Chapter 16: Crushes
General Dakeya woke up late in the morning to a message beeping on his computer. Funny, he thought fuzzily, pushing himself up from his sheets and padding over to it, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I don't remember leaving that on. He shrugged and sat at the terminal, clicking the blinking icon.
Good morning. A pair of eyes flickered onto the screen, drowning out the whole desktop, and the general, clicking about with his mouse, found that he could not turn the image off. The eyes took up the majority of the screen and all other features were scrambled. They were dark eyes, blue, a beautiful color, but lazy and menacing, pupils contracted to angry black dots. This goes out to General Dakeya and his friends. I have a proposition. There was a pause and Dakeya was beginning to get alarmed. Stop the attacks on Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian and I will not kill you. Otherwise . . . Images flashed in boxes on the screen: men fighting, Mariemaia's coup, the war of 196, Treize Kushrenada, and then five small windows appeared, drowning out the eyes, each holding a flurry of explosions before five machines flew through the fire in their own respective window and into clear view. Gundams. Otherwise you will have to deal with us.
The message flickered off, leaving Dakeya's silent desktop.
Back in his room, he heard the phone ring, but he could not move.
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"Hey, Aiden!" Kia called brightly as he pushed her down the hospital hallway. They were taking her home from the hospital and the rest of the family was down getting the car.
"Hn?" he asked, happy that she was awake.
A small face turned up to look at him. "Can we get some balloons? I like balloons!"
Aiden smiled at her. "I'll see what I can do."
She fell silent for a moment as they got on the elevator. "Penny for your thoughts," he murmured.
Kia sighed. "Quatre."
"Oh." Aiden nodded. "Miss him?" He looked at her and she tried to smile.
"No, he's not my type." She looked down at the brand new teddy bear she was hugging.
Aiden looked at her, surprised. "What happened?"
Kia blushed and looked away. "I kind of . . . saw him and this girl," her light voice was laced with disappointment. "She was really pretty. They were . . . kissing and all." She blushed again and wouldn't look at him.
Aiden's eyebrows shot up. Girl . . . "What color hair?"
"Blonde," Kia looked curiously up at him.
Aiden smirked. "Weird eyebrows?"
At her nod he laughed outright and the doors opened.
"Dorothy Catalonia," he murmured, wheeling her to the front of the hospital where his parents were waiting. Quatre, you sly stud. No wonder he wouldn't tell me who had helped him.
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When Ryo left, Relena came out to find Duo and Quatre talking. They stopped when they saw her, and Quatre put an arm around her. "Come on, princess, let's talk." He led her up to his room and she looked around dubiously as he got a bottle from his medicine cabinet. He popped a pill out and handed it to her. "Here, that should help you sleep. You need to rest right now, but I'll get you up later." Relena looked at the little white pill. "Relena," Quatre put a hand on her shoulder, handing her a glass of water. She looked at him. "I'll find him for you. He needs someone to help him as much as I did."
She blinked, nodded dumbly, and took the pill.
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Rakki sat on the whitewashed fence, swinging her long legs in time to the radio, and licked at her popsicle. Her long dark hair was down and blowing lightly in the wind as she watched her little brother play in the back yard.
Pink Gundams, she snorted. How gay. Her dark, avid eyes wandered around restlessly. L1 was so dull! She licked vengefully at the cherry ice-stick and pouted. Here she was, beauty, intellect, charm, rotting away in this stupid hole-in-the-ground. The neighbors weren't even all that interesting! The house on their left had an old woman whose dog was trained to do its business in other peoples' yards and the one on the right didn't even seem to have anyone in it. She'd tried to break into the shed late the other night, but the lock was pretty complex just to protect a bunch of tools.
She was half finished with her popsicle when a TV blasted from the house on the right, and she nearly fell off the fence as a door opened and banged closed, someone coming around the side of the house. A moment more and she dropped her popsicle on her foot.
Ahem.
Rakki stared at the man that unlocked the shed and stepped inside for a moment, then came back out with a toolbox and pulled the plastic covering off of a machine she had peeked at the other day. It seemed to be a car engine, but she wasn't sure and didn't really care as the fellow opened the box and pulled out a few tools, tinkering expertly with the big stupid piece of metal. He was in a grease-stained white t-shirt and jeans that clung to his strong legs. Rakki felt herself flush at the way his hair fell into his eyes.
"Aiden!" a small voice sounded from the back door and the man turned quickly, watching attentively as a little girl was helped down the porch steps by an older man and left at the picnic table.
"Watch her, will you, son?" the older man asked, and the object of Rakki's interest nodded tersely, casting a glance to the little girl who had pulled a few Pink Gundams out of her backpack.
The Object then turned back to his work and told the little girl. "Ask before you do anything."
The little girl nodded, not paying much attention to him, and Rakki licked the melted cherry juice off of her lips. He had a great voice. Just perfect for . . .
"Hey, you!" Rakki turned in horror as her little brother leaned across the fence toward the little girl, earning a hard glance from The Object. "You like Pink Gundams?"
"Yeah!" the little girl answered.
"Wanna come over and play?" Rakki sat stunned as her little brother waved a Gundam at the little girl.
"Can't! I'm recovering!" the little girl shouted back.
"From what?!" her brother yelled, even though they were quite within normal speaking range.
The little girl opened her mouth, but shut it when The Object placed his slender tanned hands silently on her shoulders.
"She had her appendix out," he replied calmly. Rakki's little brother asked if the girl had a scar, but The Object's glare made him shrink back.
Rakki felt her chance to meet The Object slipping away, so swiftly entered their exchange.
"That's rude, Taru!" she chastised the boy, sleekly getting down from the fence and striding slowly over, pushing long silk hair back across her shoulder with a lingering, sensual movement. Her eyes paused on The Object's as she spoke to her dark-haired brother. Her chin was tilted down and she had to look at him from beneath long black lashes.
Yummy, she smoldered, licking her parched lips.
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Quatre rubbed the back of his neck, blinking at the laptop's screen. Duo had promised not to let anyone know where Heero was, but that didn't mean Quatre couldn't find him. Apparently, the braided pilot thought he should be found as well, since he had dropped a not-so-subtle hint about the codes on his information of Heero being easier to crack than butter. Unfortunately, Quatre had never had much luck with butter, either.
"Working on something?" Quatre didn't turn as the figure came up behind him and started rubbing his shoulders.
"Mm, lower," he murmured, and sighed happily, taking one of the slim white hands in his own and kissing it. "You have a magic touch, Dorothy."
"I know," she hugged him with her free arm as he held onto her other hand. "That's what two years working in a Japanese massage parlor will do for you."
"And make you bilingual," he smiled up at her lightly and she kissed his nose.
"Tri, honey," she corrected, "I speak French."
"Speak computer?" he quirked an eyebrow, "Maybe you could curse this thing out for me."
Dorothy laughed and sat with him, toying absently with the blonde hair at the nape of his neck as he finally broke through Duo's codes.
"Bingo," he muttered, drawing up Heero's file.
Dorothy leaned over his shoulder and smiled, her hair brushing his cheek as she scanned the file. She smelled like honeysuckle from the shampoo she used, and Quatre breathed the scent deeply, turning his face a little so that the long golden strands tickled his nose.
Dorothy paused and blinked.
"What are you doing?" She looked down where Quatre was jerking back and blushing.
He coughed. "Sorry." When she kept looking at him curiously, he explained, "You smell nice."
Her eyes softened and she bent to him, taking his mouth with hers and tasting him gently. "Thank you," she murmured. "Now," her eyes sparked serious, "you have to get some sleep. I'll take care of this and book your tickets to L1."
Quatre sat back sleepily, watching her move gracefully to his bed and pull down the covers, then move to his bureau and open a drawer to pull out his pajamas. She smiled and turned around, waving the camel-speckled flannel things at him, then tossed them to him.
"Go change," she ordered and he obligingly went into the bathroom. When he came back, she was at the computer, ordering his and Relena's tickets online.
He glanced at the screen then bent and placed a lingering kiss on her cheek. "Good night."
"Good night, Quatre," she watched him slip into bed and give her a sweet smile, cheek pressed drowsily against his pillow, before snuggling down and falling into a deep dreamless sleep.