Smells Like Teen Spirit
by Shannon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)

Game 17
I Like to Lead When I Dance

(x) X (x)

“Heero?” Relena’s voice fluttered airily into the locker room, her dainty knuckles rapping lightly on the door frame. The cheer leading squad often followed various sports teams on their away games, so they would have at least some support while they were playing in the midst of another team’s fans. She had seen a good portion of Romefeller’s lacrosse team make their way out onto the playing field already; however, Heero had not been among them and she had decided to go on a hunt to find him before the game started. She was sure that if he just gave her the benefit of his time, she would be able to woo him over with her cooing and flirting easily.

“Heero, I’m sure you’re in here.” She dared to step into the room, even though it was the designated boys’ changing space. Unlike her (by her standards) prudish friend, Catherine, Relena had no qualms about overstepping barriers such as this when it came to her and her quest for Heero. She usually tried to remain conservative and coy around the general public and adults, to make herself seem more like a fine lady, but when she set her mind to it, all bets were off, even the polite-rich-girl face she liked to wear. Despite her determination and her prowess though, she was still pretty naive in many respects... not that the rest of her class knew that or anything, of course. She’d been around the block a couple times, so it wasn’t like she had absolutely no idea about what she was doing. Rather, what was probably the most flawed facet of her naiveté was her drive and conviction for Heero, if not what she had seen and done. She was so set in her idea that Heero could possibly want to be more than just an acquaintance to her, that it tended to blind her from the blatant fact that Heero had absolutely no interest whatsoever. Everyone else was pretty aware of this fact but either didn’t want to tell her because of fear or for the sheer fact that they could care less about Relena’s love life (or lack thereof). She set her jaw and started over towards the two other players still hanging around in the locker room, sitting on one of the long wooden benches with none other than her goddamned brother, speaking in low voices to each other.

“Relena, what are you doing!?” Trowa yelped with surprise when she laid a hand on his shoulder. Though he was clad decently enough for a guy, still half dressed in the clothes he had worn to school that day, he couldn’t help the light pink flush that rose to his cheeks. “You shouldn’t be here while we’re still changing! What if one of us had just come out of the showers or something?”

Relena glared sharply at him, as if trying to berate him for daring to speak in her presence with that watery stare of hers, though the effect of it wasn’t nearly as troubling as those of Heero and Duo, for example.

“Desperate is as desperate does,” Milliardo said dryly, a bemused light sparkling in his crystal blue eyes. “Bet she was gonna wait for Heero to come wandering out in a towel so she could jump out of a locker and snap it off his cute little butt.”

“Milliardo!” Relena squealed, crimson heat shooting up her skin like mercury in a thermometer on a sweltering day in June. She backhanded her chuckling brother with a little snap of her wrist, though it did little to quiet his mirth and he continued sniggering at her. “How dare you say something like that?”

“What? You mean that Yuy has a cute butt?” Milliardo shrugged, his amused grin quirking into a mischievous smirk that might have even rivaled Duo’s. He shrugged, knowing that this game would get a brilliant rise out of his little, prissy sister; “Eh, it’s just an observation, ‘Lena. But you don’t need me to tell you that, I’m sure,” he drawled, still smiling like a Cheshire cat as he ran a hand through his long platinum blonde hair and brushed it behind his ear. “After all, you spend a good deal of time staring at his ass, so I’m sure you know how nice it is without any help from me.”

Relena tried her hardest to keep her calm, even as Trowa and his other friend started to snigger, striving to make it sound like they were only sneezing a lot, but failing miserably, which only made them snigger more. “How dare you accuse me of being so... so lecherous!?” she snapped at her brother, feeling very embarrassed that she had been seen through so easily. “I have integrity!”

“Says you, the girl who just strolled into the guys’ locker room, casual as you please,” Milliardo returned with a dastardly smile playing at his lips. “I have integrity too, sis, as a journalist, which therefore means that it’s my job to hold the mirror up to nature and observe. And I just happen to observe that Little-Miss-President-of-the-School has a slight”--Milliardo lifted up a hand and squinted one eye shut as he peered through the tiny space between his thumb and forefinger--”stalker complex.” He shook his hand a little, drawing attention to it as he whispered again, this time far sarcastically: “Slight.”

“Aw, come on, Milliardo,” the other boy said with a large grin, knocking the longhaired blonde playfully, “give the poor girl a break. She’s not all that bad.”

“Ha, that’s a good one, Zechs,” he snorted, emphasizing the nickname he had lent to his anonymous friend just for Relena’s sake, so she could see just who it was who was interested in her. “She’s not bad at all! ‘Lena couldn’t be bad if she tried!”

Judging by the look on her face though, ‘Zechs’ was not someone that Relena was willing to settle for, even though he was pretty fair looking; as far as she was concerned, it was Heero or bust, and being as it seemed that Heero wasn’t going to come crawling on his hands and knees for her anytime soon, she was more likely to end up with the alternative choice. “I can so!” she insisted, swishing her short, red, cheer leading skirt as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other in irritation. “If Heero would just give me the chance, he’d see that I can be a very bad girl.”

“Ah! Look at my shirt, Ma,” Milliardo wailed in a very mocking, almost condescending way, perhaps overdoing the dramatics just a tad. “It’s black and it says ‘Rebel! Aren’t I scary, Ma? Oooooh!!!” He did a very exaggerated impersonation of Relena looking at herself in a mirror, stroking his chest with one hand and preening his gorgeous hair with the other. “Oh won’t Heero think I’m so dangerous when he sees me in an outfit like this!”

The other two were practically splitting their sides with outright laughter. Trowa almost fell off the bench, unable to keep it in, which certainly said something, as Trowa was usually very reserved when it came to expressing himself.

Even as they calmed down, Relena could still not help but feel very put-on-the-spot and flustered. This was another reason why she hated her brother; he was never slow to make a wisecrack against her, usually in some public, embarrassing place. If she had been a little more open-minded, she might have noticed that this was just another element to Milliardo’s personality, and that she was not given treatment that was any different to the way Milliardo dealt with everyone else he knew.

The moment was sucked dry of its intensity, however, as someone else walked into the room and dispelled the current tension.

“I’m not alone ‘cause the T.V.’s on, yeah. I’m not crazy ‘cause I take the right pills every day--” Duo stopped singing the moment he walked into the room and took in the sight of the four other teens. “Should I come back later?” he asked them, drawing four pairs of eyes towards him with his words. He suddenly felt very small and started to back up; “I’ll come back later,” he said more decisively.

“No, it’s okay,” Trowa said with a tiny smile. “Maybe our resident punk can give Princess Pink a few pointers on how to be bad.”

Duo arched a confused eyebrow, watching as Milliardo clapped Trowa rewardingly on the back for the comment, both laughing hard again. Both of them, having cheerleader sisters such as theirs, had gotten to a point where the whole culture of it was just hilarious. Milliardo was almost off in a class of his own, and surveying the whole jock/prep scene was a high form of entertainment for him. Even Catherine was not safe from commentary from Trowa; while perhaps not as harsh about it as Milliardo was to Relena, Trowa sure had a field day or two over Catherine’s position on the squad and, more specifically, her best friend, Relena. It was no secret that Trowa wasn’t a big fan of the towheaded school president and he wasn’t afraid to make it obvious, even in her presence.

“I don’t need any help from the likes of him,” Relena snapped at her brother, before turning to glare at Duo disdainfully. She still had not forgotten or forgiven the braided mechanic for shooting her down in front of Heero, even more so for stealing all of Heero’s attention. He was just an obstacle that was in the way and needed to be eliminated quickly. The last thing she needed was help from the enemy.

“I dunno, ‘Lena,” Milliardo said conspiritaly. “It might do you a world of good to have a smack in the face from Duo there.”

“NO!” she shouted firmly. “What would happen to my image if I was caught spending time with someone with the social status of a worm? It would ruin me forever.”

“It might also make Heero jealous,” Zechs pointed out drolly, though he was genuinely trying to be helpful. “Don’t you want him to notice you?” Had Relena actually been listening to the boy, she might have noticed how hard it was for him to choke out the words. Trowa and Milliardo looked at each other discreetly, sending each other knowing looks; they had actually just been talking about Zechs’ crush on Relena and what he should do to get her attention.

“Hey, leave me out of your dastardly plans,” Duo cut in. He wasn’t too thrilled by the suggestion either. He would have to be paid quite a healthy sum if he was going to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in Relena’s presence. Duo really never could quite bring himself to deal with those girls who were so desperate for a guy’s attention that they would let their lives revolve around throwing themselves shamelessly in the direction of anything with two legs and a Y-chromosome. Even Heero doesn’t deserve that, Duo told himself, eyeing Relena with just as much distaste as she did when she looked at him.

“You could maybe hang out with me, Relena,” Zechs suggested hopefully, his face lighting up at the suggestion. She stared oddly at him, and he turned bright red. “Uuh, to make H-Heero jealous, th-that is....”

“It’s an upgrade, I suppose,” she answered stiffly. “I don’t know. Maybe. Let me think about it.” And with that, she turned haughtily on the ball of her foot and swept out of the room, leaving the four boys behind and a little weirded out.

“She’s gone?” Heero’s voice wafted softly from the other section of the locker room, where the showers were located. He was hovering between the two rooms, looking rather timid and kind of childlike as he waited for Trowa to confirm for him. Once he saw his brother nod, his eyes hardened back into that cold, confident ice and he strode purposefully over towards them, that brief flicker of humanity in his countenance gone. “Thank everything holy,” Heero said, his voice back to its usual rough quality. “She’s a goddamned stalker. I can’t do anything without looking over my shoulder first.”

“Told you she had stalker issues,” Milliardo announced to the rest of them, as if he were sitting in a spotlight at a small coffee house and giving a standup routine to its patrons.

“You know, it’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you, Yuy,” Duo sniggered, sliding his eyes off in another direction so he wouldn’t have to look directly at Heero. He couldn’t quite explain why, but it was starting to become harder and harder to keep this rivalry thing going with Heero, especially since it seemed that the Japanese boy had lost interest in the whole affair, as well as the fact that Duo was also starting to notice that all those dry comments he threw at Heero were more of a defense for himself than an offense against the other.

“That’s true; it’s not,” Heero answered, his voice still gravely when he spoke, but still possessing this kind of purring, growling sort of element too.

Duo made the mistake of daring to chance a look over at Heero as he said this, and found himself frightened by the glassy, unreadable expression in those dark, cobalt eyes of his. For someone who was usually able to pick up on other people extremely well, as Duo was, not knowing how to interpret that strange look in Heero’s eyes whenever he spoke in that soft tone was unsettling. Duo didn’t like not knowing what was going on; he hated being surprised, because those usually tended to work against his favour. So he did the one thing he knew how to do best: he ran.

“Did you see how red his face was?” Milliardo grinned widely as he watched Duo’s braid disappear down the hall, chasing its owner like a streamer on a flying kite. “He definitely has a crush on you, too, Yuy.”

Zechs let out a laugh that he quickly covered with both hands, trying to make it into a fake cough while Trowa smirked at his brother in a very I-told-you-so manner.

“Yuy? Yuy!” Milliardo grabbed the hem of Heero’s shirt and tugged on it, trying to shake the Japanese boy, who had suddenly turned into an unmoving, marble statue, his back turned on the trio sitting on the benches so they wouldn’t be able to see his face. “Hey, snap out of it. I was joking!”

“Guess there’s someone else who’s got a crush,” Trowa whispered to Milliardo and Zechs, though his voice was definitely loud enough for Heero to hear it as well. The three of them all riveted their eyes on Heero just in time to catch a loose shiver as it ran down his spine.

“It’s okay, Yuy,” Milliardo said, trying to shake Heero again, actually winning a smack on the back of his hand this time for his actions. “I know for a fact that the Maxwell boy thinks about you all the time.”

Heero whirled around, facing the other three, his face looking so murderous that they all simultaneously swallowed a nervous gulp. “I. Do. Not. Have. A. Crush. On. Duo. Maxwell.” He made sure that he drove each word home with scathing precision as he intensified his glare.

“Yeah, but he’s got the hots for you, I hear,” Zechs piped up, though his voice was not much more than a little squeak and was almost drowned out by the low humming fans whirring somewhere off beyond the room’s vents. “So it’s not like he doesn’t like you back.”

Heero was so quick to whirl on Zechs and shoot that evil glare of his specifically at him that it almost broke the other boy. “Duo does not love me. He never has, never will, and certainly does not right now, understood?” Heero had gone from that child hiding off in the shadows to this psychotic robot in such a short amount of time, it almost didn’t seem feasible to Zechs.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.”

They all spun around to see who had walked in now, three pairs of eyes looking extremely relieved for the interruption, the remaining set even more dark and pissed off than before.

Treize seemed to notice the unrest in the room and decided to be quick. “I just need to see Marquise in my office as soon as he’s got a spare moment,” he said. He gave them one of his trademark, quick and suave grins and then disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.

Zechs stood up and shrugged at his companions; “Dunno what he wants, but whatever it is, I’ll see you all out there real soon, okay?” He started backing out of the room, calling to Trowa: “I’ll come and stretch with you as soon as possible!”

“Well, I guess should leave you two to actually get ready,” Milliardo said, standing up as well. “Besides, I need to find a good place to watch the game. See ya around!” He waved over his shoulder as he walked out of the room, long blonde hair swishing in pale gold waves across his back as he moved.

Finally able to concentrate on putting on their uniforms in peace, the two brothers each found an empty locker to temporarily throw their bags and things into and went about their own business in relative silence until Heero finally spoke, commenting on OZ’s weak defense this year. It was pretty obvious to Trowa that it wasn’t what was really on his mind though. Even a moron could tell that it was all a ruse to cover up something else. The puzzle was just what that something was....

(x) X (x)

“What’d I do, coach?” Zechs asked Treize as he walked into the small trainer’s room on the other side of the hall. “Not to be rude or anything, but I’ve gotta hurry; Trowa and I still need to warm up.”

“No, no, it won’t take long,” Treize assured him, turning to fill a glass with water in the kitchen-like room’s little sink. He took a long drought of it and then moved to sit down on one of the chairs sitting around a beat-up card table pressed up against the wall on the other side of the room. “Go ahead and take a seat.”

Zechs did so hesitantly, still unsure what all this was about. Treize was being awfully formal, even though his demeanor was relaxed and easy-going as usual. “Am I in trouble, coach?”

“Yes and no,” Treize answered, his broad smile fading the slightest bit. He set his cup down on the table, the ice cubes clunking around noisily around in the water. “I overheard something interesting about you,” he said seriously, bending over to pick up a black briefcase that was sitting next to his chair, previously unnoticed by the lacrosse player opposite him. Unhooking the case, he pulled out a yearbook from the year before and set it down on the table, opening it up to a page he had bookmarked with a post-it note. “Do you know what this is, Mr. Marquise?”

Zechs reached across the table and pulled the yearbook towards him for closer scrutiny. He furrowed his brow and frowned as he read the caption beneath the photograph portraying the newspaper/yearbook staff of that year: “Major props to Otto and his junior editor Milliardo ‘Zechs’ Peacecraft , who both did a brilliant job this year with helping us create one of the best yearbooks we’ve had in a while. Good work, guys!”

The boy looked up at Treize guiltily and hung his head sorrowfully, figuring that his coach was going to kick him off the team now that he knew his secret. Fraud and cheating were frowned upon greatly at their school, and there was no way that he would be allowed to play again.

“I even saw the real Zechs talking to you earlier, so I know he’s here and that you’re friends with him,” Treize went on. His voice was grave, but he didn’t seem angry, which was sort of a relief for the kid. “Tell me your real name, Marquise.”

The player kept his head down and shook it fiercely in the negative.

“Why won’t you tell me your name?” Treize prodded gently. “I’m very upset about this whole ordeal, but don’t think that I’m going to get you in trouble. You’re too good a defender for that.”

At least the distraught boy was able to laugh at that. His eyes flicked up briefly and then quickly darted away.

“Look me in the eye, Marquise,” Treize commanded. Though his voice was still as friendly as always, there was a note of stern discipline to it that was best not trifled with it, so he obeyed. “Now,” Treize said, his voice growling steadily warmer, now that he had made eye contact with him, “tell me your name.”

“You know I stole Milliardo’s nickname and information, so why can’t you figure the rest out?” Zechs said, trying to sound as challenging as possible, unsure where the urge to be defensive was coming from.

“Oh, but I have,” Treize replied calmly, a smug look twinkling mercilessly in his murky sea-coloured eyes. He took a brief pause long enough to take another sip of his water before saying: “Show me your real form, whoever you are.”

Zechs’ jaw dropped, shocked out of his mind that Treize was able to figure out his secret so easily. Even more surprising was that Treize was not disgusted or appalled in any way by it. Most people thought that shape-shifters were some of the most revolting mutants around.

“Silenced you, eh?” Treize smirked, his attitude still good-natured as ever. “Do you think it’s not that obvious? You’ve got glassy, blank eyes like a shape shifter, and those eyebrows are really defined, even more than mine.” Treize’s eye jumped upwards, as if he were trying to see his eyebrows as he raised a finger up to smooth them out. He glanced back at the still gaping mutant sitting on the other side of the table. “What, you didn’t think that I wouldn’t be able to pick out another shape shifter, would I? That would be so embarrassing if I couldn’t even tell the ones who were like me!” He laughed.

“I... But you....”

Still chuckling, Treize said, “I have a pretty good idea of what students are shape shifters. There’s about three or four of them.” He reached for the yearbook and took it back to his side of the table, starting to thumb through it. “Let’s just flip through here until we find a picture of someone with those eyes of yours, shall we...?”

“Okay, okay,” Zechs’ finally threw his arms up in the air, defeated. With a huge sigh, he scooted his chair back, hands fidgeting rather girlishly in his lap, “But you gotta promise not to laugh when I change back, and when you kick me off the team, you can’t tell anyone why. Not everyone’s a huge fan of people like me.”

“Sure,” Treize assented, crossing his arms over his chest and draping one leg over the other, waiting. “Anytime now.”

Another sigh came from the changeling before his body started to rewrite its DNA back to its original, natural make-up. Treize arched an amused eyebrow once the transformation was complete, seeing for the first time that ‘Zechs’ was not a boy at all, but rather the girl with long, pale, yellow hair that had come asking for information about the game earlier that afternoon.

“And you are...?”

“Dorothy Catalonia,” she said, drooping her head a little bit again, ashamed to look Treize in the eye anymore. She felt bad for deceiving him the way she had. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kushrenada,” she said softly, “but all I wanted to do was play. Girls’ lacrosse is so wimpy and boring and I figured that the only way I could get onto the team would be to--”

“Dorothy, dear,” Treize said, understanding, “it’s fine. Really, it is. I totally understand. The game can do that to you. Lord knows that I got addicted to it too.” He smiled to himself as he added quietly, “Started playing all for a lady, and next thing you know, I’m hooked.”

“A lady?” Dorothy’s eyes darted up quickly, meeting Treize’s for a second, which, at that moment, were flickering an odd shade of yellow. She covered her face and looked down at her lap again, her long, slender thighs seeming small and sickly in the large, baggy lacrosse shorts she was wearing. “Me too,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

“Ah, that explains it,” Treize hummed with even more sympathy than before, if that was possible. He leaned both elbows on the table and leaned in, smiling conspiratorially. “So, who is it? Someone who watches the games a lot or likes the lacrosse players, right?”

“Yeah,” Dorothy nodded quietly. She paused, giving some thought to what had just happened, her reaction coming late. “Wait, you’re not disgusted? You don’t think that I’m the worst kind of person there ever could be? A mutant and a lesbian?”

“No, I don’t see what’s wrong with it. So you like a girl, big deal! So do I! Just so long it’s not my girl, it’s okay,” Treize shrugged with a grin, sitting up again. “But that still doesn’t answer my question. Who is it? I’m not letting you play until you spill the beans, Catalonia.”

“Relena Peacecraft,” came the soft answer.

Treize leaned back in his chair, trying to place a face with the name. “One of the cheerleaders?” he asked, receiving a nod in return. “Brownish-blonde hair, wears it in little braids and ribbons, light, blue eyes, ‘bout yea high?” He held his hand a little bit over his head to indicate the size he meant. He closed his eyes, and slowly, his body began to change in the same way Dorothy’s could. Soon, sitting in his place, was the very likeness of Relena, though her eyes were still the brackish blue-green ones of Treize’s true form. “Like this?” he asked, his voice tittering just like hers.

“That’s her,” Dorothy answered. She was still a little put off by this whole ordeal. Why wasn’t Treize punishing her? She’d lied to him, to the school and the rest of the team. So why wasn’t she in trouble? Instead, Treize was humoring her, asking about her love life and allowing her to continue playing with the team. So she decided to start getting a few things straight. “Alright, enough of the cute stuff, Treize,” she said firmly. “What’s the deal? Just kick me off the team and stop dragging this out.”

“Who said anything about kicking you off?” Treize asked as he returned to his normal, male form with the gingery brown hair and broad shoulders. “Like fun I’d get rid of one of the best goddamned defenders on the team just because it turns out he’s really a shape shifting girl who was desperate for some action? I’m not that kind of guy, Dorothy.”

“You’re just taking sympathy on me because I’m a mutant,” Dorothy spat bitterly. “I don’t want your pity. I can get by just fine on my own!”

“So you don’t want to play?” Treize sounded confused. “I thought you wanted to impress that Relena girl. How are you going to do it if you’re not out there?”

“It’s not like it makes much a difference,” she answered. “She’s got the world’s biggest crush on your goddamned team captain and she’s too dumb to see that he could care less. I can play lacrosse just as good as he can.”

“Well that’s her problem then,” Treize shrugged again, brushing it off easily. “She can wait for her knight in shining armour all she wants, but Yuy isn’t getting down off his high horse until some knave comes along, tackles him out of the saddle and knocks the wind out of him. If he hasn’t noticed her by now, then he’s never going to. Yuy is the kind of boy who falls fast and hard with just one look, end of story.”

Dorothy blinked a couple times at Treize, totally taken by surprise at this in-depth analysis of Heero’s character. “Is that supposed to give me hope or something?”

“In a roundabout way, yeah,” he said. “Yuy’s not sweeping her off her feet anytime soon, believe me.” He took another sip of his water and then stood up to refill his glass, saying over his shoulder, “Besides, he’s got bigger fish to fry.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Whatever you want it to. Why don’t you ask him yourself, if you want to know so bad?”

“Because he’d kick my ass,” Dorothy responded automatically, glancing at the training room’s door just as it opened up, allowing Duo entry to the room. The longhaired boy looked at the pair of them suspiciously as he carried his water bottles over towards the freezer to fill them up with ice cubes and water. Dorothy ignored Duo’s movements and went back to Treize. ”I may be strong, but that guy’s a friggin’ monster. He’d rip me apart.”

“He can be gentle,” Treize came back, just as smoothly as Dorothy. “I’ve seen wild birds land on his fingers and fly out of their way to sit on his shoulders.”

“That’ll be the day. And besides, the seagulls around here like anyone who’ll feed them,” Dorothy scoffed, shifting her position and turning her head, looking over towards Duo again; he was lingering by the sink, taking a rather long time for a task as simple as filling a couple bottles with water. She could tell that he was listening to what they were saying and that he had pretty much figured out who the topic of the conversation was. “He’s a tough, angry bastard and wouldn’t tell me the time of day if I asked him. He hates my guts enough at it is.”

“Oh please don’t give me that crap. You sound just like Duo,” Treize rolled his eyes as he returned to the table and sat back down in his chair. “I’ll have you know that Heero is one of the most astute and open-minded young men I know. He’s just a very introverted person, that’s all.”

“You can sure say that again.”

“He’s just a very introverted person, that’s all,” Treize repeated smugly, draining half his water in one long gulp. He set the almost empty glass down and said, “Look Dorothy, don’t think I’m out on a witch hunt, ‘cause I’m not. I like you, and this whole incident is just a little bump in the road of our relationship, okay? The fact that you’re a shape shifter like us practically cousins. There’s not a lot of us left, so let’s be close, like a family. We should all be like a family.”

“That’s all well and good to say, but do you mean it?” Dorothy asked skeptically. This whole thing still seemed to good to be true. Any second, she was waiting to wake up and find herself in bed, dreaming that all this had happened and then realizing that in reality, Treize had long since booted her ass off the team.

“Dorothy,” he lurched across the table and grabbed up her hands, holding them tightly as he said in a voice that couldn’t be anything but sincere, “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

Both were cut off from saying anymore when a loud noise from down the hall wafted to their ears. They looked at each other, immediately knowing just who and what had caused the trouble, and then took off running after Duo, who had already dropped the water bottle he was holding in his haste to see what was going on.

(x) X (x)

What had happened had started out innocently enough, just after Trowa and Heero had been left alone in the locker room to get geared up for the afternoon game against OZ.

“Where is Wufei?” Heero asked Trowa as they started getting ready, throwing his school shirt into one of the lockers with the rest of his other clothes and slamming the steel cubby’s door with an empty bang. “He needs to help me stretch.”

Trowa chuckled lightly, closing the door to his locker too, albeit with a much gentler and softer motion than that of his friend. “Meilan told Treize that Wufei wouldn’t be able to come to the game today. Apparently he did something in last period art class that pissed her off and she won’t let him go.”

“Why does that girl get to decide what Wufei does or doesn’t do after school?” Heero complained dryly, picking up his black under-armor and pulling the taut, sweat-absorbent shirt over his head. “I need him more than she does.”

“Contrary to popular belief, Wufei does have a life outside of lacrosse,” Trowa answered, his voice equally cynical as he picked up his jersey, pads and goalie’s stick, preparing to go outside in search of his warm up partner. “Unlike some people,” he added flatly, glaring at Heero darkly.

“I do have a life outside of lacrosse!” Heero snapped back, snatching his stick off the nearby bench and swinging it violently at Trowa’s shins. A surprisingly quick reflex to jump above the path of the slashing titanium shaft was the only thing that saved Trowa from incurring Heero’s wrath and a nice set of dark bruises across his legs. “It just doesn’t happen to be an open book, like everyone else’s.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Trowa muttered to himself as he started walking towards the door, in search of his partner, leaving Heero to stand sourly behind him. He paused again, just as he was about to leave the room, and turned around. “Meilan is Wufei’s fiancée, and as long as her family and the Chang clan have that arrangement, she can piss and moan at him all she wants.”

“No wonder he’s bothered to hell by her. I’d be pissed off if some old woman told me who I had to marry,” Heero grumbled to himself. “I would never allow someone to dictate who I should or should not fall in love with.”

“Like you could love anyone anyway,” Trowa muttered bitterly, though there was the slightest trace of remorse and sadness in his tone as he faced away from Heero and stepped out into the hallway. He really wished that Heero would just stop being so paranoid and protective of himself. If asked his opinion, Trowa would have probably said that Heero was afraid to love someone, which was why he acted the cold bastard more often than not. That, or he was just waiting for someone who could draw him out of his shell, who understood what went on in his head and could relate. Someone like--

“I still need someone to help me.” Heero jogged after Trowa. “I don’t have a partner to warm up with, like everyone else. I’m the captain, so I also got to be the odd one out, stuck training with good old Wufei, who just doesn’t happen to be here, conveniently.”

“Lord knows you two need to get over that whole thing. It was last year, for God’s sake, and look, everyone else has recovered fine,” Trowa retorted smoothly, though his tone was simply drenched with sarcasm.

“He fucking started it when he slashed at me at that one game!” Heero protested sharply, his eyes ablaze with anger that Trowa would dare bring the accident up and have the audacity to take Wufei’s side on the whole matter.

“And that was because you had gone completely off your rocker!” Trowa shot back almost immediately, throwing his bulky protective gear to the ground irately. “You were charging across the field in what could be classified as something just short of a rampage, beating the crap out of anyone stupid enough to get in your way, whether they were on the other team or not! We had to forfeit the game and almost got suspended for the rest of the season because of that little stunt, Heero! We were lucky they didn’t disqualify us from the finals!”

“I don’t remember anything of that nature at all!”

“Of course not! You sent Wufei flying across the field when he tried to nail you. That was about the time you collapsed and they had to rush you to the emergency room,” Trowa hissed darkly, a very different and somewhat scary glint of cat-like yellow streaking the centers of his green irises. “You’re lucky you didn’t fucking do worse to the poor guy. If I was him, I might have killed you a long time ago. You’re just damn lucky he’s so fucking obsessed with justice and happens to think you’re the best thing that happened to our school since sliced bread.”

“Bullshit.”

“You really think I’m kidding? Would I joke about something like that? As if you could tell me what you think really happened,” Trowa snorted, deciding to just let it go right there. This was one of those things that they could never hope to agree on in a million years, come hell or high water. Heero just did not remember, and to Trowa’s constant annoyance, refused to admit that he was both unaware of the incident and at fault. He brooded silently about it as they walked, almost running right into Duo, who was rushing by with his arms full of freshly-filled water bottles.Trowa smirked darkly to himself. “If you need a partner so bad, you could always ask him to help you stretch, Heero.”

“Maxwell?” Heero stuttered, looking back over his shoulder with wide eyes at Duo’s retreating back, long braid dusting the backs of his thighs as he hurried off. He regarded that thick, braided pendulum as it swung back and forth across his slender legs, his eyes not revealing to Trowa whatever was running through his head. As Duo disappeared around the corner at the end of the hall, Heero snorted quietly to himself and turned back to Trowa, saying, “He would probably injure me worse than anything I could incur on the field without stretching. I’ll do it myself.”

“Ha, yeah right, Heero,” Trowa answered with a shake of his head. “You know damn well that you’re too stiff to do it properly without a spotter. Besides, ever since Wufei got hurt last year, Treize has been very adamant in making sure everyone limbers up before they play. He won’t let you out there until you do. He’d rather lose than see anyone, especially someone he likes as much as you, get hurt because of something silly like that. And knowing you, you wouldn’t slow down just because you pulled a muscle or something, and you’d end up making it way worse than it has to be with that bullheaded attitude of yours.”

“My ‘bullheaded attitude’, as you so kindly put it, Trowa, is what keeps our team from sucking ass on offense,” Heero snapped moodily, annoyed that Trowa had made a very good and very legitimate point. He felt like he was being attacked, and he hated being belittled, even if it was over something as trite as whether or not he stretched before the game.

“Oh stop being so goddamn full of yourself!” Trowa shot back, his voice just as dangerous. He grabbed a fistful of Heero’s black under-armour and started physically dragging him down the hall in the direction Duo had just scampered. “I’m going to go find Zechs to do warm ups with and we’re going to get Duo to do the same with you, whether you like it or not!”

“Let go of me, Trowa,” Heero said in his coldest, most bitter tone, trying hard to wrest himself free of the other boy’s fierce grip. He twisted around, his fist flailing wildly towards Trowa’s face, which the nimble goalie was able to block easily. “I said let me go!” Heero elbowed Trowa rather cruelly in the stomach, sending Trowa back a few paces, gripping his ribs in pain. Heero was not a force to be reckoned with, and if Trowa had not been confident that his speed would be able to make up for Heero’s brute strength, he probably would not have been trying so hard to sway Heero.

“That was low, Heero,” Trowa managed to grind out between his clenched teeth, sucking in a few pained breaths as he tried to get his wind back. “You’ve been getting wilder and wilder over the years. I don’t know what’s been happening to you.”

“Well, it’s not any of your damn business anyway,” Heero barked callously, his fingers curling so tightly around his lacrosse stick that his knuckles were turning ivory white. “I don’t need you to always be bossing me around and holding my goddamned hand every five minutes, Trowa. I’m eighteen; I can handle my goddamned self.”

“Yeah, like hell you can,” Trowa bite back, no longer trying to sound sympathetic towards his adopted brother. “All you ever do is run the fuck away. You were running away when I first met you. You’re still running away. When the hell are you gonna slow down and just rest for once? You spend too much time and energy slaying dragons.”

Heero’s reaction came so quickly and unexpectedly that Trowa felt as if he was being lifted off the floor and thrown cruelly against the wall before Heero had even taken a step towards him. “The hell do you know about running away? You don’t know anything about that,” Heero spat bitterly, his hands threateningly tight around Trowa’s neck. “You don’t even know where the fuck I came from or where the fuck I’m going!”

“M-Maybe if you bothered to t-tell me,” Trowa was hardly able to choke out the words as Heero’s hands applied more pressure to his slender neck. His grip on his helmet and stick became loose as he felt the air slowly being crushed out of his lungs, both objects clattering loudly to the floor as his fingers finally lost their hold on them. “More proof th-that you’re just running a-away scared from something. Y-you can’t even talk to me and I-I’m your b-brother!”

Heero narrowed his eyes and glared darkly at Trowa, who in turn squinted his dark emerald green ones closed, afraid of what Heero might do next. He was actually more startled when he suddenly felt a rush of air shooting down his throat as Heero’s hands slowly loosened and fell away, dropping the tall goalie to the floor almost heartlessly.

“What the fuck is going on here!?” Duo’s voice reverberated from the other end of the hall. Heero’s shoulders were heaving up and down with a mixture of barely-controlled rage and spent energy as he turned his eyes down the hall to look at Duo, his eyes glinting dull and icy in the fluorescent lights.

“You like him, don’t you,” Trowa hissed flatly, causing Heero’s dark glare to round back on him, crumpled on the floor. “Running away from that too, aren’t you, Heero?”

“You shut the fuck up,” Heero snapped so defensively that it just only widened Trowa’s slowly blossoming smirk. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Oh I rather think I do,” Trowa answered smugly, rising to his feet, his back still pressed against the wall. “I rather think you’re the one who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”

Duo, meanwhile, was slowly stalking over towards the pair, a suspicious look glinting in his eye. Treize and Dorothy (who had returned to her male ‘Zechs’ form on the way over) were just coming around the corner after Duo to see what all the ruckus was about. “Beating up on our teammates, are we, Heero?” Duo chided mockingly as he neared, his heavy footsteps echoing loudly and dully in Heero’s ears. “What the hell are you doing to Trowa?”

“Since when did you care?” Heero said callously, turning himself away from the approaching team manager. “You stay the fuck out of my business and keep to your own affairs!”

“Oh yeah, real tactful, Heero,” Duo retorted glibly, his words coming smoothly with the confidence of securing the upper hand in this fight. “Save that one for the jury. I’m sure they’ll eat it all up!” He came to a stop right in front of Heero, his nose just inches away from the tufts of wild dark bangs that stuck out every which way all over Heero’s head. Duo tried his hardest and managed to successfully keep the illusion of smug control scratched clearly into his features, even as Heero turned those smoldering midnight blue eyes back towards him. The tiny movement caused some of his messy coffee brown hair to fall loose from behind his ears, the sifting of his unruly bangs revealing to Duo for the first time that he wore two silver rings through the dainty, ornate, upper cartilage of his one ear. Duo’s breath hitched when he noticed the detail; the steely silver glinted attractively against Heero’s black chocolate hair and lightly bronzed oriental skin and he felt the sudden urge to bite and suck on those tempting, devilish little rings.

“You don’t want me to meddle in your affairs, Duo, so please do not mess with mine,” Heero said in a surprisingly calm and controlled voice as he eyed Duo with that same mistrusting look of his. “When you let me into your world, then perhaps I’ll let you into mine.”

Duo shook his head, forcing reality back into his head, a loud, blubbery sort of sound rattling his puffed out cheeks as he did so. He was somewhat shocked and taken aback by Heero’s suggestion; did he really mean what he said about opening up to him? It reminded him frighteningly too much of that dream he’d had of Heero, and the connection brought Duo to a crossroads he was not quite sure he was ready to happen across just yet. He was about to open his mouth and say something really glib, but by then, Treize and Dorothy had caught up to him and were taking charge of the situation.

“Heero! I thought we talked about your behaviour at the beginning of the season!” Treize admonished while Dorothy helped Trowa to a nearby bench beside the locker room door, though the goalie really did not need the extra help. “You promised me you would work on it if I allowed you to be captain! Don’t make me strip you of the title, because you know I would and I think you’d be pretty damned ashamed if I did.”

“I’m sorry, Treize,” Heero gathered his pride and bit his lip as he stood straight at attention for his coach; an armed soldier at attention, holding his lacrosse stick like a bayonet. “However, this has nothing to do with team matters. It’s a personal affair between my brother and I.”

“And despite that, you, as captain, need to set a good example,” Treize answered calmly. “Especially since we’re guests at another school right now, you need to make sure you represent your team and yourself well. Now what’s the problem here?”

“Trowa said--”

“Trowa said jack shit!” Duo cut in scathingly, a fist balled up in front of him as he shoved his way past Treize and got right in Heero’s face. “Even if he said something he shouldn’t have, you don’t have the right to go beating the crap out of him whenever you feel like it.”

“Why I oughta...!” Heero wasted no time in grabbing Duo by the collar of his short, leather jacket, zippers, snaps, belts and chains jangling noisily as he actually lifted him an inch or two over his head, quite the feat considering their height difference.

“You oughta what, Heero? WHAT?!?” Duo screamed down at the small lacrosse player, still packing quite the verbal punch, even though he wasn’t exactly in the most normal of conditions. “Go ahead and do your worst. I can fucking take it!”

“Well I can’t!” Trowa snapped from his spot on the nearby bench. He stood up and walked over to the pair, lifting Duo up and out of Heero’s dangerous grip. Standing between the two of them, an arm out to physically restrain the pair from kicking the crap out of each other, he gave them one of his lectures, feeling for the umpteenth time like he was disciplining children in the second grade. “Are you two so damn selfish that you can’t even tell how your goddamned fighting affects everyone else? The rest of us are practically pulling our hair out every time either one of you opens up your mouth! Can’t you learn to just get along and shut the fuck up!?”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Barton?” Duo snapped at him, grabbing his wrist and wrenching it painfully away with speed and strength that no one expected the slim boy to have. “I swear, with the way you’re going, there’s no way you’re making it to the game’s start in one piece!”

“Enough!” Treize’s voice echoed loudly in the concrete-walled hallway. Swallowing his annoyance and his temper, he said in his most controlled voice to Dorothy and Trowa: “You two go down to the training room, get the water bottles and do your stretches. I’ll see you out on the field in ten minutes for the opening coin toss.” As they ran off to obey the order, the tall, gingery haired coach turned on Heero and Duo, who were standing with their backs to each other and their arms crossed as they stared down opposite ends of the hallway. “And as for you two,” he said darkly, though Duo could have sworn that he saw one corner of his mouth quirk up into a very sadistic smirk, “you, Duo, are going to help Heero with his stretches. Then you’re both going to report back to me before game time, and if I hear there was the slightest bit of trouble, you’ll be spending the next week of practices handcuffed together and scrubbing the gymnasium from top to bottom, you hear me?”

Duo sniggered and Heero cocked his head suspiciously, not believing the threat was a good one.

“You think I’m kidding, don’t you?” Treize put a hand on each hip and frowned, that playful grin totally gone. In its place was a very serious and very grim Treize that only came out to play on very rare occasions, such as this, when the only way to make his point was to play the cruel, fascist dictator. “I have toothbrushes, if you’d like to use those for your cleaning.”

Neither boy was able to doubt his words with a tone as alien-sounding as that, and both were afraid to say anything, just in case he wasn’t kidding about the toothbrushes. Treize grinned triumphantly at the two, his point made, and he turned to head out to the rest of the team, waiting on the field, singing an old rock tune cheerfully to himself as he went. “You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!”

Heero looked over at Duo, his face as unreadable as usual with dark, little pout in its place and his dark eyebrows drawn like angry streaks of brown paint over his storming blue eyes. “Let’s just get this over with,” he grunted, walking over towards the nearby bench Trowa had just been sitting on. “I have a game to play.”

“Fine,” Duo answered in as bland a voice he could muster. The bright ceiling lights were glinting teasingly off those little, silver rings that he had just discovered in Heero’s ear, as if they were mocking him with that mischievous, white shine. Worse still was when Heero bent over to drag the bench away from the wall; Duo could see the bold lines of those tattooed wings on the small of Heero’s back where his black under-armour rode up a bit.

“Get your ass over here,” Heero commanded, balling up his red jersey and wedging it under his head like a pillow as he laid down on the bench, a cleat-encased foot planted firmly on either side of the wooden structure. When Duo was looming over him, a tall, dark shadow in a corona of fluorescent light, he said, “Kneel on the end of the bench.”

Duo did so, trying hard to keep his thoughts angry and bitter as he stared down at the handsome lacrosse player lying in front of him, his legs straddling the bench in such a way that Duo almost cursed himself for admiring boys. “Now what, Master?” he said with a snide and cynical sneer, though the little demons in his mind liked to play with the words, supplying a couple of images to go with them that were a of far different sort than this.

Heero lifted one bent leg and pressed the top of his thigh against his stomach. “Put one hand on my ankle and the other one under my leg,” he ordered in as cold a voice as he was able. Once Duo’s hands were in place, he said, “Now push it back against my chest and press down on my other one.”

Duo could feel a million tiny explosions under the nerve endings in his fingers, like every atom in his body was racing around so each one would have the chance to touch Heero’s flushed, hot legs. The baggy, black mesh shorts slipped down the Japanese teen’s slender thigh and pooled in a crumple of cloth on his hip as Duo held Heero’s leg down against his stomach. Duo could see the very defined muscles of Heero’s thighs corded and pulling in the odd position; Heero was surprisingly flexible, his knee able to press right up against his chest with minimal effort from either boy. Duo found his lips cracked and parched as he looked down at Heero, whose face seemed to be the very picture of pleasure, his eyes closed and his mouth parted somewhat, panting lightly.

“Masochist,” Duo managed to whimper softly, fortunately able to snuff the low moan that accompany the word with its sound. A small groan was the only response Duo got to the comment, and feeling the dark prongs of sarcasm lashing his tongue, Duo recovered from his brief lapse in control by saying: “Ha, you get off to this kind of torture, don’tcha, Heero?”

Heero’s eyes flew open, the overhead lights glowing like stars in those midnight blue depths as he stared up at Duo. Duo could tell by the look on his face that he was trying to make himself look more pissed in an effort to cover up for something that Duo had managed to unearth. “Switch legs, Rapunzel,” he bit out, using the mocking nickname that Duo had almost forgotten about.

“Ha, you do get off to this!” Duo retorted as they assumed the mirror position of the stretch for Heero’s other leg. “Do you like it harder?” Duo asked, an evil light glowing in his eyes as he leaned forward and pressed Heero’s other leg down farther, braid tumbling down over his shoulder and landing with a thwunk on Heero’s stomach. He did his best to ignore those tone-twisting demons in his brain as Heero fought to stifle another one of those groans.

“Sadist,” Heero ground out in a low ragged whisper. His breath hitched as Duo applied more pressure, pulling the muscles and tendons down his thighs in a rather therapeutic and soothing way.

“Yes, yes I am,” Duo grinned demonically, the smile combined with that monstrous violet glow in his eyes making him look like quite the conniving devil, which, of course, he was. “You’d better get used to it, Yuy.”

Heero just smirked at him in that annoyingly ambiguous way. Duo clicked his tongue, irritated that Heero failed to get all wound up over his words and, pissed off now, let go of Heero’s legs, his palms somehow feeling both clammy and cold at the same time. He left Heero to finish his warm ups and stretches on his own, not even bothering to ask if he still needed his help. It was probably just as well. Duo wasn’t quite sure that he would be able to touch Heero like that and still be able to keep control. His body was having reactions that he never thought possible, and the rather pleasurable tingling in his skin was just another reason to stay as far away from Heero as he always did. He couldn’t afford to be attracted to anyone; he couldn’t afford to fall in love with anyone.

He couldn’t afford to fall in love with Heero.

(x) X (x)

a/n: Ha! Nice, long, long, lo-o-ong chappy to keep all you fools happy. It all kind of had to be together, and chopping it up would sort of ruin the flow, I think. Anyways, the song Duo is singing is a Jimmy Eat World song and the one that Treize is singing is a Stones song. The chappy title is a Frank Sinatra song because I love him, I have a weird, eclectic taste in music and... yeah....

Now I know that Relena is pretty OoC here, but I think the fact that I’m really not a fan of her tends to ease my tendency to bastardize her. I don’t like seeing ruined characters, but Relena kind of sets herself up for it sometimes, I think. Besides, she’s more entertaining here and actually has a personality, and it works for the plot. And even if you are a huge Relena sympathizer, you have to admit that towards the beginning of the series, she has a gross, naive obsession with Heero. Then again, I personally think that if none of that Peacecraft business had come up and Relena had remained just a normal politician’s daughter, she would have probably ended up like this, albeit a bit milder, perhaps. She’ll get better later on, I hope. Anyways, you see what I mean, I guess.