I went to work the next day
with Trowa and Q. Trowa hadn’t said a
word about his little foray into fortune telling, but I could tell that it had
freaked him out a little bit, because he was reluctant to talk or even look at
me. But I was cool with it—after all, he’d predicted me with a hunk of a man! Who wouldn’t love that?
We sat down at our desks and
I immediately took out a clean sheet of paper and began to do a sketch. This time, Wufei was not meeting a horrible
end. He wasn’t even in the darn thing. (See, I AM making progress!) This time I was sketching what I thought my
dream guy would look like. I tried
different kinds of noses, different mouth shapes and hair length until I came
up with something I was satisfied with.
Then I drew myself with my dream guy, making out . . .
Man, I was sooo horny! Damn
Trowa for making that prediction! Now I
wouldn’t be able to think about anything else for the rest of the day.
I wanted to cry. I was so freaking lonely and desperate for
love. All of my friends were heavily
involved with someone, and I was being left behind.
Well, at least my stalker
thought that I was worth something. But
he was crazy, so I guess that really doesn’t count.
Okay, I’m taking a
break. Screw work.
I got up from my desk and
headed outside, down to the ground floor and into the atrium. It was a really nice place where people would
go to take a break from . . . um, not working.
There was a tree in the center of it, colorful patches of folowers (I’m really starting to hate those things) and a
nice water fountain of a naked baby boy spitting out water. I’d spent several hours down here tying to
figure THAT one out, but I was still at a loss.
I sat on the edge of the
fountain and stared up at the sky. Where
was my life going? I was stuck in a job
I hated, at least until I turned twenty-one when I’d be allowed to do something
more worth-while for the Preventers, I was totally
unloved except by a crazy ass stalker, and I was still depressed about Heero
leaving me, no matter how hard I tried to deny it.
“Hey, fag boy, turned on by
the statue?”
Great. Just what I
needed when I was feeling depressed. It
was the guy from yesterday, Peters or whatever his name was. He was alone this time and looking pretty
ticked off, probably because I’d embarrassed him in front of his friends.
He stalked over and towered
above me. “You’re lucky that Yuy came by
when he did, or else I would’ve—”
“Would’ve what?” I sneered
back. He dared to threaten me when I was
feeling like crap?
He grinned nastily. “Say, how are
things with Yuy? He dumped you,
right? Decided that he liked Chang
better?”
Okay, now that was playing dirty, throwing my sour
relationship with Heero in my face. I jumped to my feet, ready to take the
bastard on. But then he pushed me. He pushed me (!) and I fell back into the
fountain with a splash. He laughed and
laughed, but quickly shut up when I sloshed water in his direction so that he
was almost as wet as I was.
After cursing me to hell and
threatening reveng , he left. I hauled
my ass out of the freezing water and swore, tugging at my wet clothes. This was
just NOT my day.
I went to the men’s locker
room where, luckily, I kept a spare set of clothes, ignoring the strange looks that
I was getting as I walked down the hallway.
The locker room was thankfully empty, which meant that I could shout bad
words as loud as I could in an attempt to alleviate my frustration without
bothering a soul. I stomped to the back
of the room and swiped my Preventers ID card when I
reached my locker. It popped open and
angrily I yanked my extra clothes out and then watched curiously as a plain
white envelope fell to the ground.
What was this?
I looked around cautiously,
but the room was silent. Empty. I looked back down at the envelope. Should I
open it? Should I get Trowa?
Jeeze, it was just and ENVELOPE, nothing to get worried
over. So I opened it.
Oh my god. Oh my god!
Inside the envelope were
pictures of me . . . pictures of me changing my clothes last night at Quatre’s house. So he had
been watching me! I knew it!
But how had he gotten inside
the Preventers headquarters? Inside
my locker? Was he still in the
room? In the building? Was he lurking just outside the
locker room for me, waiting for me to come out so that he could whisk me off
and have his wicked way with me?
Shit! Okay, I needed to CALM DOWN, go somewhere
where there were a lot of people and find Trowa and Q.
I decided that changing would
have to wait. I left my clothes there
and clutched the pictures to my chest, dashing outside into the hallway. There were plenty of people milling around,
not working as usual. Good.. I avoided looking anyone in the eye and
stared at the floor instead—any of the unrecognizable faces could’ve belonged
to the stalker.
Suddenly I bumped into a very
firm body. Ouch! The pictures fell to the ground and the
person I’d ran into bent down to pick them up, which would’ve been nice under
other circumstances, if the pictures weren’t of me getting naked. I scrambled to get the ones that I could, but
the Good Samaritan had already grabbed some.
“What the fuck are these?”
HEERO?! I was REALLY,
REALLY, REALLY having a bad day! Of all
the people to run into, of all the people to see the mildly pornographic
pictures of me! Heero!
He stood there, staring down
at the three photos he had in his hand, his face balnk
but his eyes full of confusion. Oh
boy. How could I explain this? Well, I knew I couldn’t, so I didn’t even
try. Instead I yanked the pictures from
his hands and did the only thing that I could
do—I took off running down the hallway.
“Hey! Duo!”
He was right behind me, I
could tell. Trying to run from
Super-Human-Heero-Yuy was pretty useless, I guess, and I made it to Trowa’s
cubicle with Heero on my heels. Trowa
was sitting on his desk, feeding Quatre pudding when I found them. They looked pretty mad that we’d interrupted
their flirting, but seemed to let their anger go when they saw the panic on my
face.
“Duo, what’s wrong?” Quatre
asked, wiping some pudding from the corner of his mouth. “You’re all wet.”
“Why the fuck do you have
pictures of you undressing, Duo?! Who
took those?!” Heero demanded, drawing the attention of the people around
us. I could’ve hit him for having such a
big mouth. I didn’t need rumors of this
floating around the office.
Wufei wandered over,
obviously drawn by his lover’s loud shouting.
“What’s going on?”
Jeeze! The two
people that I didn’t want to know about this . . .
“It’s HIM again,” I said to Tro and Q. “I got
something else.”
Trowa’s confused look turned
deadly. “Let’s talk about this some
place private.”
All five of us immediately
headed to the men’s restroom. We went
inside, and Trowa and Heero rudely shoved two guys who were in the middle of
relieving themselves out into the hallway.
Quatre locked the door behind them.
I turned to Wufei and
Heero. “Do you two mind? This is private.”
Heero scowled. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“We should just tell them,”
Quatre said to me. “We might need their
help. We haven’t dealt with anything
like this before, and any extra input is valuable.”
No! My best friend just turned on me! His bunny slippers are toast. “Fine.” I told Heero and Wufei about last night
(Heero looked ready to murder someone), and then passed around the
pictures. For a while, no one said a
word. The looks on their faces, though,
would’ve been really funny if I hadn’t been so unnerved. I was in no mood to laugh—I wanted to hurl.
“You’re going to the police
NOW,” Heero suddenly barked as he shoved the pictures he was holding at Trowa,
who scrambled to grab them before they hit the ground. He stalked over to me and grabbed my arm—what
the fuck?—and stuck his face in mine.
“Why haven’t you gone to the damn police?”
If we’d still been together,
I would’ve been flattered by the amount of concern that he was showing me. But we weren’t, and the fact that he looked
ready to chop someone’s head off on my behalf ticked me off more than anything. I couldn’t understand it. Why was he so possessive towards me now, when
he wasn’t anything of the sort when we were together?
But I had more important
things to worry about than Heero’s temper. I was fucking pissed that someone had decided that it was okay to intrude on my
privacy. I felt incredibly violated, creeped out, and worst of all, vulnerable, and right then,
I sure as hell didn’t feel like hearing a lecture from my cheating
ex-boyfriend. I returned his dark look
and shook him off.
“The flowers were pretty
harmless, Heero, unless they were meant to suffocate
me or something.” I collected each
photo and placed them carefully back into the envelope.
“I’d feel better if we went
to the police now. Screw work,” Trowa said.
Quatre nodded.
“We’re coming with you,”
Wufei quickly added, and I assumed ‘we’ meant Heero and Wufei.
I really wanted to tell them
to take a hike, but fine, whatever, I was not in the mood to argue. The five of us left the bathroom together,
which I guess looked kind of weird, now that I think about it. I knew
we looked scary—the looks on Tro and Heero’s faces were not very . . . erm,
friendly to say the least. Wouldn’t want to meet them in
a dark alley, that’s for sure.
We made it all the way to the
parking deck without incident. Heero insisted that I ride with him to the
police station, but I said that I needed to go back to Quatre’s
to get some other things that Stalker Boy had left for me, so I should ride
with Trowa and Q. He paid me no mind and
just grabbed my arm and shoved me into the back seat of his giant SUV. Wufei got into the passenger seat and Heero
got behind the wheel, which kind of bothered me because he was so mad that he
probably couldn’t even see straight.
“We’ll meet you at your
place,” he grunted to Trowa, locked the doors and sped off.
I quickly secured my seatbelt
and slumped down in my seat. This was so not cool. I was in a car with my controlling maniac
former boyfriend and his current lover . . . just perfect. I pouted, and glanced up from the floor just
in time to see Heero staring at me through the rearview mirror.
“Keep your eyes on the road,
will ya?” I said.
“Stalker Boy won’t get the chance to drive me to an early grave if we
crash and burn.”
“I wish you’d take this a little
more seriously, damn it!” yelled Heero angrily.
His foot slammed on the gas and we began to weave in and out of cars.
“I am fucking taking this seriously, okay?! I am seriously worried about this, but your
crazy ass attitude isn’t helping!” I shouted back at him, gripping the seat as
we whipped around a corner. “And slow
the fuck down!” He totally ignored me
and kept speeding.
“Heero.” That was all
Wufei had to say, and the maniac driver slowed down to a more reasonable
speed. Fuck! How the heck did he do that? I guess they were really made for each other
. . .
“Got him whipped, don’t cha,
Wufei?” I asked with a small laugh.
Wufei just nodded. Huh. I
wondered how that had happened.
We arrived at The Fortress
way before Q and Tro, and had to wait outside for
fifteen minutes for them to arrive, since they had the key. Once they joined us and unlocked the door, I
went inside and upstairs to my room. I
found the note and the cards and went back downstairs.
Quatre was on the phone and
Trowa was handing Wufei a cup of something.
Heero was sitting on the couch, breathing heavily like a raging bull
hyped up on steroids. Uh, not a pretty sight, that’s for sure.
“What’s going on? Aren’t we going to the cops?” I asked, joining
everyone in the living room.
Quatre shook his head. “I’m on the phone with them now. We thought that it would be a better idea if
they came to us. We want to keep you
away from as many crowds as possible.”
Trowa was staring at Heero,
who was now being forced to drink from the cup by Wufei, as if he’d never seen
him before. “Besides, we don’t want
Heero to snap and massacre some innocent officers if they aren’t as . . .
cooperative as we’d like them to be.
Take him upstairs, will you?”
Wufei nodded and lead Heero
to the second floor. “You drugged the
drink?” I asked.
“With a
mild sedative. Hopefully he’ll calm down.” Trowa turned to look at me. “What’s wrong with him? Is there something going on between the two
of you?”
I sat down on the couch and
tossed the stalker’s notes onto the coffee table. Funny how things kept
coming back to my past relationship with Heero. “What are you asking me? Are you implying that we just might be trying
to get back together?”
“He’s being very irrational,”
Trowa said, sitting down next to me. I
leaned against him, resting my head on his shoulder. He began stroking my hair as he’d done the
night before. “I just don’t understand
why he’s getting so upset over every little thing that has to do with you. He loves Wufei, right?.”
“Yeah. I’ll ask him
sometime, when he’s not ready to kill someone.”
I closed my eyes. Suddenly I was
freaking tired. Now I had to worry about
Heero on top of Stalker Boy, and my mind was still buzzing from the scares of
today and the night before. Like I said,
dealing with a fanatic, obsessed freak was new ground for all of us. We were the Gundam
Boys. We were supposed to be able to
handle any and every situation thrown at us, but this . . . we were all at a
loss, and I guess my friends (even Wufei and Heero) were scared too.
I shucked off my shoes and
curled up on the couch. “Would you call me a girly wuss
if I told you that I was scared out of my mind?”
Trowa laughed quietly and
tickled my face with the end of my braid. “Only if you don’t call me a girly wuss. I’m
scared too.”
Aww. What had I
done to deserve such great people as friends?
Trowa suddenly stiffened and
removed his hands from my hair, and the bonding feeling that we’d been sharing
was now gone. Confused, I sat up and
opened my eyes. Oh. Wufei had come back from putting Heero to
rest and was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking at us very
suspiciously.
Wufei came closer. “I hope you two know what you’re doing to
Quatre.”
I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I’m not dumb or anything, okay? But you can’t blame me for not being all there. My brain felt totally fried, and I still had
that feeling of wanting to puke up my breakfast.
But evidently Trowa caught on,
because he got this totally frightening look on his face and got to his
feet. He stood there imposingly, his
arms crossed over his chest as he towered over Wufei.
“You’re one to talk,
Chang. Did you know what you were
doing?” Trowa said. His voice was calm, but I could detect a hint
of malice there.
Wufei drew himself up to his
full height, ready to do battle. But
before he could say a word, Quatre came into the room. At that point, the tension was so thick that Deathscythe Hell wouldn’t have been able to hack through
it. Q hesitated, took some time to stare
at each of us, and then went over to Trowa and forcibly moved him away from
Wufei.
“Um, I don’t know what’s
going on, but yeah. Here’s the
deal. The police are on their way, and
they’ve already got someone out to take a look at the Flower Shop,” Quatre
informed us, eyeing Trowa, who was still looking very upset about whatever Wufei had said.
I’d have to ask him about it later.
The two were engaged in a heated glaring contest . . . I had my money on
Tro. “Where’s
Heero?”
YES! I won! Wufei looked away at the mention of Heero and
turned his focus to Q. “I put him
upstairs to calm down.”
“What the hell is his problem
anyway?” I demanded. “He’s not my
boyfriend, my brother, and he sure as hell ain’t my
dad, so why is he so pissed off?”
Wufei sighed and sat on the
couch across from me. “He’s just
scared. He doesn’t know how to handle
his fear, so he goes off.” He looked me
straight in the eye. “He may not love
you in the way that you love him, but he still cares for you.”
Right. How many times
was I going to have to hear that one? And who said I was still in love with him
anyway? “That’s nice,” I said
nonchalantly. “Tell him to back the fuck
off.”
Trowa stepped in front of me,
blocking my view of ‘Fei. His face was still marred by anger, but he
seemed to have calmed down a bit. “Do
you need something? A
drink, something to eat?”
“We’ve got 7-Up,” Quatre
added. “A six pack.”
“Bring the entire thing
here. I need some caffeine.” Trowa went into the kitchen and came out with
exactly what I’d asked for. Ohh, they were nice and cold. Tro handed me one
that was already open and I began to guzzle it down.
Everyone else just sat
quietly, watching me either outright (Trowa and Q) or
out of the corner of their eyes when they thought
I wasn’t looking (Wufei). I was on
my third can when the door bell rang. We
all jumped, and Quatre ran to get the door.
Two detectives dressed in
suits joined us in the living room, and both were actually kind of hot, which
definitely grabbed my attention. One was
really tall like Trowa, and his hair was midnight black and cut short. His eyes were just as dark, which looked
really cool against his olive skin. His
partner was shorter by about a head, and his hair was flaming red, accompanied
by vibrant green eyes. Wow. My day just got a little better.
“I’m Detective Benito,” the
dark haired one said, “and this is my partner Detective Walker. We got a call about a possible stalking?”
I nodded, trying to imagine
how I looked at the moment. Eww, probably
really bad. I still had on the
muddy and wrinkly clothes that I was wearing when I fell into the fountain, and
I’m sure that my hair, my strongest selling point, was not looking very nice at
the moment. But I always had a backup,
which were my eyes. No matter what, they
were always the same unusual, gorgeous purplish color. “I’m Duo Maxwell, the guy who’s been
stalked.”
“Yes,” Trowa supplied. “We’re all Gundam
pilots.”
The two detectives looked
impressed.
“This stalker must have some
really big balls if he’s stalking a Gundam pilot,” mused Detective Benito as he smiled handsomely. Ohhh, he uses my kind of language! Very nice.
“Sit down,” Quatre
urged. They did, and they sat next to
me! Benito sat the closest, and his
partner was on the other end of the couch.
I hope I don’t stink . . .
“So what’s been going on?”
Benito asked, taking out a note pad and a pen.
I filled him in, with the guys adding their opinions and confirming the
things that had happened. I showed them
the notes and reluctantly gave them the pictures.
“I hope they’re not going to
circulate around the precinct,” I said with a laugh to hide my embarrassment as
the detectives flipped through the pictures, “or show up on the internet or in
a tabloid or something. I mean, I know
I’m fine and all, but . . .”
Benito smiled at me (what a
hunk!) and said, “I assure you, these photos will remain locked up tight. No one will see these unless it’s absolutely
necessary.” He stared down at one
picture that had me stripping off my shirt.
“You’re right though. You are
fine.” He winked at me.
Wow. Are you single? Can I have your number?
His partner cleared his
throat, rolling his eyes. “Can you show
us the room you were in when these pictures were taken?”
I jumped to my feet. “Sure, follow me.”
I led the detectives, along
with Wufei, Q and Tro up to my room. On the far wall were glass doors that led to
a balcony. The glass doors had no blinds
or curtains, which Q had deemed unnecessary since the mansion-fortress was
pretty far out from the rest of civilization.
About ten yards away was a big tree, which. I guess it was safe to say
that the stalker had chosen to hide there and take the pictures.
The two detectives looked
around, eyed the tree, and them went into a corner and whispered amongst
themselves, probably trying to decided if my case was worth perusing. I sat on the bed and watched anxiously as
they talked. Then
“Well,”
I nodded. “So what are you going to do?”
“First we’re going to go out
and take a look at the tree,” Benito said, giving me a reassuring smile. God, he was so hot. “Maybe he left behind some clues. We’ll look into this, but to be honest, there
isn’t much that we can really do unless he threatens you with bodily harm or
attempts to kidnap you. It’s the law.”
“We can get him for a
relatively minor charge for taking these pictures,” Detective Walker added,
“but other than that . . . The stalker laws, what few of them there are, aren’t
really very effective.”
Trowa nodded. “I figured that might be the case. Should we be doing anything in
particular? What kind of person are we
dealing with?”
Benito thought for a
minute. “It’s hard to say what kind of
stalker you’re encountering.” He turned
to me. “Have you recently broken up with
anyone? Rejected an advance from
someone?”
“I haven’t had anyone try to
ask me out at all. I broke up with someone a year ago, but he’s not . . . I
mean, he wouldn’t . . . he’s not a suspect.”
“He’s with me now,” Wufei
said. “And he’s a friend. He wouldn’t do anything like this.”
Hmm, Heero? I’d never
thought about that possibility. He was a little crazy, and seemed to be
hung up on me for some reason. But could
I believe that he was secretly stalking me?
He and Wufei were great together. It didn’t make any sense for him to do
something like this to me.
“I think it’s pretty safe to
rule him out,” Quatre said. “He’s one of us.”
“Oh, a
pilot?” Benito asked.
I nodded. “Well, alright. We may need to speak to him though. Well, if the stalker isn’t someone you’ve
rejected, then he’s probably what we like to call a delusional stalker. You’ve probably never met him before, but
despite that, he feels like you have some sort of connection that more than
likely doesn’t really exist.”
“Your break up could be just
that,”
But my breakup had been a
long time ago. Could he have been
watching me for an entire year, since the breakup? I shuddered at the thought.
“You’ll want to be
careful. Lots of times these guys have
some kind of mental illness,” continued
“He may try to contact you
pretty soon, maybe in person or over the phone.
He could even use the internet.
You want to be very careful about how you speak to him. If he does
have a mental illness, angering him could cause him to do harm to you or
someone close to you,” Detective Benito advised. “You all should just continue with your
everyday activities. Stalkers often
thrive on attention, and if he notices that he’s getting to you, he’ll try to
increase his contact with you in order to get more.”
I warily rubbed my face. “Thanks for the advice.”
“No problem. Take my card,” Benito said, handing one to
me. “Make sure that you keep us updated,
and contact us if you get anymore gifts.”
Alright, a phone number!
We said our goodbyes and once
they were gone, we sat in the living room to discuss what we’d heard. Despite the detectives insisting that I need
to act like everything was okay, I was unwilling to move back to my place. I was still creeped
out, and in no hurry to return. Despite
the fact that Stalker Boy had gotten some racy pictures of me while I was on Quatre’s estate, it was a hell of a lot safer than my
place.
As for my blind date, that turned into a double date with
Trowa and Quatre. Since I refused to let
Stalker Boy run my life, I was not going
to give up my date. Besides, I needed to
relax and unwind.
After laying out our plans,
Trowa took me upstairs and urged me to go to sleep. He shoved a pair of sweat pants at me and I
pouted. “You just want me to sleep so
you guys can talk about me behind my back.”
Tro gave a small smile.
“Of course. Can’t hide
anything from you.” Then he
turned serious. “You look
exhausted. It’s been a long two days,
and we’re all more than a little concerned for you.”
I gave him a quick hug. “Alright, alright. Fine. I’ll take a nap. Just don’t say bad things about me, okay?”
“You got it.” He left me alone, closing the door behind
him.
I sighed and rubbed my
face. I was pretty tired, my eyelids were drooping, and a nap sounded
pretty good at the moment. I unbuttoned my
jeans and began to pull down the zipper, and then froze. Damn. I had to start remembering to undress in the
bathroom.
*~*
When I woke up, I was a
little unsure of where I was. The room
was very dark, and it wasn’t until I looked over to the glass doors did I
realize that it was nighttime. I looked
over to the alarm clock that sat on the dresser. Nine minutes past eight.
What the hell? How had I slept away the entire day?
Then it hit me. Trowa must’ve slipped something into my 7-Up,
the dirty little sneak. I’d get him
later for that one. “Jerk. Traitor,” I mumbled, getting out of bed. My stomach rumbled loudly as I
stretched. Oh, man, I was hungry. I
hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, so I decided to go down to the kitchen
to get something to eat.
“—can’t believe you did
that!” Heero was practically
shouting. He was standing toe to toe
with Trowa in front of the refrigerator.
Both men looked very annoyed with the other, Heero more than Trowa, and I
momentarily thought about intervening, but then decided against it. I wanted to see what Heero had to say about
his behavior.
“I had no other choice. You were being irrational.”
“I’m sorry that I showed some
concern for a friend,” Heero growled. “I was
just worried about him.”
Trowa stepped away and sat at
the kitchen table. “You have to let him
go, Heero. You’ve made your choice and
it wasn’t him.” Trowa gave Heero a level
gaze. “Or do you want him back?”
Heero seemed to deflate. His shoulders drooped uncharacteristically
and he joined Trowa at the table, slummping down in
his chair.
I held my breath. What would I do if he said that he did want me back? Would I take him back? Could I forgive him for betraying me? Could I—
“No. I don’t want him back.”
Well. Guess I wouldn’t have to answer those
questions after all.
“I want to . . .” Heero’s face twisted with confusion. He seemed to struggle with what to say, and
after a few minutes, he sighed. “I cannot put it in words, the feeling that I
have for him.”
“You have to find a better
way to deal with those feelings. Maybe
you should talk to him,” suggested Trowa.
“Hn.”
“Or maybe you should help
Quatre find someone for Duo.”
“ . . . What would that
solve?” he demanded angrily.
Trowa sighed. “Maybe you’d
stop worrying about him so much . . . if he had someone to take care of him.”
It was then that I began to
wonder if Trowa really possessed some
kind of powers, because it was if he had uttered some kind of magic word—a look
of shock and acknowledgment dawned on Heero’s
face. It was strange, because I’d never
seen him look surprised before. He slowly turned to face Trowa. “You are right. You are absolutely right. That’s it.”
Tro nodded and leaned back in his chair. “It’s worse than Relena, then?”
“Yes.” Heero rubbed his face rather roughly. “Much worse than the feeling I had with
Relena. I want to protect him so much
that it is nearly driving me insane.”
“He’s a grown man, Heero, and
a former Gundam pilot just like the rest of us. He can take care of himself.”
Heero grunted. “I’ll have to disagree with that one. He’s always getting himself into all kinds of
trouble. He needs constant supervision.”
Hey! Okay, that was cruel. I wasn’t a child, you know. I could
take care of myself—I had my own place, a job, I paid my bills on time . .
. So what if I went crazy now and then
and did off the wall stuff? Secretly,
the guys love it when I do weird
things. Keeps them
amused and on their toes. Since I
was fed up with them talking about me, I waltzed into the kitchen and grinned
at them.
“Hiya,
guys! Funny how I
slept for the entire day.” I gave Trowa a look. He just smiled at me in return.
“It was for your own good.”
“Nope, it wasn’t. That’s okay, though. You’ll just have to pay
the price—I won’t be able to sleep a wink tonight. You know what that means . . .”
Heero winced. He quickly got up and said, “Good night. I’m going home.”
Good. He was gone.
I leaned against the sink and stared at Trowa. “Relena? He feels for me like he feels for Relena?
Eww, under NO circumstances do I want to be
grouped with her. That’s just degrading.”
“Maybe that’s a sign. A sign that you and Relena should try to get
along, because you really have more in common than you think.” His face was
blank, but I could tell by the look in his eye that on the inside he was
laughing.
“Erk, no. Not in a million years.” I shuddered.
“Okay, let’s talk about something else.
Where’s Q?”
“He’s checking the alarm
system. I think he’s calling about
getting the place fenced off.”
“Gee, for me? That’s nice.”
“Not just for you. We’ve been having some problems with the
Paparazzi. They seem to find our
relationship so fascinating . . .”
I laughed. “I bet.”
I was still giggling when the
phone rang. Trowa answered it, then handed the phone over to me. I gave him a puzzled look and he muttered, “Une.”
Oh great. Just great. What the
freak had I done now?
“Hi, Une. How ya
doing?”
“I just called to ask you the
same thing. I heard that you’re having
some . . . issues.”
Issues? I guess you
could call it that. “I’ll be in for work
tomorrow anyway.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like you actually do anything.” She laughed.
Oops! I’d been found out. “Sorry.
It’s just that I hate paperwork . . .”
“I know,” she said. “I’d love to have all five of you guys doing
something more challenging for us, but the Preventer
guidelines say that you can’t until you’re twenty one.”
“You wrote the damn
guidelines, didn’t you? Can’t you just
change them?”
“Not without going through a
lot of people first. Sorry. Look, I plan on making you useful in about
three years, and I can’t have you disappearing on me, okay? Watch your back. Although, I am considering taking a few . . .
measures to ensure your safety.”
I momentarily wondered what
she’d thought up, but what ever it was would be rather useless. “Don’t
worry. Heero’s
made it his new life mission to fight back anyone who seems remotely interested in me in any way. Stalker Boy doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Good.” We said our goodbyes and hung up. Quatre came into the kitchen just then and
smiled at me.
“You’re awake!”
“Yeah, no
thanks to your boyfriend.” I fixed
Trowa with an evil glare. He just looked
innocent.
Quatre grabbed my arm and
took me upstairs. “I’ve got a little
project for us to do. We’re putting some
curtains up in your room.”
“Yay! Interior decorating, my
favorite pastime, just like any other gay guy!” I said this sarcastically, of course. Q just rolled his eyes and dragged me into
my room. Well, at least he hadn’t picked
out something frilly. The curtains were
black and simply cut. Good.
It took us ten minutes to put
them up, and once we were done, I felt ten times better. Now I didn’t have to try to remember to go to
the bathroom to change. Q decided that
we should spend some time together to help me forget some of my troubles, and
went to get some popcorn and a couple of movies. I plopped down on the floor
and turned on the tv. Just great—there was Relena Peacecraft in all her pinkness, smiling daintily and
basking in applause as she stepped up to a podium. I gripped the remote, and was just about to
change the channel when I stopped. Oh,
God. Who was that?
I scooted closer to the tv and stared. Standing just behind Relena was a tall, blond
hunk of a man with really nice hair, almost
as nice as mine. He was wearing sharp,
perfectly suit black suit, and his face was impassive as he stood there
imposingly just daring someone to even breathe
at Relena the wrong way. Wait, hadn’t I
seen his picture before? Oh yeah! That was Zechs or Milliardo or whatever he liked to call himself, Relena’s
brother. This man was fine.
My Dream Man, in the flesh.
At this point, I think I was
drooling because Q came into the room and began to laugh. I snapped back and had the decency to look
embarrassed. Quatre came over to see
what I’d been goggling at.
“Ohhh,
Zechs Merquise. He’s hot,” Q said with a knowing wink.
I felt my face getting even
hotter. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I’d
touch that with a ten foot pole. He’s related to Miss Pretty-in-Pink.”
Huh. That
was a lie.
“Lair!” Of course. Q knew me
too well. “Someone would have to pry you off of him with a ten foot pole if
you two ever met.” He put a disc into
the DVD player, and my Dream Man disappeared, replace by a blue screen.
“Hey!” I cried. “Jeeze, I was watching that!”
Q snorted and dropped a bowl
of hot, buttery popcorn and a can of 7-Up in my lap. “You mean you were watching Merquise. It’s not
like he was going to do a striptease, Duo.
He looks like her body guard, so he’ll just stand there looking scary
for a while.”
I glared as the movie started
up. “How do you know he wasn’t going to strip?
If it comes up on the news tomorrow morning, I’ll kick your ass.”
Quatre laughed as he flopped
down on my bed. “If it’s on the news
tomorrow, I’ll let you kick my
ass. I would’ve liked to see that
myself.”
After giggling like girls for
a few minutes, we settled down and focused on the movie, a gay love story. Man, I’d rather be watching a good ole shoot-em-up movie with plenty of explosions and car crashes and
gore, but Q was a big sap at heart. I
could deal with it—I’m sure there will be plenty of make out scenes.
We were about a half an hour
into it when Trowa joined us. He snuggled up with Q on the bed. “What are we watching?”
“Well, we could be watching Zechs
Peacecraft or Milliardo Merquise or whatever his name is do a strip tease, but . . .”
I glared at Quatre.
“ . . . What?” Trowa
muttered. Q and I just laughed. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
After a few minutes, I could
hear some giggling coming from Q, and husky whispering from Trowa. Okay, eww. They’re my friends and all, but I don’t
really want to hear or see that.
“Hey! Keep it clean up there,
that’s my bed!”
Well, hell. It didn’t sound as if they were going to let
up anytime soon, so I took my soda and popcorn and left. I went downstairs and flipped on the tv. Yes! For
once I was glad that Miss Pinkness was still talking, because that meant that
her totally hot brother was still standing behind her. I continued to stare, and eventually it
occurred to me that Trowa had seen me with a hot blond . . . could it be?
I snorted. Yeah, right. For us to end up together, we’d
have to meet. That would be impossible
because as a bodyguard he followed the Queen of the World around, and the Queen
wasn’t going to come anywhere near
me, a poor L2 street rat, and I wasn’t going to go anywhere near her, with her suffocating,
nauseating perfume, so . . .
I changed the channel. No use lamenting over what you can’t
have.
If only my stalker knew that.