A/N at bottom.

Chapter 10

22:30

I wish I could say I had some enlightening revelations during the lonely voyage back into space. Maybe decipher Quatre's infuriatingly cryptic message, or Heero's, well... Heero-ness. But I didn't. The more I thought about about everything, the more confusing 'everything' became. There were too many secrets between all of us, too many hidden agendas and motives. The way I figure, if you don't know someone's motives, you don't know squat.

Case in point? If I knew Heero hated me, that every single thing about me just inspired feelings of unrequited loathing, I'd get his behavior. Expect it, even. I'd think he was a complete dick, but, well, I often think that anyway.

But I didn't think he hated me. Found me annoying, most definitely. Probably disliked me a little bit. But that didn't account for all the times that he'd been almost...friendly with me. Cracked a joke or two, if you could call dry observation and sarcasm a joke. Not to mention saving my life once or twice, but hey, I had returned the favor on more than one occasion, and who's really keeping count?

Crap. What if he was?

I guess it probably didn't help my case that the first time I saw him was through the iron sight on my gun. And I was trying to take his Gundam...okay, okay, and I guess he did leave with a few more holes in him than he started out with. But in my place, I'd be willing to stake my life that he would have made the exact same decision, so I don't think he can hold that against me.

I was still stumbling around in circles in my head when the door behind me opened, and Quatre staggered in, Heero only seconds behind him. Quatre appeared to have had about as much sleep as I had, though he still managed to shoot me a bleary smile before he collapsed into the mechanic's chair.

The docking on the colony was the easy point of the whole escape to space. And as much as it kills me to even think it, it was all due to having Heero with us.

I'm sure Quatre and I could have done it eventually; I mean, we're not completely incompetent at hacking computers, even though I hate doing it. But Heero operated on a whole other level than us, and had a falsified docking request submitted and approved faster than I could tie my shoe. To be completely honest, I'd kinda forgotten about that portion of our escape, though no doubt one of us would have remembered eventually. I was just thankful that I didn't have to do any mucking around in the colony's mainframe. The hardest part was getting the Gundams out of there without anyone catching on to what we were transporting. Moving mobile suits was a common occurrence on the docks; we were at war after all. Keeping them covered and far enough away from any casual observers was a little trickier – the Gundams were quite a bit larger than your average mobile suit and had garnered enough news time that a two year old would know what they were if they caught sight. Somehow we managed, though part of me wondered if we'd created enough entertainment for 'Someone' out there that They were giving us a free pass.

I speak from experience when I say, it's easy to hide yourself in space. With five Lagrangian points, and numerous colony clusters at each of them, it was near impossible to find a person that didn't want to be found. The more people you surround yourself with, the more you act like you belong... the more everyone else will believe you too.

Hiding the Gundams though? Thankfully, that was a dilemma that didn't fall to me to solve. Another pilot, one of the two I hadn't met yet, had made all the arrangements. All I had to do was haul my pathetic butt up into the cab of the flatbed that had Deathscythe loaded on the back and follow Quatre's lead. I'd been up thirty-six hours by this point and didn't have two braincells left to scrape together.

Maybe being involved with the other pilots brought a whole new series of complications to my life. But sometimes it was nice, ya know, to not be responsible for every single decision.

To not be alone.

0700

A door slamming woke me up. I bolted upright, grabbed my pillow, and waffled for a few tense seconds between throwing it at something or stuffing it over my head. Quickly coming to the conclusion that doing the former would only result in me having to get out of bed to pick it up again, I went straight to the second option and slammed the pillow firmly over my ears.

A second slam was heard, quickly followed by a high-pitched whine that sounded like a power drill. The pillow did nothing to muffle any of these sounds. I turned over onto my other side and rolled my eyes at Quatre, who was a mirror image of me in the other bed, except he'd gone one step further and wrapped a towel around his head. A third slam was enough to send him flying upright, shaking his fist.

"You have got to be kidding m–" he began angrily, before a loud hammering sound drowned out his voice. The thin walls began to shake and sent a flurry of plaster and drywall drifting down from the ceiling. I spotted it and yanked the blanket up over my head even as my brain screamed 'INCOMING!'. Quatre, however, was in complete rant mode by this point and was thoroughly coated.

Silence.

I stifled a giggle. It suddenly occurred to me that that would be an all too interesting experiment to try on Heero next time he got out of the shower. Being yelled at for slamming a door would be a small price to pay for seeing Heero tarred and feathered in drywall dust.

Quatre, unfortunately, heard the snort that slipped out and turned to me, his blue eyes looking particularly murderous against the stark contrast of his now washed out features.

"I... I –" he began, pausing to blow a piece of plaster off the tip of his nose.

"I am going to kill someone," I growled in completion, as the high pitched whine started up again.

The past two days could only have been described as pure and evil torture. I'm sure it beat the hell out of anything OZ could have thought up. The five of us were together in a small... townhouse? One of those that's in a long row stuck to all the other houses, so you can always hear what's going on at Mr. And Mrs Next-Door's place. All that meant was there were certain rooms we couldn't talk about sensitive things in, in case the sound carried. Not that Mr. and Mrs. Next-Door seemed to give a crap.

Apparently.

And not that there was much talking going on either. It was seriously like living in a sorority house with the other pilots, except with less beer and way more cat-fights. Every day was like a game to figure out who was talking to whom, and who had pissed off someone else. I'd never seen anything like it in my life.

A point made evident when I opened the door to the room Quatre and I shared and walked straight into the middle of a stand-off in the hallway between Heero and Wufei. There was a towel in the middle of the floor between them. Had it been anyone other than those two, I would have pretended to cock my leg over it; or something equally amusing, but as it was, I was willing to bet that either one (or both) of them were armed, and that was a very scary thought at five past seven in the morning.

Or any time, come to think of it.

Quatre chose right then to walk straight into the back of me, being too preoccupied with shaking drywall dust out of his hair rather than observing the imminent danger of his surroundings. He glanced up, looked left at Heero, then right at Wufei, and made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a gulp. Neither Heero nor Wufei acknowledged our appearance, and intent on keeping it that way, I grabbed Quatre's arm and escorted him safely past Heero before depositing him in the bathroom – that being the only place where you were guaranteed to have at least ten minutes of complete peace in the entire house.

Not for the first time did I regret the decision to come back to space. Quatre's mansion, or war-zone? Bedroom and shower all to myself, or crammed into a rat-infested safe house with four other guys with severe cases of paranoia and adrenaline addiction. I'm tellin' you, the decision would've been a helluva lot different in hindsight.

"You're up early," Trowa greeted me as I stumbled safely into the kitchen, his eyes sparkling humorously. He added another two slices of bread to the little camping grill perched on the kitchen counter without being asked, while I cut off extra slices of cheese.

"Yeah, well, apparently Next-door's decided to go into the demolition business. At seven o'clock in the freakin' morning, I might add," I muttered, grabbing milk out of the cooler in the corner that was serving as a fridge. Water ran down the side of the carton from the melted ice, and left a trail on the floor as I hurried over to the sink.

At best, our current safe house could be described as spartan. The only furniture it had come with was three beds, a cot, a mattress and a lone couch that looked and smelled older than all our ages combined. I might have lived in much worse conditions over the years, but I'd also lived in better. Back in my street days, a place this would have been prime real-estate. It had a roof, four walls – even running water. It was practically a palace, by those standards. So don't get me wrong; while I may be grateful for what it did have to offer, I also knew that bed-bugs, body lice and mold weren't supposed to be normal parts of life. Painful open sores, incessant itching and chronic breathing problems weren't something I ever wanted to deal with again.

And, I mused idly, if we were going to be stuck here for any amount of time, we really needed to find a better solution for a fridge. This house only had one bathroom. Five guys with food poisoning would really... stink.

"Coffee table." Trowa offered after a quiet minute.

"Huh?"

"I think they're constructing a coffee table." He grabbed the corner of the toast between his thumb and finger and deftly flipped it over. The butter sizzled on the grill, and made my stomach rumble.

I gave him an incredulous look, that went to waste with his back turned to me, before deciding I really didn't care how he knew that. "Yeah, well, whatever. They try that again tomorrow and I'll be happy to go over and show the guy a new place to keep his hammer."

Trowa snorted. That earned the guy a few brownie points in my book. At least he appeared to have a sense of humor in there, even if he wasn't much of a talker.

"Say, what's the deal with the kids in the hallway? Did we open a daycare or something?"

He gave me a bemused look, apparently waiting for the punch line. Sadly, I wasn't joking.

"Heero. Wufei. Having a territorial dispute over a bath towel, or so it appears," I supplied, blowing on my coffee before talking a gulp.

Trowa rolled his eyes – or, at least, I think he did... as I could only see one at this angle. "I don't know why, because it's – "

I didn't get a chance to find out what 'it' was, because at that moment, Quatre chose to appear. He'd obviously come straight from the shower, no doubt to bypass world war six, (or ten, or whatever we were at by now) in the hall, because he was only wearing jeans and his hair was sticking up comically in all directions. He spotted me, and began to smile, then caught a glimpse of Trowa. The smile froze into a painful looking grimace. He tried to stop in mid-stride, which caused him to stumble forward. As he scrabbled for traction on the linoleum floor, he stepped in the puddle of water that I'd so thoughtfully left there. His left foot shot forward, while his right remained planted, and had Trowa not grabbed his arm, he would have given us a first hand display of how flexible he was... or wasn't.

The entire debacle lasted less than five seconds, and before Quatre realized it, he was bundled up safely in Trowa's arms. And looking like he was wished he could melt into the floor, I might add. Trowa seemed to pick up on the fact that the little ball of nerves in his arms was not at all happy to be there, and handed him off to me, where I sat him safely in a chair before he could break something.

"Geez, Quat, no need to fear with you around. Do I need to get you a seat-belt so you don't fall off?" I teased him lightly, quiet enough so that only he could hear.

His only response was an expression that made him look like he needed to hurl. I shook my head incredulously.

The events of the morning brought up a very interesting point though...

How the hell, in this house, with these people, did I get labeled the 'childish' one?

19:47

"I am bored," I sighed, staring up at the ceiling. I had been making up a story to go along with the water stain blobs that mottled the plaster, but understandably that could only keep me amused for so long.

Quatre glanced up from his book, and stared at me with mild apprehension. "Well, find something to do."

I sighed. What exactly did he think I'd been doing for the last two hours? And it wasn't exactly like this place was bursting with options.

"Like what?" I grumbled, not giving him time to answer before I began to tick off on my fingers, "Can't do mission prep 'cause there's no jobs coming in. Can't work on 'Scythe because it would draw attention to where we've stored them. Can't leave the room 'cause I'll get my head bitten off by Mr. Pissy-pants in the living room, or something thrown at me by Mr. Even-Pissier-Pants who's holed up in his bat-cave."

"You mean Wufei?" Quatre chuckled, flipping down the corner of his page to mark his spot and absentmindedly stuffing it under a pair of my jeans on the floor.

I looked at him incredulously. "Well, duh."

"He's not that bad," Quatre replied diplomatically. "He's actually quite intelligent."

I snorted. "Well I'd hope so, considering his current choice of occupation. Otherwise they should've just trained those big monkeys to be Gundam pilots."

"That's not what I meant," Quatre sighed.

"I just know what I see," I smirked. "And the way I see it, if he didn't come out to eat and pee like clockwork, I'm pretty sure the guy could have died without us knowing."

"Come on, Duo. We're not exactly leaving the room anymore than we have to either."

"Hey dude, I'd be just as happy being bored in the living room as I am in here. Well, maybe," I amended quickly. "But as it appears that you're the only one that can carry a conversation, and you're the one that insists on being cooped up in here..." I trailed off, giving him an opportunity to jump in and explain why that was exactly, but he didn't take the bait. "Though," I continued, having a sudden brainwave, "I guess with your whole empathic thing, that's probably not very fun considering the company we happen to be in at the moment."

"Mmm," Quatre grunted helpfully, suddenly becoming very interested in picking at a loose thread on his blanket.

I narrowed my eyes, but decided not to go down that line of questioning for the time being. I needed someone to talk to in this hellhole, and pissing off Quatre wasn't the way to go about it. Instead, I sighed, and instead suggested, "Quat, let's go out for a walk or something. Anything!"

I could see I'd piqued his interest. His eyes flickered over at me hopefully before resuming their focus on the blanket, trying to play it cool. "Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"Do you have a better one?"

"I think anything that involves you ticking off Heero should be avoided for the time being," he replied frankly, raising an eyebrow.

"Why would Heero – wait, 'cause we're supposed to be laying low?" I scoffed, suddenly catching on to his line of thought. "Quat, the only one of us who has a chance in hell of being recognized is Heero because of that cute little stunt he pulled, and funnily enough I wasn't exactly planning on asking him to tag along. Or asking his permission."

"Yeah, but –"

"No buts, Quat, so get dressed." When he still didn't move, I tossed my cleanest black hoodie at him, choosing a denim jacket for myself. "What is more suspicious, Quat? A house full of people that no one ever sees, or a bunch of people that – "

"Okay, okay, I'm convinced!" he exclaimed, throwing up his hands in mock defeat.

"Excellent."

19:59

If I'd thought convincing Quatre to go would be the hardest part, I was sadly mistaken. I'd forgotten what lurked in the living room. And it wasn't happy.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Quatre jumped guiltily. I paused with my hand on the door knob, took a deep breath and turned to smile blandly at Heero.

"Opening a door. Am I doing it wrong?" I asked, puzzled. Beside me, Quatre uttered a small groan and was pulling his best 'why me?' face, while I did my best to ignore him.

"Why?"

"To get to the other side. Funnily enough, I haven't figured out how to walk through solid walls yet and– "

"It's not safe out there," Heero growled.

"In case you hadn't noticed, Dad, it's not exactly safe in here, either," I replied pleasantly. Quickly realizing just why he might possibly find me irritating at times, I added seriously, "Chill out, Heero. I've seen the area. It's the little leagues out here; I've lived in much worse. I know how to take care of myself."

"Duo..." If his face hadn't remained so impassive, I almost would have guessed he was begging. But I did get the sense that he was wavering; at least, that he wasn't going to resort to physically restraining us, and I jumped on the chance.

"Excellent! Quatre and I will behave like good little boys, and we'll be back in time for curfew." I grabbed Quatre by the arm and pulled him out the door before either tried to protest. "Don't worry, I'll only let him bring home one hooker this time!" I yelled cheekily over my shoulder.

I didn't let go of Quatre's arm until we were far enough away that I was sure Heero hadn't tried to follow us. Quatre gratefully rubbed some circulation back into it.

"That was exactly what I was wanting to avoid," he fumed, glaring at me sternly. "Why do you have to goad him like that?"

"Because it's fun."

He did not look impressed.

"...And partially because it's habit," I added honestly.

"Well, one of these days he's going to deck you, and I won't try and stop him," Quatre promised, looking slightly more amused.

I laughed, looking over at him, "Yeah well, you always were the smart one." And then,"Geez, Quat, even in my clothes you look like a spoiled little rich kid!"

"I'm... sorry?" he offered, shying away as I moved to yank his hood over his bright blond hair, which almost appeared to glow in the light from the street lamps.

I glanced around as he tried to sort out the hood and baggy sleeves. I'd lent it to him because it was warm; that, and nothing of his was even remotely appropriate. Jeans were jeans; thank god he had a pair of those, but if I'd let him go out in one of his collared shirts, or heaven-forbid, something with pleats, it would have been begging someone to beat him up. It'd be like their civic duty or something.

Trowa had been the one to arrange the safehouse we were in, and I had to admit, I couldn't have done a better job of it myself. Most people would refer to it, and the area we were in, as a shit-hole. It was an area that I was all too familiar with; one where everyone was trying to hide something, and all the others were too busy trying to look the other way. To the untrained eye, the street looked oppressive; a too-narrow road shadowed by long rows of identical run-down duplexes and townhouses. Every one of them was marked in some way – barred windows, the odd bullet hole, gang tagging and the like. Every other street corner had the essential gang of teenage goons smoking joints trying to look macho and tough, while girls strutted around in...well, not much, actually.

As a kid, I'd be in heaven in a place like this. The lamp posts and fire ladders led to another world on the rooftops; where gaining access to one house usually meant easy pickings on all the others, as most of the older buildings all shared a common attic, separated only by a thin piece of plywood. It was a cat burglar's dream, and one I took full advantage of.

"So...we're free. Now what?" Quatre asked, clearly feeling uneasy. It was then that I realized that, although I was in my element, Quatre was as far away from his comfort zone as he could possibly be.

"Just chill for one," I grinned cockily. "I'm not saying let your guard down, but seriously man, you look like you're about to have a stroke or something!"

Quatre chuckled nervously, and relaxed all of an iota.

"I'm going to give you your first real lesson in street life," I decided. "Lesson number one..." I hesitated, glancing over at him. Even with my over-sized hoodie reaching down to his knees, the hood covering his pristine hair, and the fact I knew he was armed, he still looked as if he was preparing to walk into the boardroom to give a presentation. Back straight with shoulders back, revealing a cultured upbringing that heavily focused on poise and presentation. His eyes were constantly scanning the area, and met those of everyone that passed us on the street, who were shooting him funny looks for it.

In short, I could've dressed him in a tutu and platforms and he wouldn't have stood out any more.

"Slouch." I summarized all my observations into one easy to follow command. "No, slouch, not walk with a limp."

"You do realize that teaching me to slouch would be like teaching a dog to walk on it's hind legs?" Quatre chuckled, thankfully losing the limp as he made a second attempt, and nearly crumpled to the pavement. I suppressed the urge to slap my forehead. Seriously, how was it that I had to teach the poor kid to slouch properly? Wasn't it one of things that everyone was born knowing how to do? Like, I don't know, breathing?

"People have spent the last fifteen years of my life beating it out of me," Quatre chuckled, scarily answering the question I hadn't even asked.

"And yet it has been proven that a dog can learn to walk on it's hind legs," I responded dryly, glancing around and making a snap decision to go in the the opposite direction of the large crowd of people sauntering up behind us who were most unmistakably drunk.

"However comical they appear," Quatre supplied, quickly falling in to walk beside me.

I snorted. "What, you goin' all philosophical on me?"

Quatre didn't answer as a dark figure shuffled out of the alley ahead of us, and started down the sidewalk towards us.

"Chill, dude," I breathed to Quatre, as I noted the uncoordinated walk and tell-tale sniffs. "Just a junkie. Usually not dangerous."

"Usually?" he hissed back.

"Maybe if you're on your own," I replied thoughtfully. "They're cowards by nature. Don't like a fair fight."

"Oh, that's reassuring," he grumbled as the junkie stumbled past us.

"Should be. It's the dealers you have to worry about."

"Oh yeah?" Quatre replied a little snappily. "And how do I recognize them?"

"When they try to sell you something?"

"Brilliant," Quatre sighed.

We got to an intersection and Quatre paused, waiting for my lead. I leant against a brick wall, casually scoping out our options. The gang behind us was still advancing, but were still far enough away that I wasn't too worried about them. Down the right-hand street was another group, consisting of (as far as I could tell) of a bunch of girls and one guy trying unsuccessfully to operate a skateboard. I immediately dismissed the idea of going straight, not wanting to get too far away from the safe house.

"Heero would be pleased if he was here," I muttered, finally choosing to go down the left street. As far as I could see, there were only two girls waiting on the far street corner. Couldn't get much safer than that.

Quatre gave me a funny look.

"Don't worry about it," I sighed. "But if we get beaten up by two hookers, I'll let him say I-told-you-so."

As we neared the girls, one of them turned to face us, smiled, and sauntered over, looking slightly off-balance in her high heels.

"Evening ladies." I flashed them both a genuine smile. "Good night?"

"Slow," High-heels complained. She ran an appraising eye over Quatre – who promptly turned an almost luminescent shade of red.

"Shame to hear it," I replied conversationally, and then, after glancing over at Quatre, "Sorry about my friend, he doesn't get out much. In fact, some of us think he's a little special."

Quatre caught on, and quickly stopped gaping.

"S'ok. He's cute," the other girl replied seriously, as if that solved everything.

"Yeah, he is, isn't he?" I smirked. Quatre gave me the evil eye. "Say, got any advice for a coupl'a newbies to the area?"

High-heels thought for a moment. Under the makeup, I could see she was actually quite pretty. "One block over; the house with a burnt out car in front. They wouldn't appreciate a coupl'a pretty boys like you going near."

"Other than that, it's not too bad an area," the other girl added. "Colby's boys keep everyone else in order. Don't get on his bad side and you'll do okay."

"Thanks," I replied, committing the information to memory. I wondered if Trowa somehow knew this Colby guy, or if we should be preparing for a welcome visit from the local street gang. Five guys suddenly moving into the neighborhood would be perceived as a huge threat to their turf, and I wasn't stupid enough to think that our presence here had gone unnoticed by the locals.

"Say, you boys interested? We'll give you a deal," High-heels asked coyly.

"Nah, sorry, not tonight ladies," I grinned. "Besides, you're not quite my type – no offense intended, of course."

"What was that about?" Quatre hissed as soon as we were out of earshot.

"Dude, you just got hit on by your first hooker," I chuckled, putting my arm casually around his shoulder.

"And about them not 'being your type'?" he pressed, narrowing his eyes at me.

Darn, he'd caught that, had he? Some days he could be so naive, and then on others there was no getting past him.

"Meaning I don't sleep with hookers," I stated truthfully, if not really answering his actual question. I knew I was gay. I was quite comfortable with that fact. Still didn't mean I wanted people knowing; even Quatre. Information was power in my world, even a trivial little piece like this. "But I can't exactly say that to them, can I? A little rude?"

I glanced around at the next intersection, and chose the left road again, intending to loop back around to begin heading back towards our safe house. But even from this far down the street I could see it ended in a cul-de-sac. However, both of our other options contained large groups of people, and even I knew...

My stomach contorted painfully as soon as I realized what was going on. The entire time Quatre and I had being heading in the opposite direction of them, me not wanting to get stuck in the middle of some street fight, or worse, a turf war. And the whole time they'd casually followed after us, herding us. And they were good enough that I didn't pick up on what they were doing right away. I could have kicked myself, but there wasn't time for that at the moment.

"Quat," I interrupted him from whatever he'd been telling me, not breaking my casual stride to give our pursuers any indication that I'd finally clued in to what they were doing. "If I'm not mistaken, we're goin' to be seeing some action in the next coupl'a minutes. What're you carrying?"

"Gun. Full clip." He glanced over, giving me a wry smile while taking the opportunity to scope out the situation behind us in his peripheral vision. "Nothing's ever boring with you around, is it?"

"I think that's how I got us into this mess," I bemoaned.

I thought quickly, trying to remember what gun he usually favored. That meant he had... eleven rounds, if I guessed right. I only had half a clip, which meant eight in mine, as well as all my usual collection of close-range weaponry. Not that I hoped it would come to a shoot out. As I hadn't seen a gun on his person in the house, I surmised that he had an ankle holster. It was the only place I could think of him keeping it with out me seeing; the stiff material of his jeans concealing its profile. It didn't give him the easiest access should he need it in a hurry, but better than being lost under all the excess material of the baggy sweater.

"Lose the sweater, Quat." I realized suddenly. The stupid sleeves kept slipping down over his hands, and the hood was another unnecessary danger. Hell, even better, if they were stupid they might assume that he was unarmed, and neither of us looked particularly threatening. It'd be a rookie mistake on their part, but we were new to the area. For once, that might work to our advantage. Quatre had beaten me to that thought, and was already fighting to get his arms out of the the sleeves. I was trying to yank his head free when they made their move.

"Aw, ain't that sweet," a voice drawled. "Ain't that just sweet boys?"

Yeah, ya douche-bag, very witty. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and took a deep breath. It was time to dust off the old acting skills.

"Hey man," I whined, turning around to face the voice, but not meeting his face. "Whatever you're sellin', we ain't buyin'. We don't want no trouble."

It pained me to act this pathetic and helpless when I'd undoubtedly clocked more fight time than any of them. But it'd been several years since I'd been in an all-out street brawl, and even back then I tended to avoid them at all costs when I wasn't on my home turf. And now I had Quatre to worry about; someone who, I was guessing, had no practical experience in fighting dirty.

Add in the fact that we couldn't kill them because they were only a bunch of stupid assholes, and we couldn't knock 'em out, because that'd mean lights out for me also – all in all, it was not turning out to be a good situation.

Oh shit... I hoped Quatre would remember the 'rules' of my little problem.

"Well, what about your little smurf*?" Another guy asked, with a spike sticking out of his lip. "I'm sure we could show him a good time."

And if you actually knew what that word meant, you probably wouldn't have said that, I thought, clenching my jaw so that any smart-ass remark that my smart-ass brain thought up wouldn't accidentally slip out. Thankfully, I was fairly sure Quatre wouldn't know the definition of the word either.

Quatre shrank back as a third guy stepped towards him, fully playing up the image that he was weak and afraid, while giving us both space to maneuver should we need it.

"Hey man, leave 'im alone." I sniffed, wiping my nose on my sleeve and swaying slightly. "We ain't botherin' nobody."

"You can drop the act, kid. You're not fooling anyone." The first guy spoke again. I looked up sharply, all too willing to drop my pitiable facade, and when my eyes met his I felt a sudden flash of recognition.

And I could tell by the small smirk threatening to turn up the corners of his mouth... that he knew me too.

I scanned the faces of the other guys in the group; the girls too. But none of them were familiar. Not even the slightest hint that I might have seen them before; not from my own instincts or from their faces. And clearly I had been fooling most of them with my little act, because none of them appeared to be paying much attention. One guy, clearly strung out on something, was puffing on a cigarette and spent more time looking above him than in front. A second guy had a revolver shoved into the front of his waistband with the safety off – I didn't know if that meant he was homicidal or just plain stupid. A couple of girls had gathered, clearly wanting to see the show while another one was too busy making out with a guy at the back of the group to realize a fight was about to break out. But the last two, the ones on either side of the of the guy I recognized – they were trouble. There was something military about them; or a least formal combat training judging by the way they held themselves. One, whom I immediately named The Hulk, had a partially healed knife or shrapnel wound in his left cheek; the other was smaller, wiry, and had eyes so dark you couldn't tell where the pupil ended and the iris began.

My mind began to race; a million questions all presenting themselves at once, but no answers. Did they know who I was? What I was? Had I managed to blow our cover, all because I was bored, and thought Heero was just exercising his excessive paranoia? Crap, if only I could place that guy's face! But nothing stood out about it; not one distinguishing feature. Dirty blond hair, bright blue eyes; a face that could fit in just about anywhere. Even his accent didn't give any clues, though there was something odd about the way he talked that I couldn't quite place.

"Whaddya want?" I challenged, happily straightening up from my sniveling druggie act, and balancing myself on the balls of my feet, ready to move quickly.

The guy nearest to me, the one with the lip ring, jumped back suddenly, clearly surprised by my sudden personality change. The guy with the gun leered at us, intrigued by the possibility of a decent fight after all. But the three I was worried about didn't even bat an eye.

"Just...to talk." He drew out the words languidly, rocking back on his heels. "I have a... well, I guess you could call it a proposition to discuss with you. Your friend's free to go."

"Sorry, dude. Not interested," I snorted, turning as if to walk away.

The guy that had been smoking the cigarette fell for the bait first, grabbing me roughly by the shoulder and trying to force me around. "Hey, you punk-ass d– "

I didn't get a chance to hear what creative word he was about to fill in the blank with, because I'd already grabbed his wrist, yanked him forward and struck at the Golgi tendon in his elbow. When his elbow hyper-extended, I broke it with sharp, secondary blow, leaving him screaming in pain at my feet on the pavement in a matter of seconds.

The guy with the gun shoved down his pants lunged past me, obviously thinking that Quatre was the easier target. Quatre swiftly sidestepped him, made a calculated lunge and squeezed the trigger, coldly firing a shot through the guy's foot before snagging the gun out of his waistband and lobbing it towards a house, out of reach for it to be used against us. Before the guy went down, Quatre struck at both ears with the palms of his hands. Judging from the intensity, and the howling that followed, he'd successfully managed to perforate at least one of the guy's ear drums.

It wasn't a move I would have used myself until it was a last resort, as it did have the potential to render people unconscious, but I couldn't help but only feel a sudden flood of relief – Quatre clearly remember the necessity to at least try and keep our opponents conscious.

The guy that had called Quatre a smurf made a move in tandem with one of the guy's I'd pegged on having professional training. Name-caller moved first, running straight at me. I ducked down and sent him flying over me, leaving Quatre to finish him off, but Black-eyes saw the opportunity and executed a painfully hard textbook snap-kick, catching me squarely under the chin. I went stumbling backwards, and tripped over Name-caller – who was on the ground with a paralyzed diaphragm, courtesy of one Winner heir, struggling to breath.

Quatre darted forward nimbly to cover me, easily blocked a roundhouse kick and countered with a snap-kick of his own to the guy's groin before letting go of his leg. Unfortunately it didn't work quite as well as Quatre had intended. Either the guy had balls of steel, or an incredibly high pain threshold, but he didn't go down. He barely even flinched.

The fight escalated quickly from there. I scrambled to my feet and went for a guy with hot purple hair who was apparently intending on taking Quatre down from behind. I hooked a foot around his leg and sent him to his knees, pulling his arm sharply backwards and upwards, and letting his momentum dislocate his own shoulder as he went down.

Quatre had obviously taken a hit to the face during that time; as I glanced over, he spat a mouthful of blood at his opponent, hoping to distract him. Apparently Quatre did have a few dirty tricks of his own.

The Hulk came at me next, feinting a jab, before grabbing me by the throat more quickly than I could have anticipated. Both my feet were off the ground, but instead of panicking like he'd been hoping, I wrapped my legs around his waist to relieve the pressure on my neck and rammed both my palms into his nose before breaking his hold. Before jumping down, I head butted him in the nose again.

Someone grabbed my braid from behind, and wrapped it around his wrist. I was about to show him just what exactly happened to people who dared to touch my hair, when I felt cool metal press against my head behind my ear, and I immediately froze. The Hulk, recovering quickly, jumped on the opportunity to land a jab, which glanced off my cheek as Quatre elbowed him in the solar plexus.

"Freeze."

Quatre looked up sharply towards me and the voice, struggling to catch his breath, and suddenly saw what had me standing so still. Blood poured into his eye from a gash in his temple. He stared at the ground in dismay, while I closed my eyes.

"Ready to listen now?"

Crap, so that's where that guy had gotten to. I'd lost track of him in all the fighting.

"You just don't know the meaning of the word no, do ya?" I responded impudently. Quatre glanced up at me in horror, before his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. His eyes met mine, and flicked upward ever so subtly. Without thinking about the consequences of potentially misinterpreting his signal, I dropped suddenly to my knees and threw myself into an awkward roll, leaving more skin behind on the sidewalk as I went.

And then Heero was there.

The moment I dropped, he swooped in from behind and used the same move I had earlier to break my first assailant's elbow, forcing him to let go of my braid. Except he didn't rely on pressure points, and chose to use the more direct method of sheer brute force.

I staggered to my feet from the sidewalk and watched in horror as Heero snagged the guy's gun in mid-air and pistol whipped him smartly on the forehead.

"Heero, NO!" Quatre cried out, futilely lunging forward to grab the gun in the vain hope of stopping him.

I couldn't say anything. My head smacked the sidewalk.

Of course, I was already dreaming by then.

Smurf: young gay man with blonde hair and a negative or rough attitude.

A/N: As always, thanks to my wonderful friend and beta reader Aynessa for constantly pushing me to make this story better. Also, the pressure points and attacks described in this story are real, and can potentially be very dangerous. Please don't experiment on your kid-siblings with them. ^_^

Thanks for reading!