Smells Like Teen Spirit

by Shanon the Twisted Link Worshiper

(x) X (x)

Game 2
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

(x) X (x)

After school that day, Duo forced himself down to the playing field that dominated most of the school campus lying behind the school building. Fortunately for Duo, it was mid-January and the weather was still a bit chill, the sun obscured by a haze of thin gray clouds, so his dark attire would not be terribly out of place. The pitch was not terribly out of the ordinary as far as school fields went. In some places, the grass was soft and springy and in others, there was little more than an expanse of thick brown dirt, ripped and torn at with the spiked prints of many a cleat. The two small goals were set up on either side of the field, surrounded by a fair sized white circle sprayed onto the ground with white paint. The rest of the field was marked appropriately, a white line with a large letter ‘X’ at its center separating the field into two halves. The locker rooms were built underneath the large permanent grandstand that dominated the near side of the field, the far side dotted with a few rather large trees.

Duo ignored the other boys slowly making their way towards the field, keeping his eyes averted and his arms crossed moodily over his chest as he stalked down the gentle slope that rolled down towards the locker rooms. They were all talking in their little groups as they walked with their lacrosse sticks slung over their shoulders, their pads and helmets fitted over the netted heads of the sticks as a means of carrying them with as little hassle as possible. Duo noted sourly to himself that most of them seemed the same, all clad the same baggy loose shorts that fell to their knees and various sports tee shirts declaring that the wearer had participated in this or that tournament.

Passing the locker rooms by, he walked around the grandstand to where a set of four benches had been set up about three feet back from the sideline. There were only two people there already, one a young Chinese looking boy with onyx-coloured hair slicked back into a little tail at the nape of his neck sitting on one of the benches. He was involved in a conversation with a tall young looking man with gingery brown hair that fell in little tendrils over his forehead, the rest smoothed neatly behind his ears. As Duo approached, they halted their discussion to look up at the newcomer, the expressions on their faces totally unreadable as they stared blankly at this stranger in their midst, not sure what to make of him.

“Please allow me to introduce myself,” Duo said as he walked over towards the pair, hands shoved in pockets and a neutral look tied on his face. “I’m a man of wealth and taste.”

“Are you the boy that Lady Une recruited to be the team manager?” the ginger haired man asked in a smooth voice after an awkward pause, taking a step in Duo’s direction. “Duo Maxwell, am I correct?”

“Yeah, that would be me,” Duo answered as he pointed to himself, trying hard to conceal the obvious lack of interest in his voice. “I suppose what’ puzzling you is the nature of my name,” he added in an almost challenging tone. “I run, I hide, but I never lie.”

“I see,” the man said, unsure of how to take that last comment. He finished crossing the distance between them, his hand thrust out in obvious good taste to make a proper introduction. “I’m Coach Kushrenada, but you may call me Treize. All the boys do. I don’t like formalities when what we’re trying to create here is a sense of unity among both players and coaches.”

Duo stared at Treize, trying to decide what kind of first impression he had of the man standing before him in black Adidas warm-up pants and a white, long-sleeved shirt. He was a good size, not too tall and not too short. His face was handsome with very Roman features, thin lips, a straight nose and thick arched brows that forked off oddly at the ends. Though his eyes were narrow, they were still noticeably crystal blue. He looked about thirty-five or so, maybe a little older. For someone so involved with sports, he seemed decent enough so far, though Duo credited that to the fact that he was an adult. The braided wonder was not about to give in that easily. Duo reluctantly placed his hand in Treize’s and gave him a limp handshake. “Nice to meet you Treize, sir.”

“Drop the ‘sir’, that’s a good lad,” the coach said with a small chuckle, patting Duo on the head (much to his degradation) before turning to gesture to the Asian boy who was still sitting on the bench, watching with steely eyes. “This is my assistant coach, Chang Wufei. He has been helping me out on the sidelines since his junior year last year when he broke his ankle and had to sit the season out. It’s still not really strong enough for him to be running around and knocking a bunch of guys around,” Treize laughed in Wufei’s direction when the Chinese boy’s frown intensified. “Don’t bother asking him about it; he’ll tell you that it was a terrible injustice that he couldn’t play and that he should be back out where he belongs, on the field fighting for victory. He won’t admit it, but he really likes assistant coaching.”
Duo nodded in Wufei’s direction, the faintest traces of a smile on his face at Treize’s account. Then he turned back to the gingery haired coach and asked, “Well what do you need me for?”

“Well, Wufei and I get mired in our own work sometimes,” Treize explained with a shrug. “We figured that having someone else around would be a great help. Your main worry is to look after schedules, rosters, team standings, stats and most of the business of the game, though we may also need you to run errands here and there when neither of us can really go. You should always make sure we have plenty of water for practices and games, and be sure to keep the locker room orderly. You have my permission to beat the guys up about it if they keep making you clean the place up—they can be terrible slobs sometimes.” Treize smiled again, his grin growing wider at the somewhat dazed look in Duo’s eye at all that he had just thrown at him. “It’s okay if it takes you a while to get everything together. We’ll show you how everything works around you as the season goes on. And don’t be afraid to let either of us know if something’s wrong or upsetting you. We should be like a family. Your problem is the team’s problem.”

Duo blinked, unsure of how to take what Treize had just said. All he could think of was, “So it’s like a stage manager except for lacrosse?”
Wufei and Treize exchanged befuddled glances and shrugged simultaneously. This boy certainly seemed to be from a world of his own, though they had to admit he probably would add a little flavour to the mix this year.

“So you’re like a director,” Duo said with a glance at Treize. He pointed at Wufei and said, “and he’s like the AD…. Does that mean you have a lacrosse version of a props manager and a house manager? Though I suppose since I have to look after the locker room and the water, that makes me the equivalent of both…. Oh my God!” Duo cried, both hands flying up to slap both sides of his face as a sudden realization dawned upon him. “That means like I’m a one-man running crew! Horrors!”

Treize, apparently understanding what Duo was trying to get out, crowed with laughter, whilst Wufei just glowered darkly at the confused Duo, who was staring at Treize like he was an alien with six heads and octopus tentacles.

“Hey, Coach!” a low voice called out from behind them. Duo turned around to find a trio of lacrosse players standing there, looking for all the world like a tiny regiment of soldiers with their helmets and bulky padding, totally obscuring their identities to Duo. The tall one who had spoken was standing between his friends wearing a green jersey over his pads, his stick bearing an abnormally large netted head, bigger than Duo had thought most lacrosse sticks to have. To his left was a slightly smaller figure in a yellow jersey that bore the number ‘4’ on its front, who was at present giving a nasty stare to the player on the middle boy’s other side. He was leaning on a stick that was much longer than Duo’s minimal experience with lacrosse had led him to believe they were to be. The last was a much shorter boy in red, and while not as little as Quatre, still a bit smaller than even Duo, though judging by only his slender bare calves, he looked much stronger than both Quatre and Duo combined. His gloved hand was wrapped around a lacrosse stick that Duo’s mind registered as a normal looking make. Duo swallowed a subconscious gulp, feeling like the short boy was boring through him with his stare.

Treize stopped laughing to survey the newcomers. Still smiling a little, he said, “Go grab a ball, each of you, and go run some laps together until everyone else gets out here. You”—he pointed at the green player—“go get a defense stick for this and go with them.”

They nodded and brushed past Duo, the one in yellow not failing to bump into Duo deliberately as he walked past towards Wufei, who was lifting up a red mesh bag full of balls from underneath the bench. The green player dropped his strange looking stick, grabbing a spare one with an extra-long handled before following his friends as they went to retrieve a ball. As they walked by, Wufei tossed a small hard ball from the bag at for each of them, which all three, in turn, caught deftly in the deep mesh pocket of his lacrosse stick. Duo watched with almost morbid fascination as the three took off in a rather impressive sprint along the sidelines, each cradling his ball with lightning skill.

“That’s not too shabby,” Duo mused to himself, eyes glued to the three running figures as they rounded the first corner of the field. He turned to Wufei, who was currently bent over a clipboard, making little check marks on the typewritten list fastened there and jerked his thumb in their direction as he asked, “What’s with them?”
Wufei looked up for a moment, glanced at Duo, noted his thumb and what it was pointing at and then promptly returned to his list, mumbling a reply in an almost incoherent somewhat pinched haughty tone. “They’re good.” He paused for a little and then added, eyes still downcast, “Especially Barton and Yuy.”

“Oh,” Duo whistled, the names meaning absolutely nothing to him. “What about the third guy?”

“Don’t know him,” Wufei answered plainly, pen now tapping impatiently on the clipboard. Another heavy silence ensued before Wufei said anything else. “Doing the roster should be your job,” he said in an almost annoyed manner, looking up to stare at Duo with that somewhat angry glare of his.

“Oh,” came the nonchalant reply. It was apparent that Duo could have cared less. Instead, he came up with a witty retort to shove down Wufei’s throat, having decided that what the rather pompous boy needed was a good dose of cynicism. “Well sorry for not knowing as certain parties (who shall henceforth remain anonymous) failed to mention that to the new guy.”

Wufei’s head snapped up again, and though his stare seemed to have intensified tenfold, the corners of his mouth were twitching in the faintest hints of mirth. “Sit down and I’ll… show you what to do,” he said, chewing his lower lip in an effort to keep from laughing. He had a feeling that things would indeed be very interesting this season.

Duo did so, leaning over Wufei’s clipboard to see what was what. The list consisted of a number of columns, the first labeled ‘Name/#’, under which was just that. Each column following that was headed with various titles such as ‘Position’ and ‘Notes’. “How come not all the guys have numbers and positions after their names?” Duo asked, his tone sounding trifling, as if he were trying to point out a possible mistake in Wufei’s supreme organization.

“You nimrod, that’s because—”Wufei started to snarl, before catching a wary look from his superior, Treize, who happened to be watching them out of the corner of his eye. He immediately toned down his attitude, trying hard to be patient. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Not all of these guys were on the team last year,” he explained. “This is a list of everyone who signed up for tryouts. All the names that have numbers and positions belong to guys who were on the team last year. See,” he said, pointing to the name ‘Barton’, “he was first string goalie last year and his number was 3.”

“O-oh,” Duo hummed. Though he had an urge to roll his eyes at the idea that someone would bother to be so precise about old details like that, he had to admit that Wufei’s lists were pretty damn well done. He looked up at the field, where Trieze was leading a larger pack of potential team members, the three sprinters from earlier jogging in to join the circle. “So which one is he?”

“Couldn’t you tell when he came out earlier?” Wufei asked, his tone suggesting that he was a little appalled that Duo did not know one of their star players. Trowa Barton had not only been the school’s leading goalie for the past two years, but he was also one of the best in the country. Plus, he was also one of the most well-known and popular boys in the senior class, admired by many for his good looks and good nature, even if he was a little on the taciturn side.

“Well it was a little hard since they’re all wearing helmets and pads,” Duo complained, thrusting his hands out towards the motley crew standing around Treize, who was currently giving a welcoming speech to all of them. “Can’t exactly see their faces. Man, I wouldn’t even know if there’s someone I’ve known forever out there!”

“He’s probably going to be our goalie again this year,” Wufei said, leaving the end of his sentence hanging in midair, as if waiting for Duo to leap up, take the bait and finally register what he was getting at.

“If he’s good, I guess,” Duo shrugged. Goalie, defense, whatever; it was all the same to him.

“So he brought all his gear,” Wufei went on with the same tactic, adding a little more to his previous statement.

“So…?”

“So he was the one who had the goalie stick this morning! You know, the one with the huge head?” Wufei sighed and smacked his own forehead a couple times with the clipboard, amazed that Duo had not known what distinguished a goalie’s stick from an attack stick or a defense stick. “Don’t you even know the basics of this game?”
Duo was meanwhile trying hard to stifle a snigger at how wrong Wufei’s description of the goalie’s stick could have sounded in a much different context. It was about then he realized that with all this talk of ‘balls’, ‘sticks’ and ‘heads’ for the next few months, he would have quite the time trying to keep his mind remotely out of the gutter. “Look Wuffers or Chang or whatever you are,” Duo said, curling his lower lip into his mouth and sucking on it to keep from making any crude commentary. “You and I both know that I really don’t want to be here, I don’t know jack shit about lacrosse nor do I even care. I’m stuck here because I have to be, and you’re stuck with me because you have to be, end of story, period, amen. Capice?”

“You could at least pretend to be interested if you’re going to have to put up with it all season,” Wufei growled, deciding that Duo had just trodden on dangerous ground. He smacked Duo on the shoulder with his clipboard and gestured to the field, “Look, they’re going to get started soon. You can at least watch and I’ll do you the common courtesy of trying to explain the rules to you.”

Duo shrugged noncommittally and turned his attention to the field where Treize was separating the huge group into sections according to (as Duo saw it) what size their stick was, before splitting them up further, leaving him with a grand total of four groups, two attack and two defense.

The boy in green (apparently, this was the Barton who Wufei had been talking about) from before was standing apart from any of the groups with his odd stick with the giant pocket, watching from behind the metal guard that protected his face and obscured it from view. Duo thought he could see a thick tuft of cinnamon coloured hair poking out from underneath the helmet. He saw the yellow number 4 who had been with the goalie twiddling his stick deftly, practicing a few dodging moves here and there when he got bored. But when Duo caught sight of the red player that had been among that trio, he got a little unnerved. Red was standing there, holding his lacrosse stick in the proper relaxed position across his stomach, his right hand wrapped just under the neck, the other outturned hand around the titanium handle. His shoulders were squared, his feet spread evenly beneath him, and he looked just as he should have been, save the unmoving stare he had fixated upon Duo. Even though there were a good ten yards between the two, Duo could swear that he saw a glimmer of dark blue iris shining beneath that white helmet.

“Okay boys!” Treize shouted, loud enough for Duo and Wufei to hear him clearly from where they sat on the bleachers. “Let’s run a couple drills. We’ll have to do some basic defense-offense work, a couple face offs with our attackers, shooting, passing, catching—you know the list. Then we can scrimmage ‘till your little hearts fall out. Sound good?”

A wild chorus of “Yes Coach!” rang out from the groups as they all trotted off to various parts of the field. Each boy headed for a certain place on the field depending on what position he played. On the side of the field nearest to where Duo and Wufei were watching from the sidelines, one group of boys lined up, another other bunch clustered around the goal. As Treize was managing a similar set-up on the other side of the field, Wufei took control of the drill. Without even bothering to go over to them, he looked up from his clipboard briefly, randomly chose two of the boys standing by the goal and with his perpetually bitter yell, commanded them to get in position and start the exercise.
After watching them cycle through the drill a couple times, it did not take long for Duo to figure out that the players with long sticks were defenders and the short normal-looking ones were for offense. “Stupid,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head in defeat. “I just don’t get it.”

Nevertheless, he was caught up in watching as one by one, the attackers would be sent towards the goal, cradling a ball like mad as they tried to feint and dodge their way towards the goal. Even Duo had an easy time of picking out who was actually worth paying attention to and who should just drop all his gear and go home. Even with his practically nil experience with sports, Duo figured that one of the defenders who was currently playing, good old Yellow number 4, was actually putting up a pretty decent fight against anyone who charged him. Though Trowa was defending the goal on the opposite end of the field, leaving the players able to simply have to dodge the defenders and shoot at the open net, Yellow proved to be a challenging obstacle nevertheless. It was not rocket science to figure out that he would probably end up being a valuable addition to the final lineup. The other defender playing beside Yellow was mediocre, but did well enough to get by until Wufei looked up from scribbling on his clipboard and hollered angrily at someone else to replace him a bit later. Wufei made no move to remove Yellow from his current position and returned to his notes.

Duo could see why, too. With Yellow on defense, Duo had only witnessed three goals out of the twelve people he had seen attempt to break through. He glanced at the next person in line, noting that it was Red, who had been staring at him before. The bloodthirsty look that was glinting in Red’s eyes right then gave Duo the creeps, almost like he was going to rip Yellow limb from limb when he finally got to take his turn.

“Who is that guy?” Duo hissed to Wufei, whose eyes were also riveted on the player in the red jersey and black shorts. He had a white helmet that read ‘Zero’ in blue script lettering across the side, the dim sun playing over the word as he bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet. Duo had a disturbingly good feeling that Red’s constant movement had more to do with gearing himself up to pulverize his opponent than trying to keep warm in the chilly weather.

Red deftly scooped up a ball into the deep pocket of his stick’s head and whirled the shaft experimentally around in his hands. Then he launched himself forward in a motion that came so quickly, it almost looked to Duo like he had vanished from his spot at the head of the line and reappeared in mid-stride as he charged closer to the goal. He skillfully danced around the first defender, cradling the stick with his left hand as he used his right to block the player from getting anywhere near the ball. Skillfully as Red executed this maneuver, he was so absorbed in the dodge that he almost did not see Yellow as he came in from the other side, sending a questionably legal slash flying at Red. Somehow Red managed to save himself from losing the ball by skirting back around the other defender, returning his stick to the usual grip as he did so. He moved so quickly, Yellow barely had time to react as he sneaked around behind him, making his way for the goal. He scored with a smooth flick of his wrist, jogging around the goal and shaking his head. Though the who spectacle had taken about five seconds at the most, easily the best display yet, he looked a little ticked off to Duo.

“Heero Yuy,” Wufei finally answered, returning his gaze to his clipboard and scribbling something down. “Best all-around player we’ve ever had. He’s been voted the school district’s MVP for the last two years.”

“Why does he look like he wants something to die?” Duo asked in reference to the rugged movements Heero made as he got back in line, that liquid grace from before nowhere to be seen. Duo practically winced, as every now and then Yuy would pound the side of his helmet in self-berating anger.

“He’s pissed with his performance just then,” Wufei said, not even bothering to look up to see what Duo was pointing to. He knew Heero well enough to be able to determine what his moods were by his body language and he knew the look Duo was referring to all too well. Heero, while somehow very popular, particularly among the ladies, was rather aloof and standoffish. He hated when people tried to warm up to him and boy, did he let them know it, his only saving grace from total rejection being his gorgeous face. He did not take well to frustration and got annoyed with even the tritest things. Wufei had learned a while ago to just let Heero Yuy play his game and leave him alone. More than one person’s sanity would be saved that way.

“That was bad for him?” Duo gaped. He might not have known much about lacrosse, but he knew about grace, and what he had just seen Heero do could have passed for some very fluid movement on the stage. “God, I’m almost afraid to see good….”

“You should be,” Wufei commented dryly, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You should be even more afraid to see him play when he’s pissed. No one, not even his own team, is safe and let me tell you, kid, the penalties abound. He’s a psycho sometimes.”
“How psycho?” Duo asked shrewdly, glancing over Wufei’s shoulder as the Chinese boy made some notes on Yuy’s first attack on goal for the season. ‘Still as aggressive as ever’ it read.

“Psycho enough to be the reason my lacrosse career is shot,” Wufei admitted a little bitterly, unconsciously rubbing his left ankle with his other foot as he spoke. “It was his fault that I got injured last year.” Finishing the statement, Wufei saw the question already formulating on the tip of Duo’s tongue and quickly gave his answer to it before the braided boy had a chance to spit it out. “Don’t even get me started. You really don’t want to know.”

“Well then rule number one of the season is keep him away from me,” Duo decided sourly, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes turning back out to the field and harnessing themselves to Yuy’s back. The foremost thought on Duo’s mind was how a guy like this Heero Yuy managed to have any friends at all, followed by a side-note that the lacrosse player had an extremely delicious tight ass and a dim awareness in the back of his mind that he was hungry. He really hoped no one was paying attention to the way he was staring. Another reason to add to the list of reasons why he hated jocks was that they tended to be pretty narrow-minded when it came to things like sexuality. Duo had always been into the free love spirit and had never been one to limit his options, so to speak, based on gender. He shook his head, wished he had a good bowl of matzo ball soup to silence his whining stomach and that he had been born in the 1960’s in a Volkswagen bus instead of this current day and age of hypocrisy and bigotry.

“Oh, I think you’ll find yourself being the one keeping away from him,” Wufei replied with a dry chuckle, watching the next player to go lose the ball to Yellow before he even had a chance to get within scoring distance. “God, that number 4 is pretty good!” Wufei gasped to himself, his brow furrowed as his black eyes returned to the clipboard. “I have no idea who he is though….”

“O-o-o-oh, there’s a hole in Mr. Orderly’s little system there, huh?” Duo taunted with a cutesy look decorating his face as he gave Wufei little nudges with his elbow. “Maybe you should demand photo ID to sign up.”

“Shut up Maxwell,” Wufei spat, still scouring his list dutifully. “Maybe he just forgot to put his name down or—oh, here we go!” Wufei’s pen stopped beside a name with no data from last year, tapping the ballpoint tip on the last letter of the word. “This has to be him. It’s the only name I don’t recognize.”

“Zechs Marquise?” Duo read out loud, peering over Wufei’s shoulder far enough to practically shove the Chinese boy over on his side. Duo frowned and scratched the side of his head in thought as he sat up. “You sure? I’ve got a good buddy whose boyfriend is named Zechs, but only she calls him that. I think his real name is Milliardo, but I’m not pals enough with him to know for sure.”

“Well I wouldn’t know either,” Wufei shrugged, already making notes about Zechs’ amazing defense. “Whatever. If it turns out it’s not him, we can always redo the list. Maybe he has a brother named Milliardo or something?”

“Maybe,” Duo agreed, though he still thought something was strangely out of place there. As he had mentioned to Wufei, he did not really personally know Milliardo. Nevertheless, Duo knew who he was well enough to remember that he had platinum blond hair almost as long as Duo’s and, if Duo’s memory served him correctly, was very tall. Yellow number 4, while not short by any means, was not as tall as he recalled Milliardo being. Still, the name Zechs sounded familiar to him as well. Perhaps what was confusing him was that some of Milliardo’s closer friends referred to him with that name, and he had heard his girlfriend, Lucrezia Noin, call him that. Maybe it really was another sibling or perhaps a person with the last name of Marquise just coincidentally had the same odd first name. After all, he had never heard a surname of any kind associated with the name Zechs, epithet or not.

Duo blandly returned to watching tryouts drag onwards with dull eyes, his mind still annoyed with the fact that he could not place the name Zechs Marquise. Treize had ordered the defense players to one side of the field and had them running suicides while he turned his attentions to the attackers, who were all clumped around in the middle of the field, talking to them in a voice that was too quiet for Duo to hear. He split them into two groups and set one on either side of the half line. Then, as if on command, with the blow from Treize’s whistle, one player from each side came to stand opposite each other over the ‘X’ spray painted in the middle of the line.

“They’re like a pack of trained dogs,” Duo grinned to himself. He made a face as the two players (one of them, he noted dully, the short, beautiful and yet somehow still imposing Heero Yuy), crouched low to the ground, pressing a ball between the necks of their two sticks as they stared each other down. “The fuck-hell are they doing now?” Duo asked, his voice a little impetuous.

“Face-off,” Wufei stated insipidly, his eyes jumping back and forth between field and page.
Duo rolled his eyes, reminding himself how silly he thought sports were. “And that does what?”

“It’s how you start off the game at the beginning of the quarter or after a goal is scored,” Wufei explained with a somewhat frustrated sigh. “Just watch them practice. Yuy will beat this guy to the ball before you even know what happened.”

“I see,” Duo hummed without really getting it. Just then, as Treize blew his whistle again, Yuy and his opponent jerked their sticks upwards, causing the ball to sail into the air. Duo watched with the slightest hint of amazement as Yuy threw himself between his opponent and the ball with a slight leap towards him, snagging the ball on its downward fall and jogging off with it.

“Nice one, Heero. Even after a year, you still have it!” Duo heard Treize call after the boy as he returned to the center with the ball. “Next two, get out here!” Duo cringed a little, somewhat annoyed that Treize seemed to like this supposed boy from hell, his look intensifying as the gingery haired man patted Yuy on the helmet as he went by. This bothered Duo enough to make him glue his eyes to Wufei’s lists and the bronze hand manipulating the pen across the sheet instead of the field.

“Look,” Wufei suddenly snapped, feeling tense under Duo’s constant intense scrutiny. He hated it when people read over his shoulder, “if watching is really that painful for you, why don’t you make yourself useful and fill up some water bottles for the guys? They’re going to want some before the scrimmage. You can find all that in the weight training room.”

“Oh yes, your Highness,” Duo said mockingly, standing up and giving Wufei a ridiculing bow before turning on his heel and sauntering off towards the locker rooms. He was more than a little happy to get away from that bench and the forced pain of having to watch Yuy be perfect, a trait Duo found was becoming increasingly more and more annoying the longer he watched the small lacrosse player. “God, just when I was beginning to think that this wouldn’t be too bad, I find something worse than this imposed labour,” he grumbled as he walked around to the locker rooms beneath the grandstand. “Not only will I have to be a slave to lacrosse, but I have to a slave to a raving maniac too! I bet if that Yuy weren’t so good, they’d expel his ass for being nuts.” On a happier note, he realized that the worse this experience was, the more food he would be able to mooch off of Quatre thanks to that silly bet. That cheered him up enough to make the mundane task of fetching the water less tedious.

When he finally returned to Wufei with two orange carriers, each holding six green water bottles, Treize was splitting everyone into teams, a goalie’s stick slung over one shoulder. He was talking all thew while in his quick eloquent way as he designated each boy to one team or the other with a gesture of his hand. Setting the water bottles down on the bench, Duo resumed his spot beside Wufei, who had discarded his clipboard and was now leaning forward with his forearms slung across the top of his thighs.

“Hey Wuffy, I’m back,” Duo said as amiably as he could, clapping the Chinese boy heartily on the back in an effort to get his attention.

“Shh, quiet Maxwell! Not now!” Wufei waved Duo off irately, swatting blindly behind him shoo Duo off. “This is when it gets good.”

“Well, excuse me for being a mere mortal,” Duo retorted glibly with a sneer. “Forgive me for”—he made air quotes with his index and middle fingers—“’interrupting’ O Great One.”

“Wrong sport Maxwell,” Wufei found himself retorting automatically, still watching the lacrosse players on the field as they went to take up their designated positions, the spare players jogging over towards them to wait out their turns to play on the bench. “Wayne Gretzky is the Great One. He’s ice hockey, not lacrosse.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say man,” Duo shrugged, not paying his apparent mistake any mind as that had not even been what he had been referring to in the first place.

“Like I give a rat’s ass.”

“Maxwell?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and watch the game.”

Duo stuck his tongue out at the side of Wufei’s head and discreetly gave him the finger, begrudgingly averting his eyes to the scrimmage game that had just gotten under way. Treize was playing referee, jogging after the action as it moved across the field. Duo noticed that Treize had purposely put Trowa and Zechs on the team opposing Yuy, as it seemed most of the action was gravitating around the general area of that team’s goal. One way or another, Yuy would bump, slash, trip and shove his way to the ball and break for a shot as legally as he could muster, rarely finding Zechs a trouble on his way, despite his opponent’s skill. Sometimes he moved so quickly that Duo almost missed his movements. He never missed the goal, though Trowa proved to be fast enough in goal to actually prevent a good percentage of Yuy’s shots from making it into the net. Then the process would repeat, either right after the face-off or after one of Yuy’s goals or when Trowa would feed the ball back into play after one of his brilliant saves. Actually, the other side of the field got so little play, they had taken to standing in dangerously relaxed positions, sticks drooping in one hand as they engaged in light chit-chat here and there as the battle raged on the other side of the pitch.

Quite frankly, got extremely bored of watching the game’s repetitiveness for what seemed an eternity and started to pace along the sidelines anxiously to channel his unwanted energy, much to a very disgruntled Wufei’s annoyance. Duo paid him no mind. When he got bored or nervous, or worse, both, he sometimes had trouble controlling his morphing ability and had on more than one occasion flitted about in unrestrained flashes and clouds of particles. It would be a very bad thing if the fact that he was a mutant were revealed right there, in front of a sea of stupid jocks that would do anything but understand what he was.

Duo was so caught up in his nervous pacing, he barely had time to see the speeding red blur that leapt wildly into his scope of vision to intercept a careless pass that came sailing haphazardly towards the sidelines, threatening to go out of bounds. The world seemed to suddenly decelerate into slow motion, Yuy frozen in mid-air as he snagged the wayward ball, the sun outlining his body in a shimmering halo of light as he started to tumble backwards from his heavenly pause, back towards the earth. Then the world started thrumming at its usual pace again. By the time Duo had realized what was happening, Yuy had come catapulting out of the sky and had fallen over the sideline, his plummet landing him on his back, flat and spread-eagled on top of a very dazed Duo Maxwell.

Duo blinked up at the gray sky above, his mind ignoring all the worried shouts coming from all over the place, registering only two things. One, he had just had the wind knocked out of him by a projectile Heero Yuy and two, said projectile was rolling off of him and getting to his feet, sending him the dirtiest glare he had ever been the victim of.

“God, Duo, are you all right?” Treize cried out in a concerned voice as he knelt beside Duo, who was slowly trying to sit up, moaning and rubbing the back of his head as he did so. “What happened?” he asked to the general crowd that had accumulated, all trying to see what the ruckus was.

“He was in my way,” a deep and slightly nasal voice whispered, though to Duo’s ears, it sounded more like a purr than a whisper. Duo did a double take when he realized that pleasing lilt was coming from the menace in red as he removed his white helmet. Just as Duo was about to snort and give him an indignant display of coldness, Yuy removed his helmet completely and tucked it under one arm, his stick held over the back of his shoulders as he sent Duo an icy glare that froze their eyes together into one solid stare. He simply took Duo’s breath away.

The braided mechanic had never seen such a devastatingly good-looking human being in all his existence. The vision he beheld was most certainly nowhere near what he had been expecting to find hidden beneath that helmet. With mahogany brown hair falling in disarray over a pair of hauntingly beautiful oriental eyes of the most peculiar cobalt hue, the slender boy was an amazingly gorgeous creature of young beauty, sculpted out of pure hewn muscle. Eyes wide with amazement, Duo had trouble convincing himself that this dark haired Adonis was the same violent player he had seen belligerently warring his way across the field moments ago. Then again, he noted how Heero’s small plush coral lips were locked in a tight frown and reevaluated that prior statement. He may have been pretty, but what Wufei had said about Heero Yuy not being the most agreeable of people certainly seemed to be true.

“Well sorry!” Duo snarled angrily as he snapped out of his minor daze, resuming his seat on the bench and folding his arms defensively, kicking one leg over the other, crossing them at the thigh.

“What were you doing so close to the sideline anyway?” Heero demanded in return, throwing his stick and his helmet to the ground and taking a few challenging steps towards Duo. “There’s a rule about how close you’re allowed to stand to the line, I hope you realize.”

“Father, forgive me, I have sinned,” Duo sneered sarcastically, one hand on his heart as his other went through the motions of a disrespectful sign of the cross.

“What is he even doing here in the first place?!” Heero yelled with an accusing finger trembling in Duo’s direction as he turned towards Wufei, his deep voice a little scratchy as it became louder.

“What were you doing going out of your way to catch that pass when it was clearly going out of bounds anyway,” Duo interjected from off to the side. “You just had to go and look so damn cool with your little ‘Hey-Look-at-Me-I-Can-Fly move’,” Duo mocked, waving his hands back and forth and wiggling in his seat a little bit as he said that last bit. “‘Friggin’ showoff. That’s just why I hate people like you.”

Wufei, who had become accustomed to Heero’s rage, kept his cool, even under that intimidating stare the smaller Asian boy was sending his way. “He’s the team manager for this season,” he said calmly. Just as Heero was about to protest, Wufei held up and hand and continued, “and don’t think there’s any negotiating you can do. Principal Une has him doing school service to make up for some”—he paused and shot a sideways look at Duo, realizing that he had not heard exactly why Une decided to bestow Duo with the position anyway—“trouble he got into….”

“That’s right, Yuy,” Duo shot back, brandishing a water bottle that he had grabbed from beside him in the lacrosse player’s direction, “big ass trouble, so if you know what’s best for you, you’ll keep off. I want to be here just about as much as you want me here.”
Heero’s face faltered for a second. He bit his lip, frowned and turned his back abruptly towards Duo, stooping to pick up his discarded stick and helmet on his way back towards the field. Seeing that the show was over, the rest of the players started to disperse, slowly meandering back onto the pitch, those also new to Heero’s attitude muttering to themselves. Treize stood off a couple feet, an amused look on his face as he regarded what might happen next.

“Hey Yuy!” Duo shouted after Heero, annoyed to have been so blatantly ignored. While not on top of the social ladder, Duo Maxwell had never been ignored by anyone and this change of pace was quite a shock, particularly when it came from someone like Heero. It was something he resented and he definitely wanted to make sure Heero knew it. “Hey you, I’m calling you!” he shouted again without success of stopping Heero’s retreat, ready to just zap himself in Heero’s path, never mind the consequences. His infuriation reached its peak about then, his fingers crushing the water bottle in his fist as he glowered at that red shirted back. Unscrewing the lid of the bottle a little bit, he wound his arm back and threw it for all he was worth, the dripping bottle spinning through the air until it smacked Heero dead in the middle of his back. The icy torrent of cold water in the middle of the crisp January weather certainly put a halt in Heero’s withdrawal.

He stopped, dropping his gear again, slowly turning around with his fists curling and flexing as he tried to calm the uncontrollable frustration welling up inside. “Just who,” he whispered dangerously, “do you think you are?”
“Fucking God,” Duo grinned, his expression just as dangerous as Heero’s as he tauntingly whirled another water bottle around his head. “Come and get me, pretty boy,” he baited, making a stiff beckoning motion with his free hand, imitating a character he had seen in a certain science fiction movie he liked almost to a point of obsession.

“Why you little….” Heero fumed, storming over towards Duo and closing the gap between them in record time. He grabbed Duo by the collar of his red shirt and lifted him off his feet, quite a feat considering the height difference between the two. “You listen here, punk,” he said threateningly, shaking Duo a little as if to emphasize how perturbed he was, “whether you want to be here or not, you’ve got to get a couple things straight, beginning with the fact that not obeying the rules of the game is the first thing that will lead to the inner destruction of a team. Now shut up, do your job and leave me the fuck alone!”

“Your wish is my command,” Duo drawled cheekily, dumping the frigid contents of the water bottle in his hand all over Heero’s head, making him even wetter and colder than he had been before. Heero promptly dropped Duo into a crumpled pile on the ground, which Duo was quick to rebound from, anything but finished with his retort. “Now let’s get some other shit straight, right from me to you,” he said, tossing the water bottle carelessly over his shoulder as he raised up one hand and started to count on his fingers. “One, don’t fucking touch me or the hair. Two, I hate you and everyone like you and three, you are not half as bad-ass as you think you are, pal, so I would just fucking lay off if I were you or else you might not be a happy camper. Got it?”

Heero shrugged, batted Duo on the side of the head hard enough to knock it to the side and defiantly grabbed Duo’s luxurious braid, tugging it violently toward him in a motion that caused Duo to spin around and fall flat on his back. “At least we can agree on one of your three ‘rules’, kid,” he growled, nudging Duo’s prone body with the toe of his cleat. “I don’t like you either.”

“Well… well… good!” was all Duo could think of to stammer out, ashamed to think that he had been momentarily distracted by a low burning glimmer in Heero’s deep blue eyes as he stared up at the imposing figure hovering above him.

Throughout all of this, Treize had stepped back and was standing off to the side, watching with a smugly delighted look on his face. He had opted not to interfere as he figured that a good dose of Duo’s carefree demeanor might be enough to warm Heero over a little bit. Perhaps there was even something to be found in Heero that might benefit Duo as well. Treize called the end of practice and made his way over towards Duo and helped him up to his feet, dusting away at a patch of dirt that had collected on the violet eyed boy’s back. Heero walked off, joining himself to Trowa’s hip as they made their way back towards the locker room, Heero’s hands flying about in conversation, apparently deeply involved in his complaints about Duo. Both Treize and Duo watched them go as the coach said kindly to his new team manager, “Sorry about that, Duo,” he apologized, checking to make sure Heero had not done any real damage to him. “He doesn’t take well to strangers.”

“He probably wouldn’t take well to his own mother,” Duo grumbled under his breath, oblivious to the shadow that flickered across Treize’s face as he spoke.

“Give him a chance to get used to you,” Treize said evenly as he bent over to scoop up the water bottle Duo had thrown at Heero. He pressed it into Duo’s chest and gave him one of those vigorous claps on the shoulder and whispered low enough for only Duo to hear, “He’s not that bad once you get to know him.”

Duo somehow seriously doubted this as Treize shooed him off towards the locker room with all the extra water bottles. As he watched Duo head off, the coach sat down with a heavy sigh next to Wufei, shaking his head forlornly. “First day, and there’s already trouble.”

“If you think Yuy’s going to be such a big problem, cut him from the team this year,” Wufei suggested nonchalantly as he gathered his papers. Despite the victories Heero’s raw talent had won for their school, Wufei was still a little sore about the accident that had taken him off the field for good and never missed a chance to try and give Heero the short end of the stick. It had nothing to do with the respect Wufei had for his talent (because the Chinese boy certainly had a lot of that), but more with the wounded pride that did not sit so well in his chest.

“That is absolutely out of the question,” Treize reprimanded sharply, his eyes skimming over the boys as they leisurely made their way back to the locker rooms. “We need both Yuy and Barton if we’re going to get anywhere near championships this year and you know it.”

Wufei fell silent, knowing this could not be denied and said nothing else until Treize addressed him again.

“But that Maxwell boy sure is in a category all of his own, don’t you think?” Treize commented, rising to his feet to help Wufei pack up all the equipment that was still left scattered across the benches. “Sure will add some colour to some of the flatter characters out there, you know?”

“I think we got more than we bargained for with him,” Wufei grumbled dryly, more to himself than anyone. While he sincerely thought that Duo was an interesting person and could not refute the fact that they really did need the extra pair of hands, he knew that there was going to be a very rocky trail leading to the finals this year.

“Well they say that while a straight line is the fastest way to get somewhere, it is by no means the most interesting,” Treize said philosophically as he shouldered a quartet of sticks and lifted up the red bag of balls in his other hand. “I think Duo will help us zigzag through this year at a good rate yet.” And with that, he smiled ambiguously at Wufei and made his way back inside, leaving the assistant coach standing alone on the sidelines with a very befuddled look on his face.

(x) X (x)

A/N: Hope you all have been able to catch the trend in chappy titles so far. If ya have, then you’d have been able to pick out the reference hidden in the chapter, hehe. Yeah, LW is a dork... *nervous chuckle* Happy Halloween, all! Hope yours was better than mine! *grumbles about not being able to trick-or-treat*

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