Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)

Game 26
Behind Blue Eyes

(x) X (x)

When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Duo automatically started heading for Heero’s corner. Though he had assumed their destination correctly, Heero wasn’t exactly pleased by his current state. “Put me down!” he ordered tartly, struggling in Duo’s vice-like grip, a hold far more powerful than Heero had ever expected from the braided wonder.

“Say the magical password!” Duo said cheerfully, a sadistic yearning to take advantage of his control over the situation. In retrospect, it was kind of amusing how Duo’s bad mood seemed to have infected Heero, leaving the mechanic with nothing but his demonic good cheer.

“Please,” Heero said with an agitated roll of his eyes. He despised games like these; they were impossible to win.

“Wrong!” Duo said cheerfully, still making his way through the basement as he carried the squirming Heero. “Guess again.”

“Hocus-pocus.” Heero had a tone like just thinking those words degraded him almost as much as being carried across the room like an invalid.

“Nope. One more try!”

“Omae o korosu!” Heero shouted, pushing down on Duo’s hands clasped around his hips and swinging his legs this way and that. At some point, his fight to get free had melted into tactless flailing and wriggling, making him look much like a slippery fish trying to flop away.

“Definitely not,” Duo answered, furrowing one brow. “Hell, I don’t even know what that means, so how could that be it?”

“It means you had better put me down before I break you in half,” Heero growled fiercely, doing his best to turn his head and glare at Duo, though he looked more like a disgruntled child instead of a menacing lacrosse champion.

“Oh sure, Yuy, good luck,” Duo said with his classic devil-may-care grin. He purposely pirouetted down one of the aisles through the surfboard storage on his way to the corner, spinning around like he was dancing with the unhappy blue-eyed Japanese.

“Stop it! Stop this now!” Heero commanded, swinging his legs out in an effort to give himself some leverage. “Put me down!”

“Now if you had guessed the password, I would,” Duo said in as serious a voice as he could muster, given the situation. Making Heero so flustered had to be one of the most fun and hilarious things he’d done in a long time. “But since we’re suddenly so cranky, we’re going to have to just put up with it, okay?”

“You really are a monster,” Heero grumbled, drooping like a wilted flower in Duo’s arms. He figured that it wasn’t worth making such a big production anymore; only a few more moments and they would be in his corner and Duo would have to put him down anyway. “It’s a wonder no one’s killed you yet.”

“I got a talent for staying alive,” Duo replied with a somewhat self-righteous lilt.

Heero smirked at this. “So do I,” he said simply. Anything further would have been cut off anyway, because as Heero was speaking, they had reached the corner and by the time Heero had finished his sentence, Duo was tossing him casually into the hammock, which surprisingly held strong, despite the sudden weight.

“Here we are!” Duo grinned. Heero looked up at the triumphant figure looming above him and decided that the look on Duo’s face was nothing less than evil. “So what now, boss?”

Heero did his best to make it look like he meant to topple out of the hammock and saved himself with a roll when he hit the ground. Slowly standing up and thankful to be back on his own feet, he raked his fingers through his eternally messy hair and started walking over towards his storage bookcase. “Make yourself comfortable somewhere,” Heero said as he pulled a collapsible, metal easel from the endless shadows in his supply corner.

“Where?” Duo asked, looking around like he was lost as he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it carelessly onto the hammock.

“I don’t care,” Heero shrugged simply as he unfolded his easel and tightening the securing bolt that held the legs in place. “Anywhere.”

Duo turned in one full circle, stopping to watch in fascination as Heero adjusted the moveable crosspiece for the canvas to sit on, twirling the winged washer around the screw that held it to the easel. There was something that never failed to overwhelm Duo whenever he watched Heero at work. He seemed as efficient as ever, his movements always stiff and even as he went about gathering his brushes and rags, pouring a bit of turpentine into a jar with practiced ease. He set these things on the ledge for such supplies built into the crosspiece on the easel and then mechanically retrieved a blank piece of canvas from his bookcase and set it on the easel. But despite Heero’s careful motions, Duo detected that something certainly changed about Heero whenever he was making art. There was something about his face, the way his features were softened and his eyes became deeper, which radiated this sense of freed inner peace and contentment. Watching Heero like this, especially at that particular moment, made Duo think more and more that the hardened lacrosse champion was really just a steel casement for someone who was really far more fragile.

A sudden query popped into Duo’s head. “Is it just me, or do you really like painting me?” Duo asked curiously, unsure of why this question had never crossed his mind before. “Why is that?”

“Because you’re....” Heero started and then realized that he was about to say something he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to admit out loud just yet. He still wasn’t confident in his friendship with Duo enough to say such personal things. Though he had mentioned to Duo that he found his looks beautiful, he was worried Duo would get uncomfortable and push him away if he said anything to that effect too often. Pausing in his attempt to bend over and remove his shoes, he quickly tried to ponder something else to say. “...Different,” He ended up settling on, though it was pretty apparent to both of them that it wasn’t what he had originally intended to say.

“Different, huh?” Duo quirked one chestnut eyebrow and put his hands on his hips. “Different how?”

“What do you mean?” Heero asked absently as he set one of his stools down beside the easel, more preoccupied with his own thoughts than anything going on around him and running completely on autopilot. “You just are.”

Duo’s hands dropped to his sides as he let out an exasperated sigh. “Different as in different physically or just plain different?” he clarified, staring up at the ceiling desperately. He had never noticed the twilight sky that swirled across the ceiling in gorgeous shades of violet, purple and cobalt. He lifted his Nikon over his face and peered through the view finder, photographing the gorgeous designs adorning the rafters.

“Both, I think,” Heero responded, still distracted. He moved to a spot on the floor with a spread of many differently coloured paints sitting in a myriad of diversely shaped jars on the second-to-last shelf of his bookcase. A palette sat on his thighs, a smudged and dirty plastic box with a thin, wet sponge underneath a sheet of wax paper inside to keep his oils wet indefinitely. Duo once again found himself slipping into that dazed, observant trance as he watched Heero select his colours, his slim fingers dancing across the various jars almost lovingly as if he could feel the colour through their containers. “I’ve never met anyone in the world who looks quite like you and your personality is... not typical, even for a punk.”

“Why thank you, Heero,” Duo said dryly, though somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that the comment was sincere. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Heero made a small grunt, acknowledging that he had heard Duo. Whether his lack of response had to do with his preoccupation with smearing dabbles of paint from his jars with a palette knife onto the wax paper or simply because he couldn’t think of anything to say at all, Duo wasn’t sure. At the moment, it wasn’t exactly at the top of his list of important things to focus on as the image Heero presented right then was inducing that inhibited state again, and the fact that this was the third time in a matter of twenty minutes was gnawing away at his brain cells.

“Why are you always so nervous around me?” Heero asked, dropping a blob of dark brown paint onto his palette with his knife. Scraping it on the edge of the jar to ger rid of the extra paint, then cleaning it on a turpentine-dipped rag resting on his knee. Heero looked pointedly at Duo, “Am I really that hard to be around?”

Duo snapped out of his daze, his eyes darting about as he grabbed for a quick answer. “You can be,” Duo settled on, making it sound as open-ended as possible.

“You’re no walk in the park either,” Heero replied, screwing the lid on the last of his jars and standing up, carrying his palette and rag over to the easel. He paused for a moment as he started to set the palette down on the stool beside the easel. His eyes were downcast, shadowed by his ragged bangs and his long, dark eyelashes as he whispered almost incoherently, “But it’s still a beautiful walk nonetheless.” He fell into his traditional silence again, the noiseless air so heavy that Duo could hear every single tiny noise that rang through the basement. He had been in the process of snapping a photograph of the collection of paintings leaning against each other on the floor and found himself unable to press the shutter, stuck in the suffocating pause.

“W-Well, I like to think I’m a pretty easy-going guy,” Duo said querulously, his hands automatically creeping towards his braid. He was so confused; being around Heero had never set his nerves crackling with so much electricity. Usually Heero’s presence got him riled, sent him into his defensive offense. Or perhaps it was his offensive defense. He’s not acting much different from the way he usually does. So what’s the deal? Why am I so tense all of the sudden? he wondered as he started babbling nervously aloud, trying to fill the frightening silence in the best way he knew how. “It’s not like I run around making people scared or nothin’. I just like to do what I do, fuck the rest of the world, you kno--”

“Duo.” Heero’s voice sliced through the braided one’s rambling monologue. Duo glanced over in Heero’s direction and was a little unnerved to find himself shuddering under that intense blue gaze. There was a brief pause while they both stared unwaveringly at each other, then: “Shut up.”

“See, now there’s your problem,” Duo preached, closing his eyes as he shook his finger at Heero. “You just don’t know when to quit. One minute you’ll be all mysterious and confusing, and the next, a right bastard. What’re you trying to prove to me with the act, Heero?”

“You know, every time you do that,” Heero admonished, gesturing with a long paintbrush to Duo’s outstretched index finger, “you have three more pointing right back at you.”

“See? There you go doing it again!” Duo let out a groan and turned around, stepped over towards the hammock and flopped down on his back in it. “Christ, Heero! Can’t you just be straightforward and honest with me? Drop the high-and-mighty routine, please, for the love of God!” He toed off his boots and kicked them off his feet, the heavy black shoes landing with a loud thump on the concrete floor.

Heero stared at Duo unblinkingly. “I am being straightforward with you, Duo,” he said. “I always am.”

“But you’re high-and-mighty when you do it,” Duo pointed out quickly, sitting up in the hammock, his fingers curled around its edges to help steady its gentle rocking.

“You’re high-and-mighty when you do things. You’re being high-and-mighty right now,” Heero pointed out, stepping out from behind the easel and treading softly over towards Duo. He moved silently, like a cat, and Duo found himself checking the floor to make sure that Heero’s sock-covered feet weren’t hovering over it as he came nearer. “And you always set things on edge, even when I try to reach out to you,” he went on, standing beside Duo now and looking him straight in the eye. “I ask a question, and you throw up the shields, whip out the guns and start firing like a blind fool. How will we ever be friends if you keep doing this, Duo?”

Heero looked very sincere, his face sporting that odd expression that made Duo’s heart flutter erratically and his knees like pudding. How can just a pair of angry, blue eyes do that? he asked himself, riveted on that imploring glare of Heero’s. I feel like he’s going to freeze and melt me with that stare at the exact same time.

Duo was so lost in his mind’s wanderings that he was caught totally unaware when a pair of strong arms wound themselves around his torso, completely shocking his system and his inner voices to a standstill. He came crashing back to reality to find himself still swinging in the hammock, his lips and nose buried against Heero’s collarbone, eyes peering out across his shoulder. “I thought...” Heero’s deep voice rumbled in his chest and shook Duo to his core, “...we decided to be friends, Duo. Don’t fight with me; I fight with so many people and...” His voice trailed off, the slow, undulating vibrations melting into the steady, regular rise and fall of his breathing.

“What, Heero? And what?” Duo prodded, his words muffled in the cotton of Heero’s tee-shirt.

There was another one of Heero’s slight pauses during which he seemed to be calculating and evaluating what he was going to say. “...And I don’t want to be fighting with you,” came the hushed response at last. “I said I like painting you because you’re different, and I meant it. But it kind of goes beyond just the palette and the brushes, Duo,” he explained, gently prying Duo off his shoulder and looking at him straight in the eye with that look of his. “I like painting you. Every time I look at you, I can see your every mood sweltering on your skin for the world to see, and yet at the same time, you’re running scared. You’re a paradox, Duo; you fascinate me. I want to be closer to you so I can understand. But whenever I get close, you always tuck everything under your arm and run.”

Duo vaguely remembered how Heero had held Meilan in a similar way when he’d been comforting her. Duo was certain there was something different about the way Heero looked at him and quickly chalked it up to the fact that their situations were quite different. “I run, I hide, I do everything, but I never lie,” Duo found himself saying blankly, his lips moving slowly as he watched the sunlight streaming in through the window behind him dance in Heero’s gleaming, sapphire eyes. “I always hide,” he found himself still talking, as he usually tended to do when he wasn’t thinking. “I hide the same way you hide... whatever you are behind those... those eyes of yours,” he murmured, still entranced by the way the sunlight played in yellow checkered squares upon blue. “God, I hate your eyes,” he went on, though his voice was still hardly above a whisper as a stray hand reached up to play with an unruly spike of brown hair falling over Heero’s nose. “Such gorgeous eyes....”

“Once again, I am confused and fascinated by you, Duo Maxwell,” Heero announced rather huskily, a tone which, had he not been so distracted, Duo probably would have drawn out some unnecessary innuendo. “You know,” he went on, “with the way you keep mentioning that you hate me, but love my looks, I would have to say you’re being rather superficial, Duo.” A dark gleam settled in Heero’s eyes, one which Duo had come to associate with Heero’s subtle mischief.

Duo fingered his camera as he swung himself side to side in the hammock with the foot that just touched the floor. “Score for Yuy,” he murmured, lifting the camera and drawing it close so he could look through the view finder. He skimmed across the room, examining everything through the eye of the lens, half in search of something to shoot, half because he was trying to distract himself from his defeat.

“Did you just admit that I was right?” Heero asked, bewildered.

Duo swung his camera around, framing Heero beside the easel in the view finder, a regular HB pencil hanging loosely in one hand, falling away from the canvas upon which he had begun a loose sketch of his squirming model. “Yeah,” Duo answered softly as his finger pressed lightly on the silver shutter, illuminating the neon green light meter beneath the view finder’s image. Without even realizing what he was doing, his finger fell harder upon the shutter, the sound of the camera’s mechanisms allowing light to flash onto the film before advancing it to the next frame filling the stillness around them. A small smile flitted across Heero’s lips as he returned to sketching and Duo found himself pressing the shutter almost instantly once again, that satisfying noise filling the room again.

“Just lay back and relax, Duo,” Heero said when he noticed Duo staring at his camera with wide, almost disbelieving eyes, like it had taken those two pictures all by itself. Heero chuckled lightly at the image; Duo’s facial expressions were so amusing, almost as much as his quick banter. “You take photography?”

“Apparently so,” Duo answered, gesturing to his camera. He then forgot it and reclined on the hammock, his one leg still draped over the edge as he rocked himself. He threw one arm behind his head as a sort of pillow, the other hand gently supporting his precious camera on his chest. “We have this assignment for the weekend to photograph ‘truth’. I dunno what that means, but I’m sure I’ll be able to BS something once I take a look at the contact sheet.” He grinned privately to himself and contented himself to examine the intricate patterns wafting across the ceiling as he sang quietly to himself, before the silence ate him alive.

“I... I’m a one-way motor way.
I’m a road that drives away
And follows you back home.
I... I’m a streetlight shining.
I’m a white light, blinding bright,
Burning off and on.
It’s time like these you learn to live again....”

“Truth?” Heero questioned, pausing to think about that himself for a moment. After a minute of quiet pondering, Heero returned to his work, asking his longhaired model the question that had come to mind during that time. “Shouldn’t that be easy for you? Don’t you not lie?”

Duo stopped singing under his breath for a moment to reply. “Are you mocking me, Yuy?” he wondered a little coolly. “Because I get the distinct feeling that you are. Can’t you ever say anything without belittling me?”

“Gomen, Duo. It was not my intent to belittle you,” Heero apologized, his strange, oriental, blue eyes flicking around the easel to catch another look at Duo before returning to his canvas for a moment. It unnerved Duo a little when he realized that Heero was spending more time looking at him than his actual sketch. Duo supposed that drawing was so second-nature for Heero, he was able to do so without constantly watching his progress. “And I wasn’t mocking you either,” he added. “I was just curious... since you seem to make it so clear that honesty is a key part of your character.”

“Well, that may be so, but to find a way to photograph that is harder than it seems,” Duo decided with a slight air of self-defense. He started singing again, this time a little louder, hoping that it would deter Heero from asking him more questions. Any more interrogation and soon Duo would be lying stripped and naked in that hammock.

“I... I’m a new day rising.
I’m a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight.
But I... I’m a little divided.
Do I stay or run away and leave it all behind?
It’s times like these you learn to live again....”

“So why not take a series of self-portraits?” Heero suggested, breaking Duo’s light humming. “Why’re you taking pictures of my practically nonexistent little studio? Why take pictures of me?”

Duo swallowed his song, a little annoyed that his plan hadn’t worked. Now he felt like he was obligated to say something in return. “I hadn’t meant to. My finger slipped on the shutter,” Duo explained quickly, hoping that would stick. To a point, it was true.

“Twice?” Heero pressed, laying down his pencil. He stepped around the easel and starting walking towards Duo, his face set grim as usual, despite the dark glimmer in his shadowy, Prussian eyes.

“Twice,” Duo affirmed with an audible gulp as Heero leaned over him and bent down a little so their noses were millimeters apart, their eyes unable to look anywhere else but into each other’s. Duo swallowed again, finding himself entranced by Heero’s slightly parted lips. Just lean up a little and I could....

“Is that a lie, Duo?” Heero asked, cutting Duo’s thoughts short, something for which the braided mechanic was actually grateful. Or at least, that was what he told himself as soon as it happened.

“It just happened naturally,” Duo said, growing a little distracted by the sensation of Heero’s hot breath puffing across his face. “You know, beauty in truth, truth in beauty?” A look of cunning darted across Duo’s face as he took the thread and ran with it. “Naturally, if truth is beauty, then a photograph of something beautiful would be truth?”

“That would be true,” Heero whispered, his eyelids slipping half closed, that mysterious blue glimmer peering from underneath lovely, long, thick eyelashes. Suddenly, Heero straightened up, a smirk teasing those pretty, coral lips of his. “I suppose I’m painting truth as well then, aren’t I?”

“If you think I’m beautiful,” Duo said drolly.

Heero had no need to say anything to that; both of them knew what his answer would have been anyway. Instead, he gently pried the camera out of Duo’s fingers and carefully set it down on his nearby drafting table. Duo watched wide-eyed as Heero’s fingers fell upon the buttons of his shirt, deftly sliding the little plastic circles through the slits holding the two halves of cloth together. “I can’t be truly beautiful to you until you know all my truth,” Heero said as he watched Duo’s shirt fall open, revealing a thin, smooth, muscle-hardened torso that was rising and falling with many nervous breaths. “And I can’t know your truth until I’ve seen... all your beauty,” he whispered, his fingers hovering above Duo’s quivering chest and flying up to his cheek, which he stroked gently before quickly retreating back to his easel. Without another word, he picked up his brush, dipped it in his jar of turpentine and chose a colour to begin his rendition of truth.

Duo found himself staring dumbly up at the ceiling, his mind replaying what had just happened. His atoms had become erratic when Heero had unbuttoned his shirt and said those things, but now they just had the urge to explode into their carefree misty form and hightail it out of there. Heero’s light touches here and there, even when there were very logical explanations for them, such as setting Duo up for an appealing painting, were starting to get to the longhaired teenager. Chalk it up to lusting hormones or perhaps a fond thought or two of the blue-eyed Japanese, but Duo was finding it harder and harder to be bitter towards Heero, much less ignore his existence entirely.

“Look at me, Duo,” Heero’s voice interrupted his thoughts yet again, something it seemed to have an uncanny talent for doing. Duo complied, gently turning his head to the side. He still lay in that lax position on the hammock, one hand curled behind his head and the other resting comfortably on his chest. His heart was acting a damn fool underneath his hand, dancing around and performing aerobatics that would make any circus performer bow in defeat. “God, Duo, are you always so nervous, or is it just me?” Heero spoke up suddenly, making Duo’s heart practically shatter through his ribcage.

“What can I say,” Duo shrugged, trying hard to cover up the fact that Heero had hit the nail on the head. “I’m paranoid as fuck.”

“And just how paranoid is fuck?”Heero asked with his usual placid swiftness.

“Pretty fucking paranoid, I’d say,” Duo replied, finding the conversation comforting and a welcome distraction. “Like I always say, I run, I hide, but I never lie. S’my motto.”

“A very interesting motto. It suits you well,” Heero said as his left hand sneaked out from behind the easel and played in the dabble of yellow paint on his palette. His hand hovered over the paints for a moment before Heero peeked around the canvas. “I sort of have a motto too,” he said quietly, not sure if he really wanted to say what he was going to and a little shocked that he even thought of doing so. Taking a deep breath, Heero kept going. “’You may as well live your life according to your emotions. That’s the right path for people who live in the present.’” Heero sighed when he was finished, his cheeks a little pink. “I can’t believe I just said that; I’ve never told anyone that before, except for Trowa, really.”

Duo was busy rolling the words around in his brain, liking the way they had sounded. He could still hear Heero saying them and they kept replaying over and over in that wonderful, low purr of his. “And you live by that?” Duo asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. He may have been warming up to Heero somewhat, but that didn’t mean he had forgotten the way Heero had acted earlier in their relationship.

“Well, I try to, very hard, but it’s not easy for me. I look at it as more of a goal, I suppose,” Heero answered, returning to his work. “I... I just... well....” Heero let out a very audible sigh again, clearly struggling with his words.

For the first time, Duo realized how much trouble Heero had opening up like this, feeling one of those heart-wrenching twangs in his chest as he mulled the thought through his head. “You just...?” Duo prodded, trying to encourage Heero to finish. To tell the honest truth, he wanted to know where Heero had heard such a good piece of advice.

“It was my old man’s thing. That is, my old man before O-tou-san. Used to say it all the time,” Heero explained, his hand lingering over the canvas, paused in its artistic trek across it. Heero furrowed his brow as if he were confused by the words as they came tumbling out of his mouth. “He died when I was still a brat, so I can’t really say I know too much about him. I know O-tou-san as more of a father than my old man anyway. Not that I didn’t love him or anything, but there just wasn’t time to really know him. He was gone before I ever learned to truly care about him.” Heero sounded very nostalgic, his eyelashes shadowing his eyes again as he stared down at his feet. “Still, those had been... happier years. He actually...” Heero shook his head, his long bangs stroking his nose gently with the motion, and said no more.

“How’d he die?” Duo asked quietly, not wanting to kill the mood with some heartless and out-of-place sarcasm. It felt like he was talking to someone else almost, though in his gut, he knew that he was still in the room with Heero Yuy, just as he had always been. Now he felt like it was time to lay down his weapon and listen before this Heero Yuy ran away and hid wherever he had come from.

“Plague,” Heero said simply, dipping his brush into the turpentine and wiping it clean on his paint-stained rag. “There were still a few freak cases even after they had managed to surppress the thing. My old man was one of them.”

Duo was silent and brooding for a moment. “Meilan said her dad died the same way,” he finally spoke up, trying to keep the conversation going before he slipped into one of those horrible, saddened silences. “Do you ever talk to her about it?”

“It’s kind of how we became friends,” Heero told Duo, walking back over towards his model lounging in the hammock. He pulled the swivel chair out from underneath the drafting table and rolled it to Duo’s side, straddling it backwards and resting his chin upon his folded arms over the back. He let out a small chuckle. “Heh, Trowa and she are the only ones I’ve ever told this to before you. Shows how many real friends I have, huh?”

“Oh stop that. You’re one of the most popular kids in school and you damn well know it,” Duo groaned, sensing that it was okay for him to change positions now. He moved the hand on his chest to the nook behind his head with the other one, though he was too lazy to bother buttoning up his shirt again. Besides, the cool air in the basement felt pretty nice against his bare skin.

“Duo, being popular doesn’t mean that I have fields and fields of friends. I’m only considered so because of my athletic ability,” Heero said, making a bitter face that Duo actually thought was rather cute on the Japanese boy’s usually surly countenance. “In fact, being popular doesn’t mean anything like that. I could count my friends on my two hands, maybe. Besides,” he added with an even darker scowl, “all that so-called popularity wins you is a horde of stalker-ish females who follow you around, waiting to be asked on a date. Trust me Duo, it’s not all that great.” He shook his head and looked directly at Duo, a small, almost sad smile festering upon his lips. “Do you know how often I’ve wished I was more like you?”

“Me?” Duo sat bolt upright, his jerky movements threatening to send him spilling over the side of the hammock. “The fuck would you wanna be like me for?”

“God, I wish I just had ordinary talents and plain features,” Heero sighed, lowering his chin back into his hands, though his blue eyes were still dancing across Duo’s form. He smiled briefly and let out another wry chuckle. “So I suppose I’d wish I could be less than you, because your talents are far from ordinary and your features far from plain.”

“Whoa, stop the presses, Yuy,” Duo said, holding up a hand. “Are you saying you want to be friends with me ‘cause you want to learn how to be like me?”

“Yes! I mean, no!” Heero started to get flustered again, his fingers tightening around the back of the chair. “What I mean is,” he amended in the controlled voice Duo was more used to hearing, “I want to be friends with you because I want to be friends with you. You’re different and I... I want something different.” He closed his eyes, murmuring, “I’ve wanted that for a long time.”

“Wanted what, exactly?” Duo wondered aloud, watching Heero carefully for a reaction. He was still on edge, worried that Heero might be trying to pull something funny like yanking the wool over his eyes and leading him to the edge of a cliff. “To have me teach you how to be different, is that it?” Duo narrowed his eyes, looking colder than ever. “So much for not having any strings attached, Yuy.”

Heero’s own expression darkened as he grimaced, “Why do you always have to run around doubting everyone’s intentions? What if I just genuinely want to be with you? Is that wrong, Duo?”

“I...!” Duo sat up and opened his mouth, then clapped it shut almost immediately, the hammock swinging him radically back and forth. He was starting to notice how often the things Heero said rendered him speechless, a rare feat in and of itself. “No,” he finally said, glum with defeat. “I suppose not.”

Heero smiled a bit at Duo’s cutely agitated expression and gave the hammock a hearty push, the sudden propulsion sending Duo finally tumbling out of it.

“That, however, was,” Duo said scathingly to Heero from his spot on the floor, though the laughing gait dancing happily behind his tone was not so easily lost. “You’re a big, fat jerk, you know that, Yuy?” Duo’s chuckle finally broke through his tough-guy act and brought a smile to both their faces.

“Just as big and fat of a jerk as you are, Duo,” Heero responded glibly. He gracefully swung off the chair and swooped down into a crouch in front of Duo, looking like a curiously stubborn kitten. “You’re gonna be swinging those dangerous fists of yours until one of us really gets decked, aren’t you?”

“You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie, Heero,” Duo deadpanned.

“Ever think that you might accidentally lay one on yourself?” Heero asked with a bemused smile and an arched eyebrow. That twinkle in his eye was gleaming in the low light around them and Duo was beginning to wonder if the only way to be rid of that mischievous, knowing gleam would be to claw Heero’s eyes out. “It’d be a pretty sad day when Duo Maxwell comes stumbling out of a fist fight he lost to himself.”

“Okay, buster, what’re you suggesting we do?” Duo sighed, realizing that Heero was far more persistent than he’d initially taken him for. He would even dare say that Heero was more persistent than Duo himself!

“Exactly what I’ve been pestering you to do for quite some time now: be my friend,” Heero answered doggedly, still stooped in his feline-like crouch. If Heero had a tail, Duo was sure it would have been swishing vibrantly across the floor right then.

“Does Catherine read trashy romance novels?” Duo suddenly asked, one brow furrowed inquisitively as he glared at Heero with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah. Why?” Heero looked thoroughly confused. It seemed like it would still take the Japanese boy some time to grow accustomed to Duo’s particular brand of thought-pattern.

“You been snoopin’ through them for material?” A smirk was starting to widen on Duo’s face, threatening to throw the look of militant inquisition for a total loop. “You really are one desperate fuck if you’re out to be friends with me, given who you are,” Duo went on with a slight air of pretentiousness. “That, or you’re just a sucker for pain with a masochist streak a mile wide.” Duo spread his arms out as wide as he could to illustrate the large size.

Heero let out a sigh, thinking mildly that he should start trying to suppress those before they became a gross habit. “Duo, if I was desperate, I’d be Relena’s boyfriend by now,” he explained in as calm a tone as he could, the very idea of it creeping him out to no end. He probably could have fathomed the concept if she didn’t follow him everywhere and actually gave a damn about Heero himself instead of the title he carried around with him as star lacrosse player. He was pretty sure that had he been just another kid in the school, Relena would have hardly looked twice in his direction. She was just fixated on the idea of him, and he had a feeling like she wouldn’t have bothered to get to know him if her life depended on it. That was a source of eternal annoyance to Heero.

“Okay, okay, another point for you,” Duo waved it off nonchalantly, batting his hands spastically back and forth. “But why me? I ain’t nearly as foxy as she is.”

“Yeah, but you’re nowhere near as irritating as she is,” Heero groaned, not quite sure where Duo could have pulled an adjective like that for Relena from except his ass, just for the sake of saying something. Heero scanned Duo up and down. “And that says something,” he added, knowing that a comment like that was bound to get a rise out of the longhaired mechanic. Good, Heero decided. Fight fire with fire, he says....

“Is that meant to be an insult, Yuy?” Duo fell forward on his hands and knees, scuttling over towards Heero and getting right up in his face like a guard dog examining a new adversary. “’Cause even if it wasn’t, I’m insulted. Why’d you say that, huh?” Duo was actually pouting at him, which gave Heero the distinct feeling that Duo was just attempting to yank his chain and corner him again.

“Enough of your questions. My turn,” Heero slid a hand between their faces, gently nudging Duo’s nose a few inches away from his own. At Duo’s confused expression, he explained, “You ask me a question, I ask you one. You may talk all the damn time, but I still know next to nothing about you.”

“Yeah, good battle tactic, isn’t it?” Duo yawned with a wink as he sat back on his haunches. “Nice, loose and easy-going’s the way I like to play it, unlike you,” he said, gesturing at Heero’s defensive crouch, though there was more mirth than animosity when he spoke this time. “Look at you, dude! You’re tense like a constipated soldier!” Duo laughed loudly at his joke, which, for some reason, loosened the corners of said soldier’s mouth. “Okay, soldier-boy, we’ll play your game,” Duo said with a most-evil glower in his eye. “Ask away!”

“The hair. What’s with the hair? Why so long?” Heero blurted out the moment he got the okay from Duo, not even realizing that he’d done so until he caught a glimpse of Duo’s stiffened expression. God, he cycles through his every mood in less than a heartbeat, Heero thought, growing worried that he’d just done something to royally fuck things up.

Duo’s hands were gripping his braid tightly, his white-knuckled hold on it reminding Heero vaguely of a mountain-climber who was holding onto his last rope for dear life. “No fair,” Duo said in a chopped voice. “Pick another question.”

“I told you about my old man!” Heero protested tersely, knowing full-well that he had a damn good argument there. “If this is going to work, you’re gonna have to open up to me sometime, Duo. So why don’t we start now?!” Heero hoped he sounded less angry to Duo than he had to himself.

“Goddammit,” Duo swore, plopping down on his ass, his legs splayed out messily in front of him as he leaned back on the heels of his hands. He sent a glare at Heero, one which the Japanese boy might have been fearful of under any other circumstances save for that telltale gleam creeping back into Duo’s indigo irises. “One for one,” Duo shook his head, his fingers toying absently with the end of his hair on the floor behind him. “You don’t pull your punches, do you, Yuy?”

Heero simply shrugged and waited patiently for Duo to answer his question. It sounded a little cheesy, but it was the best way that Heero could think of to get to know Duo better and if they were to be friends, it was essential that they learned as much as they could about one another. Hopefully the process would make Heero more comfortable with not only Duo, but also with his other friends. It kind of disheartened him to think that the people he called friends, aside from Trowa perhaps, were those who could put up with his social deficiencies.

“I used to be a street punk. It might sound kind of gross to you, but having long hair was good for keeping warm,” Duo began softly, wistfully. “A lot of the other guys in the gang were too macho to grow their hair past their shoulders. I may have looked like a girl, but at least I was nice and toasty when I curled up at night.” Silently, Duo thought back to some of the other things some of his old gang comrades would say to him that went beyond just his hair. They had loads of fun making fun of their two mutant stooges, especially Duo; at least the other one had the sense to keep his hair shorter like the rest of the boys. Then again, since that friend would curl up next to Duo underneath the blanket of his hair, there really hadn’t been a need for it.

“Aa,” Heero nodded slowly. A slight pause ensued before he asked, “That’s it, then? Warmth? Surely you don’t still need to have it so long since you’re not wandering around with a gang anymore. Why haven’t you cut it?”

“Now, now, now,” Duo waved a finger at Heero, grinning, “you got your one question. I believe it’s my turn to ask you something.”

“Fine,” Heero sighed, realizing that he was going to have to play his own game. “Shoot.”

“What happened to you after your dad kicked the can?”

Heero hung his head in what appeared to be sadness or perhaps even a bit of shame. Forgetting everything he had ever fed himself about Heero and what he thought about him, Duo couldn’t help but feel more sorry for the other boy than he’d felt for just about anyone in his entire life. He felt an odd twitch in his fingers like he wanted to reach out and touch Heero in consolation. The strange sensation was soon masked by the familiar tickle of his atoms begging for the freedom of their whizzing mist-form, which, he realized, he had not allowed himself to do for several days.

“I spent a couple days with some lady from social services until they got all the papers sorted out,” Heero started to explain, his voice laden with some far-gone sorrow. “Apparently I was to go live with my grandfather, according to the documents.” A scowl doodled itself angrily across Heero’s features. “I suppose that was the logical thing to do since the rotting son of a bitch was my only blood relative.” Heero’s entire form seemed to droop as he delved further into his tale. “I really tried to like the old asshole, but he made it so damn hard. After a while, I just couldn’t take it and I ran away.”

“And then you met Trowa,” Duo said simply, summing up the story. Quatre had told him about how Heero had been hitch hiking and ended up with Trowa.

“Pretty much,” Heero shrugged, though there was something in his tone that suggested to Duo that perhaps there was a little more to this than Heero was telling. Duo decided it was alright for the time being though, and that he’d weasel it out of Heero eventually. “Well, I suppose it’s back to me again,” Heero said, suddenly in a rush to change the topic. “Now tell me: why don’t you cut your hair?”

“Memories,” Duo shrugged simply. “It’s just a way for me to remember and keep everything that’s happened to me close by. I don’t want to forget anything, or let anything go... though sometimes I do wish I could free myself from all of it.”

“Aa,” Heero grunted, realizing how much sense the answer made. He thought quietly to himself for a moment and then asked, “Does that have anything to do with why you call yourself the God of Death?”

“Because it sounds cool, doesn’t it?” Duo grinned wide, the skin beneath his large purple eyes crinkling as he did so, not minding that Heero had just woven an extra question into his turn. “Eh, it’s what my childhood pals used to call me, and I guess the name just never went away. Besides, I bet you don’t have a kick-ass nickname like that for yourself, Zero,” he jibed, referring to the monogrammed word on Heero’s lacrosse helmet.

“Duo....” Heero’s voice was a low, warning growl.

“Okay, okay, pipe down. I’ll tell ya,” Duo sighed, rolling his eyes. The corners of his mouth dropped into a brief frown, only to flicker back up into a smile, albeit not quite as large as before. “You know that plague that ripped down the Cali coast way back when? The one that knocked off your old man?” Duo glanced at Heero to see him nodding slowly. Duo thought quickly, trying to figure out how he could tell the story honestly without divulging the secret about how his mutated genes kept him in constant good health. Lord knew it had earned him enough enemies for one lifetime. “Well, it killed or seriously maimed a lot of people I was aquatinted with as a brat,” he explained vaguely. “Except for me, that is. I skipped out on Death while everyone else was falling dead on the steps of hospitals, waiting for the vaccine.”

“Oh,” Heero nodded. Without a word, he lifted up his shirt and gestured to the tattoo on the small of his back. Duo peered at it and for the first time, noticed many scars and burn marks marring Heero’s lightly caramel-toned skin hidden beneath the intricate pattern inked there. Now that Heero had drawn his attention to it, Duo couldn’t help but notice the blemishes the tattoo was trying to hide, as well as a couple other burn marks and scars decorating the rest of his body here and there. “Same thing,” he said, self-consciously tugging his cotton tee over his slim, powerful torso quickly, hiding the angel wings from view. “I got it to cover up the scars I got from the plague. That... wasn’t a good time for me. Sometimes I wished I’d died too, but for some reason....” He trailed off, his eyes climbing up to gaze at the ceiling wistfully. It seemed like he was trying to make unshed tears leak back into his head with the simple force of gravity.

“Well you didn’t die, so get over it,” Duo muttered darkly. Quickly brightening again, he clapped his hands and drew the mood out of the doldrums. “Now since you offered that bit of information of your own accord, that doesn’t count as my question,” he said with a wicked grin. Rubbing his hands maniacally together, he took his turn. “What is...” Duo’s eyes were practically glowing with that devilish light, “...your favourite colour?!”

Heero’s jaw dropped and he had to quickly collect it before he could even think about an answer. What kind of question was that? Here he had been expecting Duo to ask something personal, perhaps delve for more information about his old man, and instead he asks what his favourite colour was! “Blue,” Heero said, furrowing his brow as he thought more about it. “No, yellow!” he amended almost instantaneously. “Or... ahhhhh,” he groaned, finally dropping out of his crouch and settling into a far more comfortable position on the floor.

“Whoa, Heero, relax. S’not like I’m asking you the meaning of life here. It’s just a simple question,” Duo said easily, tossing his head so his braid went whipping over his shoulder. “Don’t think about it this time. Just say whatever you think. Now, I’ll ask you again: what’s your favourite colour?”

“Blue,” Heero answered, this time very sure of himself. “Dark blue.”

Duo was nodding, his lips puckered in a small pout of contemplation. Stroking his chin as if he were deep in thought, his violet eyes flicked up and caught Heero’s. “Why?” he asked simply.

“Because...” Heero suddenly stopped and shook his head violently, dark brown shocks of short, spiked, messy hair flying all around his head as he did so. “No fair. My turn for a question,” he found himself saying as an excuse.

“Oh lighten up, Heero!” Duo laughed. “Come on, indulge me. I thought this was part of our getting-to-know-you ritual.”

If I have a masochistic streak a mile wide, then by God, Duo has a sadistic one twice as large, Heero thought sardonically to himself as he sized Duo up with a quick glance, deciding then and there that he would learn who Duo Maxwell was if it killed him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, some snide, unneeded voice commented that attempting such a thing probably would. So, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth and said the first thing that came to mind. “Because my father had blue eyes,” Heero said, avoiding Duo for a moment, afraid that his reaction might be a mocking one. “Really, really blue, intense eyes that burned with this icy fire. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that shade of blue....”

“Like your eyes,” Duo breathed. Heero chanced a look at Duo, who was looking at him with this odd, imploring look. “And the yellow?” he pressed, his voice dropping an octave lower. Heero thought it made Duo sound even more mysterious than he already was, a fey sprite who had suddenly transformed into some kind of demon.

“His hair was yellow,” Heero shrugged nonchalantly. “Not golden or even really blonde,” he elaborated. “Just yellow, like corn or wheat. Very plain, but a good colour, I think.” Heero let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding as he finished talking about his father. He’d never told anyone this much about his life before he’d met Trowa. Even the Barton family had never heard much further about Heero’s old man other than that he had died and left Heero alone.

“What was his name?” Duo asked softly, sensing Heero’s unease. He’d never thought that Heero would have something like this hidden away inside. It seemed like there was far more to Heero than what he’d seen. Would he like what he found out? Would Heero like what he found out about Duo? The mere thought of his mutation sent his atoms jittering slightly, the blackened aura that hovered above his skin at the movement obscured by the shadows lingering around them.

“Odin Lowe,” Heero said, sounding extremely far away. It seemed like this conversation had just sent Heero full-throttle into a memory sequence that clearly left Duo alone in the basement. “He was... the only adult who ever said he loved me when I was a child.”

Duo remembered vaguely Heero yelling at him about his dead mother once when Duo had first come to the Barton house to work on the Cooper. He had said something about keeping her last name in honour of her. Once again, Duo was surprised at how much angst Heero had bottled up inside. For the first time, he realized that what Quatre had been telling him all along about Heero was true. Perhaps... just perhaps Heero wasn’t as terrible as he’d initially thought.

“But that’s all the past,” Heero suddenly spoke up. It seemed to Duo like the Japanese boy was trying his best to choke back tears or some other kind of swelling emotion. “Trowa’s family is my family now,” he said, a small, warm smile toying with his lips. “I’ve never had a real family before, one that really loves me. I love them very much as well.”

Heero Yuy loved someone? Is it physically possible? Duo wondered, making sure his face betrayed none of his thoughts. He bit his lip and said nothing, worried that he might say something to upset Heero, who was obviously in a fragile state right then. Who’d have thought he’d seem so... so lost...? Duo’s mental voice added pensively.

“My turn for a question,” Heero said abruptly, breaking their silence.

Duo looked up and waited, wondering why he felt so airy and nervous. He was usually so confident! His body never went out of control save when he was extremely testy. But nervous? He’d never let his mutation take control because of something as mundane as that! “Okay,” he said tentatively, though his slow speech wasn’t because he was wary of whatever Heero would ask, but more because he wanted to keep his stress and energy levels as low as possible. The last thing he could afford would be to reveal his mutation to someone who might not think it was so wonderful. A part of Duo wondered why he cared so much if Heero hated him and he quickly shrugged it off, deciding that there was no place for such mental wanderings.

“Do you love me?”

Now that was something he’d never expected to be asked. Duo’s eyes widened and he froze with shock, only to be roused back to reality when he felt the particles of his left foot slowly peeling away and scattering in a low mist upon the floor. “Do I what?” he asked, quickly leaping upon his foot and grabbing his ankle with both hands before Heero had chance to notice the physical change it had undergone. With a dirty glare, he willed the atoms to return and take their usual form once more.

“I suppose... the question should be ‘Could you love me’?” Heero said softly as he eyed Duo’s odd movements from beneath his lowered eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” he went on, obviously taking Duo’s antics for an easy way out of the question. “I shouldn’t have asked something like that. I think I know the answer anyway.”

Duo pulled his knees against his chest, trying to hold himself together in case some other limb should try anything else funny. “Why would you ask me a question like that, Heero?”

Maybe it had been Duo’s imagination or those horrible jokers in his head, but he could have sworn that he saw a dark red blush manifest upon Heero’s cheeks when he made the query. “I don’t know,” Heero murmured, quickly standing up and heading back over towards his abandoned easel. Had he not been too embarrassed to look back at Duo, he would have found that the longhaired mechanic’s eyes were glued to his back, watching his every slight movement as he put his supplies away. “After all, you hate me, don’t you?” Heero turned to look at Duo for the first time since he’d stood up, folded easel resting on one shoulder.

Duo opened his mouth to speak but found himself unable to make a sound, a sure sign of the end of the universe. There was something in the way Heero was gazing at him, looking so heartbreakingly sad, that Duo just didn’t have it in him to say anything, even if it would have been to assure Heero that he was wrong. It was strange that even after months of secretly admiring those eyes of Heero’s, Duo had never truly noticed how melancholy the expression in them was. There’s a lot of things I never noticed about him, Duo went on with that train of thought. Who’da thunk that Mr. Preppiest-of-the-Preps was so... different? So real?

Heero almost managed to slip away without Duo’s notice once he’d cleaned up his easel and paints, leaning the barely started painting with all the others on the floor. Duo’s form, stretched out on the hammock, had been loosely sketched out in pencil, some basic colour plotting smeared upon the canvas. But Duo didn’t linger long enough to give the picture a very in-depth study and instead was quickly on his feet, walking the other direction after Heero. Amid the maze of surfboards, the braided lacrosse team manager was able to catch up with Heero, his hand shooting out of nowhere and snatching Heero’s, bringing the Japanese boy to a grinding halt.

“What now, Duo?” Heero sounded exasperated and a little tired as he looked down pointedly at his wrist clasped in Duo’s long hand. Head still inclined down, Heero’s eyes darted up to gaze at Duo from behind the curtain of long, spiky, dark chocolate bangs that fell in his face. “Come to tell me how stupid I am? Or perhaps to make fun of how preppy you seem to think I am?” Heero’s hand twitched and tightened in Duo’s grip. “Well, what insult now?” he implored.

“I don’t want to... I mean... God, I’m no good at this,” Duo scratched the back of his head with his free hand, his hold on Heero’s surprisingly delicate wrist unrelenting. With a swallow, he said a little timidly, “Why would a friend hurt another friend intentionally?” He chanced a smile, which was all it took for that glum look to flee Heero’s eyes. “See? No worries,” Duo said, flicking Heero’s nose.

“For someone with a mouth like yours, well, how could you not be good at being open and friendly?” Heero wondered aloud, a little perplexed by this sudden change of heart from Duo.

“It’s a harder job than it looks!” Duo scoffed indignantly.

“What, you mean acting the fool? Playing the clown? Being everyone’s court jester?” Heero asked incredulously. His every instinct was telling him to kick Duo where it hurt as hard as possible and flee, but for some reason, he didn’t even try to wrest his hand free of Duo’s. Part of him still stood behind the proclamation to learn everything there was to know about Duo out of pure scientific curiosity, while some other rebellious parts seemed to be digging around his brain for other reasons to stay in Duo’s keep.

“Yeah, well you try putting on the costume every day,” Duo sneered, dropping Heero’s hand.

“And you’re so quick to take it off for me,” Heero said drolly. “Thanks for the backstage show, but I’ll pass.” He quickly turned on his heel and started walking away again, this time much faster than before. The rebellious parts of his brain were slowly trickling back to the scientific side, he noticed. God, he gets such a rise out of me! he complained to himself, angry for losing control and snapping like that. We have this whole heart-to-heart discussion and then bam, it’s back to the same old crap. Heero glared over his shoulder, eyes widening with shock when he noticed that Duo was dogging him adamantly. Let’s see how far you’ll really go, hippie-boy, Heero challenged silently, his eyes communicating the dare to Duo without having to say a word.

He was on the stairs before Duo and about to quickly burst through the shop when he stopped, seeing that Meilan and Wufei seemed to be in the middle of something. From his low vantage point on the first landing, Heero could see Wufei slowly dancing Meilan around the room in a sort of improvised waltz to the music wafting gently from the radio behind the counter as he sang the words quietly into her ear. Sally was nowhere in sight. The whole scene made Heero smile a little to himself, glad that Wufei was getting over himself and Meilan wasn’t upset anymore.

But watching them made his heart constrict somewhat. A pained grimace crossed his face, feeling abandoned by the two of them. If they’d made up, had a discussion and decided to work on their relationship, that meant they’d be spending a lot more time together. And it wasn’t the kind of together that Heero could be included in; it was the together like Trowa and Quatre had. It was the together that left Heero the odd man out. All his friends, Trowa, Meilan, Milliardo, all of them, had someone special. Someone they could go to in a jam and talk to about everything under the sun. Why couldn’t he have that? Why was it so hard for him?

Duo caught up soon after, grabbing Heero by the shoulder and spinning him around, tearing his eyes from the couple. Looking rather vengeful, his shoulders heaving, lightweight, cotton, black shirt hanging loosely off his body and exposing his pale skin. Duo seemed like he was about to say something really brazen when Heero suddenly covered his lips with his index finger, silencing him. Blinking at Heero curiously, Duo arched an eyebrow as Heero jerked the thumb of his other hand over his shoulder, gesturing to Meilan and Wufei. With the same hand he drew a line across his throat and silently forbade Duo to interrupt.

“What’s your deal?” Duo growled in a harsh whisper, glaring hard at the impassive cobalt-flecked stare in front of him. His eyes frozen wide, he watched as Heero grabbed Duo’s open shirt and pulled him into an awkward hug, his chin resting on Duo’s shoulder.

Heero could hear Duo’s breathing billowing loudly across his cheek, the soft oldie song mingling with the heavy sound of Duo’s exhaling. He thought about those friends of his and their special ones, the very idea of being lonely making that clamp on his heart squeezing tighter. “Doshite, Duo?” he murmured into Duo’s shoulder, shaking slightly.

“Heero, I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Duo choked out, glancing down at the messy head of brown hair cuddled against the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Heero continued to whisper in Japanese, sounding very confused and even a little bitter. Just turn your head a little and press your lips.... The thought was enough to frighten Duo and jerk Heero away, sending the startled lacrosse player tumbling backwards to trip upon the stair behind him. Duo collapsed against the wall behind him, gasping and staring at Heero with wide eyes. Did I just have the urge for Heero to kiss me again? Heero Yuy kissing me?

However, Heero, unable to be privy to Duo’s thoughts, was confused and hurt by Duo’s sudden push. Mumbling something under his breath, Heero stood and started to continue up the stairs, no longer caring if he smashed Wufei’s and Meilan’s private moment to millions of pieces. A cruel voice in the back of his head commented that it wouldn’t be so bad to see it; after all, if he couldn’t have something like that, why should anyone else? A small growl in the back of his throat was enough to chase the mean-spirited thoughts away, but it did nothing to help Heero’s current state of unrest.

“Hey, hey, wait,” Duo called after Heero, skipping up the steps by twos in an effort to catch up with him. But Heero was already stalking through the shop, past the startled glances of Meilan and Wufei. By the time Duo was standing beside the Chinese couple, Heero had already walked out the door and could just be seen as he disappeared down the boardwalk. “Oh shit,” Duo cussed with an irritated stomp of his foot. “I really did it this time.”

“What’d you screw up now, Maxwell?” Wufei asked with a tiny smirk, which was quickly slapped off his face by Meilan. He glared at his fiancée with a look that bordered on either annoyance or embarrassment.

Duo shoved a hand in one pocket and sighed, still staring at the closed front door of the shop. Then, turning to face his friends, he asked, “Meilan, ‘Fei-cakes? Can we talk?”

“Sure,” Wufei answered after a brief pause. He walked over to the counter and made himself comfortable on the stool behind it for a long discussion, not even saying anything about the goofy nickname as Meilan followed close behind.

(x) X (x)

a/n: The insert song is by the almighty Foo Fighters, and the chappy title is a song by The Who, not Limp Bizkit (or however it’s spelled). As for the rest of the chappy, I hope you liked it. Oh, and sorry for my random Monty Python reference, but I just have this really... really... weird sense of humour. I couldn’t have that question without its proper answer, lol. (Hey, it worked out in the end.)

Thank you to everyone who’s reviewed, sent e-mails and/or fanart. (PS to Chiya: can you re-send that pic of Heero you did for me?) Stay tuned, and I love you all!