Chapter Eleven
"Trip me up again and
I swear I'm gonna bust your ass!"
"I didn't do it on purpose, you wuss!"
The lack of response to the insult made Duke look over his shoulder in surprise. He'd left them to practice on their own for a few minutes, and was picking through the discs Téa left for her 'students.' Several seconds of silence ticked off before he realized something was very wrong.
Joey and Tristan were staring at each other. Just staring. Again. That made the third time this morning that the blond boy couldn't come up with an automatic retort. He sat on his knees, gingerly touching his forearm where skidding across the polished floor rubbed it red. "Eh…I am not." Joey retorted blandly, and broke from exchanging glares with Tristan to see that Duke was watching them. "What the hell're you looking at?"
It really was too much to resist.
"Oh…pardon me," Duke replied smoothly, straightening from where he leaned over the rack of jewel cases, "should I give the lovebirds a moment?"
Both boys rounded on him. Though he was anticipating their irritation, the unexpected heat from those glares made even him squirm a little.
"It's no big deal," Tristan dropped his gaze first. Duke's eyes snapped to him then, searching the lowered face for guilt. He'd said something about last night to Joey. He had to have said something. That was the only explanation for the long stares…the trailing sentences…the uneasy silences.A smirk rose automatically to cover the sinking burn of betrayal.
"Shut up, Duke," Joey retorted with more than the usual force, while Tristan stood like a cast bronze figure at his side. Normally, he would have grabbed Joey's arm as the fallen boy struggled to his feet. As Duke watched, Tristan moved forward instinctively to do just that.
Halfway there, his hands faltered. Fell back.
Joey looked up at him, and something passed between the two boys.
Duke's brow furrowed at the silence. Suddenly the tension rose, intense and almost tangible. His gaze flicked back and forth between them, forgetting his own troubles for the moment as it became increasingly obvious that the uneasiness filling the studio actually had very little to do with him. Something was wrong. Had they fought?
But he'd seen them fight plenty of times. There was never much restraint unless it came from someone else's hands. In most cases, someone threw a punch, someone retaliated, and it was over. No grudges held.
This didn't look like a grudge. But it didn't look like things were very comfortable, either.
"Whatever," Duke shrugged, both to the boys and to his own internal worries, "you guys want to get back to what we're supposed to be doing anytime soon? Or do you need some more time to sort this out?"
"Sort out what?" Joey asked with patent innocence, still rubbing his forearm.
Tristan glared at the back of Joey's head, before dragging his eyes up to Duke's. The expression vanished. "Mind your own business," he said, monotone. There was no force behind the words, as if he'd simply said them by rote.
Duke's eyes narrowed. Since when couldn't he goad the younger boy into an argument? "Fine," He snapped, "I'll mind my own business. And since you idiots would rather argue than—"
"—We weren't arguing," Tristan retorted.
"—I'll work out by myself. And the pair of you can watch if you want, since you seem to like doing that…"
Both boys winced, and Duke's superior smirk widened. Joey's eyes narrowed. "Goddammit, why the hell do we hafta keep doing this?" He took a step forward, fists clenched. "You like torturing us or something?"
"While I'll admit the thought of torture has crossed my mind," Duke answered with a flip of his ponytail, "I hardly think of learning to waltz as a punishment."
"That's what you say, dice boy," Joey muttered.
"And your opinion matters…" Duke put his head on one side, feigning curiosity, "…because…?"
"'Cause I'm tired of doing this shit, because it's lame."
"Joey!" Tristan hissed, finally penetrating the invisible barrier between himself and his friend as he gripped Joey's shoulder. The touch was electric – even Duke could tell from several paces away. The blond's deep brown eyes flew wide, and he turned his head with agonizing slowness to look at Tristan from beneath his shaggy bangs.
Duke's posture went rigid. No matter how unbelievable a development might be, when the proof stared a person in the face…it was a bit hard to deny.
He felt anger growing, unbidden. Tristan's behavior at the pond made sense now. Téa was right about him. About both of them. Whether they knew it or not was a different story. Without ever knowing that they'd done it, the pair had played a very cruel trick on him. Duke's sense of revenge kicked in, heedless to logic.
Oh, they were going to pay.
Joey shrugged off Tristan's hand, but calmed nevertheless. "I'll do what I hafta, but I still think it's lame," he repeated, sullenly. His childish attitude only irritated Duke further, though it was hardly an unusual response.
"I wouldn't want you to do anything that you find 'lame,' Joey," he replied at last, accenting the other's word with a fine edge of scorn. "And since the two of you are so far ahead already…I think I could find something more challenging."
Tristan heard the artificial sweetness in Duke's voice, and once again found himself fighting the urge to bolt as his subconscious mind screeched 'TRAP!'
"I'm listenin'…" Joey said, obviously not in the possession of such a sixth sense. Seriously, how did the guy ever manage to win at Duel Monsters?
"I don't think—" Tristan started warily.
"Well, you can't have everything," Duke's patronizing tone grated, and Tristan bristled at the slight. The taller boy's shoulders squared and made Tristan look even bigger when he was angry, Duke noted with perverse satisfaction. He had both boys completely at his mercy until Téa returned on Sunday night. Regardless of how much they came to hate him in these last few days, they were going to know that he existed. They would be so awareof his presence that they'd feel it for days afterward when their shoulders hurt and their arches ached.
And he'd make them nervous as hell while he was doing it.
"I'm going to teach you how to rumba."
Joey felt Tristan jerk beside him when Duke issued his 'challenge.' He moved another step away, not happy with how he could tell what Tristan was doing without looking at him. The spot on his shoulder where the brunet's hand had been still felt the pressure, and he tugged at the arm of his tee-shirt.
He glared into Duke's aggravating smirk, ready to make the older boy eat his superior tone. The night before was telling on him, and at this point if Duke had said 'I'm going to teach you how to feed yourself slowly and painfully to a school of piranhas,' Joey would have done it just to get one more person off of his back.
Well…maybe not that extreme. 'I'm going to teach you how to dress in drag and hit on men in the shopping mall.' There. Bet he even knew how to do that.
"Rumba?" Joey echoed, "One of those sequin-jumpsuit deals?"
"The sequins are optional," Duke rolled his eyes, "but hey, if that floats your boat…"
"We're supposed to waltz," Tristan cut in, "That's all Téa said we had to do."
"So you'll learn to rumba in your spare time," Duke tilted his head and shrugged one shoulder at the brunet's noise of protest. He was really getting into this 'teacher' thing…adopted that annoying high school professor's attitude that it was Tristan's problem, not his, "Oh, come on. You can't spend every night trying to run people down."
The oldest boy's lips twitched, quirked into a secretive smile.
Seeing this, Joey shot Tristan a questioning look. Tristan's gaze flicked to him, then to Duke. Tristan shrugged.
Joey watched them both, and huffed in impatience at the sudden stalemate and lack of activity. At the prospect of learning something new – the sexy dancing that Duke had presumably been at yesterday, to boot – he quickly forgot about the uncomfortable dynamic from a few minutes earlier.
Standing here without moving was making him hot, anyway.
"Tch…suck it up, Tristan! This is gonna be a helluva lot more fun than all that slow stuff." He elbowed the other boy, looking away quickly before Tristan could throw him that look that he'd gotten so damn good at today. That sort of nervous 'what do you want from me?' look that Tristan had this morning when Joey laid things out.
That look was starting to piss him off. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking down as he shifted his weight so that he didn't see Tristan.
'what do you want from me?'
I don't know, all right? Geez…didn't hear any good ideas coming out of you, either, man.
"So can we get started already?"
Tristan's temper simmered slowly throughout the next three hours. Busy with learning the new steps, Joey acted like he'd forgotten all about yesterday. And that – Tristan reminded himself – was what he wanted anyway, of course. That would have been bearable, on its own.
Duke was the one making it hard to deal with. When Joey agreed to learn, the ponytailed boy transferred the majority of attention to the blond. His demeanor changed…he was funny, charming…almost human.
But there was a slick, fake feeling to it at the same time, one that he didn't like. The person teaching Joey to rumba wasn't the same person who listened eagerly yesterday when Tristan explained the unpleasant noise coming from Duke's transmission. He'd sensed it earlier, and knew with certainty that his 'instructor' had a second motive for doing this. Wait. What was his first motive?
Good question. Right up there with 'why the hell does Duke have his hands on Joey's hips?'
"Shift your weight to your right foot."
Duke's body was seamed firmly up against Joey's back – or if there was any air in between them, it was a damn thin line. Joey looked a little flustered, obviously having trouble concentrating, especially when Duke's hands moved from the waistline of his jeans and down to his outer thighs. Now hang on just a minute. That was a foul in any kind of sport.
They were both hot and damp, and with the body heat, someone's aftershave came on a little too strong. Duke's hair was loose in the blue tie wrapped around it, and hung in disorganized straggles against the back of his neck.
"I'm on my right foot already!" Joey protested, voice hitching up a little.
"No. Before you start, you have to step to the left, then shift your weight from your left to your right, and then forward."
"So…wait. I gotta go this way before I can start? What kinda whacko invented this dance?"
The only reply was a helpless groan. Joey shrugged, scraping his hands through his hair in frustration at not understanding something that must be obvious to everyone else. "It don't make any sense when ya say it like that! I don't get it – why do I hafta dance before I can dance?"
Tristan took Duke's place at Joey's back when the other boy abruptly tore away from his student and stalked away. The brunet and blond watched with a little worry. Joey looked over his shoulder at Tristan. "Well it doesn't," he mouthed silently.
Tristan spread his hands. He didn't know what the hell Duke was getting at either.
Duke whipped the remote off of the top of the stereo. "The rumba…" he began as he walked back, boot heels clicking underneath his words, "…is three beats." He shoved the remote into his pocket and ripped out the binding on his ponytail savagely. "The music isn't in three," Duke went on, grunting softly as he hastily gathered the hair into a tighter tail. "It's in four. Two steps for the first two beats, one step for the next two."
He spread his hands, commanding that they watch, and pointed down. "Step to the side for the first two beats. Like this."
Left foot to the side. Right foot swept in quickly alongside, shift weight, slow step forward with the left. Side step, weight change, slow step backward. Pause. "Get it?"
Joey and Tristan exchanged worried glances. Duke did all that without ever looking at his feet. They knew they were doomed.
The ponytailed boy sighed dramatically, and looked for a moment as though he were reconsidering his offer. And stopped looking like he was the professional. Just...looked like Duke again. "Why me? Why am I stuck with two of the most hard-headed—"
"You ever think that maybe it's you with the problem, dude?" Tristan interrupted.
Duke, unhappy that he'd been cut off mid-insult, bristled. "And by that, you mean…?" He snapped.
"Nothing," Tristan shrugged in response, "You just said before that you don't know how to teach. How'd you learn?"
The ponytail twitched. When Duke's eyes on him became uncomfortable and the silence stretched, the brunet held his hands up and rolled his shoulders once more. "Hey, look, we don't hafta do this…if it's too hard on you—"
"No!"
Joey started, flinching at Duke's unexpected outburst. Duke swallowed, squared his frame and tucked his hands in his pockets. He dropped his head, then brought it up again, expression smoothed.
"No," he repeated levelly, "it's not. You're right – I'm not good at teaching. Well. Not good at teaching this, anyway." A preoccupied, predatory smile drifted across his features, vanishing when he realized that he was the subject of two intense stares. "So. For once, I'm going to need your help."
"That'll be a first," Joey snorted. Tristan nudged him, and he nudged back.
"If I'm going too fast, or you don't get something, tell me. Considering that it's you…" Duke needled, smiling indulgently on the blond boy, who narrowed his eyes, "…I can imagine that it'll take a while to sink in."
"You sayin' I'm dumb?"
"Well, if I'm wrong…" Duke stepped delicately backward, inviting the other boy to follow him, "prove it."
Eager to do just that, Joey came right along after him.
Duke looked up then, spying Tristan watching them move away. The big brunet looked uncertain, but when those hazel eyes flicked up to meet the green ones taunting him from across the room, there was no denying that he didn't want to be left behind.
"You gonna stay over there and pout, bud?" Joey turned back and grinned.
All he had to do was follow.
He did.
