Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)

Game 5
My Generation

(x) X (x)

Quatre was standing at a crosswalk a few blocks from his house, rocking impatiently on the balls of his feet as he waited for the signal to change. It was a weekend tradition for him to traipse across town to Duo’s place to meet up with said braided boy, Dorothy and their other friends, Hilde Schbeicker and Lucrezia Noin to hang out while the other three banged around with Duo’s Deathscythe. Deathscythe was the name Duo had given his precious black car, an old piece of Thunderbird scrap he had salvaged and souped up into a raging growling beast of speed and sexiness. Even Quatre, who usually spent these weekend get-togethers keeping everyone fed and tending to the large plant dubbed Audrey II (an old science fair experiment gone wrong), had to admit that the car was a nice piece of machine ass. Every time the greasy lot got together, they somehow managed to come up with some crazy idea that would make the sleek two-seater hot rod even better than it had been the week before. Between their constant tinkering and Duo’s demonic driving, Deathscythe remained one the most formidable and well-known cars on the underground drag racing circuit.

Suddenly the shrill sound of three beeps from a car horn rang in Quatre’s ears, awaking him from his wandering musings about his friends and their beloved Deathscythe. He realized that the light had changed from red to green, the walk signal flashing at him to cross. Just as he was about to set his foot onto the black asphalt, the car horn sounded again and Quatre snapped around, a little annoyed at whoever the obnoxious driver was.
His eyes were met with the sight of a dark green jeep sitting at the red light on the other side of the street. Despite the chill weather, the top was not on, allowing Quatre to see the cinnamon haired boy sitting in the driver’s seat, leaning on the door as he gave Quatre another beep. “Hey Quatre!” he shouted with a subtle cheerful note ringing in his throat as he waved at him. “Need a lift?”

“Ah! Trowa!” Quatre chimed, recognition sinking in. He took a quick look around for any oncoming traffic and jogged lightly over towards the car in order to talk to his new friend easier. Nearing the car, he realized that Trowa was not alone in the vehicle. Sitting quietly in the passenger seat, cheek resting on tightened fist, was none other than the infamous Heero Yuy, his cloudy Prussian eyes focused dully on the blonde boy standing on the curb beside the jeep. It was strange but, try as Quatre might, he could not find any vibrations radiating from the stoic boy who was staring at him coldly. If Quatre’ eyes had not told him better, it would have seemed like he was not even there at all.

“Where are you off to on this fine Saturday morning?” Trowa asked with a discreet smile. Trowa may not have been a man of many words, and smiles may have seemed a rare occurrence, however he knew well the value of both and used them only when he saw fit. For some reason, he found Quatre a good reason to use both in record abundance.

“Oh, I was just walking to Duo’s.” Quatre explained, flicking his hand in the general direction of Duo’s shop. “He lives a couple blocks from school.” He paused and added so softly, that Trowa almost didn’t hear it: “My dad really doesn’t like me being friends with him.”

“Duo’s, eh?” Trowa mused, his smile melting into more of a smirk. He reached down and opened the door, hopping out of the jeep to allow Quatre passage to the backseat. “We’re heading over towards the school anyway. Just push all that shit back there out of the way and take a seat.” He waited until Quatre had rounded the car and was comfortably settled amid their various lacrosse sticks and bags before resuming his seat behind the wheel, slamming the door shut with a good bit of gusto. Reaching down to shift gears, he commented idly to his other companion; “You don’t mind if we just drop Quatre off real quick, do you Heero?”

Heero straightened and shrugged wordlessly, dropping his bent arm down so it dangled lazily outside the jeep, fingers drumming idly on the shiny green surface of the door.

“Excellent,” Trowa grinned as his fingers slid around the wheel, slamming his foot into the accelerator. The jeep launched forward across the intersection with a bellow of an excited engine and antsy tires. “Just tell me where to go, Quatre, my man!”

After giving Trowa brief directions to the street Duo’s alley branched off of, Quatre settled back and enjoyed the ride. He had driven with Duo in Deathscythe on numerous occasions, but Duo’s aggressive driving, laced with most interesting cuss words and hairpin maneuvers that left the frail-hearted in shock, could sometimes be rather messy. Though he had never ridden with Duo during a race, Duo’s motoring techniques remained relatively the same. And while Quatre was by no means a cowardly individual, sometimes the looming notion of imminent death tended to override the general pleasure of the ride. Quatre had discovered a long time ago that Duo had some serious thrill issues.

However this ride with Trowa, while by no means a lazy putter through the city, was somehow much more suited to Quatre’s tastes, despite the constant jostling bouncy motion of the jeep. He knew that Duo got a rush out of his speed-demon races and thoroughly enjoyed such activities, but Quatre found that he much rather liked this. While perhaps going a little faster than he should have been, Trowa was a careful driver who at least paid remote attention to road signs and signals, not attempting to catch any air or finding the need to play with various customizations to his engine. For once, even though he was crammed with all the equipment Trowa had in the trunk, Quatre was able to settle back without feeling the desperate need to grip onto anything secure with a vice-like hold for fear of being lost to the wind. It was a pleasant change of pace to actually indulge in the cool rush of air as it whipped around the car’s open top. And, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, he was able to actually see the scenery whip by in something other than a meaningless blur of colour and light.

“You good back there, Quatre?” Trowa called back after a few minutes of peaceful silence. His eyes darted up to glance at Quatre through the rearview mirror. “Tell me if I drive too fast, okay?”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” Quatre waved it off with a smile into the rearview mirror at Trowa, who grinned back. “I’m kind of used to the speed. Duo’s a pretty reckless driver.”

“Mm,” Trowa hummed, returning his eyes to the road. A second of awkward silence passed as Quatre returned to watching the streets scream by and Trowa mulled over what to say next. “I’ve only really known the guy for a week, but I always assumed he walked to and from school. What kind of car does he drive?”

“Oh he does walk; I go with him every day,” Quatre said quickly in response to the first part of Trowa’s comment, a little nervous as to how he was going to proceed with the conversation. He knew that Duo was not quite as fond of Trowa as he and even less fond of his friend, Heero (who Quatre was sure could not be all that bad if he was Trowa’s constant partner in crime). He wondered what Duo would think if he told the pair all about him and his lifestyle, both good and bad. “He loves his car too much to take it out just to get a couple blocks down the road,” Quatre finally settled on, deciding that he would not make Duo the topic of a conversation that had the potential to go in a multitude of directions. “He’s invested quite a bit of time and… trouble… into that machine… and would throw himself in front of a speeding bus before he’d let it get even the slightest dent in something—and I quote—‘as lame as a parking lot.’ He says if he’s gonna scratch his car up, he’s gonna do it with style.”

“Wow, it must be nice,” Trowa whistled, decelerating the car for a red light. “I guess I would understand if my car wasn’t such a piece of shit.” He laughed, slapping the steering wheel almost lovingly. “Aw, I don’t mean that,” he went on, turning around in his seat to face Quatre in the spot directly behind him. “This thing may not be so hot, but it gets the job done and I love it to death.”

“And that’s all that matters; that you love it, right?” Quatre shrugged, patting the green metal wall of the car beside him. “I think it’s okay,” he said softer, his lips parting into a serene smile as he cocked his head at Trowa slightly.
Heero coughed noticeably from the passenger seat, the first noise Quatre had ever heard coming from the unnaturally silent boy. Neither of his companions gave him a second glance until he gave Trowa’s shoulder a rather steely punch and said flatly, eyes still focused ahead of him, “Green.”

“Eh? What?” Trowa asked, confused and a little annoyed to be interrupted as he looked over his shoulder at the brown haired Japanese boy sitting stiffly beside him. “Stop being a prick and talk like a regular human being, Heero.”

“Green,” Heero said again in that menacing and yet somehow alluring growl of his, raising a forefinger to gesture ahead of him.

“Huh? Green?” Trowa turned back around in his seat and looked forward to see what Heero was pointing at. Realizing that the traffic light had changed, the hint clicked and Trowa jumped back into gear, realizing that there were a few cars sitting behind them. “Oh! Green! Got it.” He grabbed the stick shift and put the car back into drive as his foot fell upon the accelerator again, sending the jeep hurtling forward into motion once more, turning it around the corner onto another street.

For some reason, Quatre found himself feeling a little dismal when Trowa turned the jeep onto Abbey Road, the street of their destination. “Here’s good,” Quatre said blandly as the mouth of Duo’s alleyway came into view. When Trowa braked at the indicated spot, Quatre hopped out of the car, vaulting over the side of the vehicle into the road. “Thank you,” he said with a gentle smile. He was about to say goodbye to Heero as well, just for the sake of being polite but found that the boy in question seemed to have fallen asleep in his seat, chin resting on his chest, arms crossed with one ankle resting on his other knee.

“How can he just nod off like that?” Quatre asked Trowa instead, his eyes peering past the slender driver to survey the sleeping passenger with amazement. “Not even Duo can just randomly fall asleep at the drop of a hat.”

“Oh, Heero is a man of many talents,” Trowa drawled, rolling his eyes to glance at his still friend. The sleeping kid looked unbelievably motionless, as if he were a marble statue that had just been painted so exquisitely that he seemed to be alive. Trowa shook his head and returned to Quatre with a lopsided grin. “Sometimes I just let him do his thing. It’s safer that way.”

“I see,” Quatre mused, unsure of what Trowa meant by that last part. Brushing it aside, he widened his smile and thanked Trowa again, who in turn insisted that he would be happy to give Quatre a ride any time he needed it. Thanking Trowa for the offer, Quatre said goodbye, scurried around the jeep and headed down the alleyway towards Duo’s garage, throwing the waiting Trowa a final wave before he disappeared into the shop.

Receiving that last wave, Trowa nodded back and started his car up again, heading off towards the ocean side as he and Heero had initially planned to do, so they could have a little practice for fun on the beach. Usually they would just go over to the school and use the fields there for extra lacrosse practice, but they had come to find that doing so was a rather predictable maneuver and were often visited by certain unwanted company. Eventually they discovered that utilizing the beach in the colder months was a much safer and more obscure location to keep hidden from Relena and her posse.

As they neared the end of the block, Heero’s low voice wafted across the silence between them. “You like that guy,” he stated plainly, not even bothering to make it a question.

Trowa sighed and averted his eyes out his side of the jeep. “I should have known you weren’t really sleeping,” was the response that the comment elicited from the cinnamon haired goalie. “Your ability to fake people out like that is the real talent, not falling asleep in odd places.”

“I do what I can,” Heero returned with a hidden snide grin, still folded up in the same ‘sleeping’ position, unruly bangs cascading over his face and tickling the tip of his nose. Trowa did not need to peer through the shadows cast upon his friend’s face to see the smirk on his face; it was apparent enough in his tone. “You do like him though, don’t you?” Heero pressed further.

Trowa sighed heavier this time, followed by an exasperated puff of air that flopped his bangs upwards a little, emerald eyes following the movement of his odd hair as he did so. “It’s really starting to get annoying, how damn observant you are, Heero,” Trowa groaned, daring to tap his forehead despondently on the wheel as he drove. “Is it really that obvious?”

“To me, it is,” Heero stated, raising his head to press it against the headrest behind him with a quick shake of his head that rustled his wild dark brown hair. “But that’s because I know you. That kid doesn’t know you, even if he does seem to be good at reading people. Still, I don’t think he can tell… yet….” Heero glanced into the side mirror, adjusting it a little so he could get a better view of the blonde boy turning down the alley they had just passed. “I think he’ll get it soon… especially with you wearing it on your sleeve, observational or not.”

“Jealous you’re getting replaced?” Trowa asked almost slyly as he scrunched up and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, eyes narrowing darkly as the forest green irises slid over to the far right corners of his eyes.

“No. I am not,” Heero said definitely, bothering to turn his head so that the scorching blue flame of his eyes could glower in Trowa’s direction. “I’m just telling you what I think.”

“I see,” Trowa answered, regaining his former posture again and loosening his hold on the wheel. “And what is it that you think exactly, Mr. Yuy?”

“That I think you have a crush on that blonde kid, that’s what,” Heero stated just as plainly as before, clearing his throat a little at the finish of his comment. He returned his gaze to the road before them, the wide blue ocean just peeking out over the horizon.
Trowa was silent as he drove for a few minutes, a little pissed at being found out. Though he had seen Quatre here and there, in and out of classes (as he had also seen Duo), he had never spoken to him, and his regards to the boy before their meeting in the music room ended at “Well, he’s kind of cute”. But the second he had come across Quatre that day and struck up conversation, Trowa had just felt some kind of connection. He could not really even begin to explain it to Heero, or even to himself. All he knew was that it was there and that it was something special. He did not care so much that Heero had latched onto the fact that the person he liked happened to be a boy but more the fact that Heero had latched on at all. Of all the people he knew, including Catherine, Heero was one of the few who could have known that Trowa liked boys. Trowa was not bothered by his sexuality and was thankful that Heero was not either, though his sister’s opinion (as well as that of her friends and a couple of meatheads on the lax team) towards such people was another story in itself. Usually Trowa tried to ignore that.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Heero reveled glibly, his smirk widening a little.

“Oh you’re just sore because he happens to be such good friends with Duo Maxwell,” Trowa shot back in hopes to wipe that smug grin off of Heero’s face. The comment succeeded in its intent one hundred and ten per cent; Heero’s smile faded like a bad dream.

“Don’t bring him into this,” Heero replied seriously, his voice thick and grave. “I can’t help who you fall in love with and if he happens to be friends with Maxwell, then he happens to be friends with Maxwell, nothing I can do. I’m not going to tell you who you should date based on who they’re friends with, Trowa.” And with that, Heero crossed his arms again, locked his eyes on the ocean ahead of them and refused to say anything more until they had reached the water.

(x) X (x)

Dorothy was the one to open the door for Quatre when he knocked. He threw a final wave of his hand at someone down the alleyway that Dorothy could not see and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “Hey darling,” she said, throwing an arm around Quatre’s waist and guiding him out of the little mud room into the garage. “You sure are earlier than usual.”

“Did I miss anything good?” he asked as he followed in Dorothy’s grip.

“Naw,” Dorothy grinned, releasing Quatre as she walked over to the ratty, old, patchwork-covered couch that sat across from the car with a small coffee table, creating a lounge area of sorts. “Just the usual shenanigans. They had an idea to add on this prototype booster of sorts that Noin’s had in the works for a while. They think it’ll be better than the old one.”

Quatre hummed in appreciation as he joined Dorothy on the couch, shaking his head at the sight of the three grease monkeys and their car. Duo had the hood of the car up and was bent over the engine, working at something unseen from Quatre’s viewpoint. A tall girl with short, wavy, purple hair stood behind him with a large white blueprint in her hands, inspecting his work with keen interest while another girl with short bluish-black hair sat in the driver’s seat, fiddling with some wiring she had pulled from inside the dashboard. The purple-haired one was Lucrezia Noin, though Duo and company just called her simply Noin, as her first name was somewhat of a mouthful. The other was Hilde, a girl who had been in Duo’s shop class a few years back and he’d been friends with ever since. At present, Duo was leading the other two in a sing-along of sorts, belting out the lines of an old song that had become their theme somewhat in his rich tenor, voice as his two female companions chorused the back up lyrics in return.

“People try to put us down!” Duo sang, still focused intently on his work buried deep inside the darkness of the car’s belly.

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!” Hilde and Noin chorused in return, their amusement at the game apparent in their voices.

“Just because we get around!” Duo went on, giving his black-clad hips a little snap to the side for show. Quatre rolled his eyes; Duo was the crowned ruler of exhibitionists and he knew it.

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!”

“Things, they do look awful c-c-cold.” Duo paused briefly in his work to straighten and pretend to shiver as he stuttered the last word of the line before diving right back into the beast with his wrench.

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!” Hilde and Noin spouted right on cue, Duo’s infectious singing already starting to spread throughout their systems like a viral plague.

“I hope I die before I get old,” Duo’s voice dropped a little. Quatre sighed at this, knowing that Duo took that line of the song very seriously. It was cryptic, almost morbid, the way Duo sang it, but Quatre was really the only one who had ever picked up on it. The other three saw Duo as a laughing prankster, but Quatre knew that there was way more to it than simply that silly façade. The stunts Duo was willing to pull for just a little adrenaline rush were more than enough proof that the braided boy was having a violent love affair with Death.

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!”

“My generation!” Duo cried, flying upwards again for the chorus, whirling around on one foot as he sang into his wrench as if the thing as if were a microphone, braid sailing around his head like a propeller. “It’s my generation baby!” Grabbing Noin about the shoulders, he dragged her close and held the wrench between them, singing the beginning of the next verse. “Why don’t you all just fade away?”

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!” Noin crooned nice and wholeheartedly, bending into Duo’s wrench for emphasis, much to Duo’s glee. Duo had befriended the brilliant Noin throughout school musical productions past, as the tall purple-haired senior was often cast as a lead due to her rather impressive voice and acting ability. Upon becoming better friends with her, Duo discovered that she was an extremely intelligent young lady with a good mind full of ideas concerning everything from cars and machines to ingenious creativity, easily one of the top minds in the entire school. On top of that, laid-back Noin could always be counted on to solve her way out of a jam with her usual flourish of style and ease. She had been one of Duo’s cohorts for the infamous Noodle Incident, and had actually helped him brainstorm some of the finer points of said evil plan. Unlike his other close friends, Noin was not a mutant of any kind. Rather, the common trait that had sparked their friendship had been their involvement with the play. She did not find that her mutated friends were really much different from regular people, a common misconception among the uneducated masses, and often defended her friends and others like them against such bigots who felt that mutants were not equal beings.

“And don’t try to dig what we all say,” he kept on singing, releasing Noin. He winked at her and exploded into a swarming haze of particles, zooming over towards the driver’s side of the car, resuming his solid form, leaning on the door and holding his wrench-microphone out to Hilde for a solo.

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!” she shouted, stopping in her tinkering to grab Duo’s hand, pulling the wrench closer to her lips in happy excitement. Hilde was a very bouncy cheerful, almost hyperactive girl from the junior class with a big personality to make up for her short stature. Her ability to toy with and conduct electricity matched her energetic disposition. An accident concerning the erratic behaviour of her skills during the high level science course, which Quatre had happened to take as well, had caught the attention of the slight blonde’s Sense. When Quatre had introduced his newfound friend to Duo with an account of how Hilde had managed to blow every fuse in the lab with a glitzy display of flying sparks and live wires, the braided boy was quite delighted. He was even more so when he found out that she was a fan of motors. She was always a cheery note, even when the others were mired in the doldrums. Despite being one of the biggest tomboys the school knew, with she had the spirit of a stouthearted little girl that, when paired with Quatre, could be a very formidable power in the cutesy begging category.

“I’m not trying to cause a big sensation!” Duo leapt off the door, throwing one arm high over his head as he went on with his rock-star charade. Though this was all extremely amusing, Quatre found himself secretly wishing they would all just shut up and listen to the radio. The sound of music tended to keep Duo’s restless nature remotely in check.

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!” Noin and Hilde sang together again, grinning at each other with a wink or two.

“I’m just talkin’ ‘bout my generation!” Duo’s voice dipped again as he took a low bow, the tail of his braid sweeping across the floor like a little broom as he closed his eyes and practically kissed the wrench in song.

“Talkin’ ‘bout my generation!”

“My generation!” Duo launched into the chorus again, teleporting over towards Dorothy and Quatre on the sofa. He reappeared and jumped on the coffee table and put on quite the show for the pair of amused blonde spectators. “It’s my generation baby!” He stepped off the table and wedged himself between Dorothy and Quatre, flinging an arm around Quatre as he sang cheerfully to him, still playing with the wrench as a microphone.

“My, my, my, my generation,” he purred, practically squeezing Quatre’s head in his headlock type hug. At last, he loosened his grip and set down the wrench, settling back in the plush couch, kicking his booted feet up on the coffee table as he folded his arms behind his head. “Hey there, Q!” he grinned, “You’re sure early today. What’d you do, run over?”

Usually Quatre was later to these gatherings than the others as he lived quite a bit further from Duo than they did and always went on foot, as his father was not exactly thrilled that his son liked to keep the company of people like Duo, Noin and Hilde. He and Dorothy typically walked over together but she had spent the night with Noin and therefore had left him to get over to Duo’s alone. (Her family wasn’t as paranoid about what sort of image her friends gave her and generally accepted those three that Quatre’s father did not.) Thankfully, it had all worked out well. Quatre smiled to himself, deciding it would be a bad idea to tell Duo more than he needed to know about his new friends. “I got a ride with someone,” he said.

“Oh,” Duo replied, glancing up at the ceiling briefly before returning his gaze to his friend. “That’s cool. Who with?”

“Just… some new friends,” Quatre evaded smoothly, even managing to mask the nervous sigh that riddled his speech. “They were all heading my way and offered me a lift.”

“Ah, that’s who you were waving to,” Dorothy threw in, leaning forward on her knees so she could look around Duo to see Quatre as she spoke to him. “Who was it? Anyone we know?”

“I don’t know,” Quatre shrugged feebly. “Maybe you do.”

“You’re just as bad at lying as I am, Q,” Duo accused, extending his forefinger at Quatre, his thumb held erect so his hand formed a gun shape. He ‘fired’ at Quatre and feigned a recoil as he made a little exploding sound with his tongue and lips. “Spill it, baby. Who’s your new lover that’s giving you rides across town and kissing ya under the boardwalk?”

“Uh…” Quatre was still hesitating, leaving Duo and Dorothy staring at him with expressions on their faces like they were dangling from a string and were waiting to be pulled back up. “He’s not my boyfriend or anything; just friends right now…!”

“Oh there is someone! You can tell us. Promise we won’t laugh!” Duo insisted, making a big ‘X’ over his chest and patting it solemnly. “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” He squinted one large plum-shaded eye closed and poked it with one finger.

“Um, Trowa Barton,” Quatre mumbled incoherently, staring down at his hands as they fidgeted mindlessly in his lap. “TrowaBartonandHeeroYuy….”

Dorothy’s face was a sly picture of amusement as she arched one odd brown eyebrow at her friend. Meanwhile, Duo’s grin was still plastered on his face, though now it was obviously forced and fake. He pretended to clean out the ear nearest to Quatre with his index finger and ground out between clenched teeth, his face still the picture of cheer,

“Excuse me, who did you say?”

“Uh, Trowa and Heero?” Quatre looked up, paling a little at the danger welling behind that seemingly happy look on Duo’s face. He swallowed and scooted as far down the sofa as he could from Duo, practically sitting on the fat arm of the couch as he closed his eyes tightly and waited for the storm. The unpleasant vibes undulating off Duo’s skin were so thick that he did not even need his Sense to know that Duo was ready to burst at the seams.

“QUATRE REBARBA WINNER, YOU TRAITOR, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU!” he raged, giving the coffee table an angry kick that sent it careening over on its side with a loud crash, startling Noin and Hilde out of their separate conversation over by the car. His cheeks puffed out and his eyebrows tightened over his darkened eyes as he snapped into his misty form, screaming across the cushions with lightning speed to congeal up in Quatre’s face. His sudden proximity threatened to send the blonde boy teetering over the arm of the couch and onto the floor. “How the hell can you call yourself my best friend and then go romping with the goddamned enemy! Is there something not working in that mousetrap head of yours or are you just so damn horny that all you can do is follow those stupid jocks around like a lovesick puppy! Those guys are bastards! BASTARDS!”

“Well I happen to think that Trowa is very nice, thank you!” Quatre huffed indignantly. He thought that Duo was being completely irrational. Sure, he could see where Duo was coming from with most of those athletic types, but there were exceptions to every rule and Quatre was positive that Trowa was one of them. “Maybe if you actually tried talking to him without prejudging and complaining, you’d think he’s nice too!”

“Well maybe that’s so with Trowa but how could you sit there with that fucking shit, Yuy!?” Duo screamed, his eyes bulging a little. Noin sighed and put a hand on her forehead, staring down at the ground while Hilde seemed to have taken a keen interest in the ceiling above. Quatre was tugging at his collar and Dorothy was outright laughing at the whole lot of them. “I don’t even need to be a friggin’ psychic to know he’s a right bastard!”

“Duo!” It was Quatre’s turn to look annoyed and for once, the emotion was actually displayed effectively on his usually innocent-looking features. “Stop being impossible!”

“Yeah,” Dorothy threw in, halting her giggles and throwing the back of her hand over her mouth to hide the smirk that was blossoming there. “Besides, we all know you have the hots for him anyway. Don’t need Q’s Sense to tell that either!”

“I do not!” Duo turned on Dorothy, raising his upturned hands at about shoulder-level, his fingers tightened into rigid curved claws. “We were over this! Sexy body, personality from hell, remember!?”

“So we admit that he’s sexy,” Dorothy lowered her hand, licking her top teeth with a quick swipe of her tongue. “You, my friend, are in denial.”

“Argh! I am not in denial!” Duo clenched his hands into tight fists and screamed, throwing his head back in aggravation, his unbalanced emotions causing him to burst into his mist form, erratically sending him back and forth across the room in spurts of energy. “Why don’t you people get it?” he demanded when he regained the calm he needed to stay solid long enough to talk.

“Actually Duo, I think you’re the one who doesn’t quite get it,” Quatre deadpanned, crossing his arms and lowering his eyelids a little to give his face a very bland serious expression. “You’re trying so damn hard to fight everything that you miss out! Ever think that perhaps Heero thinks that you’re a whinny pain in the ass?”

“Oh. Yeah. Great friend you are, Quatre!” Duo scoffed, turning his nose moodily up in the air. “Even if it was all just a big old misunderstanding, he sure as hell hasn’t done jack shit to make amends and I don’t care! The world may like to kiss his ass but I sure as hell refuse to get on my knees and suck him off because he’s the great Heero Yuy.” He made his voice sound dumbly reverent in a gesture of complete and obvious sarcasm.

Dorothy cupped her hand around her mouth, nodding her head as she whispered across the couch to Quatre with a wise smirk upon her lips, “Denial.” Quatre sent her a sympathetic half grin of agreement.

“Hey, you spent what, fifteen minutes in the car with him? Try spending two hours a day with the rat bastard!” Duo went on, his argument becoming more of a ramble just to blow off steam at this point. His cheeks were terribly flushed, contrasting sharply with the dark kohl that rimmed his eyes and the metallic rings and studs adorning his cherry-reddened ears. “I think I would have gotten to know him a little better than you, Quatre!”

“He’s just quiet,” Quatre retorted in defense, really starting to get angry at Duo. It infuriated him how Duo could be so irrational at times! He knew that Duo had walked into this whole ordeal with the shields up, and would fight it to the death if he had to. Quatre was also well aware that this was all Duo’s way of protecting his own wounded pride, much more so than trying to bring Heero down in a ball of fire. “Trowa seems to think very highly of him and his talents. And if Trowa had a complaint about him, I would give it much more credit than one coming from you, Duo, as Trowa at least has spent a decent amount of time getting to know the guy!”

“He’s quiet because there’s nothing going on between those ears of his!” Duo snapped, returning to a natural sitting position on the sofa, arms crossed over his chest as he stared dead ahead of him, his eyes wanting to bore holes into Deathscythe’s shiny black hull. “And your precious Trowa would defend him, of course, since they’re both the same breed of stupid! I know both far better than I care to and I wish for it to remain that way! If I didn’t need to do this lacrosse thing to get through school clean, there would be mass carnage, let me tell you!”

“Fine,” Quatre gave up, throwing his arms up in defeat. “Obviously, there’s no getting through that thick skull of yours, Duo. All I know is what I felt, and it was nothing bad,” he sighed, hauling himself off the sofa arm and letting his arms drop with a slap against his thighs. He started for the door, brushing past the astonished Noin and Hilde as he called over his shoulder at the still fuming Duo, “I don’t need to sit here and listen to your childishness all day. Call me when you’re ready to talk like an adult.” With that he stormed through the mud room and out the door, slamming it behind him so hard that the glass rattled in the old wooden window frames.

Dead silence reigned the garage. Duo was still looking like he wanted to beat something senseless with a ratchet while Dorothy mused over whatever she was thinking about on her side of the sofa, that constant knowing smirk still painted upon her thin lips. Noin and Hilde were still trying to get over the shock that one, Duo and best friend Quatre Winner had just declared war upon each other and two, said Winner had just disagreed with Duo, raised his voice and walked out, just like that. Things were staring to get only just a little too much out of control for anyone’s tastes.

Noin made the first move, approaching Duo with a hand on each hip. “Duo…” she started, trying to make her voice as neutral as possible. She knew how carried away Duo could get if he thought he was being insulted.

Duo merely scoffed at her and turned his nose up into the air, blasting out into a blur of particles and zooming around Noin in a mocking circle before taking flight to the high wooden rafters above. Taking refuge up near the ceiling, he returned to his natural form and stuck his tongue out at the group below him, who were all staring at him like he had the plague.

“Duo! Come down here right now!” Noin shouted up at him, a little frown starting to take shape on her lips as she made a jerky pointing motion towards the concrete floor.

“You’re going to explain what’s going on or else I’ll get Hilde to zap you.”

“Go ahead. Make my day,” Duo hissed smugly, sticking his head down between two rafters, the rest of his body spread out atop the wooden support beams.

“I don’t get what you’re so upset about, Duo!” Hilde called up at her friend, cupping her hands around her mouth as she shouted. “So Quatre has some new friends. Big deal; it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“They’re bad company!” Duo retorted with a frown. “I don’t want Q hanging out with a bad crew. What if they hurt him?”

“Duo, not all regular humans are disgusted by mutants. Just look at me!” Noin argued eloquently, presenting a very legit point to the stubborn braided mechanic staking it out above. “Just because you had a bad experience doesn’t mean that everyone else will! There are plenty of decent people on this planet who think that mutations are no big deal and, believe it or not, some live in this town!”

“Yeah, well, whether they care about that or not, the fact remains they’re boring old preps who have egos eight sizes too big and brains eighty sizes too small! People like that don’t just suddenly start being nice to you out of the blue unless there’s some superficial ulterior motive!” Duo shot back angrily. “All they can do is run fast and wave sticks around, pretending they have pride to win. At least you have a functional personality, Noin.”
“Oh, aren’t we the expert,” Noin exclaimed sarcastically, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms as she spoke.

“Duo’s the manager of the lax team this year,” Dorothy commented idly from the sofa on other side of the shop, where she had taken to leisurely turning through the pages of a book that had been sitting on the coffee table. “That makes him an authority on the subject now.”

“Shut up, Dorothy!” Duo snapped, lifting his head to glare at Dorothy, although all he managed to accomplish was smacking his head into one of the rafters he was peering between. The surge of annoyance and pain that riddled through Duo’s head in doing so caused him to spastically loose his solid shape for a few seconds before returning him to an ordinary state hanging by his knees from the offending rafter. He pouted and crossed his arms, staring down at Noin with a dangerous frown. “This friggin’ sucks.”

“Surely you concede you deserve it,” Noin responded glibly, arching an amused purple eyebrow at Duo’s predicament. Turning her attention away from Duo, she fringed her long wavy indigo bangs and announced to the other two girls, “Well I’m going to go chase after Quatre and make sure he’s not too upset. Hopefully he’ll be more forgiving than certain individuals.” The last part she emphasized with an inclination in her voice and a dirty stare upward at the moody sloth named Duo.

“Yeah, stuff it, Lucy-Lu,” Duo muttered to himself, using a mockery of Noin’s first name that was sure to make her pink with rage. However, when Noin did nothing more than gracefully ignore his insult and stride purposefully out of the garage in search of Quatre, Duo shook with annoyance. The movement caused him to lose his grip on the rafter and slip, saved only by a hasty shift to his mist form halfway between the ceiling and the floor, reappearing facedown on the floor, shaking his fist irately at the world around him. “My life… sucks….”

“Oh grow up, Duo!” Hilde sighed, generating a little pulse of electricity in Duo’s direction with a waggle of her fingers. Duo convulsed a bit, but remained in his defeated position on the floor, grumbling incoherently to himself, much to Dorothy’s amusement.

(x) X (x)

{A/N} Yay, I updated! How d’ya like that, all you people who kept bugging me for more! Nyeeaah!! *sticks out tongue* Well, things are gettin’ cooking now, eh? Hope that the 3x4 is interesting to you all. I’ve never tried to write for them before, and I haven’t given them nearly as much thought as I have Heero and Duo. Anyway, aside from all that, the song and the chapter title, “My Generation” belong to the almighty band The Who. Funny how that song was written for an older generation, and it still applies to kids today.... Good songs are always timeless, I say.

PS: Who caught the Beatles reference?

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