Authors note: Ok apologies, weird story line etc, um, not quite sure how I came up with this one……
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of it's characters, although, if anyone is willing to give me them I'd like Heero, Duo and Quatre please.
Warnings: Hmmm, warnings, oh yeah. A bit of Duo punching Wufei and being bad tempered.
"Ow my heeeeead!" Moaned Duo Maxwell.
The pilot of Gundam Deathscythe hell had just come back from a mission and, to say the least, was not in a good mood.
"Duo, what's wrong?" asked Quatre, the blond haired pilot immediately concerned.
"My head you idiot! It hurts, why do you think I've been clutching it?"
"Um, stress?"
"Aaaargh!" with a loud curse Duo stomped off towards his room, banging into Heero in the process. "Hey watch where you're going!"
"Duo, what's wrong?"
Duo snarled angrily, "WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP ASKING THAT?!!" He yelled, before storming off down the corridor.
Heero glanced enquiringly at Trowa, who had been standing behind Quatre during the entire episode. Trowa merely shrugged and turned back to his book, which had been interrupted by Duo's ranting.
Meanwhile Duo, storming down the corridor, encountered Wufei.
"Maxwell, did you put blue dye in my toothpaste?"
"NO!!! NOW GO AWAY OR I'LL PAINT NATAKU PINK!!!!"
"Eeesh, I was only asking, I mean, it's the sort of thing you'd do and…" but Wufei never finished his sentence as he was hit by a flying object, namely Duo's fist.
Duo never stopped after punching Wufei, he just stormed on down the corridor, knocking things over. Until he was in his room, lying down with an ice pack on his head, no one even dared to breathe.
"What's wrong with him?" Grumbled Wufei to the other pilots, clutching his bloody nose.
They were all assembled in the drawing room of the large house they were staying in, trying to keep Duo asleep for as long as possible by being quiet.
"I don't know." Rejoined Quatre, "He was fine before he went on this mission, just seemed…tetchy afterwards."
"Well you'd think he would be more friendly, given it's nearly Christmas. Do you know he threatened to paint Nataku pink? Pink I ask you, it's such an injustice…"
"Shut up!" chorused Heero and Trowa at the same time.
Quatre slapped himself on the forehead, "Christmas, that's it!"
Heero looked confused, "Huh?"
"Duo's an orphan Heero, he probably feels lonely at Christmas"
"Poor Duo!" Trowa cut in, "At least the rest of us can
remember people we knew, and at least we didn't see our homes destroyed in
front of us."
The others nodded sadly, and sat around in gloomy contemplation for a while. "Well we could try being a bit nicer to him!" Said Quatre, always one for bright ideas; "I mean after all, he's the one who makes jokes to keep us happy every day, where would we be without him?"
"I agree," Cut in Heero, "and the first thing we could do, is find him an aspirin or something to stop that headache, why don't we ask Howard if he has anything?"
"Good idea," chimed in Trowa, "let's go."
Wufei started up, "but what about Nataku? With the evil mood Duo's in, he could creep up in the middle of the night and….WHAM! I'd be the laughing stock of the colonies…" but Wufei was talking to himself, the other pilots had long gone.
**********
"Howard?"
"Hmmm? Whaaaaat." There was an audible thump from the other side of the door and then silence. Quatre tried again.
"Howard?" the door was opened and the three boys found themselves face to face with the errant mechanic/scientist. (A/N: Ok he probably isn't a scientist.)
"Oh hello boy's" He said, looking slightly surprised, "What do you want eh?"
"We came to ask you if you had any aspirin to stop Duo's headache, it's really bad…" Said Quatre, the undisputed spokesperson of the group.
"A headache pill you say, one moment…" Howard's head disappeared behind the door. There was another series of loud thumps and his head poked back round again, "here you are, only give him ONE mind, these are very powerful."
"Thanks!" Quatre took the small brown bottle and stuck it in his pocket.
Howard smiled, "See you boy's later then!" And with that the door slammed in the pilot's faces.
**********
"Sssh, be very quiet!" Wufei whispered as he and Quatre tiptoed across Duo's bedroom floor towards the bed.
"You're the one making the noise!" Quatre pointed out in a hushed voice as he skirted a pile of junk that lay on the floor like a human trap.
"Be quiet both of you!" Came Heero's voice from behind them as he watched anxiously from the door.
"Alright, alright, alright!" Grumbled Quatre, side stepping a mound of clothes.
As Quatre reached the bed, with Wufei right behind him, sword out and ready just in case, he dropped the soluble pill into Duo's sleeping water. "There, that should do it!" He breathed, "When he wakes up, he can drink that, and his headache will be gone."
*********
As the pilots assembled in the kitchen to wait for Duo to wake up, Heero said worriedly, "This is going to work right? I mean, he's not going to wake up, find something wrong with his drink, and kill us all?"
No one said a word.
Seeing even Heero this worried about the foul mood Duo was in was, to say the least, unnerving.
Suddenly a yell from the other end of the hall indicated that Howard was rapidly approaching. Quickly Quatre opened the door and let him in before he could tear it down.
"You've got…" Howard gasped, cheeks red from running the length of the house in under three seconds flat, "You've got, to stop Duo from…drinking the soluble headache pill!"
"Why?" Wufei asked puzzled, "After all, it's just a headache tablet…isn't it?"
Howard turned to look at the black-haired boy, "NO!!! It's my project that I was working on! The bottles became mixed up when I tidied the room!!"
Trowa spoke for the first time that day. "What will happen if he takes it then?"
"Who knows!" Moaned Howard, "I was originally looking for an anti-sleeping tablet for you boy's to take on your missions in case you got drugged by Oz, however, when I tested it, nothing happened!"
"Then why on earth are you so worried?"
"Because I tested it on a hamster!"
"OH!" There was the sound of four pairs of feet running for the door at exactly the same time and four voices crying out…
"Get off of me! We have to stop Duo drinking the water!"
"Well, you're the one that's keeping us stuck in the door!"
"Shut up both of you or we'll never get out of this mess!"
"Oh the injustice, trapped in a doorway…I'll never be able to look at you all the same way again!"
Suddenly four boy's fell forward onto the floor, Heero was the first one up, running down the corridor before anyone else was even standing.
Bursting into the bedroom he shared with Duo, he stopped short, blinking.
When the other three made it down the corridor they were stopped by Heero, standing in the doorway, rubbing his eyes extremely hard.
"What is it?" Quatre asked anxiously, has he become unconscious?"
Wufei risked peering out from behind Trowa's back now that he knew Duo was still asleep, or better still, unconscious. "I bet it's worse than that. Is he dead?" He asked hopefully.
"N…no, not exactly."
"What do you mean 'not exactly?'" Trowa asked suspiciously.
"Well, he's not exactly Duo any more…"
"WHAT!!!"
Anxiously Quatre entered the room, and encountered…
Backing out he looked at the other three solemnly, "It's rather strange…"
In the end Wufei got impatient, storming in front of everyone he stalked into Duo's room and stopped short. "But he's…he's…"
"A child again." Heero finished grimly for him.
"How…?"
"Howard's pill must have had an extremely bad side affect to it…" Groaned Trowa.
Suddenly, the small infant in the bed sat up, dwarfed by Duo's pyjama's, and looking extremely angry. "How old do you think he is?" Whispered Wufei. With any luck, by the time Duo was a teenager again, he'd be old enough to cope with him.
"I'd say about five." Whispered back Quatre.
The child that, even though it was about ten years younger, looked astoundingly like Duo, began to look around with a kind of ominous interest.
"Well," said Wufei, backing towards the door, one of us need's to look after him, while the other's help Howard find an antidote."
"Oh yeah, good idea!!" Said Trowa enthusiastically, also backing towards the door.
Heero suddenly began to get a horrible feeling he knew what was coming…
"You don't mind, do you Heero?" Quatre asked, before Heero could reply however, he had followed the other two pilots out of the door, slamming it behind him.
Running footsteps receded down the corridor.
The small Duo and Heero eyed one another.
Somehow, Heero thought, I get the feeling I am NOT
going to survive this mission…
To Be Continued.
A/N: Well, let me know what you think then.
