Braids of a Feather
By AlantisB
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot. Understand?
A/N: Wow! ^.^ I got four reviews. Cool! I hope I get more this time. I've been thinking about opening up my own web page for all my fanfics, a shrine you could say. But I'm sorry (and embarrassed) to say that my HTML skills leave much to be desired. If anyone of you could help me, I'd appreciate it.
Enjoy the story!
"..talking.."
'..thinking.."
OoOo scene change
OoOoOoOoOo
The console flashed on and the face of the perfect soldier retained with no emotion. "Wufei."
Wufei jumped up in surprise and yelped as he hit his head from under the console. He growled and cursed in Chinese and climbed out from under the console. He wiped the grease off his face and sat in his cockpit. "What the hell do you want Heero? I was in the middle of fixing my gundam," replied the annoyed Asian.
"We have to get going."
Wufei struggled not to give into his temptation and smash the screen. Sometimes Heero stated the obvious like Wufei didn't know. 'I was just playing Shogi* under my console, Yuy.' He thought sarcastically. 'As Maxwell would say, "No duh!"' He looked up at Heero and glared.
"I know that baka*, but I can't find the problem area."
Heero stared at him for a moment then nodded like he had come to a decision. He typed in a few commands and his gundam changed into jet mode. "Strap in. I'll carry you to Earth then you can have the mechanics look at it." The screen went blank as Heero ended the transmission.
Wufei frowned but didn't object. He bucked himself in and his gundam shifted as Wing attached itself to him to carry him. He would let Heero carry his gundam, but it doesn't mean he would like it.
OoOoOoOoOo
Duo walked into the restaurant. It was closed up and the tables had the chairs resting on them. Only one was down and that was the one Ukyo was sitting in, writing on some papers. He walked over and grabbed one of the chairs and set it down next to hers. He sat down and leaned forward onto the back and rested his head on his arms as he watched the young chief do her homework.
"Hello sugah, you have a nice time with Ran-chan?" Ukyo looked up briefly from her schoolwork and smiled at Duo cheerfully.
Duo frowned slightly and turned his head away and stared at the wall. "I don't want to talk about it." He noticed the other's chair moving back and a hand resting on his shoulder. He shrugged her hand off and got up from the chair.
"What did the jackass do?"
Duo blinked and looked over at Ukyo who was frowning slightly and gazing at him with worry and concern. Duo raised an eyebrow and looked at the young Nerima chief with question written on his face.
Ukyo smiled innocently and folded her arms and looked at him worriedly. "Ran-chan sticks his foot in his mouth a lot around here, sugah. It's not uncommon. Just ask his other fiancée, Akane." Her expression darkened some at the mention of his other fiancée.
Duo sighed and shifted back and forth on his feet and grabbed his braid to play with the end of it for comfort and support. He gazed at Ukyo with a serious expression. "Promise ya won't deck me or kick me out if I tell ya?" Ukyo looked surprised for a moment then suspicious.
"Yes."
Duo sighed again and looked at the floor for a moment. He was silent for a few minutes to collect his thoughts then he looked up over at the blank wall not really seeing anything. "See, I grew up on the colonies and they don't have the same predigests as people on Earth do." He paused for a moment then glanced at Ukyo.
"That means that its a lot more..tolerated for certain things. It's like this," He grinned at her slightly. "I'm gay, homosexual, yaoi. Whatever ya wanna call it. I'm it." He looked down at the floor and shifted on his feet again. "I go for guys, but I flirt with girls. Anyway, Ranma and Ryoga took me to the Nekohaten restaurant for some lunch and my food was drugged. Shampoo, that purple hair girl, asked me questions of why I'm here. And I couldn't control what I said and I told some stuff about an ex of mine."
His eyes seemed to tear up and his voice cracked some. "Then the chick goes and says "You males like" and I couldn't control my answer again and I said yes." He started to hold himself with his arms and didn't dare look at Ukyo. "She then asked Ranma what he thought of it and..and..he said it was disgusting."
Duo couldn't continue without falling to pieces in front of the girl he barely knew. His pride wouldn't allow him to cry; Boys don't cry. He heard footsteps and felt arms wrap around him and he couldn't hold it back anymore. Some tears slipped past his defense and wetted the young girl's shirt. She held him comfortably and whispered in soothing tones in his ears. He continued to whisper:
"He's my best friend, the guy I'd take a bullet for. And he hates me. He hates me.."
Ukyo squeezed him tighter and tried to comfort the young American who she had only known for a day. She gazed down at the top of his head and sighed as she heard the torment the young boy was going through. 'No one deserves this,' she thought. 'Duo shouldn't be crying here with me. He's going to pieces and a "sorry" from Ranma might not fix this mistake like all the other times.' Ukyo looked out the window to the darkening sky. 'Oh Ran-chan, you have so few friends. Why lose this one who cares about you _as a friend_ and is willing to take a bullet for you.'
OoOoOoOoOo
The Next Day
Ranma sighed inaudibly as he walked along the fence with his fiancée and moneybag Nabiki to school. He watched his feet walk along the spikes of the fence. He was worried about Duo, his best friend. He could tell he hurt him bad but it freaked him out that his best friend in the world preferred guys. Duo would always flirt with the girls in middle school but after he thought about it, Duo had never dated any of them. He would string them along and be the bad boy while having his own fan club woo over him all the time. Boy, he was really doing some heavy-duty thinking today.
'Must be that mallet.' He thought. Ranma had gotten Akane mad at him again and she had mallet him into LEO this morning. He shook himself mentally from the introspective thoughts. 'She musta hit me harder then I thought.' He glanced over at his fiancée and almost rolled his eyes to the sky. Akane was stomping instead of walking, her fists were closed tight and her knuckles showed white. Ranma wondered what the hell he did to set off the uncute ticking time bomb.
He glanced over at Nabiki and frowned slightly at the slightly gazed look she had in her eyes. He didn't like that look; it was the look she got when she knew she was going to get a lot of money for something. Something he probably wouldn't like either. Ranma prayed to Kami-sama that it didn't involve him and bikinis.
"Saotome, isn't that your friend over there?"
Ranma looked over to where Nabiki was looking and saw his best friend Duo leaning against the tree. He had on black baggy jeans (with a silver chain lopping on one side of his pants), black combat boots and a black baggy long sleeve shirt with a hood on the back and draw strings near the neck. On the front of the shirt it said in nice, sparkling, red bold letters: '0% Tenshi*' in Japanese kanji. A pair of headphones was over his ears and the CD player was in his huge pockets. He was the perfect image of an American teenage boy.
'Well,' Ranma mused to himself a bit sarcastically. 'He's in a fine, cheerful mood today.'
Duo lifted his arm and ran his fingers through his bangs and Ranma's eyes narrowed when he noticed a white bandage wrapped around Duo's wrists when the part of his sleeve slipped down a little. 'I can't believe he still cuts! He got out of that, didn't he?' Ranma started to feel guilty. 'Was that because of me?'
Ranma lingered to watch Duo some more before Kuno jumped out and attacked Ranma bringing him out of his thoughts. "HOLD FOUL DEMON! The gods smile down on me today! I shall strike vengeance on this evil. Behold!"
Duo looked up at the word 'demon' and saw some bokken-wheeling idiot attacking Ranma. The word demon reminded him of the times he was called "Maxwell's Demon" all those years ago. He smirked as he watched Ranma easily slip past the guy's defenses and knock him out. Then frowned when he remembered exactly what Ranma made him slip back into. If the jerk got hurt, he wouldn't care at all. The CD song changed as the last one ended and it began again with the song "Desert Rose". '...I dream of love that's timeless in my head..'
Duo glanced at the fight once more before he headed into the school to get to class.
Ranma spied Duo walking in and he and Akane headed into the school while Nabiki collected her bets of the fight.
OoOoOoOoOo
"Class," began the teacher's voice. "We have a new student. Please," she looked over at Duo. "Introduce yourself to the class and tell a little about yourself."
Duo took off his headphones and let them rest on his shoulders. He glanced around the room and noticed Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo was in this class. He almost sighed in depression. He pasted a grin on his face and started to talk with his usual cheer. "'Names Duo Maxwell! I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie. That's me in a nutshell." He flashed them a wicked grin. "I just transferred from colony L2 in space and I'm the best mechanic there is! I own a salvage yard called 'Junk R Us'." He paused for a moment then continued. "I also know a little martial arts and I wanna warn ya to think twice of callin me a girl." He looked over to the teacher. "That enough, teach?"
"Quite, please take the seat behind Saotome-san, Maxwell-san."
Duo walked over and sat down behind Ranma without a word or a glance. Ranma couldn't pay attention for the rest of the class for he was too busy in his thoughts.
OoOoOoOoOo
The day went by quickly for Duo. At least, quickly as in he slept in almost every class. He couldn't get over that he got back into old ways with two little words from Ranma. What would the others think?
They had never seen him cut, his scars were too faded for any of them to see when he had the rare times of not wearing sleeves. With these brand new scars the others might get worried. The Duo they knew was the one that Doctor G created. Not this part of him, the serious student, the smart ass, sarcastic, intelligent Duo.
He shook himself mentally from the dark thoughts and sat down on the side of the gym since he had written (and forged) a note from his "parents" to the teacher that he couldn't participate in the gym activities for the rest of the week. He noticed a couple of guys were laughing and pointing at him and he could guess what they were laughing about. His yard long braid, no doubt.
The boys were strong looking, had average muscles and wicked smirks on their faces. Great, they probably are looking to stroke their egos if they beat up the pretty boy. Duo smirked under his bangs and cracked his knuckles unnoticed.
He could take 'em. Piece O' Cake.
He smiled charmingly and waved the boys over like he thought they wanted to talk to him. He watched them walk over. Well, time to see if all this blood loss had affected any of his skills. He almost felt sorry for the poor guys.
Almost.
OoOoOoOoOo
Did you like it? I hope you did! I focused a lot more on Duo and Ranma in this chapter because well, this fic is heading toward the end and its time to pull everything together now!
^.~ It won't be long now, a few more chapters and you all will FINALLY know what happens! Stay tuned! After this fic is finished, I plan to work on Love of a Mortal some more, like add another chapter and then I'm going to write (maybe) on my Quatre-centered fanfic. Then when that is finished, I might do another Duo-centered one. Or it might be the other way around. Tell me which you want when you review!
Ja!
Baka- Idiot in Japanese
Shogi- Japanese board game similar to Chess. It's called "Go" in English.
Tenshi- Angel in Japanese.
By AlantisB
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot. Understand?
A/N: Wow! ^.^ I got four reviews. Cool! I hope I get more this time. I've been thinking about opening up my own web page for all my fanfics, a shrine you could say. But I'm sorry (and embarrassed) to say that my HTML skills leave much to be desired. If anyone of you could help me, I'd appreciate it.
Enjoy the story!
"..talking.."
'..thinking.."
OoOo scene change
OoOoOoOoOo
The console flashed on and the face of the perfect soldier retained with no emotion. "Wufei."
Wufei jumped up in surprise and yelped as he hit his head from under the console. He growled and cursed in Chinese and climbed out from under the console. He wiped the grease off his face and sat in his cockpit. "What the hell do you want Heero? I was in the middle of fixing my gundam," replied the annoyed Asian.
"We have to get going."
Wufei struggled not to give into his temptation and smash the screen. Sometimes Heero stated the obvious like Wufei didn't know. 'I was just playing Shogi* under my console, Yuy.' He thought sarcastically. 'As Maxwell would say, "No duh!"' He looked up at Heero and glared.
"I know that baka*, but I can't find the problem area."
Heero stared at him for a moment then nodded like he had come to a decision. He typed in a few commands and his gundam changed into jet mode. "Strap in. I'll carry you to Earth then you can have the mechanics look at it." The screen went blank as Heero ended the transmission.
Wufei frowned but didn't object. He bucked himself in and his gundam shifted as Wing attached itself to him to carry him. He would let Heero carry his gundam, but it doesn't mean he would like it.
OoOoOoOoOo
Duo walked into the restaurant. It was closed up and the tables had the chairs resting on them. Only one was down and that was the one Ukyo was sitting in, writing on some papers. He walked over and grabbed one of the chairs and set it down next to hers. He sat down and leaned forward onto the back and rested his head on his arms as he watched the young chief do her homework.
"Hello sugah, you have a nice time with Ran-chan?" Ukyo looked up briefly from her schoolwork and smiled at Duo cheerfully.
Duo frowned slightly and turned his head away and stared at the wall. "I don't want to talk about it." He noticed the other's chair moving back and a hand resting on his shoulder. He shrugged her hand off and got up from the chair.
"What did the jackass do?"
Duo blinked and looked over at Ukyo who was frowning slightly and gazing at him with worry and concern. Duo raised an eyebrow and looked at the young Nerima chief with question written on his face.
Ukyo smiled innocently and folded her arms and looked at him worriedly. "Ran-chan sticks his foot in his mouth a lot around here, sugah. It's not uncommon. Just ask his other fiancée, Akane." Her expression darkened some at the mention of his other fiancée.
Duo sighed and shifted back and forth on his feet and grabbed his braid to play with the end of it for comfort and support. He gazed at Ukyo with a serious expression. "Promise ya won't deck me or kick me out if I tell ya?" Ukyo looked surprised for a moment then suspicious.
"Yes."
Duo sighed again and looked at the floor for a moment. He was silent for a few minutes to collect his thoughts then he looked up over at the blank wall not really seeing anything. "See, I grew up on the colonies and they don't have the same predigests as people on Earth do." He paused for a moment then glanced at Ukyo.
"That means that its a lot more..tolerated for certain things. It's like this," He grinned at her slightly. "I'm gay, homosexual, yaoi. Whatever ya wanna call it. I'm it." He looked down at the floor and shifted on his feet again. "I go for guys, but I flirt with girls. Anyway, Ranma and Ryoga took me to the Nekohaten restaurant for some lunch and my food was drugged. Shampoo, that purple hair girl, asked me questions of why I'm here. And I couldn't control what I said and I told some stuff about an ex of mine."
His eyes seemed to tear up and his voice cracked some. "Then the chick goes and says "You males like" and I couldn't control my answer again and I said yes." He started to hold himself with his arms and didn't dare look at Ukyo. "She then asked Ranma what he thought of it and..and..he said it was disgusting."
Duo couldn't continue without falling to pieces in front of the girl he barely knew. His pride wouldn't allow him to cry; Boys don't cry. He heard footsteps and felt arms wrap around him and he couldn't hold it back anymore. Some tears slipped past his defense and wetted the young girl's shirt. She held him comfortably and whispered in soothing tones in his ears. He continued to whisper:
"He's my best friend, the guy I'd take a bullet for. And he hates me. He hates me.."
Ukyo squeezed him tighter and tried to comfort the young American who she had only known for a day. She gazed down at the top of his head and sighed as she heard the torment the young boy was going through. 'No one deserves this,' she thought. 'Duo shouldn't be crying here with me. He's going to pieces and a "sorry" from Ranma might not fix this mistake like all the other times.' Ukyo looked out the window to the darkening sky. 'Oh Ran-chan, you have so few friends. Why lose this one who cares about you _as a friend_ and is willing to take a bullet for you.'
OoOoOoOoOo
The Next Day
Ranma sighed inaudibly as he walked along the fence with his fiancée and moneybag Nabiki to school. He watched his feet walk along the spikes of the fence. He was worried about Duo, his best friend. He could tell he hurt him bad but it freaked him out that his best friend in the world preferred guys. Duo would always flirt with the girls in middle school but after he thought about it, Duo had never dated any of them. He would string them along and be the bad boy while having his own fan club woo over him all the time. Boy, he was really doing some heavy-duty thinking today.
'Must be that mallet.' He thought. Ranma had gotten Akane mad at him again and she had mallet him into LEO this morning. He shook himself mentally from the introspective thoughts. 'She musta hit me harder then I thought.' He glanced over at his fiancée and almost rolled his eyes to the sky. Akane was stomping instead of walking, her fists were closed tight and her knuckles showed white. Ranma wondered what the hell he did to set off the uncute ticking time bomb.
He glanced over at Nabiki and frowned slightly at the slightly gazed look she had in her eyes. He didn't like that look; it was the look she got when she knew she was going to get a lot of money for something. Something he probably wouldn't like either. Ranma prayed to Kami-sama that it didn't involve him and bikinis.
"Saotome, isn't that your friend over there?"
Ranma looked over to where Nabiki was looking and saw his best friend Duo leaning against the tree. He had on black baggy jeans (with a silver chain lopping on one side of his pants), black combat boots and a black baggy long sleeve shirt with a hood on the back and draw strings near the neck. On the front of the shirt it said in nice, sparkling, red bold letters: '0% Tenshi*' in Japanese kanji. A pair of headphones was over his ears and the CD player was in his huge pockets. He was the perfect image of an American teenage boy.
'Well,' Ranma mused to himself a bit sarcastically. 'He's in a fine, cheerful mood today.'
Duo lifted his arm and ran his fingers through his bangs and Ranma's eyes narrowed when he noticed a white bandage wrapped around Duo's wrists when the part of his sleeve slipped down a little. 'I can't believe he still cuts! He got out of that, didn't he?' Ranma started to feel guilty. 'Was that because of me?'
Ranma lingered to watch Duo some more before Kuno jumped out and attacked Ranma bringing him out of his thoughts. "HOLD FOUL DEMON! The gods smile down on me today! I shall strike vengeance on this evil. Behold!"
Duo looked up at the word 'demon' and saw some bokken-wheeling idiot attacking Ranma. The word demon reminded him of the times he was called "Maxwell's Demon" all those years ago. He smirked as he watched Ranma easily slip past the guy's defenses and knock him out. Then frowned when he remembered exactly what Ranma made him slip back into. If the jerk got hurt, he wouldn't care at all. The CD song changed as the last one ended and it began again with the song "Desert Rose". '...I dream of love that's timeless in my head..'
Duo glanced at the fight once more before he headed into the school to get to class.
Ranma spied Duo walking in and he and Akane headed into the school while Nabiki collected her bets of the fight.
OoOoOoOoOo
"Class," began the teacher's voice. "We have a new student. Please," she looked over at Duo. "Introduce yourself to the class and tell a little about yourself."
Duo took off his headphones and let them rest on his shoulders. He glanced around the room and noticed Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo was in this class. He almost sighed in depression. He pasted a grin on his face and started to talk with his usual cheer. "'Names Duo Maxwell! I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie. That's me in a nutshell." He flashed them a wicked grin. "I just transferred from colony L2 in space and I'm the best mechanic there is! I own a salvage yard called 'Junk R Us'." He paused for a moment then continued. "I also know a little martial arts and I wanna warn ya to think twice of callin me a girl." He looked over to the teacher. "That enough, teach?"
"Quite, please take the seat behind Saotome-san, Maxwell-san."
Duo walked over and sat down behind Ranma without a word or a glance. Ranma couldn't pay attention for the rest of the class for he was too busy in his thoughts.
OoOoOoOoOo
The day went by quickly for Duo. At least, quickly as in he slept in almost every class. He couldn't get over that he got back into old ways with two little words from Ranma. What would the others think?
They had never seen him cut, his scars were too faded for any of them to see when he had the rare times of not wearing sleeves. With these brand new scars the others might get worried. The Duo they knew was the one that Doctor G created. Not this part of him, the serious student, the smart ass, sarcastic, intelligent Duo.
He shook himself mentally from the dark thoughts and sat down on the side of the gym since he had written (and forged) a note from his "parents" to the teacher that he couldn't participate in the gym activities for the rest of the week. He noticed a couple of guys were laughing and pointing at him and he could guess what they were laughing about. His yard long braid, no doubt.
The boys were strong looking, had average muscles and wicked smirks on their faces. Great, they probably are looking to stroke their egos if they beat up the pretty boy. Duo smirked under his bangs and cracked his knuckles unnoticed.
He could take 'em. Piece O' Cake.
He smiled charmingly and waved the boys over like he thought they wanted to talk to him. He watched them walk over. Well, time to see if all this blood loss had affected any of his skills. He almost felt sorry for the poor guys.
Almost.
OoOoOoOoOo
Did you like it? I hope you did! I focused a lot more on Duo and Ranma in this chapter because well, this fic is heading toward the end and its time to pull everything together now!
^.~ It won't be long now, a few more chapters and you all will FINALLY know what happens! Stay tuned! After this fic is finished, I plan to work on Love of a Mortal some more, like add another chapter and then I'm going to write (maybe) on my Quatre-centered fanfic. Then when that is finished, I might do another Duo-centered one. Or it might be the other way around. Tell me which you want when you review!
Ja!
Baka- Idiot in Japanese
Shogi- Japanese board game similar to Chess. It's called "Go" in English.
Tenshi- Angel in Japanese.
