"In
& Out"
a Gundam Wing Fanfic
by the Princess
**Warning--foul language, shounen-ai, characters frequently OOC...**
~Part 3~
Day 5
>passive<
Kuruna Butsoyo's assertations proved to be correct. Her boss had drooled like a dog in heat over the photos. The gem of the lot--once which showed Duo strangling Quatre, Trowa preparing to beat Duo's face in, Hiro pinning Trowa in a full nelson, and Wufei bringing his sword down on Hiro's head--was blown up to twice its size and replaced pictures of Trieze's alien love child as the headline. GUNDAM BOYS CAUGHT IN A SPAT!!!, the headlines screamed, and the article gave grim details of their sadomasochistic relationships. Quotes from the Queer Wonder about their wreck and fights were printed freely; Tim Blianchi's statement, which said that their presence had been an accident and they'd been horrified to find it was a gay bar, was not printed due to constrictions of space.
The International Enquirer hit newsstands at 9:00 in the morning. By the end of the day, precisely 10,500 copies had been sold--the entire amount of papers printed that day. By 10:00 in the morning, nine of the original twelve photographs had been sold to other 'establishments', including an online division of CNN, NBC, Channel 2 Action News and a rabid yaoi fan identified only as dead_gorgeous69. The supposedly incriminating images were circulating the Internet in droves and even made small footnotes on the national news.
Things were, in short, a pretty damn big mess.
However, our heroes had learned not to watch TV, read the news, listen to the radio, or boot up their computers over the past four days. In the three days that remained before Noin would finally retract her statement, particularly after their escapades at The Bunghole, they were content to hide with their heads buried under the floorboards until it was all finally over.
So they *would* have remained blissfully unaware of the new mischief Kuruna had brought to a head, had Zechs Marquise (who shared in their allegations) had not run out of toilet paper...
>Zechs<
9:43 a.m.
"Toiretto peepaa..." I said to myself, my eyes scanning the signs over the aisles of food. "Where are you when I need you? Come to me, toiretto peepaa..."
I spotted "Paper Supplies" under Aisle Seven, and decided that it had to be over there. I darted over to the aisle, and grabbed the first industrial-sized bag of Charmin I saw. Squeezing it to my chest like a trophy, I made a beeline for the express lane. I had to crap something fierce, and if I didn't floor it once I got out of here, I would be forced to do a disgusting thing...and use a public restroom.
Shuddering at the thought, I watched as the cashier haggled with the baka in front of me about whether she had twelve or thirteen items. I started hopping from foot to foot as a nasty cramp clenched my stomach in a thick knot. "Hurry it up, hayata, let her go, goddammit," I growled in exquisite pain.
Suddenly, everything in the world disappeared as my eyes fell on a cop of International Enquirer. I read the words GUNDAM BOYS, and saw the photograph, and read the name of the bar, and I very nearly lost my grip on my bowels. "Oh, hell," I said, then repeated myself loudly, as if I wanted the world to hear me. A couple of fellow Publix shoppers turned and looked, but they passed on; I only barely noticed.
It looked like they'd gotten caught, hadn't they?
>Thank God *I* wasn't there,< I thought absently. I quickly grabbed the last copy in the bin, paid for it and the Charmin, and waddled painfully to my car, turning the events over in my mind.
I would have to tell them about this disaster...in a couple of hour or so, after I finished 'other business'.
>Duo<
11:01 a.m.
I think I could have lived and died perfectly happy if I had simply slept through the other's breakfast meal. As it was, I woke up at roughly the same time the others had, and I found I had been roughly dumped on my bedroom floor. Wondering why in the world I should be *there*, I slowly slithered to my feet and nearly keeled over as cramps racked my body. My muscles were in screaming pain, my stomach clenched like it was caught in an industrial meat grinder, and my head ached dully. Daylight was streaming in through my window, and it was driving little golden needles into my eyes and brain.
"Whafuck?" I slurred, trying to think past the pain. I could only remember shards of what had gone down last night. I mulled over what I could recall, then decided that that was enough thinking for today, and stretched out. Every joint in my body popped like a string of firecrackers. "Damn, that felt good!" I purred, and stumbled out of my room and into the kitchen. Food, yes, food sounded good right now; an eggroll would taste like nectar and ambrosia, or maybe a nice bag of pork rinds, whichever I found first. Yummers.
In the kitchen, I was greeted by thunderous silence. Hiro was shoveling a bowl of Froot Loops down his gullet, Quatre delicately ate Honey Nut Cheerios (>what a pansy,< I thought), Trowa picked at a plate of French toast, and Wufei contemplated a cheese-and-salsa omlette and dry toast. They all glanced up at my arrival, then turned back to eating (or not eating) as though I wasn't who they were hoping to see. They all looked decidedly down in de dumps.
>I'll fix that,< I thought. Putting on my best idiotic grin, even though it hurt my face to move, I peppily said: "Genki, you guys?" as I moved to forage for pork rinds.
"Still in shock over last night," Quatre said, as though that explained everything.
"What do you mean, 'last night'?" I asked, opening a cabinet. No pork rinds, but there was EZ Cheez and onion-flavored Pringles, which was just--
Hiro's spoon suddenly clashed against the side of his bowl, sending a porcelain chip, a piece of green Froot Loop and a few milk drops splattering on the table. I gave him a weird look as he continued to crunch down the cereal, and he stared back, seeming angry. >Nanda aitsu Hiro?< I thought as I retrieved the EZ Cheez and Pringles.
"Duo," Quatre said slowly, like he was being tactful. "Don't you remember?"
I again mulled over the fragments of memory I had about last night. "I remember Tequiza," I said as I filled my mouth with orange muck. "An drivin. An droolin like a bassss-tard. An...lots of flashin lights and people. That's all."
"Do you remember The Bunghole?"
"Iie. Sounds like something Beavis and Butthead used to say. Why?"
Trowa, sounding strained, answered me. "It's the gay bar you directed us to last night. You drove us there yourself. If I didn't know better, I'd say you wanted us to go there and do queer stuf. God knows you did."
I forgot about the chips and cheese. Both containers slipped from my hands and thumped to the counter. I could only think to stammer: "Wh-wh-what?"
Wufei, taking a perverse pleasure in the announcement, interrupted: "You licked Hiro's Mr. Bigglesworth!"
"I did WHAT?" I shrieked, not really noticing that Wufei had squirted blood all over his breakfast. "I licked him WHERE?"
Hiro slammed his bowl down on the table, drawing everyone's attention. I guess he was trying to be threatening, but his milk mustache ruined the effect. "And if you ever do it again, you queerbait pusbag, you're gonna lose your ability to spread you seed."
"Hey--screw you, man! I don't even remember anything. And between the two of us, the only cum-guzzler is you!!"
Another spurt from Wufei. Hiro's eyes went wide with fury, then he understood my comment and furiously wiped away his milk mustache. "Now, *listen* you--" he started, jabbing a finger at me threateningly, but then Trowa suddenly burst out laughing. It was a weird sound; I didn't think I'd ever heard it before. He *was* the cold fish, after all...but he was laughing, really laughing, deep and all the way from the belly, genuinely amused, not psychotic or sarcastic.
"You--" he stammered, trying to fit words in between his laughs. "'Cum-guzzler'--and--milk--and--oh, God!" He nearly fell out of his chair, doubled over with riotous laughter.
It was addictive. I joined him after a second, just threw back my head and bellowed laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. Quatre supplied his own giggles, Wufei (scrubbing at his nose) nearly fell in his breakfast from the force of his gales, and even Hiro caught it after a bit. It was a healthy, healing laughter, which might have sealed the fissures that Noin had caused and made us all comfortably friends again, and had it gone on for maybe ten seconds more, it would have. But just then, a sharp series of knocks at the front door cut off the joyful noise like a scalpel. Everyone instantly went back to what they were doing when I came in, and we were all flushing in embarrassment over having dared to share some happiness. Hiro went to answer the door, and I glumly sat on the counter, and started half-heartedly spraying EZ Cheez on the Pringles.
>Oh, well.<
>Trowa<
I mentally put a curse on whoever had knocked on the door and spoiled the moment. After what had gone down when we'd returned from the bar last night (?this morning?), I had needed to relax a bit. The tense weirdness between Quatre and I was almost thick enough to touch, and I wanted desperately to forget it...by focusing on everything but him.
Hiro came back, and who should be at his heels but--
"Zechs!" Wufei cried, rising from the table. "Did anyone see you come in?"
"Wakkanai," the platinum-blonde replied. "I tried to be as careful as possible."
Hiro wordlessly went to the kitchen window, where he'd rested his sniper rifle. He picked up the gun, shouldered it, and peered through the scope. He fired three quick shots through the window, shattering the glass, then lowered the gun and looked out. I peered through the window myself, and saw two cameramen and a photographer drop out of the trees and writhe a little on the ground before they died. Hiro, satisfied, leaned the gun back against the wall, and when he turned at looked at us, his eyes glittered with a curious mirth. "You were spotted," he said, "but they won't be reporting it anytime soon."
"Dammit, Hiro, you shot the shit out of that window!" Duo said, and laughed with obvious strain.
"I wouldn't come here if it wasn't serious," Zechs said slowly, his eyes focused on Hiro's gun (not THAT one, hentai!). "There's some nasty flak going around about you guys."
"No shit, Sherlock," Wufei murmured.
"Keep digging, Watson," Duo chortled, "we'll find that shit yet!"
"Urusai yo, you fucking loser!" Zechs snapped uncharacteristically. "This is *important*! Look at this!" He withdrew a folded-up newspaper from his pocket, unfolded it, and dropped it on the table.
I leaned forward curiously, and my breath caught in my throat as I read the headline:
GUNDAM BOYS CAUGHT IN A SPAT!!!
I heard Duo scream a loud swear, and Hiro slowly hissing a long scream of vicious cusses. I stole a glance at Quatre, who looked very disturbed and worried, then quickly looked back at the paper before he caught me looking at him.
Wufei was the first to make coherent sense. "How did this person get close enough to take out picture?"
"Says in the article," Zechs replied. "I already perused it. This reporter, Kuruna Butsoyo, heard you guys fighting and started clicking away. She interviewed the bouncer, the Queer Something-or-Other, and he said you guys showed up pissed at each other. Said he bought you drinks because he figured you'd get too drunk to hurt each other eventually.
"It gets worse--atari maedano cracker. She sold nine photos to the highest bidder. An online buyer, dead_gorgeous69, heads a yaoi webring and three websites. He's been sending the photo to everyone in the ring, urging them to hit his principle website and put their names on a 'prayer list', showing that they were praying that you guys work out your differences and get back in your couples. So far, since he started an hour ago, the site has gotten over a thousand hits from people putting their names on that damn prayer list. I got an email of sympathy from dead_gorgeous himself, who told me all of this. He thinks that Wufei and I had a fight, and that Wufei had tried to hook up with Trowa in retaliation. That's this photo on the cover: Trowa saves Quatre, Hiro saves Duo, and Wufei saves Trowa.
"Boys, it's only 11:00 in the morning, and this day already sucks ass."
No one said anything. Was there anything to say in response to that? Duo certainly tried; his mouth kept opening and shutting, but no sound came out. Hiro stumbled over his own feet and plopped down in the nearest chair; his face was a mute mask of shock. I risked another glance at Quatre, who was burning red. He awkwardly diddled with a loose string on the hem of his shirt.
Wufei, his dark eyes flashing, produced his sword from nowhere and violently stood, knocking his chair over. "I will not let such a dishonor continue to propogate!" he declared, in full homophobic-warrior-mode, as he ran out of the room. "JUSTICE!!"
"Kuso! That moron!" Hiro snapped. "Zechs, will you go after him and make sure he doesn't get caught when he kills that reporter?"
Not in the mood to argue, Zechs turned and quickly left the room in a flair of cape and platinum-blonde hair. Hiro and Duo also left (through separate doors), and I started to pick at my breakfast and pretend that Quatre wasn't there. I was getting good at it.
"Trowa?"
Shisa. "Nani?"
"About last night..."
Double shisa. "Yeah?"
"Were you...still drunk?"
Shisa times three. "Iie."
He gulped nervously. "Then...what you said...you really...*meant* it?"
Shisa to the nth degree. "Yes." I dared to look up at him then, and was terrified at the unreadable expression on his face. "I do."
"Um--uh--I--OK, baibai!" He quickly darted out of the room, leaving me with the breakfasts that no one had wanted and my own bitter thoughts.
>passive<
The Night Of The Bunghole, 12:26 a.m.
After the pilots had arrived home, they all fell asleep...except for one.
Trowa was still feeling a bit weird, but not inebriated, as he had just emptied all of the tequila out of his system into the toilet. He felt jittery and too wired to sleep, as though he'd been slamming espresso instead of alcohol. He sat down at his computer and booted it up, despite the fact that he'd found unpleasant things the last time he'd been on the Internet. After all, a dollop of blood remained crusted on the screen, reminiscent of Wufei's explosion.
He was simply feeling compelled to find something, he didn't know what, but he'd know once he found it. Perhaps it was simply the hand of Fate which guided him to the Hotbot search engine, and it certainly felt like said hand guided his own as he typed the following search commands without thinking:
shounen-ai+fanfics+gundam+wing+NOT+yaoi+AND+trowa+AND+quatre
He read until the computer's clock read an even 3:33 AM. There were so many stories to be had, and they were all so beautiful and bittersweet. Several depicted his being dead and Quatre committing suicide in order to be with him. One little gem described Quatre falling ill and slowly dying in such a delicate way that he actually began crying big, hot tears halfway through, and didn't stop until a few minutes after he was through reading it. He just sat there like a complete and utter baka, weeping over something which never was as though it had happened yesterday, weeping as though he and Quatre were already lost together in the throes of death, but at least they were *together*, and he must have been more drunk than he wanted to admit in order to weep like this, he hadn't thought he had this many tears in his body, and it was those damn fanfics which he read for fun which made him realize that he had fallen in love with the beautiful blonde Arab some time ago.
"Damn it all, I am in love," he mused, amazed, and realized that maybe it had *always* been this way, but he had never known it until Noin's (?true?) allegations and a belly of tequila had pressed on his heart until the truth was forced out. "That didn't take too much, did it?"
"Trowa?"
Quatre had not heard everything Trowa'd said; he'd only come in on the tail end of the other boy's rhetorical question. He was, therefore, justifiably confused when Bang-boy jumped about five feet in the air and yelped like he'd gotten a swift kick in the ass. "Quatre!" Trowa cried out, grinning hugely, his face as pale as cheese. "Mercy, you gave me a fright! Well, what's the matter! Don't be shy, say what's on your mind, for pity's sake!"
"Doshite naiteruka?"
"Who's crying! Certainly not I! I am perfectly peppy and heartily happy! What's with you, thinking I've been crying? Why would I do that?!"
There was a frightened edge to Trowa's words, a strange eagerness to his face, that Quatre didn't like at all. He grew even more worried when, despite his words to the contrary, Trowa suddenly burst into tears. Quatre stumbled over to the other boy, and hugged him, whispering words of comfort as Trowa mourned the loss of his surety.
"Quatre?" he whispered. "You know how we're all so sure that we're straight and everything?...What if I suddenly wasn't so sure about that?"
The beautiful blonde boy jolted, then broke away from the embrace and stared at Trowa in surprise/fright. "NANI?" he cried.
"I think..." >Eyes you could get lost in< "I think..." >Soft, golden angel's hair< "Uh..." >Porcelain skin which I know would be smooth as satin...<
He reached out at that thought, and gently stroked a finger across Quatre's cheek, and felt a stab of pain when the boy flinched from his touch. "Kirei dane," he mused aloud, without realizing it, then completed the drama with: "Um...Quatre, aishiteruyo. There. I said it. Happy?"
The Arab's jaw dropped. Trowa was terrified (as he would be again, later) at the unreadable expression on the other boy's face. >Is he horrified that he touched me, held me, when I was a queer the whole time?<
"Oh, God, Trowa," he said. "Are you for real?"
"Yeah," he replied. "Yeah, I'd say that I'm 100% for real...I think it was always like this, but I was unaware of it. Ajapa...I love you...Wait, Quatre--" But he had already gone, had darted from the room, and it was just as well, because the tears quickly overwhelmed Trowa's slanted green eyes and he cried himself to sleep in his computer chair, cried for his loss and his stupidity.
>Kuruna Butsoyo<
The Day of the Enquirer, 9:06 p.m.
I settled down into the tub, smelling the night scent of jasmine bubble bath and feeling the warmth of water soaking into my hair. I deeply inhaled as my body relaxed into the bath; my exhalation turned into a few giggles at my own cleverness.
I was absolutely fucking *rich*. The sale of my photos today had raked in a cool half a million, and for Photo #10, Fox was promising twice that amount. My boss had given me a promotion and doubled my pay. The amount of money I had rolling in was almost obscene.
"I ought to thank those Gundam pilots," I muttered, then giggled again. That was ludicrous. They were probably out for my blood as it was, no need to seek them out--
As if to prove my point, my bedroom door suddenly slammed open. "WHERE ARE YA, YOU PAPARAZZI SKANK?!" shrieked a frantic tenor voice.
"Ack!" I hopped out of the tub and fumbled for a towel. My bathroom was small and cheap-looking, as were my towels (but that'd soon change with my new cash flow). I barely got a green-flowered number around my body before a sword blade split the peeling bathroom door in two, to clear the way for the frenzied wielder. I knew him instantly; hadn't I seen to it that him and his sword got printed on each sold-out copy of the International Enquirer?
"OH, SHIT! WUFEI!" I shrieked, stumbling backwards, trying to put distance between us.
"IIE, *SOU*?" he bellowed. "SO-DANE! I'M WUFEI, AND YOU'RE *DEAD*, STUPID WOMAN!"
I kept stumbling away from him until I keeled over and fell into the tub. My towel floated away, but I barely noticed; I only screamed, expecting death, and shut my eyes...
And nothing happened.
I tentatively opened my eyes. Wufei had frozen in place. His eyes were stuck on my nude body. I searched my memory for information on the Shenlong pilot, and recalled that he had a physical intolerance for anything relating to genitals or sex.
...Already, a trickle of blood was dripping from his nose...
I heard the slamming of my bedroom door again, and frantic footsteps towards the bathroom. And who should come in but Zechs Marquise himself! >Chasing his lover?< I pondered. If only I'd had my camera--
"Aw, Wufei!" Zechs said, irritated. He went up to the other boy and covered Wufei's eyes, nose and mouth. "Gomen, but he read your article and went berserk."
"It's OK," I stammered, reaching for my floating towel. "I had to face Sean Penn under worse circumstances than this."
"...Right. Look, Ms. Butsoyo, your pictures and report were in error. The Gundam pilots didn't know they were in a gay bar--"
"I already know that. I talked to Tim Blianchi. His statement wasn't printed because my boss thought that it conflicted with the image he wanted to build."
"You're a jounalist, but you deliberately withhold information?!"
"So-dane. We're talking the tabloid press, after all. We didn't withhold any information; the official excuse is constriction of space." I shrugged. "It's made me filthy rich, so I'm not complaining."
Zechs spluttered, but couldn't think of anything coherent to say.
"Your friend there is looking kinda purple."
He glanced at Wufei, who--with his principle air-holes tightly sealed--was indeed purple and quickly turning black. He quickly released the poor boy, who gasped in a few haggard breaths, then pointed at me with his sword. "In the words of the immortal Hiro," he cried, "Omae o korosu! And you can quote me on that!"
"Look, I get paid to do this!" I declared. "You can't fault me for that!"
"Watch me, busu! I'm gonna do more than 'fault' you, I'm gonna cut you up in little bitty pieces and turn your remains over to the local Spam factory! They're desperate for fresh meat, I hear!"
We all paused when the familiar whine of a police siren blasted down the street and stopped outside my building. The place was cheap; the walls were thin. I had been counting on a neighbor to call the police, and this was simply beautiful. Wufei looked suddenly stricken, and Zech's eyes bugged out of his head in panic. "Stop, you baka," he said to the Chinese boy, "or the cops'll--"
For the third time in as many minutes, I heard my bedroom window slam open and closed, then footsteps stampeding to my bathroom. A quad of cops shouldered into the bathroom, waving their guns around and feeling rather important. "Jesus, one of 'em's armed!" a rookie cried out.
"Urusai yo," replied the hefty liutenant. He stepped forward, his gun holstered, a pair of handcuffs in each meaty fist. "Wufei Chang and Zechs Marquise, you are both under arrest for attempted murder."
And somewhere not so far away, a greater power was laughing and laughing.
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Disclaimer
The Gundam boys and anything pertaining to Gundam Wing belong to the creators of the show, not to me, no matter how hard I wish. They are being used without permission for fun, not profit. If you don't know this, then you are a sad sack of shit. Go crawl under a rock and wither up and die. Also, "In & Out" belongs to its writer, and not me; any semblances between the plot of this fanfic and that movie were done very much intentionally. Don't worry, similarities are rarer than you'd think.
In contrast, The Bunghole, Tim Blianchi, the Queer Wonder, and Kuruna Butsoyo are mine, and may not be used without my permission (God only knows why anyone would want to use them, but...). QW and Kuruna are 100% mine, but there is a bar in Portland, ME called The Bunghole; there is no Tim Blianchi, but a bassist named Tom Bianchi does exist, and he does indeed have a song about being (sort of) a geek. I love you, Tom! :P
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Preview of Part 4:
Hiro: "After that, I started to dream about you...and me...and, ha ha! I'm pretty damn sure I'm in love with you."
Duo: "Look dude, all I came in here for was conditioner--"
Duo: "So Hiro and Trowa are gay. So what? That won't affect us in the least. Of course not. You're sure you're straight?"
Quatre: "Hai. You're the one that should be worried; you *did* ding Hiro's dong, after all.
Duo: "I WAS DRUNK!!"
Quatre: "I have never known any man get drunk enough to lick another man's lollipop!"
Duo: "SHUT UP WITH YOU DAMN PUSSY EUPHEMISMS!"
Wufei: "So, how'd you like it when you dropped the soap?"
Zechs: "Leave me alone."
Wufei: "I've heard of not giving a flying fuck before, but I never thought I'd see one."
Zechs: "Fuck you. I'm just waiting until I get my phone call, so I can get the hell out of here."
Wufei: "Isn't this a violation of our Constitutional rights? Not giving us our phone call right away and not posting bail?"
Zechs: "Those only apply to people who aren't suspected to be gay. They assume we like it here."
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Now, cuz you're special--Japanese!!!
toiretto peepaa--toilet paper
hayata--hurry
Genki?--What's up?
Nanda aitsu Hiro?--What the hell's wrong with Hiro?
Wakkanai--I don't know
Atari maedano cracker--of course
Shisa [German]--shit
Nani--what
Baibai--see ya!
Doshite naiteruka--Why are you crying?
Kirei dane--You are so beautiful
Aishiteruyo--I love you
Ajapa--Gosh
Iie, sou?--No, really?
Gomen--sorry
On to Part 4
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