May 5, 2001
Revised: August 9, 2001
"Are you sure?" Duo looked dubiously at the smoking engine of Zech's convertible and sighed. "It doesn't look too bad," he said weakly, trying not to laugh as the older man shoved his hands dejectedly into his pockets and kicked his BMW.
"Are you kidding?" Zechs ran a hand through his hair, causing the platinum blonde hair to fall against his bare shoulder in waves. Duo knew he was staring; Zechs had taken off his jacket to take a look at the car, and suddenly the braided boy was very glad the damn thing had broken down. "It's dead."
He turned to Duo apologetically. "I'm sorry," he said, slumping into the driver's seat. "My first night off in a week..." Duo shrugged. "And God knows what you had to do to get away from Dorothy tonight," he added, rolling his eyes. On anyone else, it would have been a gesture of supreme annoyance.
"Well, Heero and Quat are working over overtime," said Duo, "and maybe some kind soul will come by and pick us up." Zechs rolled his eyes.
"Not likely," he snorted. "There won't be another car for hours. Just us, the car, and the lonely, lonely road."
Duo's eyes gleamed.
--
"What the hell happened to you?" Duo glared at Wufei, trying to brush the bangs from his eyes without jerking his back too much. They were working in the kitchen, folding cinnamon pastries.
"What are you talking about?" he snapped, barely able to force the words out since his jaw kept hitting the thick foam brace supporting his neck. "Oh this?"
Wufei nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Dorothy edging closer, wanting to hear, and he grabbed his arm, pulling him out front. "I had an accident," he said.
"I can see that," said Wufei, reaching up to tap the brace. "It's thicker than your head."
"I know that!" snapped Duo, grimacing as his head moved a bit too much to the left. "It's so hot and sticky and uncomfortable. I'm itching like crazy, but if I take it off, my head'll just go ::plop::."
"Well," said a familiar voice, "you wanna know what it looks like to me?" Duo grinned as he saw Treize leaning on the counter, aviator shades propped up on his head. "It looks like while there was a very large weight on your body, possibly some kind of bear or other sexbeast, while you were laying down, perhaps in a car, and your head turned, but your hips, the center of your flexibility, could not, straining your neck."
Wufei's eyes popped open. "You mean--Kisama," he said, frowning. "You're not--?"
"None of your business," said Duo, wishing his neck were better so he could flick him with the end of his braid. "You looking for Heero?"
"Of course," said Treize. "Is he here?"
"Nah," said Duo, "and he won't be here for the rest of the day. He opened, and got the hell out of here over an hour ago."
Treize groaned. "It figures. Don't you people work on some sort of regular schedule?" Duo rolled his eyes. "He was working the afternoon shift last Wednesday."
"It's a summer job, T, not a Wall Street internship." He grabbed a lolly from the jar. "Well, we do post hours on Mondays in the kitchen. You're not technically supposed to be back there unless you work here, but if you carry the cherry cordials from the refrigerator, I'll count you as an employee, and I'll even tell you where you can find Heero."
A few minutes after Treize left, Quatre and Trowa showed up to relieve Wufei, who had to take his wife to the gynecologist against all manly grumblings. Trowa began to rub comforting circles into Duo's back.
"Happened to me too," said Trowa.
"Yes," said Quatre, "we'll never do it on a diving board again."
"It was in a car," muttered Duo.
"A car?" said Trowa, nuzzling Quatre's neck. "We're never done it in a car. I think we'll need to take your new Jetta out for a spin later tonight." Quatre purred.
Duo sweatdropped.
"There you are," said a voice Heero would have recognized from miles away. He turned his head just slightly, not wanting to ruin his the peace of the sunset. Orange and pink dribbled onto the water like melting sherbet. Treize plopped down on the deck beside him, taking off his shoes and letting his bare feet dangle into the water. "I've been looking all over the place for you."
"Why?" he asked, before his own thoughts had ripened.
"Now, now," said Treize, wrapping an arm around his waist, "I thought we were done playing hard to get."
"Playing hard to get?" demanded Heero. "Who's playing hard to get, you jerk?" Treize lifted a single eyebrow.
"Maybe I'm just naturally difficult," he mumbled, burying his face in Treize's shoulder. The older boy pulled him closer, crushing Heero to his chest.
"It's okay," said Treize. "I know you don't mean it, so you can make it up to me by going out with me tonight." Heero sat straight up, his gaze barely short of a full-fledged glare. "Just miniature golf," he said. "I'm horrible at it, so if you're bad, we can be bad together."
"Sounds good," he said.
"Sometimes I really hate you," said Meiran, picking the pepperoni off her onion-anchovy slice of pizza. "Like this morning, when you were getting ready to go work, and you splashed water all over the bathroom floor and I slipped on it when I went to brush my teeth. And another thing," she added, lapping at the oil that had pooled in the curve of the meat slice, "why do you work in a candy store? Couldn't you make more money doing...I don't know. Something else. Work in Border's. Enlighten your mind, Wufei. I hear they're reprinting 'The Feminine Mystique'."
He shrugged, looping the stretchy mozzarella around one finger. "Dorothy promised that one day she'd give her chocolate recipe to the most dedicated worker."
Meiran rolled her eyes, flipping the television channels until she found ESPN. "So what? So she makes a few thousand dollars a summer, closes up shop in the winter, and puts some money in her children's college trusts. It's not worth living on nothing for years." As if to bring home her point, she gestured to their Ethan Allen furniture and 50 inch television.
"You know," said Wufei, snatching the last piece of pepperoni- onion-anchovy, much to his wife's dismay, "we made over fifteen thousand dollars today. I wonder how much money she *does* make in three months. I'll bet it's more money than I'd make working in Border's."
The dark-haired girl turned her attention back to the NBA playoffs, but the gears in her husband's head were turning...
"Duo, I'm not going in there." The parking lot was filled with people, all of whom paused to stare at the long-haired young men alternately arguing and groping. The braided boy tugged on his date's arm, and when that didn't work, he stooped to licking Zech's ear, whispering all the naughty things they could do in a dark, crowded club. "I should never have agreed to come."
"Come on!" said Duo. "Don't be such a pooper. It's just a friggin' block party; no mugger's going to try and molest you, or anything." He let his hand slide from the blonde's waist to cup his ass, squeezing gently. "Unless you want them to..."
"I think," said Zechs, straightening to his full height, "we'd better just go home, before these people get a free show." Duo didn't need much more encouragement when a thick erection pressed into his thigh, and let himself be pushed back into the car.
"What do you think Duo's doing right now?" asked Quatre, snuggling into the warmth of Trowa's shoulder. "I hope his neck's holding up okay..." They sat on the porch of Trowa's house, on the white swing suspended from the overhang. Quatre absently slapped a few mosquitoes, wiping the guts on the bottom of the bench, and smiled at his boyfriend.
"Trowa, it's been so long since we were alone..."
"I wanted to talk to you about that," said Trowa.
Quatre swallowed. "You're not breaking up with me, are you?"
"Of course not." Biting his lip, Trowa fished around in his pocket for something. "But I don't think we should have sex again." The blonde's eyes went comically round, as he contemplated life without nooky. "Until we're married," finished Trowa.
Quatre choked.
"Married?" He jumped up from the bench, threading his fingers through his hair. "Trowa, you can't be serious. We're not even out of high school yet! I'm sixteen, and you're sixteen, and we don't know what we want. We're just kids. We're irresponsible. I don't clean my room or do dishes. I *always* use the last bits of toilet paper and I've never replaced a roll in my life."
"Quatre," said Trowa, trying to break in.
"No wait," said the blonde, holding his head, "hear me out. I don't know anything about living with another person. This thing we have; sometimes I feel like I'm an old married man, and you're just here out of convenience. It's all fine and well to have a relationship with someone when you can control when you want to see them--"
"You don't want to see me?" Trowa's face fell, and he abruptly shoved his hands into his pockets as far as they could go.
"I'm just *saying*, is all," said Quatre, pacing the length of the porch. "I won't have any choices." His eyes blank, Trowa stood stiffly, his arms swinging mechanically at his sides. "Trowa, I'm young!" he called, even as the boy disappeared down the street. "Not no, just not now!"
But he didn't come back, and even though Quatre waited up the entire night, there was no sign of him.
Meanwhile, in Zech's car...
"So what do we do now?" asked Duo, wincing as Zech's jerked his head, causing his neck to jerk forward. "Maybe we should dial 911 or something." The blonde man, his cornsilk locks caught in the clasp of Duo's neck brace, tried to shrug and immediately stopped when the braided boy shrieked in pain.
"Well," said Zechs, "it'll make a good story to tell at a cocktail party."
"Not helping," growled Duo, picking frantically at his lover's hair. "God, why does your hair have to be so plastic and stick to everything?"
"My hair?" asked Zechs. "What about your hair? I find Duo hair all over my clothes; in my car, on my suits, everywhere! I've got all the other interns at work convinced that I've gone straight and started seeing a woman with a hair fetish."
"I'm not a woman," said Duo. "You'd think you would understand that long hair does not equal estrogen. Besides, Duo hair is a mark of love. It means you're mine if I shed all over your stuff."
"I see," said Zechs.
After a long moment, Duo sighed, the tension seeping from his slender body. "You know, even though this sucks rocks..."
"Yes?" Duo shivered as Zechs's voice reverberated through him.
"I still kinda like being here with you." Duo pointed at the moon. "It would be really romantic, except for you being stuck to my neck and your hair getting in my mouth and all."
"Yes," said Zechs, "it would be." They shifted, trying to get comfortable on the leather seat, and finally gave up. Duo stroked Zechs's hair absently, smiling as his boyfriend returned the favor.
"Did I ever tell you about the time Quatre and I went down to the beach..."
Heero groaned inwardly for the fifteenth time that night. Only three more holes to go, he told himself, sighing as Treize hit another hole in one through a tiny wooden lighthouse. Carter and Andrew, two of his buddies from work, had insisted on following them to the miniature golf course after seeing them at a stoplight.
"Your turn," said Treize, who was clearly puzzled about his date's bad mood. Glaring at Carter, an obnoxious blond who wore a sweater draped over his shoulders, he bent at the knee to set his ball down, noticing that, for the fifteenth time that night, Andrew was busy distracting Treize with some joke about alligators.
"You're not standing the right way," said Carter, moving behind Heero. His hips bumped Heero's buttocks as he wrapped his arms around his waist, his hands draped dangerously low.
Heero stomped on his foot. "Thanks," he said sweetly as Treize rejoined them, "I've got it now." His ball stopped an inch from the hole.
"See," said the ginger-haired boy, "you've got the hang of it now." Behind him, Andrew was making obscene pumping motions over his crotch, mouthing, 'You, me, behind the lighthouse?'
"Yeah," said Carter, goosing Heero as they walked to the sixteenth hole, "he's got the hang of it." Heero smiled, thinking, 'I'll kill you before the night is over.'
They made it to the eighteenth hole with all members of their party intact, however. It wasn't until Heero, putting from a foot away, realized that Treize had been led off to observe the natural beauty of the ducks on the water that he felt really nervous. As he moved to hit the little pink golf ball--Treize had laughing insisted that they both pick different shades of pink--a hand grabbed his butt and a finger slid up a bit *in* him and GROSS he'd heard Quatre talking about how his sisters, being sadistic perverts, used to do that to him, but Heero never thought someone would have the audacity and--
He jerked away and putted the ball in for a 2. Then, trying to control his trembling arms, he snatched the ball before it went down the pipes and shoved it into Carter's mouth. To Heero's satisfaction, the older boy began gagging on it. The rage that had been building up the entire night exploded inside his chest and he grabbed Carter by the collar of his Izod shirt and dumped him over the fence and into the water that ran around the miniature golf course with a delicate ::splash::.
"Heero," said Treize as he leaned against the fence, watching Carter splash and fumble in the shallow ditch. "I guess you're ready to go?" Heero inhaled deeply; the night air suddenly seemed a lot sweeter.
"Of course," he said, shivering a little as Treize wrapped his arm around his waist. "I feel like ice cream. How about you?"
Zechs sighed, running his hands through his drastically shorter locks. Then his gaze fell on Duo, sprawled out on the backseat, snoring lightly. "Duo," he said, tossing the scissors into the glove compartment. "You make me do the stupidest things, and I do them with a big smile on my face."
Duo wrinkled at his nose, one hand absently slapping at Zechs's interfering fingers.
Zechs laughed, and started the car up. He had to take Duo home.
"Jerk," said Trowa, kicking a stone across the road. "Imagine! Him turning me down. We've had sex, for Christ's sake. He's compromised my honor." He continued his rant down the street.
The next day, five boys shuffled into double D's, all with varying degrees of joy and sexual satisfaction written on their faces. Duo looked, despite the bits of yellow hair sticking out from the clasp of his brace, quite happy and kept tickling Heero whenever the Japanese boy ventured near. Heero, to everyone's surprise, after only minute of prodding spilled the entire story of his date with Treize, embellishing the part where he dumped Carter into the miniature golf river only a little bit.
Quatre and Trowa spent the first hour shooting deadly glares at each other.
'What does he think he's doing?' thought Quatre as he ground almonds into powder for some of Dorothy's dark chocolate. 'The counter is *my* domain.'
Wufei just watched them all and laughed to himself. 'Haha,' he thought, 'soon you shall see that love leads to no good.' With that, he snuck into the back room and began investigating the fiscal health of the chocolate shoppe.
He flipped open the first book, frowning as a cloud of dust rose up to stick to his nose. "ACHOO!" he sneezed, tossing the book aside with a scowl. "Damn Dorothy, and her manly ways," he said. "If only she'd clean house like a normal woman."
With that, he carefully brushed the dust off a second record book and began reading.
An hour later, he had reached the end of her records, and a startling conclusion.
"Guys?" he said, wandering out of the darkness of the tiny room covered in gray dust. He immediately turned bright red as he saw Zechs and Duo making out in the kitchen, the blonde's hand up Duo's shirt.
"Mm," said Duo, his hand resting at Zechs's neck, instinctively searching for the long fall of hair that was no longer there, "Zechs..." He tried not to have a nosebleed as he made his way out of the kitchen, and into the front of the shop, where Quatre and Heero were filling orders.
"Trowa," he hissed, spying the tall boy taking a break at the table tucked into the corner, almost into the restrooms. "Come here." Rolling his eyes, the banged one stood, rubbing his hands self-consciously on his jeans as he felt Quatre's eyes on his back, and wandered over.
"What do you want, Wufei?"
"Look at this," he said, and shoved the book into Trowa's chest.
"What about it?" asked Trowa.
"What about it?" Wufei heaved the Great Sigh of a genius working with imbeciles. "What do you mean, 'What about it?' She's bankrupt, Trowa. Utterly and completely at the mercy of creditors. She's got no savings, and I want to know why."
Trowa shrugged. "It's none of my business," he said, wiping a hand print from the display case with his apron.
"What do you mean?" Wufei growled. "She's only been your second mother for five years, Trowa Barton. She's the one who offered to send you to college. She's the one who paid for band camp. Don't you dare be so callous. I thought you had more honor than that."
"Maybe," said Trowa, exasperated, "she's just bad with money."
Wufei snorted. "Dorothy? She's a miser if I ever saw one. There's something fishy going on here, and I intend to find out *exactly* what it is, even if you don't." With that, he flounced back into the kitchen, making his Grand Exit.
Five seconds later, he was back in the storefront, holding his bleeding nose.
"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," said Trowa mildly.
Wufei didn't even bother to glare before making his way to the bathroom to clean up.
In her Zen garden, Meiran suddenly frowned.
"That Wufei!" she said, balling up her fists. "I'll bet he's up to no good."
End Part Five
Bianca
Please send comments to: weirdsisters@hotmail.com