[catholic schoolboys rule!]

Title: Catholic Schoolboys Rule!
Author: Link Worshiper
Pairings: 1=2, 3=4, mentions of others
Stuff: AU, pokes at religious institution, fluff/sap, angst, lemon topping and a bit of drag XD
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Sunrise, Bandai and a lot of other people who aren't me. +5 skill points if you guess the title reference.

Filling a request for Rainya, because she feeds my geek needs. This chapter is totally un-beta-read, but I feel so guilty that schoolwork kept this from being written for so long.

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VIII.

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The cycling washing machine thrummed beneath Duo's thighs, sending a pleasant tingle running through the muscles. His bare heels banged against the front of the machine as he leaned back, his eyelids fluttering contentedly over his hazy blue eyes. Laundry, for as little effort as it actually required, was one of Duo's least favourite activities, but he'd always had a knack for finding ways to entertain himself and this was no exception. As of late, he'd especially had plenty of delicious images to occupy his brain cells, all of them focused on his favourite exchange student.

He was glad no one would ever know how shamelessly perverted some of his Heero-centric fantasies were. He'd be lying if he tried to describe them any other way. It wasn't like he stared at Heero trying to come up with a million and one ways to rip the clothes off his body, but rather just kept fine-tuning the same erotic scenarios over and over, something he never tired of.

Parting his legs the slightest bit more, Duo dropped his head back, a sated grin riding his lips. He blamed the vibrations of the washing machine he was perched atop for the explicit nature of his thoughts. Barely wearing a rumpled blouse and a revealing pleated skirt in Duo's imagination, Heero lay with his legs splayed apart as he pleasured himself, Duo's name a constant whimper of need on his lips the entire while - a sound Duo particularly thought suited Heero's low, purring voice well. Panties bunched around one foot and little ankle socks; desperate sliding, thrusting fingers; wet semen smeared across the insides of powerful thighs Duo knew were hewn as a god's: all of it pounded and boiled relentlessly in Duo's belly and his loins. He chanced an unabashed groan of desire as he envisioned Heero's touching becoming more adventurous.

His fantasy shifted with a sharp flash of white, this time finding Heero in a better state of dress, crouched on his knees against an ambiguous white wall. He was slowly unbuttoning his shirt, his lips still moving in the shape of Duo's name and his eyes, clouded with a dark mist of desire, were focused intently on the place where Duo's mind had chosen to settle in for the show. He liked seeing Heero so vulnerable. Truly, it was the idea of Heero wanting him - needing him - that made Duo's very flesh tingle.

"Duo!"

Duo twitched out of his revelry, quickly realizing that he was no longer alone in the laundry room. His head snapped in the direction of the door, his annoyed expression softening only when he realized that it was Hilde who had interrupted him. She was dragging a large yellow laundry bag behind her, which was stuffed full with dirty clothes, a teal bottle of laundry soap in arm. Duo did his best to quell his dirty thoughts as not to embarrass himself.

"I always wait to do this until I'm down to my last pair of underwear," Hilde was complaining as she lugged her laundry bag over to the empty washing machine next to Duo's. "It's such a pain in the ass to schlep all your shit over here. You're so lucky you only have to carry your stuff down the stairs instead of across fucking campus."

Duo offered her a helpless shrug as he watched her pull the bag open and begin to dump her clothes into the machine in great wads of tangled cloth. "I don't know what's so hard about them getting a laundry room set up in the girls' dorms," he commented.

"We have a little crap one, but only one washing machine works and one - maybe two, if you're lucky - of the dryers. It's hardly worth bothering with," she told him as she fished around in the pockets of the pair of pants she had clutched in one hand. "You'd think it would be an easy thing to fix, but no-o-o." She shook her head with annoyance as she removed an old ticket stub and a candy wrapper from the pockets; she wadded the trash up and dropped it onto the floor.

"I wouldn't know," said Duo, stretching his legs straight out in front of him for a few seconds before swinging them back down against the machine. "I could count on one hand the number of times I've ever been to the girls' dorms in all my years here." His large eyes darted between Hilde's bag and the gaping maw of her washing machine as she ferried her clothes between the two. "Still looking for your regular skirt?" he asked as she dumped her long winter skirt in with the rest.

"Ugh, yeah," groaned Hilde as she tossed in the last of her things (a black pair of polka-dotted socks) and went to unscrew the top of her laundry detergent. Pouring an ample dose into the cap, she sloshed the soap across her clothes, lamenting, "I really have no idea what happened to the stupid thing."

"Bet it was stolen," Duo interjected just as the cycle of his own washing machine stopped with a violent shudder beneath him.

"If that's the case, then I bet it was fucking Dorothy or something," said Hilde with a trace of bitterness that countered any sarcastic humour that might have clung to her sentence. "She's been weirdly vindictive towards me lately. I mean, more than usual, at any rate."

Duo grinned sharply, jerking a thumb at himself as he wiggled his eyebrows. "She's just jealous that you've got a stud muffin like me as your boyfriend."

"Stud muffin?" Hilde regarded him candidly, a bemused expression on her face. "Who says, that, really? What are you - gay?"

"Damn proud of it, too," Duo retorted glibly, moments away from a series of unfettered chuckles as he dismounted the washing machine with a graceful leap. He lifted the lid of the machine and reached inside with both hands to pull out a long stretch of green and blue striped bedding. He carried the wet wad of cloth to the other side of the room and threw it into one of the dryers. Scooping the lint out of the filter beneath the dryer's door, he called over his shoulder, "Say, Hilde, you wouldn't happen to have one of those fabric softener sheet thingies, would you?" He surreptitiously wedged the large lint ball between his dryer and the one next to it.

Leaning against the row of washing machines, Hilde crossed her arms over her chest and arched an eyebrow. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Duo, but didn't you just wash your sheets the other day?"

Duo was given away by the bright pink his face flushed at Hilde's comment, but he still refused to acknowledge her. "No fabric softener thingy, I take it?" he said in an effort to steer the conversation well away from his sheets. He knew Hilde was smart enough to probably figure out why he'd had to wash them again so soon anyway. He only hoped she wouldn't catch onto why the jeans he'd just washed were in this load as well.

"I'm not stupid, Duo," Hilde said as Duo slammed the dryer door closed with a loud bang. "I see the way you look at him. I bet you wish it was his smell you were washing out of your sheets, not just yours." Now she arched her both eyebrows knowingly as she carefully watched her friend, well aware that his lack of immediate response said more than his denial ever could. She shook her head and snorted a little as she said with a wry laugh, "I knew it. Ever since he walked into your life, you've been off kilter. Everything you do surrounds -"

"Shut up - I know, Hilde!" he snapped suddenly, unexpectedly starting Hilde. "Trust me, I'm more than aware of how Heero goddamn Yuy floats between the lines of every stupid thing I do. If washing him out was as easy as throwing my dirty underwear into the laundry, he'd be yesterday's news by now." His posture fell a bit as his chin rolled against his chest, his eyes downcast with the embarrassment of what he was about to admit. "Even when I'm fucking some random, no matter who it is, all I think about is him and how I wish I could have him begging for me instead." Duo quaked with frustration as he weaved his fingers through his thick hair, sliding them down the back of his skull to the place where his hair started to twist into his braid. "I don't understand it. I've lived my life taking every precaution not to care, and yet, here I am fixated on this space cadet like it's my goddamn job." His sigh was long and despondent. "Explain that to me, Hilde?"

Hilde met Duo's eyes apologetically, sympathy radiating in her expression. "I don't know what to tell you, Duo," she said. She wasn't sure that picking apart Duo's psyche to his face just to explain to why he was so drawn to Heero Yuy would really be something the longhaired libertine was up to hearing.

Duo let out a displeased groan. "I love how everybody's got to be your personal shrink until you actually need some help," he complained, throwing himself against the wall of dryers just behind him. The shaking machine sent a pleasant rumble through his body, but for some reason, it didn't quite elicit the same images of Heero that had been running through his mind before. Instead, he thought about how Heero looked when he was pensively reading in the study hall period they shared.

"Hey, it's not my fault you make complicated problems for yourself," Hilde shot back with a slight edge. She appraised him carefully, tightening her arms across her chest as she did. She'd been friends with Duo long enough to be able to tell when he was reaching the end of his rope, and it was glaringly obvious how he was desperately trying to claw out for the things that usually held him safe - lest he slip and fall to a place where things were beyond his control. "You need a break," she decided at length, daring to step across the concrete floor to where Duo stood. She grabbed his wrist and started tugging him towards the door. "Maybe you could do with some fresh air."

Duo only jerked his arm back once, but soon relented to Hilde's ways and followed her obediently outside.

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Reading only by the sunlight pouring in through the window over his head, Heero had a large history book opened on his lap, though he was having quite a time really concentrating on it. His eyes kept wandering to the series of shredded paper strips that lay strewn around the wastebasket just a foot or so away from where he was situated. Despite his best effort to make the words written on the whole piece of paper illegible, his mind kept piecing the strips back together and reforming the message there. It was brief, but Heero was still insulted and angered by it.

The message was another familial correspondence from his home on the lunar colony. He wondered if he could request that Noin stop accepting them as he stared at the paper he'd promptly ripped to confetti after reading it. Just remembering the words made Heero want to ram his hand through the wall. He could just hear his grandfather's creaking voice reading it aloud in his mind. 'Boy, your father and I have been talking about you more and more, especially now that you've been away. Both of us agree that this exchange program is probably doing more harm than good. I'm going to see about requesting an early return for you, hopefully in the next few weeks. Expect a more rigorous schedule when you get back; there's no doubt you've gone soft. -J.'

Heero slammed the book shut and threw in the general vicinity of the trashcan vengefully. It banged loudly against the metal bin and then flopped to the ground, stirring all the paper bits into the air. Heero glared at them as they slowly wafted back down and rearranged themselves in a new pattern. Then he tucked his knees against his chest and wrapped his arms around them, assuming the same fetal position he'd curled up into after the incident with Duo by the Madonna statue. He was not eager to go back to the moon anytime soon. There were other things for him to take care of. He had to get away - to get to L3!

And if wanting a little freedom and control of his own life was going soft, he thought as he reached for the next book on top of the stack he'd just checked out of the library, then his two paternal figures were more fucked up than he'd initially imagined. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering how the hell he was related to them. It was exceedingly clear why his mother had walked out on his father so long ago. Heero hated her for not taking him with her when she did.

He did his best to try and forget those things for the time being and redirected his attention to the book on his lap. It was a pictorial history of Saint Magdalena's. He wasn't sure why he'd grabbed it off the shelf when he'd been browsing through the library, since he couldn't say he was particularly fond of the school either. He was reluctant to admit he'd been curious after seeing Duo's name on the circulation card stuck in the back cover.

The book was surprisingly uninspiring and bland. He'd definitely expected something a bit more exciting to justify Duo wanting to borrow it at one time. Most of the photos in the book depicted the physical evolution of the campus over its seventy-four years of existence. Towards the back, there were old class photos and candid snapshots of teachers and students alike.

Just as Heero was mindlessly flipping to the last page, which was adorned with a single photograph depicting a pretty, towheaded nun in the traditional black habit of her religious order. She sat comfortably in the corner of a plum-coloured sofa with her arm around a sheepish-looking adolescent. Heero was about to just close the book and cast it away, when something about the teenager's face made him look more closely at the picture. There was no mistaking it: that boy was a younger Duo Maxwell.

Heero blinked at the picture, just trying to absorb the image. Despite the awkward expression on Duo's face, he was much more awash with the innocence of youth. Clearly, that demon charm had yet to seed itself in Duo when this photo had been taken. His hair was a bit shorter, falling just above his elbows, and he was dressed plainly in khakis, an oxford and a sweater vest knit in the school's traditional green. He had a pair of brown loafers on his feet. The religious medals Duo held so dear hung around his neck on a leather thong, and the nun held a rosary that resembled the one he'd seen Duo use in chapel. The caption beneath the photo read 'Photographs compiled by Sister Helen Beatrice Maxwell [headmistress AC192 - ] depicted above with her nephew.'

Suddenly, Heero found himself wondering. He thumbed to the bibliographical information in the front of the book to check the date, finding that a local publisher had released it in the year AC195. It was AC199 now, meaning that Duo had probably been just about to enter high school at the time. He flipped back to the photo and looked at the two, still unsure of what to make of this. Having religious institution forced upon him from so many sides definitely had to have been the deciding factor in Duo's maturation over the past few years. Still, judging from the look on his face in the photo, Heero thought Duo looked more embarrassed to have to smile at the camera than to be sitting next to a nun. He wondered what set this woman apart from the rest. And why she was no longer headmistress. His forefinger trailed across the glossy paper, over the curve of Duo's cheek. 'Why don't you smile like that anymore?' he asked Duo's cherubic young face. An inexplicable pain weeded itself in his chest when he thought about it, sort of reminiscent of the feeling that grew inside when he glanced at the shredded message beside him.

Reluctantly, he started to close the book, but found himself loath to hide Duo's face. It was that carefree, lopsided smile of his - a smile Heero wished he knew how to form with his own lips. There was something comforting in knowing that at least Duo had once been able to. He left the book open on the floor, setting it on top of most of the ripped up paper while he reached for the next book on the stack. He turned the new tome over in his hands - a collection of convoluted poetry - liking the way the cloth cover felt against his dry-skinned palms.

He'd read many of these poems before, but today the saturated words scattered past him like they were blown on an uneven wind. Their disarray seemed to mirror his own state of being at the moment: cast in shadow, confused. Heero thought he'd finally found the direction he'd been looking for, but coming to Earth had only brought him to yet another crossroads. And every way he turned, it seemed like a dark purple shade bearing Duo's shape ran down each path he set out to take. He was quickly learning that things were never simple.

'For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the...'

There was a frightening BANG against the windowpane above him, and Heero jolted so badly, he threw the book in surprise. The shock quickly wore off and he scrambled to his feet to peer out the window, which was aglow with the thick afternoon sunlight that blinded his eyes when he tried to look.

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The tennis ball whimpered piteously against the high window before bouncing gracefully back into Duo's waiting hands. Hilde had brought him out for a rousing game of wallball that had only remained envigorating for the first fifteen minutes or so. He was inevitably distracted before long, frustrated by the torrents of images streaming through his head. He stared absently and the drifting clouds above the dormitory building, lost in his own sea of musing. He swore he hadn't meant to hurl the ball that hard; he hoped he hadn't done any harm.

Hilde's hand suddenly materialized in his line of site, her palm turned up expectantly. "Duo, you lost this round," came her distant-sounding voice. "You didn't even try to run."

Duo was barely listening, though, his eyes still cast heavenwards. Beneath the glaring white reflections of the sunlight in the glass, he thought he saw Heero materialize like some sort of otherworldly creature. Of all the windows on the building, of course it would be just his luck that he'd nail Heero's. He could tell Heero was staring at him, too, though his expression was hard to make out because of the distance. Duo had the urge to yell at him even though he really had no reason to; it wasn't long before he stopped being able to stifle himself, either. "Just what the heck are you staring at, Heero Yuy!?" he shouted, flinging the tennis ball aside and nearly bashing Hilde in the face with his knuckles as his arm whipped back. The words scratched his throat, as if they were wrapped in barbed wire.

He couldn't tell if Heero had heard him or not, though his figure remained unmoving in the frame of the window high above. Despite the distance, Duo could feel those blue eyes on him as if they were able to see straight through him, and Duo suddenly felt empty, like a tree trunk that had been hollowed out. The dead space within him was expanding like it meant to consume him and he had no idea how to fill the threatening void. Pinned beneath Heero's everlasting gaze, Duo felt a spike of panic, wondering if Heero could see the way he was starting to wear thin and if he found it to his pleasure that it was happening. It was no secret Duo stampeded over Heero too fast and too hard to ever hope that maybe Heero would come back to chase him down for any other reason than to snipe him down and smugly watch him fall apart.

Still, lingering somewhere in that thick hollow was a tiny seed of warmth - one that seemed to pulsate with the rhythm of his heart the longer he spent staring up at Heero. The brilliant sunlight skimmed over Duo's head and hit Heero's window in such a way that it seemed like the exchange student was wreathed in halo. Duo's fingers clenched tightly around the tennis ball, futilely trying to crush it in an effort to keep them from yearning towards the light Heero seemed to hold so easily. Casting his empty hand over his eyes, he shaded them from the sun and turned away and directed his attention at something safer, like the sturdy blacktop of the basketball court beneath his feet. Holding the sun was something he'd given up a long time ago. "I will not serve," he murmured, parroting the very words he'd told his father when he'd cast him aside so long ago.

Hilde was still trying to get his attention - "Hurry up, please! It's time, Duo!" she kept saying, repeating the phrase about five times before she even got a sideways glance from Duo. His mind had been bludgeoned by a taboo fantasy where Heero sat in that same quiet space he'd envisioned him before, masterfully manipulating a pen across a page and spelling out garbled words not even Duo's imagination could read. Always hidden from Heero, even in his own head, Duo watched as Relena appeared at Heero's side, promising him that she loved him and would make him happy if only he'd give her a chance. Heero ignored her for a few long moments before even looking up at her with a serious, meaningful expression wavering in his midnight blue eyes. Duo felt a dank cloak over his shoulders at the unknown prospect of Heero's response, which the sullen exchange student kept to himself for a torturous length of time. Then it came, a quiet whisper that overshadowed Hilde's irritated nagging: "I'm also in love," he fantasized Heero telling her, "but not with you."

"Duo!" Hilde shouted, jarring from his revelry with a violent push that sent Duo stumbling over his feet. He glowered angrily at her as he threw his arms out to balance himself, silently demanding to know what the big deal was.

"You were seriously starting to zone out," she justified herself with a shrug, jamming her hands into her pockets as she kicked the asphalt with the toe of her shoe. "You creep me out when you stare into space like that, like you're not even seeing the world in front of you anymore."

"My head is my own space, even if it is stuffed with straw, thanks," Duo retorted, turning his back on her and daring to cast his eyes back up at Heero's window. The sun had hidden itself behind a cloud, making it easier to see, but Heero was no longer there. Duo felt his fingers clamping around the tennis ball again, this time in a fit of rage and frustration. Without warning, he suddenly let out a savage yell and hurled the ball violently at the ground. It bounced and then sailed high, whimpering against Heero's window again. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" he roared at the heavens, feeling that no matter how red his eyes were or how loud his voice clamoured, no one would ever hear him anyway.

So this was how his universe was to end.

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