"Love Potion #9"
a Gundam Wing Fanfic

by the Princess

**WARNING: foul language, shounen-ai, characters frequently OOC...*

"Love is friendship set on fire."

-old Welsh proverb

~Part 5~

I woke up propped up next to the garbage cans outside of Relena's mansion. They were made of pink plastic. I scrambled up to my feet, wincing at the gunshots in my knees, and looked at the amazingly huge mansion. The place had about 300,000 windows; no chance of me finding him--

But I did. Hiro was standing at a huge Gothic window on the first floor, looking out at me. There seemed to be a sadness in his eyes, but I was far away, so I couldn't really tell if it was that or a fancy. He placed his hand against the window, the fingers spread and flat on the glass, as though he wanted to touch me, and I was reminded of the symbol on the Gypsy's door. I gestured back, beckoned for him to come to me, but he slowly shook his head, and there was no mistaking the sadness in that gesture. He blew me a light kiss, oh so gently, through the window-pane. Then he turned his head sharply, as though someone were speaking to him and he was turning to look their way, and he slowly left the window.

I didn't let myself cry until I was safely back in the apartment.

Hiro sent for his things to be shipped to Relena's two days later.

I did what any person who is in love with somebody who is in love with someone else does: I tried to sabotage their relationship.

Relena was a stern taskmaster. In the two days before a troop of movers showed up at my doormat to take what I had left of Hiro away from me, I only managed to speak to him once, and that was for a few seconds only. Always before, Relena picked up the phone, and curtly told me that she would give my message to Hiro, which she obviously never did. Once, though, he picked up the phone, and I nearly cried to hear his voice. "Hiro," I said quickly, "listen to me. I need to meet you. We have to talk. Please?"

"Ne? I don't think I can, Duo. Relena wants me to take her out to dinner tonight."

"I don't care when. I don't care if I have to wait for a month. But I need to hear you say that I'm going to see you again some time, Hiro."

He started to say something, but then I heard the psycho-bitch-with-testicles's voice over the phone, not enough to make out her words, but enough to know she spoke.

"It's just Duo," he replied, unknowingly goring my heart into little pieces. 'Just Duo' was not the way I wanted to be referred to by Hiro, ever. To me he said: "I can't tell you that."

"Yes, you can. Tell me tomorrow. Tell me you'll see me tomorrow in the park."

"I--"

Relena said something else.

"I have to go now, Duo. Gomen. But--"

"No, you will not hang up on me, you lilylivered chickenshit! You're going to tell me that you'll meet me tomorrow in the park, or else--" He hung up. I gently set the phone back on the hook, then yanked it out of the wall in a poof of plaster. I knew that he wouldn't be at the park tomorrow, just like I knew that I was going to be there anyhow.

The park was, on the map, in the center of the town, not really favoring the east or west side. It was pretty small, as public parks ran, but it was nice. On the day that the movers came to clear out Hiro's stuff, I made myself scarce and went there, making little circuits around the trees, the fountains, the little ponds. Happy people were surrounding me, except for the occasional wino. Little kids were trying to "play with" (a childhood euphemism for "brutally murder") the ducks. Lovers wove their fingers together in the bright daylight and sighed, as lovers tend to do. Long-married couples sat on the park benches and argued good-naturedly in the way that told you they were *really* in love. Elderly men and women congregated in clumps, feeding the birds and playing chess and hassling one another with banter not so different from their youthful counterparts. It wasn't fucking fair.

"All I ever wanted in this world was a little love, somebody to love," I misquoted myself morosely. "And sometimes it means being in love so bad that it hurts, and you'd do anything for that person who doesn't and can never love you back, and that's just the way it goes."

"How true," a sudden very familiar voice piped up from behind me. I whirled around, and there was Hiro, standing cockily with his gorgeous smile plastered all over his face.

"HIRO!!" I ran over to him and tried to hug him, but he dodged my arms.

"Gomen, Duo," he whispered. "But it has to be enough that I came."

I swallowed hard. Something clicked in my throat. "All right."

We walked around in silence for a few minutes, until Hiro asked: "Doshite?"

"E?"

"Doshite? Why did you want to talk to me so desperately?"

I shrugged. "I love you, Hiro. Haven't I said that enough already?"

He blushed. "Duo--"

"What-o?"

"Nothing."

We walked in silence a little longer, until I felt that we were isolated enough from the city. We had made our way into a copse of lithe willow trees next to a pond. I turned and looked at Hiro. "And you, Hiro...doshite? Why are you with Relena?"

"Well..." His eyes got a faraway, glazed look to them. "Because she's gorgeous. And she's intelligent. And she's witty. And she's all-around awesome."

"Sokka! I don't have a clue how I can compete with a resumé like that! What about her faults? Or does she not have any? Did she descend from on high like an angel?"

"Well..." The glaze in his eyes got a different look to it. "I wouldn't say that she's 'perfect', per se."

"What's the matter? It doesn't seem like you've had too much of an opportunity to talk to anybody."

"Um...I don't want to speak ill of her...but she's a *little*...opressive."

"Opressive? Like how?"

"I do miss hanging out with you, for one thing," he said, and I wanted to die.

"That's what you want to call it? 'Hanging out'? All right. If that's what you want to say, all right."

"Why are you mad at me, Duo?"

"You remember when you told me to be 100% honest with you, Hiro?"

"Of course I do."

"Here's my 100% honest opinion: SHE'S SICK!" He jumped at the force of my words; I even surprised myself with their ferocity. "She's not just a 'little opressive', she's got you on a fucking leash and whip! She is dictating your every goddam action! I can't stand to see you so lackluster, so dead, and she's done that to you! I don't understand how she got such a strong hold on you! It's like you've been drugged, or--" It suddenly made too much sense. I stared at Hiro in slackjawed shock.

His cell phone rang. >Chotto matte, when has he carried a cell phone??< He pulled it out of his pocket, and clicked it on. "Hello?" He listened. A weird, glazed smile broke out over his face. It made me sick. "Hey, babe...you know, you're the only thing that keeps me sane...I love you, too--" I felt tears sting my eyes. "--I'm just hanging out with Duo...No, don't worry, it's not like that...Relena, iie. He knows how I stand...Please don't talk like that, babe, you know I can't live without you...all right. All right. Hai...It's been about an hour since last you called, yes, but it feels like forever...all right, see you in an hour. I love you. Baibai." He beeped it off. The look in his eyes was frighteningly resolute. "I have to go now, Duo. It's probably best if you don't try to meet me anymore."

"Hiro--I love you," I said lamely, all the piss and vinager drained out of me from overhearing his half of the relationship with Relena.

"I know that," he said, smiling, and then he actually gave me a little hug--distant and impersonal. "And I'm always going to care for you. But I love Relena. I can't lose her. I just...can't. Goodbye." And off he went with my heart.

This time, when I called Madame Acchi Ikeyo Butsoyo, she actually picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"You at the store?"

"Yes, Duo. What is it?"

"I'll get into it when I get there."

I was there fifteen minutes later. The door dinged open and slid shut behind me. The insense this time was strawberries, and even in the middle of the day, all of the candles were lit. Acchi Ikeyo was seated in the same chair as always, her long dark hair pulled back in a careless ponytail. She smiled as I entered, showing off her gold-capped canines. "Merry meet," she greeted me.

"Yeehaw, merry fucking meet," I growled, sitting down in the old chair, which promptly collapsed under my weight. She laughed lightly as I struggled to get back up, then stopped when I burst into tears. I couldn't help it; it had to be done. I was so fucking sick of life and love that if I didn't weep I would quickly go completely buggers. She got out of her chair, went over to me, and held me as I cried hot, sloppy, bitter tears and tried to shove her away from me. She held me insistently, though, refusing to turn me loose until I finally subsided into hiccupy coughs and whoops. She half picked me up and led me to her chair, sitting me down, and went off and made some tea. The entire time, I simply sat in the chair and twisted my braid around my hand until my fingers went purple.

She brought me some tea that smelled bitter but tasted like ambrosia. I didn't ask if she had added horse testicles to this one or not, I just gratefully drank. I wonder if she hadn't laid a spell of some kind on it, because when I was through draining the mug, I felt strangely calm and able to talk about what had happened to me. Still, I had to know something first.

It's like you've been drugged, or--

"Bewitched," I mumbled.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing. Listen, have you sold any more of that love potion? To a little short psycho bitch with long blonde hair, part of it twisted in the back of her head?"

Her brow creased in thought. "As a matter of fact, yes, I do remember selling some to a blonde woman recently. She said she had heard of me from a friend. She even had a business card, but it had been taped down the center, like it had been ripped in two."

My heart squeezed up painfully. "You sold how much to her?"

"Twelve bottles. A lifetime supply for one person."

"Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Hiro's been drugged."

"What??"

I told her everything that had happened since she'd left off, right before my date with D'arcy. When I was through, she was looking into her crystal ball and shaking her head slowly. "I told you," she said. "Did I not say that you would be with D'arcy and find your one true love?"

"Yes, but I thought--"

"What you thought would happen does not matter. D'arcy was not your one true love. Hiro was. But now he is being abused by this Relena woman, and it is breaking your heart."

"Of course it is. What can I do to release her hold on him?"

"Nothing."

"NANI??"

"You can't. You can't well sneak into her home; she's most likely got guards and dogs and alarms and the whole nine yards. So destroying the potions supply she has is out of the question. And you can't talk to Hiro and get him to do it, because he percieves you as a threat to his relationship with Relena and won't associate with you any more." She paused as though thinking.

"What are you thinking about?"

"I have looked into D'arcy's past," she said slowly. "She is an expert thief, and is also very good at getting what she wants from men. You could enlist her help--"

"She *hates* me! She wanted to get the cops on me!"

"I am in the way of knowing that she will not be so hardhearted against you, if you persevere. I am also in the way of knowing that simply using the love potion to counteract Relena's hold on Hiro will not work, as it did in the coffee shop. He had been under the charm for so long that it would be impossible for anything short of a miracle to break him free."

"Taihen kekkoo. So now I've got a girl who hates my guts who you think will help me in breaking into a psycho bitch from hell's mansion so we can try and break the boy I love out of said bitch's enchantment, and now you're telling me that I can't break it? What the hell good are you for?!"

Without a word, she went to the sink where I'd watched her mix the blasted love potion. She pressed her fingers into the wall and mumbled some garbled words. A square of fire formed for an instant on the wall, then dissipated, leaving behind the door of a safe. As she twisted open the combination lock, I asked her: "What's in there?"

"A miracle."

Before I could devise a response to this, the lock came open with a clank. Acchi Ikeyo forced the lid of the safe open, reached inside, and pulled out a tiny glass bottle. She came over to me and pressed the bottle into my hand. I looked at it, marveling. It was a fine glass bottle, with a stopper of silver, and silver wound around its body like netting. On the inside was a perfectly clear substance, which I might have taken for water, except it seemed to have the consistency of molasses. "What is this?" I asked softly.

"Long ago, in this world," she said in answer, "there was a drought. A drought of the heart. There was so much hatred and suffering that mankind no longer had any love left in it. And those who *did* love were so afraid to show their emotions that they buried them under walls of anger and hatred. So the Goddess took pity upon the world, and she gave it Love Potion Number Nine.

"The other love potion I gave you is a fascimile of emotion, a parody of real love. It is a lie, and those who use it are only lying to themselves. You found this out, and Hiro did as well, but Relena seems to be unable to accept this simple fact. But Love Potion Number Nine works differently. It does not try to create false emotions. It instead obliterates the emotions which are blocking love--hate, fear, anger--so that the imbiber will realize who they truly love. Once they know who they truly love, they can never love another for the rest of their lives, for this one person is the one who was meant for them.

"This is, as far as I know, the only remaining amount of Love Potion Number Nine, and I'm giving it to you, Duo. Drink half of it, and give Hiro the other half. Make sure that Relena isn't in the room, or else she may convince him to destroy it. Once you do, both of you will know for certain who is the love of your life...which is why I must ask you: Are you sure that you love Hiro, and that Hiro loves you?"

I thought about Marcia.

I thought about Neine Rasputin.

I thought about Hellcat.

I thought about the blonde twins and their Jack Daniels' and milk.

I thought about Relena.

Mostly, though, I thought about D'arcy.

"Yes," I said firmly. "I'm sure."

"Because, if you both drink it, but he loves another...then he will spend the rest of his life with whoever it is. And he will hate you forever, but you will love him forever. Are you willing to risk loving Hiro unrequited for the rest of your life?"

I thought about how Hiro'd looked when he'd said he loved Relena.

I thought about Hiro standing at the window, blowing me a good-bye kiss.

I thought about finding Hiro on the couch with the blonde twins.

I thought about waiting up in the wee small hours of the morning for Hiro to get back from a date.

I thought about the week we had spent together in bliss.

Mostly, I thought about that one part from "Moonstruck": "I love you...but not like they told you love is. Love don't
make things nice, it ruins everything, it breaks your heart, we're not here to be perfect. The snowflakes are perfect, the stars are perfect, not us. I mean, the story-books are bullshit. We are here to ruin ourselves and break our
hearts and love the wrong people and die."

"Yes," I said. "I can live with that."

She nodded. "I knew you would say that. Take the Love Potion Number Nine. Free of charge. Talk to D'arcy. She will help you. That's more advice free of charge. Now leave my store, before you bankrupt me."

I blinked, and found myself outside, with the door shutting behind me. The sun seemed unnaturally bright after spending time indoors in candlelight. I looked down at my hand, which still clutched the silvery bottle, then I started walking back to our--my apartment, hoping the movers had finished their grisly business so I could talk to D'arcy in peace.

>You are bent on this boy's success, are you not?< the snake asked, twining through the Gypsy's fingers.

"Yes," Acchi Ikeyo admitted. "The boy has a fascinating future. Perhaps I should not have intervened, but there
was no one else, and he has no more time. It has to be tonight, or never."

"Hello?"

"D'arcy, don't hang up," I said quickly.

"You've got a lot of nerve calling me here," she said scathingly.

"I need your help."

"Ha! You're shittin me, right? Give me a damn good excuse why I should help you. And I might hang up on you anyhow."

"Because the man we both love is in a hell of a lot of trouble."

"...Hiro? Hiro's in trouble? Chotto matte, you WHAT?"

"There's no time for that. Look, he's dating this girl named Relena, and I think it's...unhealthy for him." How to explain without making her think I was off my rocker? "I think she's keeping him drugged in order to get him to stay with her."

"I know the feeling. How do you know he's being drugged?"

That was easy. "He's acting disjointed. All he ever talks about is Relena. He's got this glazed-over look in his eye all the time, like he's burned out on weed. And whenever I've tried to get in contact with him, she only has to say to him 'Get off the phone, Hiro,' and he just hangs it up. He's been acting like a bloody robot. It sure as hell seems like she's got him on something."

Silence on the other end. For a second I thought she'd hung up. Then she said: "How can I help?"

"I know the drug she's using, and I've got an antidote. But we're going to have to sneak onto her property in order to give it to Hiro, and I don't know if that's possible or not. She lives on Peace and Floyd, in the biggest house in the city, and God knows she's probably got the place armed to the teeth. I have no idea how we could sneak into the place."

She didn't complain about my usage of 'we'. "Leave that to me. If she's got guards, I can charm one of them into squelching out their dirty little secrets."

I was surprised. "How long will that take?"

"Maybe twenty minutes."

"You're fast."

"Shut the fuck up," she said, not sounding really mad.

"Gomen. Now all we need is some weaponry. I don't have any since Hiro moved out."

"I can help you there, too, but I can't do everything for you. I know a guy who's passing through town, he deals weapons. I'll give you his number if you want."

"I do." I wrote down the number she recited. "I'll call him. You have any special requests?"

"A bo staff and a gun is all I need to kick some ass."

"Very well then. I'll call you in a few hours once I get the steel. Arigatou."

"Sure, if it's for Hiro. Baibai." She hung up.

"If it's for Hiro, Lord have mercy," I grumbled as I dialed the number she gave me. "Ne."

"Yes?"

I recognized the voice. "Wufei?!"

"Duo? What the hell are you doing, calling me on my business line?!"

"Business, my man, business. I need weapons."

"Certainly. I might rent you some if you promise to take better care of them than you did your Gundam."

"What the FUCK do you mean by that?! I loved Shinigami with everything I had to give!"

"...Right. I'm stationed at River's End and Merris. I'll sell if you show." He hung up.

"Everyone's hanging up on me today," I bitched as I left the apartment.

I went to River's End and Merris, and met Wufei there. He had grown a bit and he wore fatigue pants and a wife-beater instead of his chef's outfit, but otherwise he was the same old tight-assed woman-hating Wufei. I went through his wares and haggled for some time, then struck up a deal: if I returned the weapons to him without any damages, then I wouldn't have to pay him. He accepted, and I returned to the apartment feeeling very good about myself as I called D'arcy.

"Duo?"

"You know me so well. I got your bo staff and a few pistols, how's that grab you?"

"It's just fine. I moseyed over to Relena's and sweet-talked a guard into scrambling the mansion's defenses for five minutes. We have from 11:55 to 12 midnight tonight to get in, give the medicine and get out. I'm sure that Hiro will get out once the stuff takes effect."

"Of course he will. I'll meet you outside the mansion at 11:50." I hung up, for once.

>At least, I hope he will.<

I arrived at the mansion's iron gates five minutes early. I plopped down on the sidewalk to wait. I was wearing my priest's outfit for luck, and I had a guitar case in my hands. It was corny, but effective.

D'arcy showed up less than a minute after I did. Her taxi dropped her off a block away, and she walked the rest of the way. She was wearing all black; even her fiery hair had been pulled back into a black baseball cap. She wrinkled her nose at me when she saw me, and I duly noted her kawaii sprinkling of freckles. "Bastard," she hissed, sitting down beside me. "Trying to get the jump on me?"

"And the pot calls the kettle black," I replied. "You want those weapons or not?"

She nodded, of course. I popped open the guitar case and pulled out two pistols. I gave them to her, and she checked their clips while I pulled out the staff. It was a beaut, made of some tough, light metal with retractable ends. It was only three feet long in my hands, but I showed her where the thing's switch was, and told her it would triple in length if she wanted it to.

She nodded and glanced casually into the guitar case, where my weapon was. I had had to fight with Wufei for it, but it was worth it. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Is that all you're taking?" she asked.

"I'm not here to fight," I replied simply. "I am a doctor."

We sat and didn't talk until my watch read 11:54. "Better get ready," I said, moving to stand up, when she grabbed me by the wrist and forced me to sit down again.

I looked at her funny. She had a confusing look in her big green eyes, surprising in its acuity (?regret?). "Duo, I have to ask you something."

"Shoot."

"Why did you think you needed to drug me to get me to sleep with you?"

She might as well have smacked me across the face. "E??"

She blushed. "We could leave," she said. "You and me. We could leave Hiro here, and go off, just the two of us. He thinks he's happy, who needs him? What did he ever do for either of us? Come on, Duo. We could just walk away, and you could have me--"

I grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, forcing her to look me straight in the eyes. The irony on my next words were not lost on me:

"D'arcy, you're sweet, and you're cute, and I really like you, but I'm in love with Hiro."

I resisted the temptation to smirk as her jaw hit her chest. "Come on," I said instead. "It's time. Let's go play doctor."

Hiro woke up to the sounds of fighting. At first he was disoriented, wondering where he was; then he heard
Relena's voice, saying: "Hiro darling, what is that?!", and he understood. He was home.

"A battle," he said simply, automatically getting out of bed and putting on his pants.

"Oh, how awful! We have to call the police! Take me to the kitchen so I can make the call in safety!"

"Of course, dove," he murmured, not bothering to put on a shirt or anything else. He took her arm in his, and led
her down the pink-carpeted hallway and the pink-marbled stairwell to the pink-linoleum kitchen. She ran for her favorite telephone, the pink-and-gold rotary one, and just as her fingers were brushing the reciever, she froze with
a little gasp.

Hiro's cobalt eyes looked past his love, and he blinked in surprise. There was a dark figure standing on the other
side of the counter, holding a long and sharp-looking (and very familiar) sword to Relena's throat.

He barely heard what the dark figure said: "I am in hell, Relena. You have put me there. But now, Shinigami has
come to take you down with me!!" The sword blade hung high, like Poe's pendulum, eagerly glinting in the neon
light fixtures and begging to take Relena's head.

Hiro only reacted according to the pulls of the spell he was under. Screaming "IIE!", he ran forward as the
sword blade dropped and shoved Relena out of the way, to safety, but--

"HIRO!!!"

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, "Love Potion #9" (the movie and the song ) belongs to their writers, and not me; any semblances between the plot of this fanfic and that movie were done very much intentionally. Get over it.

In contrast, D'arcy, the Butsoyo clan, the Rasputins, and any characters not belonging to the Gundam franchise are mine, and may not be used without my permission (God only knows why anyone would want to use them, but...). If you do use them without asking me first, I'm going to get Acchi Ikeyo (which, incidently, means "Go away!") to put a curse on you so nasty that I don't even know what would happen...

On to Epilogue

Back to Part 4

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