April 25, 2001
Revised: August 9, 2001
Sweet All Over
Part Four
13x1, 4x3, 5xM, 6x2, D+R
Hi. ^-^ I love writing fluffy angst.
~Bianca
"What kind of chocolate do you want?" he asked, making a face as Treize grinned at him. "What?" he snapped, pulling out a piece of tissue paper. "Why are you staring at me?"
Treize shrugged, and continued to pretend as if he didn't realize he was creeping out Heero. "Any kind," he said. "I don't care."
"Fine," said Heero, packing the first box full of the least popular kinds, "have it your way." Stupid jerk, he thought, wishing he had a gun, or even a slingshot with which he could hurl deadly mocha latte brownies. Just go away!
"I will," said Treize, walking around. Between the rustle of the paper and the sound of his flip-flops, the store was completely silent. "You know," said Treize, "you might want to be nicer to customers."
"Why would I do that?" asked Heero, trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible. "They don't care. They're just interested in food," he added, hoping to deter the older boy from making any more comments about his service.
I did not just think that! gasped Heero internally. Bad! God, what's wrong with you Heero? Sighing, he folded the cover down over the first box. One down...
Five minutes later, the store opened and Treize had fifteen boxes of chocolates stacked on the counter. "That'll be--" he began, trying to make the process quick and painless. He better not touch my hand when he pays...
"Five hundred?" asked Treize, smiling.
"Ha, you're funny," snarled Heero, rolling his eyes.
"No, you're funny," Treize said, dropping the money into Heero's hand. "You're trying so hard to be mean to me that it's becoming really obvious that you like me." Heero suddenly struck the wrong key as he was ringing up the sale, swore, and began again. "I'm serious," continued Treize. "I think you should let me take you out. You know, go fishing or something. Whatever guys do."
Heero paused punching in numbers and scanning barcodes to shoot him an incredulous look. "You think that I do normal guy things?" he asked, raising a single eyebrow.
"Just the fact that you can raise one eyebrow speaks volumes about your social life," said Treize, reaching into his pocket and popping a Tic-Tac into his mouth.
"What do you mean?"
"I know how long it takes to learn how to raise one eyebrow. You just don't do it if you've got something better to be doing. Watch; it's something I learned during a board meeting." Treize, in an incredible act of dexterity, raised one eyebrow, then the other, then both, then wiggled his ears. Heero, realizing that he was laughing, quickly frowned and went back to pressing keys.
Jerk, he thought furiously.
"So are we going out tonight?" he asked, cracking his knuckles.
"Don't do that," said Heero, glaring at the offending digits, then blushed. Treize merely laughed. "Why are you laughing at me?" he demanded.
"You're cute," he said, and Heero turned red again. Shoving the change onto the counter, he opened his mouth to give Treize a piece of his mind, only to find Duo standing in the window, laughing his ass off. His shoulders were shaking with the force of his sobs. "Well?" he asked, and Heero was torn between walking outside and beating the braided idiot up, or taking care of the idiot inside the shop first. "Don't be nervous," he said. Outside, Duo began to pound on the glass, clutching his stomach as he howled.
"Who's that?" Heero grabbed a spoon from under the counter and, leaning on his elbows, hurled it at the window. Duo paused briefly, then went back to laughing. "Ugh!" he shouted, turning to complain to Treize and discovering that he was blatantly staring at his butt.
"Don't do that!" he said, grabbing two spoons and hurling the first at Duo, and the second at Treize. He jumped back, his stack of chocolates wobbling precariously, hands in the air as if to say, 'Who, me?'
"Heero!" Dorothy stomped out of the kitchen, wielding her wooden spoon of death. "What is going on out here?" Under the force of her glare, Heero found himself struck incoherent.
"It was Duo--" He pointed at Treize. "And him--glass--he was staring--need chest-high counters, Dorothy. Bad!"
She blinked. What frightened Heero was that her eyebrows also seemed to blink.
"Do you need help carrying those home?" she asked, smiling sweetly at Treize.
"That would be lovely," said Treize. "What do you say, Heero?"
"I'll do it," said Duo as he walked in, tying his apron around his waist. Heero sagged against the counter in relief. The braided boy winked at him, making Heero laugh. He'd obviously had a good date with Zechs the night before.
"No," said Dorothy, studying Heero, "I want you to stay here and learn how to run the counter." Duo's eyes lit up; he had been trying to steal Quatre's job since the first day he'd arrived.
"Yes!" he said, thrusting a fist into the air. "Sorry, man," he said, grinning, "looks like you're on you're own." Heero looked from Dorothy to Duo, and found no sympathy.
"Traitors," he hissed, and stomped into the kitchen to hang his apron.
Dorothy winked at Treize.
"He'll fight every step of the way," predicted Duo. He reached into the lolly jar and extracted a red one, sucking enthusiastically. "Hope you're ready for a battle."
Treize opened his jacket, displaying several thousand dollars. "I could sit here all day and watch him work, if I have to. He couldn't throw me out if I kept buying chocolate," he said. Duo high-fived him. "Rest assured, I'm looking forward to a battle."
Heero stomped out of the kitchen at that moment, his face so dark and cloudy that Duo had to laugh. "Have fun, Hee-chan!" he called as he watched the pair start down the street.
"Hee-chan?" asked Treize, smiling down at his companion. "A nickname?"
"No."
"Your middle name?"
"No."
"Yo--"
"It's just a stupid name that Duo calls me," he said, staring at the ground. "It's nothing. Really." They turned left onto Oceanshore Avenue. "Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise," said Treize. After another hour of walking in uncomfortable silence, Heero finally stopped. Treize kept going another three or four steps before noticing he wasn't next to him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Treize," said Heero, "we've been by this place four times."
"Have we?" laughed Treize easily, pressing his hand into the small of Heero's back and guiding him forward. "I didn't notice."
"Are you lost?" asked Heero. "Where do you live?"
"Um..." He coughed. "34 Maple Street..."
Heero felt his body go rigid with shock. He was tired, he was cold, and he did not want to spend an hour with a boy that he disliked more than ivory chocolate.
"You live across the street from the chocolate store?" he said, aware he was beginning to shout. "I have just been walking for the last hour, and you live three seconds from double D's! What a joke!" He shoved the boxes he had been carrying into Treize's chest, and shook his head.
"Why are you doing this?" Heero asked, wrapping his arms around himself. "Can't you just--I don't know--leave me alone?" He knew he was being unreasonable, that he was overreacting, but the words still left his mouth. "God! Leave me alone! Don't talk to me! Don't look at me!" With that, he turned and, rubbing his freezing arms, started back to the shoppe.
"Do you really want that?" Heero froze. Treize moved behind him, the scent of his cologne and the ocean salt surrounding him in a rush. "Just say it, and I'll leave you alone."
"No," he whispered.
"There," said Treize, wrapping his arms around Heero's waist, "was that so hard?"
"Yes," he deadpanned. They both laughed, and continued back to Maple Street.
"So what movie do you want to see?" he asked, staring at the part of his wife's hair. "Titanic is playing in Mystic."
"That's a weak movie," she scoffed. "What about Gone in Sixty Seconds?"
"I don't like Angelina Jolie," said Wufei. They stared each other down for a moment, then sighed. "What about My Dog Skip?"
"You want to see a five year old's movie?" she snickered. "Wu, you're fei-er than I thought. Get it? Fei, fey?" Under his hand, the newspaper suddenly crinkled as he clenched it into a fist.
"Shut up, woman," said Wufei. "You insignificant--"
"You miserable woman-hater--"
"Man-eater--"
"Marge," said Homer, peeking through the shades, "I think the neighbors are fighting again. I can hear it from the window." Behind him, Bart was running around in his underwear with a piranha attached to his left buttock.
"Well," said Marge, petting her hair, "there's no accounting for taste."
Duo snickered as he pulled a tray of cookies from the oven. "Watch out, Quat," he laughed, "you don't want to get burned." His friend rolled his eyes, rubbing his butt.
"Who would have thought you could get rug burns on your butt?" he groaned. "And can you imagine someone having a meeting at four in the morning? I couldn't. I never dreamed they would be in the house."
"What about jet lag?" asked Duo.
"Yeah," said Quatre miserably, "that's what it was. It was a perfectly acceptable time in Japan. Now Dad's mad at me for making him look bad to his colleagues, and Trowa's not speaking to me."
"He's not speaking to you?" Duo blinked.
"He's not speaking to me," affirmed Quatre. "It's horrible. I get this sick feeling in my gut every time he looks at me and doesn't say anything. I just know he's mad at me. I wish I could say something..." Absentmindedly, he grabbed a ginger snap and began munching.
Duo sighed. "Maybe I could talk to him." Quatre brightened.
"Would you? That would be very nice of you, Duo."
"Sure," he said, waving it off. "We're closing tonight, and I'll just casually slip in a word that you're worried, yadda yadda." He too grabbed a ginger snap cookie and began to nibble at the edges. "I wonder where Heero is..."
"Who knows?" said Trowa, poking his head out from under the counter. Duo and Quatre both jumped. "Sorry," he said. "You were having such an interesting conversation, I didn't want to interrupt."
Quatre shoved him back under the counter, and when clothing began to fly, Duo decided it was time to test out his counter skills. Work it, Duo, he thought, smirking as he left the kitchen.
Wufei glared at Meiran.
"Let's just order pizza."
End Part Four
Bianca
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