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"Brothers"Written By: ExecutiveShrimp Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, it belongs
to Bandai, Sotsu and associated parties. Written for pleasure not
profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: AU, Get together fic, sap, angst, fluff,
citrus Pairings: 2x1 Summary: After the death of his mother, Duo is forced to live with his estranged father. The new family seems perfect at first, but the truth is entirely different and will be revealed as Duo starts to get feelings for his "brother".
"Brothers " Chapter Four Heero turned out to be right. Cameron was very observant and instantly noted, upon viewing my progress, that if Heero had been helping me, the project would be much further along. Before another awkward dinner, he called both his sons - which still sounded so strange to me - to the dinner table, sitting us down across from each other. Heero, as always, was not in a conversing mood, but he didn't come across as hostile as he usually did. Cameron tried to engage us in a therapeutic discussion, encouraging us to share our problems with him or with each other, but we both wisely kept our mouths shut, knowing better than to aggravate the situation. Displeased at our lack of cooperation, Cameron resorted to merely ordering us to finish up work the next day. Both he and Tabytha would be home to monitor us. Expecting this, even hoping for it a little bit, I quickly resigned and quietly had my dinner. Heero seemed less at ease with the prospect of yet again being forced to spend time with me, using his fork more to push the food around than to bring it to his lips. When I came downstairs for breakfast that Sunday, Tabytha was her chatty self, still 'working hard' on planning the wedding of the aunt I had no conscious recollection of. She even asked for my opinion on a couple of things and even though it made me feel self-conscious - wondering if maybe she had figured I was the kind of guy to be interested in lifestyle topic because maybe she knew I was gay - I tried not to read too much into it and gave my lighthearted opinion about flowers and music. She didn't agree with any of my suggestions and dismissed all of them, but I supposed it was nice of her to even ask. Heero and Cameron were both hidden behind their respective newspapers. I couldn't help but suspect that they weren't as enthralled by the daily, international news as they put forth and were merely hiding behind the newspapers, knowing it would divert Tabytha's meaningless conversation elsewhere - to me. "Hey Heero," I started, noting how alien his name felt on my tongue. "If you're done with it, can I have the sports section?" There was no response. I looked at Tabytha, but she just shrugged. I continued: "The cartoons maybe? Surely you don't read those." It was clear Heero only graced me with a reaction because he was annoyed by me and eager to shut me up. He placed the newspaper on the table and extracted a double page from it, folding it into a more manageable size and handing it over to me, without so much as looking at me. With a flick of his wrists he straightened out the newspaper in front of his face and from behind it he commented dryly: "Read that, maybe you'll learn something useful." I flipped the page he had given me open and scowled at the recurring use of the words "stock market", "financial crisis" and "unemployment" and a lot of acronyms like "LULU", "QQQ" and "ZNGA". One meaning even less to me than the other, though I got the general gist of it. "Hm, the financial section, my favorite," I retorted sarcastically. "Well, my apologies, but this is a serious newspaper, there is nothing for you to color in," Heero bit back. Cameron's newspaper rustled as he lowered it and he gave Tabytha a look. "I suppose I should just be grateful that the two of you are talking to each other?" Neither of us said anything. I stubbornly put the page in front of me and made a halfhearted attempt at reading one of the lethally boring articles whilst making quick work of my fruit yoghurt. After breakfast, Heero reluctant followed me back to the driveway. The day before I had sanded everything and overnight I had stored the dismantled furniture in the garage and just slept on my mattress on the floor, still better conditions than what I was used to. I could sleep comfortably on the backseat of an old car. I'd done so often enough. Rain was drizzling down the windows so we spread out the newspapers of that morning on the concrete garage floor and placed the furniture on top. I set Heero to painting the bed frame black and I searched the walls for the tools necessary to apply a lock to the bottom drawer of the desk. Of course, as soon as I set to work on that, I had Heero's undivided attention. Momentarily he just watched me work, as if the explanation would magically tumble out of me, but I wasn't that much of a blabbering idiot. When he realized I wasn't going to respond to the burning feeling of his gaze on the back of my head, he asked in that deep, demanding voice of his: "What are you doing?" I looked up from my straightforward task of securing a metal loop to the upper edge of the drawer, to match the one I had attached to the frame of the desk which would both be held together by the sturdy padlock I had purchased. I was annoyed at the fact that there had been no way to do this without him noticing, but I figured I would draw less curiosity by not acting too mysterious about it. "What does it look like, genius?" Cleverly deducing that my question was rhetorical he didn't answer - good boy! - , he just kept looking at me. His calculating gaze was unnerving but I liked to think that my discomfort didn't show. "Why would you put a lock on that drawer?" "Why would you put a lock on your bedroom door?" I nodded to the winding staircase leading up to his bedroom. Heero didn't say anything, after satisfying himself that he had glared at me long enough, he crouched back down next to the bed and picked up the brush with glossy, black paint again, quietly continuing his chore. Realizing there was no prying a conversation out of him I fished my old, beat-up MP3-player out of the deep pocket of my black cargo pants and put in the ear pieces. Turning up the volume nice and high, I focused on my work, attaching the lock before reaching for a paint brush myself, whilst head bobbing to the beat of the music. I wasn't bothered that I was being rude, Heero wasn't exactly vice-president of the Niceties-club himself. It was probably a good thing to confront the antisocial recluse with how annoying it was to be ignored when you are right there, in the same room. I didn't exactly expect it to, but my method of reverse psychology seemed to take effect. Every now and then I felt his gaze on me and even occasionally caught him in the act of staring, grinning when he would look away quickly each time, pretending to never have looked at all. Unfortunately for him, even if I hadn't caught him, the slight - barely-there - redness of his face would have still betrayed him. "Do you like Metallica?" I eventually asked, after expertly ignoring him for at least a couple of hours. I took out only one earpiece, leaving the other blaring The Black Album in my left ear. He fixed his glare on me, pretending to be annoyed by my interruption of his work. "Excuse me?" I gestured at my pocket where I kept my MP3-player, the white chord snaking out, dangling back and forth. "Do you like Metallica?" Confusion mixed in with his frustration. "Never heard of them." My jaw dropped. "You've never heard of Metallica? You poor child!" He narrowed his eyes at me. "Don't call me that." "Well, what else am I going to call you other than a newborn when you admit to me you've never heard of Metallica?" I snorted. "Man, you've been wronged if no one ever introduced you to their music." I frowned deeply. "From what I hear it is just noise. The kind of noise only someone who doesn't have a brain to get scrambled can enjoy." "Yeah and what kind of music does your Highness listen to?" I bit back, already regretting ever taking my earpiece out. Heero shrugged and matter-of-factly stated: "I don't listen to music. It's just a waste of time, I have more important things to do." "Wow." I made a face, I couldn't even begin to fathom how to respond to that, but it was clear that the more we learned about each other - however slowly - the less we discovered to have in common. Heero turned back to his work and I followed his lead. When we finished painting the furniture, we moved upstairs with the rollers and buckets of paint and started on the walls. I decided three of the four would be black, I appointed Heero to paint the fourth wall the icy blue I had picked out, to contrast sharply with the dresser I had just painted black. While working, I enjoyed my music and, on the other side of the room, Heero seemed to appreciate the quiet, standing on a stepladder and dragging the roller up and down, coating the wall. Around noon Tabytha walked in through the open door - also freshly painted black - carrying a tray with two plates of food and two tall glasses of lemonade with ice. She stopped in her tracks as he entered the room, barely able to compose her expression as she took in the color scheme. "It's uh... very unique, Duo," she concluded diplomatically. "It fits you." I didn't bother pointing out that she, or any other resident of this household, didn't have any clue as to what would fit me, seeing as none of them truly knew me. I just politely thanked her for lunch and took a seat in the middle of the room, thankful for the soft carpet. She placed the tray by me and waited for Heero to join me on the floor, sitting with his legs folded. When she was satisfied with our effort to get closer together she said: "Enjoy your lunch" and then walked off, back downstairs. Heero stubbornly pulled one of the plates into his lap and took a large bite of the home-made turkey sandwich, washing it down with a gulp of lemonade. I watched him as he ate, tired of being annoyed and frustrated, I was mostly amused by his determination to avoid eye-contact. His gaze settled on an empty corner in the room and intently focused on that very spot. "Look, Heero," I started, not even waiting for him to acknowledge me by looking at me before I continued, "they are just going to keep doing this until we get along, or at least make it seem like we are getting along." Finally, he looked at me, his eyes as cold and dead as always, but one eyebrow slightly raised. "They are just going to keep making us do stuff together. I think we both agree that we would rather not spend any more time than necessary together, right?" He nodded curtly. It was offensive to me that he so immediately and unquestionable agreed with me, but then again, considering the phrasing of my assertion, I hadn't left him much choice. So I mentally filed the emotion under 'stupid' and cross-referenced it with 'useless'. "Can't we just pretend like we are getting closer? To keep them off our backs." "Fine. What strategy do you propose?" he wondered stoically. I rolled my eyes. "Well, what do people do when they get closer and start to like each other?" "I don't know." "Of course you wouldn't," I retorted dryly, even as I acknowledged a distant empathy for my 'brother'. But it was quickly overwhelmed by the memory of how frustrating he was. "People start talking to each other, showing interest, sharing interests. Sound familiar?" He just looked pissed off like he always did. "You know? Talk?" I spoke slowly to antagonize him. "I might say something... and you might be prompted to say something back? Maybe I'll even say something again in response to that?" I looked at him expectantly, observing no change in expression whatsoever. "Why are you talking to me like I am mentally underdeveloped? I'm not." He informed me. "I was going for socially undeveloped." Heero snorted. "Maybe, once in a while, we should ask each other over dinner how the other's day went. At breakfast we could discuss something in the newspaper. Maybe I could even come up to your room some time-" at his intensified glare I quickly amended: "or you could come up to my room. We could just do our own thing and ignore each other, but at least it will make Cameron and Tabytha think that we are getting along and they will leave us alone." "The obvious flaw in your method is that in our efforts not to spend time together or interact with each other, we would still end up spending time together and interacting with each other." "So what? Am I really that fucking repulsive?" I burst. I thought I had long gotten used to be being unwanted, but apparently not enough to be able to just brush it right off when I was - once more - confronted with it. Heero blinked away the shock in his eyes. "You just said yourself that we agreed we both disliked spending time together," he argued. "At least this way it will be on our terms, not theirs." Heero just blinked, unyielding. "Fine. Have it your way." I rose to my feet and picked up the roller, reaching into my pocket with my free hand and searching around for the MP3 player. "Just don't be surprised if next weekend we'll be washing the cars together, or getting enrolled in needlepoint classes." I put in my music, turning up the volume even more and continued my work, angrily pushing the roller up and down, feeling minute spatters of paint on my face. Anger, as it turned out, was a good motivator. We both worked quickly and efficiently, not even so much as look at each other. I imagined that if I had been working alongside a friend, or my mother - or a real brother - the chore would have suffered considerable delay because there would be a lot of goofing around. Since Heero and I still seemed adamant to deny each other's existence in our own little universe, we managed to finish everything before dinner. We wordlessly agreed to leave the furniture in the garage for another night, to allow it plenty of time to dry. Just before dinner was served, as Heero and I were packing up the newspapers we had used to cover the floor and peeled away all the painter's tape that had lined the doorway and window frame, Cameron appeared in what was from then on - without a smidgen of doubt - my room. There was no judgment on his face, I had to admit this disappointed me. I would have loved for him to openly loathe it, giving me the satisfaction of a job well done. Heero continued cleaning up, ignoring Cameron, probably still pissed off that the man forced us to spend the weekend together. I paused to await any sort of comment. He looked at me and formed a smile. It was a nice smile, but I couldn't really tell if it was sincere or not. "You boys did a great job." "Thanks," I retorted flatly, not feeling complimented in the least. "See what you can achieve if you two just come together and work together?" I barely managed to swallow back the sarcastic snort that threatened. Although Heero may not be willing to cooperate, I planned on trying out my strategy. "Yeah, we make a good team." I looked at Heero, kneeling on the carpet, diligently folding the sheets of newspaper into a compact and manageable stack. Cameron's smile brightened, maybe it was sincere after all. Although, as a former lawyer, he must be a legendary liar. "I'm very proud of both of you." With an imaginary fist I stomped down that sliver of happiness that appreciated a father's approval. Remember, I told myself, this guy is a dick. A terribly polite, well-spoken, good-looking dick... Why would I care about ever making him proud? He has his new son to take care of that. He told us dinner was ready so we followed him downstairs, where dinner proceeded as usual: uncomfortable and boring. "Did you two enjoy working together on Duo's room?" Tabytha inquired. I looked at Heero but he had his gaze fixated on his plate. "It was cool." "Cool?" She chuckled sheepishly. "Fine," I amended. A heavy silence ensued. Tabytha's eyes jumped from me, to Heero and back to me as we both purposefully ignored each other. "Things don't seem to have improved much. Cameron and I had hoped that spending some time together would bring you closer to one another." "It's a classic team-building exercise," Cameron cut in, "I send my managers on team-building retreats each year. Building things together, completing tasks together, forms a bond." He looked at us expectantly, hoping to see the effects of the "team-building". His sighed as both his "sons" played with their food. "Friendship is like a muscle, my father always used to say," he continued matter-of-factly, picking up a piece of meat with his fork, "if you exercise it, it gets stronger. If you don't, it withers away. Seems in this case more exercise is in order." He wrapped his smirking lips around his fork and chewed his medium-rare meat. Exactly as I had predicted. I looked at Heero meaningfully, catching the end of his stare as he had been looking at me, probably in surprise at the accuracy of my predictions. After dinner I went upstairs to my room. The smell of paint was overwhelming, so I flung the window open to air out the space, or else I'd end up with the mother of headaches. I lay down on my mattress on the floor and opened up the laptop Cameron and Tabytha had generously given me. I aimlessly searched the web, finding mild amusement in a set of YouTube videos as I skipped from one to another. I lost myself in the meaningless activity. A little past midnight, there was a soft knock on my door. Through it came Cameron's muffled, but stern voice: "Don't you think it's time you went to sleep? It's a school-day tomorrow - today, actually." I frowned, wondering how he had even known I was still awake, all the lights were off. Surely the glow of the laptop's screen wasn't bright enough to be seen through the crevices between the door and the doorframe? Too tired to further question the matter or get into a discussion with him, I replied: "Okay." As I changed I heard his footsteps move down the hall and then the door to the master bedroom closed. In the breeze of the cool night's air, I slept relatively soundly, but there was an anxiety and nervousness in my stomach when I woke up. Monday. School, including physics the last period, my favorite class, getting frostbitten sitting too close to Heero and his ice cold demeanor. We had another typical breakfast of Tabytha being superficial and Cameron and Heero ignoring today's world as the news of yesterday was much more pertinent. "You look nice today, Duo," Tabytha commented out of the blue. I was wearing a ripped pair of jeans and a cheap sweater she had already seen, so I assumed she was referring to my hair, that I had in a ponytail as opposed to the usual braid. I thought I saw a shimmer of cobalt peeking over the top of the newspaper, but when I turned my head to look, all I was met with was the headline and the back page with personal ads, so it may have been my imagination. "Thanks." "You have very pretty hair. How long has it been since you last cut it?" I shrugged. "I don't remember." She just smiled. "It's nice." Then she made a mistake by noting: "It looks like your mothers. I saw a picture of her, she had beautiful long hair too." Her comment knocked the wind out of me and my heart contracted painfully. My face went pale at the mere mention of her, emotions that I had been suppressing caught me off guard and flooded me. She must have noticed, she apologized for bringing up bad memories. I corrected: "Good memories, actually. But that doesn't make them easier to remember." Her sad smile was a novel show of kindness and understanding. Then all of a sudden her attitude went perky again and she announced gleefully: "I made you boys delicious sandwiches and fresh squeezed orange juice to take to school." "Great, thanks," I replied dryly, confused by the sudden shift. For a moment there, I started to like her, but now I wondered if that had been too lenient and premature. She seemed to have no ill intentions, but she seemed fake, even though somewhere underneath her tanned skin, there might be something real and likable. That confused me. With my delicious sandwich and fresh squeezed orange juice I was off to school. Between classes in the corridors I spotted the guy who had approached me the week before and had described Heero as a "whore", renewing my curiosity. In all honesty, I didn't think of much else throughout the day. The possibility of something scandalous was simply irresistible. Above all, however unpleasant Heero could be - and he was excellent at it - he was also a delectable enigma and his secrecy only left me feeling challenged. Surely the family that I had more or less rolled into wasn't truly as perfect as it appeared on the surface. I was eager to uncover the imperfections. I didn't hope the rude boy was justified in calling Heero a whore, but shamefully I did have to admit that I hoped to find something sinfully interesting. Bring him down to my level. Then, maybe, he could treat me as an equal, rather than looking down on me, like a bug, one that needs to be stepped on. Physics, the final period of the Monday school day. I attempted interaction with a lighthearted greeting but he blatantly ignored me, pretending to be blind and deaf. He left me no other option: I poked him in his side. The brief, sudden touch caused him to flinch, almost violently, launching him out of his seat. Heads turned and eyes fixated on him. He glared them all into submission and soon they uncomfortably looked away. "Why did you do that?" He hissed demandingly as the class started. "Just checking to see if you were still alive. You are." I smirked at him. "Thank you for that vital information," he deadpanned, then dutifully returned to the task of ignoring me at expert level. Following a mind-numbing class, the teacher turned his back to the blackboard to face us with a most unwelcome announcement as far as Heero and I were concerned. He started handing out pieces of paper, one to every set of lab partners and he explained: "Your next homework assignment will be a paper on mechanics, forces and motion. Based on last-year's feedback, when students had trouble coming up with a specific topic on their own, I've composed a list of topic suggestions. As you can all see, there is plenty to choose from. Of course you are free to come up with your own topic, but if you do, please check it with me. I want you to team up and together write a comprehensive paper on your topic of choice. You must consult at least five literary sources: textbooks, articles or presentations of experts in the field. The entry to the school's library is at the side of the building, in case you didn't know. I'm aware quite a few of you have never stepped foot in there... Now from what I've gathered you have quite a substantial English literature assignment, so I will set the deadline three weeks from today, I trust that will be sufficient." I was startled as Heero abruptly shot his hand in the air. "Mister Yuy?" "Why is it necessary to complete this assignment in pairs? It seems straightforward enough." I watched many students roll their eyes at him and the teacher seemed to have to suppress the same urge. "Mister Yuy," he started impatiently, "creating a strong, foundation of academic knowledge is not the sole purpose of your high school career, another important teaching that you should take with you upon graduation are what I like to call "life's lessons", one of them, if not the most important one, being: how to successfully cooperate with others. This will be a skill you will have to develop, as your future will heavily depend on it. I have no doubt you can write a brilliant paper on friction, angular acceleration, or driven oscillations. I do, however, question your ability to work alongside someone. Don't you think this will be the opportune moment to prove me wrong and establish yourself, well and truly, as my most accomplished student?" Wow, I thought, this guy had Heero wrapped around his little finger at that point. A wide-eyed Heero agreed after a lengthy silence: "Yes, sir." "What a fucking loser," a student whispered. I followed the sound and my eyes landed on a broadly built young guy just in time to see him imitate a blowjob by pumping his fist back and forth in front of his mouth and pressing his tongue into his cheek simultaneously. The guy in front of him laughed, but quieted down under the stare of the teacher. The old man moved back to the front of the class and finished: "I want you to use the remaining fifteen minutes of this class to decide on a topic, just encircle one on the sheet I have given you, or write it down if you had a different topic in mind and sign it with both your names and hand it in at the sound of the bell." The classroom erupted into indiscriminate conversation as pairs discussed their options. I turned to Heero apprehensively. "So uh..." I pushed the sheet that had been lying in between us, towards him. "Which topic do you like?" He didn't respond. "Great, so were back to this? I might regret saying this, but I like you better when you are insulting me." "The topic is irrelevant," he bit, "anything is fine, it's an easy assignment." "Well, for you, the physics isn't really the challenge though, is it? It's the teamwork. Don't you want to improve on yourself?" I winked at him. No response. Whatsoever. "Fine, be like that," I said with a sigh. "Then were just going to do it my way and I must warn you, it's not very scientific. A cerebral guy like yourself surely wouldn't appreciate it..." I warned him, expecting him to react. Nothing happened. He might not even have been breathing at that point. I pulled the paper back in front of me and grabbed my pen. With my other hand I covered my eyes, so I could see pen nor paper. What I could see was Heero, from the corner of my eye, finally looking at me with poorly hidden curiosity. It made me smile inwardly. Even though I still hated his guts, of course. I moved my hand back and forth above the desk and decisively brought it down, the point of the pen landing on the piece of paper, leaving a blue mark on one of the topics. I uncovered my eyes and looked down. "Ha! Kepler's Laws it is. I have no idea what that is." I looked at him with a cheeky grin. Heero's expression was blank and his voice flat as he concluded: "You are truly, devotedly, excessively idiotic." "Well, at least Cameron got what he wanted. We're already getting to know each other better," I responded glibly. I circled the topic and then wrote down our names at the bottom. It was strange to look down at the two different names with the same last name, it really had yet to fully sink in that he was my brother, technically. "So, do you wanna meet at your place or mine?" I absentmindedly joked as I started to doodle on the sheet. We had time to spare anyway. "Looks like we'll be spending time together after all, bro." I could see the physical strain as he undoubtedly had to stop himself from hitting me at that point. "Let's not be inefficient," he started, "it will be easier for me to do this assignment on my own and you don't want to do this at all, you don't even know anything about it. I will write the paper myself and for fifty percent of it I will dumb myself down to the best of my abilities to make your participation in the finished product plausible. That way we won't have to spend any time together and you'll get the best grade you'll ever get. That will be most beneficial to both of us." "I'm not a cheat." "And I'm not your 'bro'," he snapped. With a sigh I caved. I didn't want to be a cheat, but at the same time I wasn't exactly invested in my academic accomplishments - having had none in the past. On top of that, if Heero was that venomously adamant to avoid me, I might as well protect my own ego by relenting. I handed in the sheet at the end of the class. All the other students had already left in a hurry, Heero being the first. The teacher looked up at me. "Good luck." "Thanks," I retorted unenthusiastically and strolled out. I took my time making my way back to the picture-perfect house, taking a detour to explore more of my surroundings, much like a captive, wild animal exploring it's pen. Every cookie-cutter house reminded me how much my mother would have hated this place, it seemed strange to me that she ever lived that life and was happy with it. Cameron abandoning us must have changed her. Maybe it made her concept of 'family' and 'home' more fluid. They had to be, otherwise she would have found no happiness, assuming that she did. I stopped in front of the house. Cameron's house. She had never wanted for me to go back here. Things had a way of not turning out the way mom would have wanted. I assumed she had never planned for, or desired to be abandoned by her husband and to take care of their young son by herself, the same way I don't suppose dying of a brain tumor was what she had in mind. With a surrendering sigh, I went inside. Cameron greeted me from his office, then he looked down at his watch and pointed out: "You're late." "Late for what?" "Just late. Didn't your last class end at four?" I shrugged. He got up from his chair and walked up to me. "I decided to come home early today, so I could help you carry all the furniture back into your room, seeing as Heero won't be home until dinner." "Oh, okay." "Don't you think a "thank you" is in order?" He pressed. I felt uncomfortable under his stare, it felt threatening. Hesitantly, I offered: "Thank you." His face broke into an unexpected smile. "You're welcome. Now lets get to it." Cameron helped me carry all the pieces of furniture back to my room, showing off his strength as he wielded some very heavy pieces all by himself and easily maneuvered up the curving steps. Once everything was in my room, he helped me put everything back together, not once making a negative, judgmental comment about the gloomy decor I had created. "Do you like your laptop?" He asked as he picked the machine up from the floor and placed it on the newly black surface of the desk. "Yeah, it's great..." "Good. I figured a guy your age would like a gift like that." There were many gifts that would have made me much happier, but being absent the more character-forming years of my life, he had no idea who I was and what kind of gift would truly be befitting for me. I made no scathing remark, since he had, so far, spared me the same. He excused himself when the front door opened and high heels clicked on the hardwood floor as Tabytha stepped inside. From just outside my room, I listened to them exchange greetings, quite formally. "You're home early," the conversation continued from Tabytha's end. "I came home early to help Duo with moving the furniture back into his room." I didn't hear Tabytha respond. After a pause the sound of her heels returned and quickly became distant and muted as she walked into the kitchen, probably to get dinner ready. Maybe they had shared a look, maybe Tabytha thought Cameron should have waited for Heero to come home and help. I didn't really know what was going on and I didn't particularly care. I closed the door to my bedroom and seated myself at the desk, pushing open the screen of the laptop. I surfed to the high school website and clicked from one link to the other till the page loaded the mathletes championship photo. I gazed at Heero's face. Indifferent, uninviting, yet unknowingly beautiful. I found it hard to marry this image with the word "whore", or the insulting gesture that the student had made today in class. Curiosity always took hold of me in the most relentless way. I guess, being quite people-deprived growing up, I liked to imagine myself as some sort of detective. It's not like we didn't meet any people, but we never stayed with them for any extended period of time. I didn't have time to get to know people well, we would move before I would get the chance to. My mother always compared our method of meeting new people - and possibly making friends - as constant speed-dating. Get to know as much about them as possible in the admittedly limited timeframe, see if you are compatible and make an equally hasty decision based on that. It was difficult to shake that habit; that need to get to know everything about someone as quickly as possible; unearth even their best-kept secrets, like it's a contest and you're going for gold. To have this family resist me, when they were arguably the most important people to get to know about, was infuriating to say the least. Especially Heero. To make matters worse was that he had to be such a snotty brat about it. Mysterious snotty brat. Mysterious snotty brat with a killer ass. Mysterious snotty brat with a killer ass who is my brother. I shut down the laptop, anticipating to be called downstairs for dinner any moment. "This is so fucked up," I grumbled as I watched the image of Heero fade to black. As expected, I didn't have to wait long until Tabytha called to announce dinner was ready. I took my usual seat at the table. Heero came through the kitchen door, that lead to the garage and the stairway to his room, freshly showered. He ran a hand through his damp hair, shaking out a few remaining droplets and then brushed his bangs back, opening up his face. The hairs would quickly fall back into place as he seated himself across from me and dutifully looked down at his plate, avoiding eye-contact with everybody. When Tabytha had finished her play-by-play of her day - a lot of talk about nothing - Cameron looked at me and Heero and started: "I've been wondering how I can get you two to spend more time together..." Heero jaw stilled mid-chew. I knew it, I knew it, I thought to myself. In the silence that followed my mind run amuck. He's going to handcuff us together, blindfold us, drive us miles into dense forest and then dump us in the dead of knight with just a map and a single match. An unexpected voice broke the silence. I looked up in surprise, only to be more shocked to find Heero looking directly at me as he spoke. "Duo and I are actually going to be busy working on a Physics assignment together." I blinked at the turn of events. Cameron looked pleased and turned to me for confirmation. "Really?" I nodded, momentarily dumbfounded in the face of the unexpected. "Well, you should consider yourself lucky, Heero always gets excellent marks for Physics." He looked at Heero and inquired: "Have you come up with a subject yet?" Heero nodded in my direction. "Duo picked the topic, Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion." "That is a very interesting subject," he looked at me again, "and it's good to hear you two are already cooperating. This is very good." "Uh... yeah..." Heero gave me a get-yourself-together-and-play-along look. "Yeah, it's great," I continued awkwardly, "I'm really excited to get started, you know, space and stuff is really cool..." Heero glared at me, but I just grinned in return. This was going to be interesting.
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