....

“Not much, Duo!” Quatre answered out loud, sly grin still in place as he redirected his eyes back at Duo’s hair, just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating about that shoelace. “Hey, nice hair-tie, by the way,” he threw in not-so-discreetly. “Where’d you get it?”

Of course, now that he had drawn the attention to it, everyone (minus Heero, who was busy glaring at a nearby flock of seagulls) squirmed around on the bench to get a look. Trowa regarded it thoughtfully, like he probably suspected the same thing Quatre did after doing a little math in his head, no mutant Sense required. Milliardo, on the other hand, was thinking the same thing as Trowa, as he was currently reading the cinnamon-haired youth’s train of thought on the matter right then; he suddenly had a newfound respect for Quatre and his Sense, thinking he may have actually found a psychic who would amount to something even more powerful than himself. Noin was the only one who seemed a little lost, her eyes darting from one person to the next, trying to figure out what was going on as best as she could through all the silences.

“Found it,” Duo said coolly after taking a moment too long to pause, obviously noticing everyone’s reactions around him. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” Quatre answered, though his eyes were glowering at Heero as he said this to Duo. “It’s just... not your usual.”

“Yeah, like people really look at what I use to tie my hair, Q,” Duo drawled sarcastically, flipping his hair over his shoulder, concealing the braid and shoelace tie from view. He purposefully turned away from Quatre, his eyes happening to fall upon the tousled, brown head of Heero. A mixture of panic flickered across his face before it twisted up in the usual sneer. “What’d you tell ‘em, Yuy, huh? What are we, lovers now?”

Duo suddenly found himself staring down into a pair of frighteningly blue eyes, which had been whirled upon him the moment he’d opened his mouth. Heero said nothing as he glared long and hard at Duo, almost like he was trying to make the other boy’s skin melt off with his simple and intimidating stare.

“I wasn’t being serious,” Duo snarled in an effort to shake that beautifully dangerous stare. “Like you and I would ever be lovers without killing each other first. Like I’d ever want me. Or that I’d ever want you for that matter!” Duo quickly made his escape before his big mouth got him in any more trouble, stalking of with an angry huff.

“Stranger things have happened,” Milliardo whispered to Noin, who, instead of elbowing him for the comment as she usually did, just nodded her head in the affirmative so fast it gave her a slight headache.

“And y’know what?” she murmured back, watching Duo’s retreating back. “It’s not that strange a thing to begin with!” She glanced over at Heero, who had, by this point, returned to staring mindlessly out to the sea, not really paying attention to anything around him. “No, not that strange at all.”

(x) X (x)

Duo stared up at the ceiling over his bed, watching the fan spin lazily around. There was something hypnotically relaxing about just flopping back on his squishy futon mattress and simply staring blindly upwards at the wood and metal structure as it twirled in its slow counterclockwise circle.

“I should greatly like for us to be friends.”

Duo gritted his teeth and set his jaw; that damn phrase had been replaying over and over in his head since Heero had uttered it, and no matter what he did, wouldn’t go away and persisted in following his ears around in its low, echoing tone. Not even the hypnotic- whirling-fan remedy was helping him out; it was about then he figured he was in trouble. Sighing, Duo dropped his head to the side, which only allowed him a better view of his hair, still tied off with Heero’s shoelace. He frowned deeply at it and started to reach for it, meaning to rip it out of his braid for good this time when he heard it again.

“I should greatly like for us to be friends.”

And, just like every other time he’d tried to get rid of that damn shoelace, the same thing stopped his fingers short, the five long, spidery digits clawing fistfuls empty air, frozen in place. “Jesus crap motherfucker!” Duo swore, his rage not failing to make the most colourful of entrances onto the scene. “It’s just a fucking shoelace! It’s not like I care if his poor, little feelings get stepped on because I don’t use it to tie up my stupid, fucking hair!” His fingers shot forward again, determined to get rid of the shoelace once and for all, only to be stopped yet again.

“...for us to be friends....”

A dry, starchy feeling stung his eyes as he stared at his poised hand, which was literally just millimeters from the longest tail of the tattered shoelace that had been hastily knotted into a haphazard bow. “Why is this so fucking hard?” he asked himself seriously, staring at his immobile hand, almost shocked when it fell limply to the mattress, defeated.

He lay there, breathing much more heavily than he figured was necessary for such a lazy action as lounging on his side. Suddenly, he catapulted up into a sitting position before flinging himself up onto his feet. Grabbing his head and tugging on his bangs he moaned: “Chri-i-ist! I need to get out and do something!” He barely gave the notion a second thought as he snatched up his leather jacket and black baseball cap on his way out the door.

He wasn’t sure if it was a good joke or not that his feet ended up carrying him to the front door of the Barton household. His brain insisted that he just wanted to work on the Mini, though Duo couldn’t quite say that it was really that great an idea as said Mini did, indeed, belong to Heero. “My brain is damn stupid,” Duo said out loud to himself, putting a hand on each hip as he turned, one foot out and ready to start marching away from what could easily turn into imminent disaster.

“You are so lucky I’m not Heero, Duo,” Trowa’s voice stopped him before he could take a single step. “Or you would have gotten such a verbal lashing, it would have almost been sad if you hadn’t set yourself right up for it.”

“And to what do I owe the speech?” Duo drawled cynically as he slowly turned around, pulling down the bill of his black baseball cap to shadow his eyes. “Or do you just say that to everyone who comes by?”

“I say it to everyone who stands on my doorstep for a full five minutes, debating whether or not he should ring the bell,” Trowa retorted almost instantly, standing aside as he pulled the door open wider. “I take it you’re here to do some more to Heero’s car? You’ve been doing good work so far.”

“Uh-uh, Barton,” Duo said as he stepped inside. “The best work. I do the best work.”

“If you say so,” Trowa just shrugged and started walking through the house, towards the kitchen, Duo not far behind. “Want a drink before you go out?”

“Yeah, why not?”

On the way, passing the stairs that led up to the second floor, Duo beheld a sight that he probably shouldn’t have found as surprising as he did: sitting on the third step with a guitar on his knee, was Heero, strumming and singing quietly, his eyes shifting between the chords his right hand pressed against the fret board to a set of handwritten sheet music lying beside him. He hardly looked up at Duo as he walked past, even though Duo was staring unabashedly at him, eyes wide. It was too bad that Duo didn’t bother to keep watching Heero after he walked into the kitchen because as soon as he did, Heero stopped pretending to read his sheet music and started glancing in Duo’s direction almost non stop, his view from behind the stair railing, through the door to where the longhaired lacrosse team manager sat perched on one of the stools in the kitchen completely open.

“You’re cynical and beautiful;
You always make a scene.
You’re monochrome delirious;
You’re nothing that you seem!”

“Is there anything that guy doesn’t do?” Duo asked, jerking a thumb in Heero’s direction as Trowa set a tall glass of orange juice in front of him.

“Not really,” Trowa answered glibly, returning the carton of juice to the large, chrome fridge. “And if there’s anything he doesn’t know how to do, he’ll learn how to, and he’ll learn perfectly.” Trowa paused for a moment, hand lingering on the carton as he set it back on the shelf inside the refrigerator. “It’s a little infuriating sometimes,” he whispered to himself.

“Tch, what a friggin’ showoff,” Duo brushed it off with a toss of his head, braid flopping around behind him. Of course all that did was let him catch another glance of Heero’s shoelace in his hair, which reminded him of all the confused frustration he’d just been putting himself through, resulting in even more spite towards Heero. Moodily, Duo snatched the glass off the counter and chugged all of the orange juice in one long drought.

“I’m drowning in your vanity.
Your laugh is a disease!
You’re dirty and you’re sweet;
You know you’re everything to me!”

“You know earlier today, when Quatre said all those things to Heero... did you hear him?” Trowa asked, closing the fridge and turning to address Duo. He leaned against the door and looked up at the ceiling while he spoke. “Did Heero say something to you that he didn’t tell me?”

“What do you mean?” Duo asked, glancing treacherously at Trowa, eyes narrowed to dangerous slits: a warning that one wrong word from Trowa, and he was history. “You better not mean what I think you mean, Barton,” he growled for emphasis, just in case the look on his face wasn’t caution enough.

“I mean, umm, is there something... going on?” Trowa asked, a little put off by that obviously dangerous glower Duo was giving him. He immediately regretted his words when that look multiplied by a thousand as soon as he uttered those words; practically snarling at him, it looked like Duo was going to leap over the counter and claw his eyes out. “I-I was just wondering, that’s all,” Trowa quickly defended himself, waving his hands in front of him as if to ward Duo off. “It’s just that, well, I couldn’t help but notice you are wearing his shoelace in your hair.... I thought it was just all... uh... very... suspicious that he ‘lost’ his and then you turn up with it, that’s all....” Trowa looked seriously flushed, like he knew he had just given his own eulogy and jumped into a premature grave. He glanced through the door at the hall steps, where Heero was still playing the guitar, apparently oblivious to their conversation.

“Everything you are
Falls from the sky like a star!
Everything you are,
Whatever ever you are.”

“It. Is. Nothing,” Duo growled resolutely, practically hissing and spitting like a rabid cat, grabbing his braid and shaking it at Trowa, who was almost cowering at Duo’s vehemence. “Have you got that, Barton!? Huh, do you!?” It sounded like he was trying to convince himself of the fact too.

“Then how come you still have it in your hair?” Trowa asked in a small voice, pointing at Duo’s proffered hair. “Why not just throw the thing away if it’s so horrible?”

“Because then my hair would fall down, genius!” Duo roared, slapping his hands down on the countertop. “And I’d sooner wear your stupid brother’s shoelaces than run around with it flopping around free for every moron in the damn world to see!”

“Wow, Jeez, I’m sorry I asked!” Trowa threw his hands up in surrender. “I was just curious, that’s all!”

“Oh yeah, and why’s that?” Duo snarled, sinking back onto the stool and crossing his arms as he continued to glare at Trowa. The other boy had offended him like he had never expected to be in his entire life; the annoying part was it wasn’t as offensive to him as it should have been.

“I don’t know,” Trowa spat, starting to get a little angry at Duo for his childish behaviour. “Maybe I was beginning to think that you might not be as silly as you seem to be. I don’t know what Heero is talking about.”

“Uh huh, right; like he’s a great source of knowledge about me!” Duo snapped back. He tried to suppress memories of a certain argument he’d had with Heero the first time he’d come over to work on the Cooper, when he had somehow ended up wrestling with and kissing Heero by accident. He vaguely remembered Heero saying something to him about prejudging, something about the Japanese boy being really pissed off at him for making certain presumptions without really knowing him personally at all. Since it would sound hypocritical to say what he’d just said to Trowa and keep that memory in mind, Duo quickly shoved it to the back of his mind, telling himself not to think about it.

“I wanna kick at the machine
That made you piss away your dreams,
And tear down your defenses
‘Till there’s nothing there but me!”

“You know, for a while there, I was kind of thinking: yeah,” Trowa answered sarcastically, his mouth pulled into a cynical-looking curl. “But you know, now that you’re telling me these things, I’m kind of starting to see how wrong he was. You’re right, Duo: Heero doesn’t know anything about you.”

Trowa was shaking his head at Duo disapprovingly. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his heart, Duo felt a pain, like the last thing he wanted was for Trowa to be so disappointed in him. He wondered why that was; he used to never care if Trowa gave a damn about him before, so why should it matter now? He chalked it up that it had something to do with Quatre, though the lie sounded false even to his himself.

“You’re angry when you’re beautiful;
Your love is such a tease!
I’m drowning in your dizzy noise;
I wanna feel you scream!”

Duo couldn’t take seeing that look on Trowa’s face. That feeling like someone had lost faith in him made him feel so down, like so many times in the past. In a flash of mere seconds, he felt the sadness he’d carried when he returned to the orphanage to find his one childhood friend gone, the remorse from the place’s destruction and the rage when Solo had turned him out of White Fang. Why does seeing Trowa look like that make me remember those times? Duo wondered to himself, staring flat out into nothingness, no longer sitting in the Barton kitchen.

When he snapped back into reality, no longer off in his past, he found that he was no longer staring in Trowa’s direction, but out into the hall at Heero. Deciding that Heero was the source of all this trouble, Duo got off his stool and stalked determinedly over towards him, ready to tell the lacrosse player off once and for all.

“Everything you are
Falls from the sky like a star!
Everything you are,
Whatever ever you are.”

Heero’s fingers came to an abrupt halt as Duo’s shadow loomed above him, a low echo resonating from inside the heart of his acoustic guitar as he slapped its wooden body, a metallic twang from the strings as he released them and grabbed the neck of the guitar in his fist. His lips fell at the corners into an ambiguous frown as he looked up at Duo, who was standing with one foot on the bottom stair, a hand on each hip as he glared at him with empty, plum-coloured eyes.

“Yes?” he drawled slowly. They were frozen like that for a couple minutes, Heero staring up at Duo’s glaring, blank eyes, each one calculating and weighing the other one up silently, hoping to compute a way to come out on top. The world seemed to have come to a total standstill around them, the barely audible whisper of their breathing lingering in the quiet around them; even the sounds of the nearby grandfather clock nestled beside the stairs seemed to have stopped its rhythmic ticking.

“You’re not perfect,” Duo finally stated in a plain, emotionless tone, shattering the silence. All at once, the sounds and movements of the world seemed to pick up right where they had left off, no longer leaving them in suspended animation. “You’re not the perfect little soldier everyone thinks you are,” he went on, wordy as always. He clicked his tongue and set his jaw; “You’re just their plaything: a little, tin, windup doll for them to play with. Well you know what, Yuy? I refuse to wind you up like everyone else. I won’t play that stupid game.”

“Oh, you make it out to be so easy,” Heero answered with a hint of sarcasm tingeing his words. “Yes, Duo, I’m just a perfect, faultless, little porcelain doll sitting on a shelf for anyone to take down and play with.” His voice quelled and fell to nothingness as he looked down at his sock-clad feet, his entire body beginning to quiver with a surprising torrent of emotion. Heero’s eyes snapped back up and bore right through Duo, his words cracking the icy, amethyst stare Duo had fixed so triumphantly upon him. “But you know something, Duo Maxwell!?” he cried, looking like he might start to sob underneath all the fury that was scribbled across his beautiful face. “Even fucking porcelain can break! So quit bashing me into walls, will you!?” He quieted again as he added in a soft whisper: “It’s not that easy to be me.”

With that, he went back to strumming his guitar, though his movements were much jerkier and aggressive, making the quiet notes he’d been playing earlier louder and faster. Duo, realizing that the battle was over for the time being, quickly made his getaway and walked quickly out of the house, soon breaking into an all-out sprint for the garage and the safety of the shiny, red Cooper.

“Everything you are
Falls from the sky like a star.
Everything you are,
Whatever ever you are.
Whatever ever you are.
Whatever ever you are....”

(x) X (x)

“Checkmate, Melly-baby,” Duo said, positioning his rook in such a position so that no matter what Meilan did to get her king out of the way, it was trapped. Duo puffed his chest out proudly and said cheerfully: “You lose.”

“Dammit,” Meilan sighed, flicking her king over on its side with her thumb and forefinger. “All that excitement to finish our game and I lose! Oooh, I was making such careful moves too!”

“It’s just all this genius’s unbridled, natural talent,” Duo said, leaning on the counter and buffing his nails on his shirt. He lifted his slim hand up to examine it and then flipped it around, bending his fingers down so he could inspect his nails. He puffed a breath of warm air on them and rubbed them on his shirt again. “Damn, I’m so good.”

“Yeah, you really must be if you could beat my strategy,” Meilan grumbled as she started putting the little carved soldier-pieces back into the wooden box she kept them in.

“Hey, I had a strategy!” Duo said, jumping down off his cloud when she said that. “I had a good strategy too!”

“Oh, right, if you call an all-out annihilation of my side with your stupid queen a strategy,” Meilan answered with a chuckle as she folded up the board and put it and the wooden box away on the shelf behind her.

“Hey, it’s a strategy!” Duo protested. “It’s your fault you lost your own queen so damn early in the game! You’re just jealous!”

“Oh, I’m really jealous of a little wooden piece, Duo,” Meilan rolled her eyes at him and chuckled. “If you hadn’t made me sneeze with all that damn sand you kept snapping off the tail of your braid....”

“Hey, your fingers lost contact with the damn bishop,” Duo said, holding up his hands on either side of his head. “You know the holy, golden rule of chess: thou shalt not taketh back thy move once thy fingers loseth contact with thy piece.”

“So speaketh the mighty Maxwell,” Meilan shook her head, onyx-black pigtails swinging back and forth.

“Bang, bang,” Duo grinned, folding one hand into a gun and ‘firing’ it at Meilan. “Maxwell’s silver hammer came down upon your head!”

“Cocky son of a bitch,” Meilan rolled her eyes again. “You’re never gonna let me live this down, are you?”

“Nope!” Duo responded cheerfully, bouncing up and down like a rubber ball on speed. “Do I get my free gyro now?”

“Yes, yes. God, is all you ever think about food?” Meilan sighed, turning to the large, antique cash register and punching one of the brass keys, which caused the money drawer to shoot out with a merry kaching. She took out a ten dollar bill and slammed the drawer shut again. “Watch the place while I go get it, okay? Wufei should be coming in with a new shipment any minute now.”

“Will do, captain!” Duo mock-saluted her as she came out from behind the counter and started walking towards the door. He leapt over the surfboard-topped counter and landed himself in the little corner it walled off from the rest of the store. Settling down on the stool back there, he cradled his cheek in the palm of one hand and waited for Wufei to show up.

By the time the bell over the door was jangling with Wufei’s arrival, Duo’s stomach was not only about ready to start eating itself in anticipation of that gyro, but he was damn bored too. “Hey Wu, wanna play me in a game of chess?” he asked the minute the Chinese boy backed into the store, ignoring the mountain of boxes he balanced dangerously on one arm. “I beat Meilan and now I’m resident champ!”

“Maxwell, I’d love to, but you know what? I’m just a little bit preoccupied here,” Wufei quipped sardonically as he slowly started to make his way across the shop towards the basement stairs. Duo just sat where he was and watching, the notion to help Wufei not occurring to him once; the sight was far too amusing to interrupt.

“Resident champ, eh?” another voice cut in. Duo’s head snapped back around to the front door, which Heero was just closing behind him. Duo hadn’t even made the connection that Wufei probably needed someone to open the door for him; Duo’s mind just didn’t work that logically, which was exactly why he had friends like Quatre. “Are you willing to forsake your title?”

“No,” Duo said to him unkindly, not about to let a little thing like Heero’s constant ability to make him seem like a fool drag him down.

“Hn, that’s too bad. I was actually going to ask you for a game,” Heero answered with a shrug, changing his course from the counter to starting after Wufei as he slowly made progress down the first flight of steps. “Guess you’re clever enough to see a real match when it comes along.”

“If you’re suggesting that you could beat me at chess, you’re on,” Duo challenged, already turning to grab the chess set down from its spot beside the stereo.

“I’m not suggesting I could beat you,” Heero said in his usual monotone as he walked over towards the counter, placing a flat hand upon the top of it, fingers spread wide apart. “What I’m suggesting is that I could whip your ass at chess, Duo.”

“Oh yeah? You are so on, Yuy,” Duo said cockily, slamming the board and box onto the counter with a fluid, downward motion. “When I beat you, you’ll have to buy me lunch and a shake at Gifford’s after school, every day, for a week.”

“Very well,” Heero sighed, his expression bored, like he hadn’t heard a word Duo had just said. Glancing up at Duo, his eyes regarded the other boy silently for a few minutes, noticing that Duo’s hair was still tailed off with his shoelace, though he could tell it had been redone since the time he had initially tied it there as the braid was woven all the way down again. He smirked privately, realizing that even if he didn’t win this game, there were other battles with Duo on other fronts that he had long since become the champion of. “If I win, you have to do what I say, every day, for a week.”

“Oh please, how lame,” Duo’s eyes rolled up towards the ceiling when he heard that. “Oh well, it’s not like it matters since I will win and it won’t matter what you wanted as a prize.” He stuck out his hand, almost upsetting the pieces Heero had just painstakingly set up on the board. “Shake on it, pal, and we can seal the deal.”

Heero looked up again, his eyes dancing from Duo’s confident, shit-eating grin, to his outstretched hand hovering over the sixty-four squared board and its black and white armies. Carefully, he lifted his right hand and gingerly placed it in Duo’s, ignoring the tingling feeling that raced through it as he squeezed gently. Duo’s hand was significantly larger than his, and for a moment, he was fearful that his own small, slim, almost feminine hand would be swallowed up and suffocated in Duo’s grip. “Deal,” he whispered, shocked at the empty sound of his own voice.

“You be white,” Duo said, spinning the board around so that he sat behind the black army.

“You are aware that means I am allowed the first move?” Heero said warily. He had a feeling that Duo wasn’t as experienced at chess as he was trying so hard to make him believe.

“I am, thanks!” Duo snapped, a little insulted that Heero actually thought that little of him. At least he acknowledged that Heero had some uses; he at least expected the same in return!

“It’s your funeral,” Heero shrugged, and made his first move: king’s pawn, two spaces up. “Your turn.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious, but I can do without the updates,” Duo sneered cynically, mirroring the same move. “Don’t think I’m copying you or nothin’,” Duo felt he had to say, as if he knew exactly what was on the tip of Heero’s tongue.

They played on in silence, executing moves without a word to one another. Their hands moved quickly across the board, and would have only been sped up further had there been the presence of a clock to time the game. Heero took his second move, then Duo, back to Heero again. Duo furrowed his brow at the board, contemplating it harder than he had with his game against Meilan; so much more was riding on his victory here!

“Checkmate,” Heero announced plainly, like he was commenting on the weather or something equally mundane.

Duo did a double take, his eyes growing wide as he stared down at the white queen that had somehow made it right into the middle of his defense. He blinked stupidly at it, as if he was sure that it was all a joke and any second now, he would realize that he’d imagined the thing. Twenty wordless blinks later and the queen was still in place, ready to capture his king. Duo snapped his gaze up at Heero, pouting vehemently at the smug smirk on the other boy’s face. Then it came: “How the fuck do you beat a guy in four moves!?”

“As I just did, while you were busy castling,” Heero answered, that smirk not threatening to budge any time soon. Duo knew Heero would never let him live this down! “It’s a common mistake a lot of amateur players make: castling right away. Leaves it plenty open for someone with better foresight to win quickly.” One corner of Heero’s mouth lifted, revealing a gleam of white teeth behind his rosy pink lips. “I don’t think I should really say much more though; part of chess is keeping secrets from your opponents, ne?”

“Y-You bastard!” Duo sputtered, still unable to accept that he, Duo Maxwell, had just lost to Heero Yuy... again...!

“Ready to be my slave for a week?” Heero asked casually, rubbing his nails on his shirt just as Duo had done when he’d gloated victory over Meilan.

Duo wanted simply to smack that damn self-righteous-looking smirk off Heero’s face once and for all. And with the way his hands were shaking at his sides, it didn’t seem like it was such a ridiculous notion at all. “Fucking no!” he shouted, knocking the chess pieces with a wild sweep of his forearm, sending them flying into no more than a memory of the humiliating defeat they had once formed. “What the hell are you trying to pull!?”

“We shook on it, so a deal’s a deal,” Heero shrugged, still looking annoyingly pretentious to Duo. “You thought it was a pretty damn funny idea about five minutes ago. Don’t like it so much now, huh?”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Duo gaped at Heero, staring at him like the Japanese lacrosse star had at least sixteen heads sprouting from his shoulders. “I can’t believe you expect me to be so... so childish!”

“Childish, you say?” Heero was having a hard time trying to choke down his laughter when he heard that one. “Says you, whining king of grown-up children!”

“I resent that!”

“Good. You should,” Heero returned coldly, his laughter suddenly cutting short, almost making Duo swallow his aggressiveness. “I fully intend to collect on my winnings. I didn’t spend those couple minutes listening to you strut around like a right preening cock to not get my prize.”

“Oh listen to yourself talk!” Duo complained with a spasm of his hand, jerking it out at Heero, gesturing at him with it. “I don’t even want to think about what goes on between your ears, never mind how cute they are! You listen up here, Yuy! I don’t care what you say, but I refuse to do you any sexual favours...!”

“Stop being such a little ecchi, Duo; you know what I meant.”

“What are you talking about?!” Duo slapped his hand against the countertop, making the pieces scattered there and rolling around on their sides jump with fright. “You never make any sense, ya damn fool!”

“I said you were a pervert, okay!? A pervert!” Heero hissed, getting equally defensive as he beat his clenched fist. “Stop twisting my words around. I won, fair and square, and you lost, fair and square. We made a deal that I was willing to see through had I, in some rare, freak instance, lost; I’d expect the same in return, no matter how much you ‘hate’ me! If you weren’t intending to come clean, why’d you challenge me to a game in the first place!?” Heero was clearly getting agitated with the current situation, even Duo could tell. He had never known that the other boy had such an explosive temper. “If anything, it should teach you not to be so goddamn cocky all the time!”

They stared each other down in glaring silence, and probably would have gone on in that manner for quite a while longer had the clanging door-chime not rung, its sickly out-of-place whimsy announcing Meilan’s entrance into the shop. Both boys shot dirty glares at her, who had chosen a bad time to come back, her arms laden with gyros for her, Wufei and Duo. “Oh Heero, I’m sorry!” she said, her face twisting in guilt. “If I’d known you were coming with ‘Fei, I’d have gotten you a sandwich too!”

“It’s okay. Rapunzel, over there, owes me,” Heero answered, a dangerously feral look playing upon his features as he shot a triumphant glare at Duo. Duo was frozen in place, gaping in horror as Heero gracefully pushed himself off the counter and swept around Meilan, gracefully plucking one of the gyros--Duo’s gyro!--out of her arms for himself. Reaching into the bag, Heero said with a snide look in Duo’s general direction, “My first indulgence as the Nataku Chess Champion.” He made a big show of taking a bite out of that sandwich, the sound of his teeth sinking into the enormous gyro drowned out maybe only by Duo’s growling stomach.

Meilan watched this with disbelief written all over her face. “Duo, how do you lose your esteemed ‘title’ in the time it takes for me to buy you the damn prize!?” she wondered, still unable to grasp the concept. She should have seen something like this coming from at least twenty miles away.

“Oh, so that’s what this is for?” Heero asked, lifting up the sandwich. He licked his lips slowly, all just for Duo’s benefit, well aware of how pissed off Duo was getting. He figured that after such a self-conscious show before the chess game, the least he could do for Duo in return was provide and equally self-indulgent fare. “Just makes it taste all the more sweet, Duo,” he flashed that annoying smirk over at Duo, who looked like he was about to climb over the counter with his lust for that gyro. He took another big bite; “Yes Duo, victory can be oh-so-bittersweet.”

(x) X (x)

a/n: Don’t ask... don’t tell, you know? Nice, uber long chappy for you all, hehe. The insert song is Dizzy, by the Goo Goo Dolls (one of my favourites!) and the chappy title is, of course, a Beatles song. You know, someone made a comment that my chappy titles are random, but if you know the song, you’ll understand that they really aren’t. It’s all in my quest to get people to like some classic rock sounds too! ^___^

Oh, and anyone who’s been trying to get to my site for the past week, I’m sorry it was being a jerk. But it works now, so feel free to stop on by! I’ve got fanfiction, artwork and a contest, so yay! Plus, the layout is pretty, hehe. Speaking of jerky machines, my wonderful beta, danse, was having computer issues, so go read her story, Deadly Beautiful to make her feel better. Yay!