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"Chances"Written By: Honor Disclaimers: Ain’t mine. Ain’t gonna
be mine. I’ve just permanently borrowed them, no worries! Warnings: No spoilers, no timeline. AU, Romance,
lemon, some language (not much) Rating: NC-17 (maybe) Pairings: 2x1, 3x4 and 5xM established Author’s Notes: Drumroll, please! *crickets
chirp* Ah, yeah…anyway, here is the sequel to Take a Chance.
To all of those beautiful, wonderful people who C&Cd me, arigato!
*huggles* I truly appreciate it. If you wish to do the same to Chances,
I’m certainly not going to complain! And now, Lights! Camera!
Action! *emphasis* //phone conversations// " Chances"
Chapter Four: Stratagems
When Duo popped up behind Heero in the hall that Friday morning, and Heero didn’t turn or acknowledge him, then Duo bounced out in front of him, walking backwards. “Hell~o?” Heero looked up and nodded to him slightly. That’s it. “Oookay….not exactly the response I was expecting. Whatcha worrin’ about?” Heero stopped dead in the hall, eyes flying up to meet Duo’s. “How did you know that I was worrying about something?” “Cause you’ve got this little crease right *there*” Duo let a finger tap in between Heero’s brows “and the only time I ever see it is when you’re really really concentrating or you’re worrying. This time, I think you’re worrying. So?” “Hn.” “I know this might be a difficult concept, Heero, but ‘hn’ is not an adequate response to any question.” Heero couldn’t stay focused on worrying when Duo was right there in front of him. The teen’s bright optimism was infectious. Reluctantly he shrugged. “I got a preliminary report on my grades today in Art. I’ve got a D.” “Yeouch.” Duo winced in sympathy, pivoting to fall in step beside him. “Any way that you can pull that grade up?” “One.” Heero admitted. “Two, really, if you count the final project. There’s a midterm due in a week or so. But Duo, it’s hopeless. I am not good at art. If it wasn’t for the fact that I need an art class in order to get into college, I would have avoided the subject altogether.” “Who do you have?” “Binkman.” “Ohhh.” Heero arched a brow. “You know her, I take it?” “Quite well. I only had to suffer through one class, thank God. What’s the midterm project?” “A collage.” Duo started laughing, he couldn’t help it. Heero had said the word ‘collage’ like most people would say ‘sewage’. “No sweat, ‘Ro. I can tell you exactly what to do to get an A.” Heero was slightly skeptical about this. “What?” “Death, Destruction, and Mayhem!” Duo proclaimed in grand, ringing tones. Duo faltered a little when he saw the complete incomprehension on Heero’s face. “You know, war pictures, buildings destroyed by terrorist attacks or something, babies that are orphaned or hurt…this isn’t making a whole lot of sense to you, is it?” “Not really.” Heero admitted. “I understand the theme that you’re wanting, but…how do you make a collage out of that?” “Uh-huh. ‘Kay. I think I now understand exactly why you’re getting a D in art.” Heero pondered this predicament. What he needed was Duo’s expertise. What he wanted was Duo’s company. Maybe he could combine the two? “What are you doing after school today?” “Nothin’.” Duo answered with a casual lift of the shoulders. “Would you be willing to come over? Help me out?” When Duo hesitated, Heero quickly revised his mental plans. “We could pick up a pizza on the way to my house.” “Pizza?” Duo’s head snapped up. If he had a tail, he would have been wagging it. “Meatlover’s kind of toppings?” Heero swallowed a smile. Smiling right now wouldn’t be a good idea. “I’m not picky. I’ll let you choose.” “You’re on.” + Heero made sure to be right next to Duo’s locker after the last period was over. “I am assuming that we’ll have to go somewhere to get the necessary pictures.” “Yeah, the throw away National Geographics at the library are the best thing to use for this.” Heero nodded. “In that case, do you mind if we drop Trowa off at Quatre’s first? He promised to be there right after school.” “Hey, no big.” They wandered off the campus, meeting up with Trowa at the Ford pickup. Duo slid into the middle of the seat, and tried hard not to cuddle up against Heero. It was difficult because the other teen was just so bloody attractive. Trowa didn’t have the same reaction on him as Heero did, which kinda worried Duo. Trowa was just as good looking in his own right. What did that mean, exactly? To distract himself from lusting over Heero, Duo turned to Trowa. “So how did you guys meet, anyway? Quatre goes to a different school, right?” “That’s right. We ran into each other.” “He means that literally.” Heero put in. “Quatre was running through Windfair, trying to find his sister. She had apparently wandered off. I was walking toward the food stands, and we crashed into each other. Of course, once he had apologized a couple dozen times, and I managed to figure out just why he had been running, I helped him look.” “You two must have had quite a…ah…impact on each other.” Duo offered, smirking. “No pun intended.” Trowa returned the slight smirk. “By the end of the day I had his phone number, and a date set up for the next night.” “That sounds like impact to me. How long have you two been together?” “A little over a year.” Duo whistled soundlessly. “Whoa. Most of my relationships last about three weeks. Good going.” Trowa shrugged, trying not to let on that he was very satisfied as well. Heero, on the other hand, was bothered by that casual comment. Why had Duo’s attempts with other people only lasted three weeks? He couldn’t understand just what it was about that statement that irritated him, but it did. Trowa opened the door and climbed down gracefully. He had barely managed to put both feet on the ground when a small blonde flew from the house and glomped him. Trowa laughed softly and caught the figure in his arms tightly. “Hi.” The blonde pulled away and looked up with a bright smile. “Hi.” Duo blinked, finally understanding what Meiran had meant. Quatre Winner was indeed gorgeous. He looked innocent, angelic, with the kind of purity that made everyone around him go into protection-mode. The impression was reinforced when Quatre turned his head and met Duo’s eyes. “Hi! I’m Quatre Winner.” “Duo Maxwell.” Duo returned, flashing a smile of his own. “Ah! *You’re* Duo?” Quatre untangled himself from Trowa and pulled Duo out with a slight tug. “You’ve got to stay now that I finally have you. Every time I turn around, someone is telling me something about you.” “I feel the same way.” Duo laughed. Heero leaned over to catch Quatre’s eyes. “Quatre, you can talk to him later. I’ve got an art project that I need his help on.” “Uh-uh.” Quatre shook his head firmly. “I know you, Heero. Once you’re focused on something, you forget about everything else. We’re going for ice cream. You can have him back later.” Heero looked toward Trowa for help, only to get a helpless shrug in response. He grunted. “Fine. Where to?” “Baskin Robbins! Trowa and I will follow in another car so we can separate there, alright?” + Trowa and Heero watched in morbid fascination as Quatre and Duo both worked steadily through their triple-layer sundaes without losing a beat in the conversation. Their own ice cream was slowly melting in front of them, its appeal only slight compared to the show right in front of their eyes. “Heero.” “Hn.” “Are they even breathing?” Heero shook his head. “I’m not sure.” As a matter of fact, he wasn’t even sure what the two were talking about. They were speaking so fast that he could barely discern every third word. They had been speaking that way for at least thirty minutes, too. After that much time, Heero would have thought that they would have passed out from oxygen deprivation. When the two chatterboxes reached the end of their ice cream, they looked at the empty bowls in front of them blankly for a moment. Then without hesitation or compunction they snatched Heero’s and Trowa’s ice cream and proceeded as they were. The two brothers shared a wry glance. “I guess we need to order more.” Heero eyed the two speculatively. “Apparently.” + Some two hours later Heero and Duo were at the kitchen table, various National Geographics spread over the table and scissors and glue stacked at one end. “What about this one?” Duo looked at the picture that Heero tilted in his direction and chewed his bottom lip a little. “Hm. It’ll work. You want something with really bold colors, though, so keep it in reserve.” Heero tore out an article from the back of the magazine and used it as a bookmarker before continuing the search. “We can use it if we don’t have enough.” “I doubt that’s gonna happen.” Duo grinned wryly. They had picked up twenty-five National Geographics at the library before coming home. When Duo had done his collage, it had taken six. He grabbed another slice of pizza and started eating it, still flipping through the magazine. He came across a landscape that had obviously been bombed, isolated fires still blazing. “Here, this one is good.” Heero accepted the picture and started cutting it out. And he kept an eye on Duo while doing it. It was amazing how much pizza Duo could eat. If he were left alone with the box long enough, Heero had no doubts that Duo would be able to eat the entire thing. When that slice had been consumed, Duo went to the next magazine. “Quatre is really cool. I can see why Trowa’s in love with him.” “Hn.” “Hey, ‘Ro? Do your parents know?” Heero paused in mid-snip. Was Duo uncomfortable with the idea of associating with him because he was worried about the parent factor? “Yes, they know. My father isn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of Trowa and Quatre being boyfriends.” “Let me guess.” Duo smiled wickedly. “He has a hard time picturing the two of them screwing like bunnies.” Heero choked slightly on a laugh. “Yes, I think so.” “What about your mom?” “She’s adopted Quatre.” Heero paused, but decided to keep going. If he were to have the relationship that he wanted with Duo, then he needed to start making Duo his confidant. “Trowa was very quiet when we were growing up. Very subdued. I think it scared her.” “And you.” Heero looked up and nodded, unsurprised to see that Duo was following his words seriously. “Yes. I am similar to him in that, but it’s because I’m not always comfortable dealing with people. Trowa acted that way simply because he was afraid of being too involved. When Quatre came…” Heero set the magazine down and stared at the porch door in front of him with unseeing eyes. “I remember the night Trowa came home after that first date. I had been honestly surprised that Trowa had even gone on a date at all. I figured that it must have been Quatre’s doing. Trowa never made the first move, but he was usually willing to go along with someone else’s suggestion at least once. But that night…he was sheet white when he came through the door. And shaking badly.” Duo blinked. “Why?” “I couldn’t understand it either. It took me a half hour to get him calm enough to explain what had happened. Apparently he had realized at some point during the date that he was completely in love with Quatre. And it scared him badly. He didn’t expect Quatre to return that feeling, and he had no idea how to handle it.” Duo leaned back, completely captivated by the story. “So what did you do?” “I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t necessary. I was still trying to plan out something the next day when Quatre called. He had to go into town to buy a birthday present and wanted Trowa to go along.” Heero smiled slightly in memory of when Trowa had gotten home later that afternoon. “When they got back, Trowa was almost glowing. All of the fears from the night before had been erased. Quatre even stayed through dinner, claiming that he wanted to get to know Trowa’s family.” “Q knew something was up, didn’t he?” Heero nodded. “You’ll discover that Quatre can almost be empathetic at times. He’s extremely sensitive to people.” “Hm.” Duo wasn’t about to confide that Quatre had muttered something to Duo right before they had parted ways that dealt with Heero. It had made Duo stop and think for a bit. The blonde would have to be practically empathetic in order to know it. “And of course, now they’re happily in love and screwing like bunnies.” Heero smirked. “When Quatre isn’t baby-sitting his sisters.” “How many does he have, anyway?” “Twelve.” Duo dropped the magazine. “TWELVE?” “There’s only eight younger than he is, which he is extremely grateful for. Otherwise he would have to keep track of all twelve.” Duo snickered. “What, he doesn’t have a mom?” “She’s…not always there.” “As in, she’s an airheaded blonde or she’s usually working?” “She doesn’t work.” Heero answered dryly. “Well, that certainly narrows down our options. Ooh!” Duo pounced on a magazine that had a dirty child on the cover of it, wrapped in a raggedy blanket and on the point of tears. Duo happily started cutting it out. “This is perfect. This should go in the middle, definitely.” Heero shook his head, bemused. He had no idea what criteria Duo was going on, and he was becoming more and more grateful that he didn’t have to do this on his own. “What about you, Duo? Do your parents know?” “No parents.” Duo replied cheerfully, attacking another magazine. “I live with an aunt. And she’s not really the type to notice anything like that, you know?” “Hn.” Heero eyed the stack of pictures. “Do we have enough?” “Yup, probably. Where’s your poster?” Heero pulled the empty poster board from the top of the fridge and put it on the table. Duo started putting pictures on in what seemed to Heero a haphazard pattern. He put a few on himself, trying to match what Duo was doing. “Ack! Heero, you can’t put two kids next to each other.” “Why not?” “Because it throws off the whole balance!” Heero looked at the poster. “There’s a balance?” Duo rolled his eyes. “Yes, there’s a balance. Look, you do a collage the same way that you would do a bouquet of flowers. You have three pictures of buildings, right? So they would go west, north, east. Then you would take the pictures that deal with landscapes and go northwest, northeast, southeast and southwest.” “And the pictures of children…” Heero was beginning to see exactly what Duo was doing. He placed those pictures in between the landscapes and the buildings. “Yeah! Now you got it.” “What goes in the middle?” “The biggest picture, usually. I think that pic of the kid on the cover is the best one to use.” Heero eyed the picture speculatively. Well, it was the largest. He set it in the middle and continued to place pictures under Duo’s supervision. There was a bit of rearrangement on Duo’s side—something about color schemes that completely went over Heero’s head—and then came the tricky part. Gluing it all down. When Trowa walked in, the remnants of paper were scattered all over the floor, pieces of paper was stuck to various parts of Duo and Heero, and Duo was waving a glue stick around in the air in agitated movements. “Heero, you weren’t supposed to put it there!” “It slipped.” Heero muttered defensively. “Besides, you’re the one who jostled me.” “Oh, so it’s my fault?” “Hn.” “Fine, fine, let’s just shift everything a bit. It should be okay.” Trowa paused in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room and watched for a few moments. “Having fun?” Duo looked up with a smile. “Hey, Tro. If you’re fast, you can grab a piece of pizza.” “No thanks. Quatre fed me.” “Q cooks?” “Only as a matter of survival.” Trowa answered easily. “We called in take-out.” “Ah.” Heero straightened up from the table, frowning at the poster reflectively. “How do we know if they’re all glued on?” “Easy.” Duo lifted the poster and shook it roughly upside down. He looked down on the floor. “Nothing fell off, so I guess we got ‘em all.” Trowa took in the poster and felt his eyebrows climb. “A little…dramatic, don’t you think?” “The words that you are searching for,” Duo intoned somberly “are ‘Death, Destruction, and Mayhem’. It’s the only way to get an A in Binkman’s class.” “Hn.” Trowa responded, eyeing the poster with frank curiosity. “Man, not you too. What, is it a family thing?” Just to get a reaction, Heero responded with a neutral “Hn”. Duo’s eyes cut to his, narrowed dangerously. “You’re playing with fire, man.” “I can take it.” Heero responded evenly, a devilish little smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. Trowa decided to interrupt before they got too carried away. “Here.” He took a piece of paper from one of the magazines and scrawled a number across it. “Quatre told me to give you his cell number. He forgot to give it to you earlier.” “Thanks.” Duo flipped his phone out and open, inputting the number in. When he finished he looked at the clock and winced. “Aw man, is it really that late?” Heero glanced at the clock in the kitchen. 8:15. “Is that a problem?” “Maybe. I did call Aunt Helen and warned her I would be at a friend’s house, but she doesn’t always remember where I am. I better scoot.” Heero tamped down his impatience. He wanted Duo to stay. It was purely selfish, and not something that he could indulge himself with. “I’ll take you home.” “Thanks.” Fifteen minutes Duo climbed out of the truck and walked to the door, turning around to give a last wave before disappearing into the house. Just like any friend would wave to another before leaving. Heero pulled away, turning around to drive back home. Something had to change. ~~~~~ Honor: I’m having so much fun right now! ~ * ~ |
