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"SURPRISING"Part 1Written By: CalicOcat Life With Heero Arc fic 85 Genre: Angst, Friendship Pairings: None yet Rated: PG-13 Warnings: AU, OOC, Swearing Archives: At Mediaminer.org under Calic0cat. Anyone
with archive permission for my other fics can help themselves; anyone
else, please ask. Disclaimer: Duo and Heero and the rest of the GW gang aren't mine. This story is. Nuff said. Notes: The arc begins between one and two years after Endless Waltz. Quatre POV in this story. 'Thinking' "Speaking" ************ Time passing or scene change Author's Notes: This is the first in an arc of stories. I don't know for sure how many stories there will be or how often I'll be posting them. The length of each story in the arc will vary, anywhere from ficlet to multi-part. Warnings will vary from story to story as well, as will the genre. Pairings will probably eventually make their way in, but it will be quite a while since the first half dozen or so stories are drafted out and there's no real indication of pairings in them as of yet. Feedback is appreciated.
Surprising Part 1 Arc fic 85 Quatre smiled cheerfully as he paid the cab driver while
Trowa got their luggage out of the trunk. He was looking forward to
seeing Heero and Duo this weekend; occasional phone calls and frequent
e-mail messages just couldn't replace spending time in person with
friends. 'I just hope they're home... Surprising them shouldn't
be too risky though; they've been pretty busy with the scrapyard lately
so I doubt that they would have gone away. Hopefully they won't have
already made plans...' He picked up his laptop and briefcase and headed
towards the house, Trowa close behind him. "Maybe they're away," Trowa remarked. "I
told you we should have called first..." "I wanted to surprise them," Quatre protested.
"Maybe they just slept in." He rang the doorbell again,
ignoring Trowa's disbelieving snort at the notion that their friends
would still be in bed this late in the morning. Trowa stepped further back from the doorway and looked
up at the front of the house. "I thought I saw the curtains move
in the upstairs window just now..." "Hah! Told you they would be home," Quatre
gloated. "I said I *thought* the curtains moved, Quatre.
That doesn't prove anything," Trowa said drily. "Besides,
surely one of them would have come to the door by now if they were
here." "If they slept in, it might take a few minutes.
Or maybe only one of them is home; he might not have heard the doorbell
if he was showering," Quatre said stubbornly. He reached for
the doorbell again only to have Trowa grab his wrist. "Let's give them at least a few minutes first,"
Trowa suggested patiently. Quatre sighed and agreed, "Fine." He'd been
looking forward to this all week; he couldn't help being a bit impatient.
It had been several months since they'd last all met in person and
that had been at the Habitat for Humanity project so they hadn't really
had much of an opportunity to sit down together and just *visit*.
All four of them had been so busy and it was so hard to find the time...
"If they're not home, we can call Hilde and find
out what's going on," Trowa offered, resting a hand on Quatre's
shoulder and squeezing supportively. "Maybe they're just out
for the day." "Maybe," Quatre sighed. 'This seemed like
such a perfect opportunity...' he thought disappointedly as another
minute slowly ticked by. 'Come straight here from the L1 meetings,
spend the weekend, then on to L3 on the Monday morning redeye...'
"Why don't you try the bell one more time?"
Trowa suggested. "Then we'll contact Hilde." Quatre started to reach for the doorbell only to stop
as he heard the scrape of a deadbolt. He beamed delightedly as he
realized that someone *was* home after all. "Heero!" he
exclaimed, darting forward to hug him enthusiastically in greeting.
"We were starting to think maybe you weren't home! Is Duo here
too?" "Hello, Quatre. Trowa," Heero said calmly
as Quatre pulled away and peered past him looking for Duo. "Yes,
Duo is here. He'll be down in a few minutes. Come on in." Quatre stepped inside as Heero moved out of the way.
He looked around curiously. This was the first time he'd actually
been inside the house though he'd certainly heard about it before.
He heard Trowa greet Heero behind him as he looked up and down the
narrow hallway. "Just leave the bags here and I'll take them upstairs,"
Heero instructed. Quatre followed the direction of his gestures as
he continued, "There's a bathroom down the hall that way if you
want to freshen up and the livingroom is over there. Just make yourselves
at home. I'll be back in a few minutes and I'm sure Duo will give
you the nickel tour when he gets down here." "Thank you," Quatre said, setting his briefcase
and laptop in the hall for Heero to take with the luggage and heading
off towards the indicated bathroom. He *did* want to wash up after
the shuttle trip. When he came back out of the bathroom, Trowa was waiting
to get in and there was no sign of either Heero or Duo. As he walked
down the hall towards the door that Heero had indicated led to the
livingroom, he could hear the low murmur of voices upstairs. He frowned
slightly, wondering why neither of them was back down yet, but continued
on into the livingroom to wait. Tempting though it was to just go
up in search of them, Heero hadn't seemed to want his guests upstairs.
'I hope there isn't something wrong... Maybe I shouldn't have assumed
that they would want us to stay here...' Quatre worried. It *had* taken an awfully long time for Heero to come
to the door... Maybe the delay had been due to an argument over whether
or not to let them stay; the luggage would have made it obvious that
they were expecting to do so. 'Heero was very polite and a bit distant.
And he barely hugged me back at all... He doesn't seem nearly as friendly
or open as he was the last time we met... I hope that the stress of
that big contract the scrapyard got isn't causing problems...' "Hey, Q! Wasn't expecting to see you guys this
weekend!" Quatre swept an appraising glance over Duo as he entered
the room and came over to exchange a friendly hug. 'His colour's a
bit high - maybe they *were* arguing... Their voices were quiet, too
quiet to make out words, but somehow they seemed... intense...' And
when he hugged Duo, Duo kept the hug very brief and Quatre could feel
the tension running through him. "We - well, more like I, Trowa thought I should
call first," Quatre corrected himself as Trowa entered the room
with Heero close behind him, "- wanted to surprise you. It's
so rare that I can make it over this way..." WEI *did* do business
in the L2 cluster - just not on the particular colony that Duo and
Heero were living on. It was one of the least war-torn and most economically
stable L2 colonies and WEI was concentrating its rehabilitation efforts
in the more impoverished areas. "I hope that this isn't an inconvenient time for
a visit," Trowa interjected. "I *told* him that we should
call first but he insisted on surprising you." Duo laughed, "Well, you definitely caught us by
surprise!" Quatre couldn't help thinking that the laughter and
words sounded a bit strained. "But it's - nice - to see you again," Heero
added, drawing Quatre's attention to him. Quatre realized that Heero
looked a bit flushed just as he'd thought that Duo had. 'Oh no. They must have been arguing...' he decided unhappily.
Quatre's suspicion was only reinforced by the way that Duo made a
choking sound at Heero's words and glared at Heero pointedly. "We'll need to pick up a few more groceries,"
Heero said, apparently ignoring Duo's reaction. "Why don't we
all go get them and eat lunch at Mama's?" "Good idea," Duo agreed. "You're gonna
*love* this place, guys..." "I'm sure we will," Quatre said politely,
thinking pessimistically that Duo's enthusiasm seemed rather forced.
He exchanged a worried look with Trowa, who offered a very faint frown
in response as they followed Duo and Heero out of the room. 'Maybe
surprising them wasn't such a good idea after all...' ################################################# On to arc fic : 86 Surprising part 2 |
