Chapter 3: Saku (To make)
It was late in the afternoon when Quatre opened the door to reveal a heavily-laden Duo, hoisting a pair of massive speakers, a larger audio device, and a shopping bag full of CDs.
The powerful auditory equipment looked threatening, especially the vast squarish one with the large hole. Has he never heard of headphones?
"Heya Quat! Finally got something decent to listen to, lemme just go put this up" Quatre could only watch dumbfounded as the braided boy hefted his tower of sound projection power up the stairs and only just squeezed into the hallway leading to his room.
A few minutes later, everything in the house rattled.
WAR! Fuck the system!
WAR! Fuck the system!
A painful bass line rumbled in vast waves from Duo's guest room, and made Quatre faintly nauseous as he climbed the stairs to scream at the closed door to turn it the hell down before he came in there and-
Abruptly the music died off somewhat, and Duo swiftly threw open the door, dragged Quatre in, and dumped him uncerimoniously on the bed.
"Q-man! This CD sounds AWESOME on the speakers!"
"Ungh?"
"System of a Down, man! Old school heavy metal?"
"By heavy metal I'm guessing you're NOT referring to Gundanium?"
Duo snorted increduously. "Bang boy! You have no musical FLARE!! Come on, listen to this" He punched a few buttons on the stereo and gave the massive nob on the front a judicious twist that frightened Quatre to his very marrow.
He was surprised in a vaguely pleasant way that he survived the initial shock, although he wasn't sure if he'd ever hear very well again. The music itself was strange and twisting, the words nonsensical, but the overally effect wasinteresting. Plus the lead singer had by far the most impressive range he had ever heard, going from throat-tearing scream to pleasant tenor in seconds.
When the song came to a sceeching halt, Quatre actually felt a small urge to finish the CD, but decided it could wait until it could be put onto something lessear-splitting. "It was.loud, Duo." He smiled as his friend's face fell. "But good. Don't give up hope on us goody-two-shoes rich boys yet."
The face rose again. "Oh I won't, because I also picked up a CLASSIC action movie, which you will be watching tonight come hell or high water. If the power goes out you can look at the disc until you can read the scratches on it." Duo was very nearly foaming at the mouth now. "If your eyes are put out, you'll have to kill yourself to watch it in the afterlife, and-"
"All right, all right! But I call the chair!"
The chair sat in front of Quatre's own home entertainment system, and cost slightly more than it. It had it's own speakers, a wireless phone built into one arm, maybe a foot thick coat of stuffing inside the supple leather, a small lever that triggered the foot rest at an angle that was nearly illegal out of shear comfortableness, and a massaging function controlled from buttons on the arm that didn't have the phone.
Duo had admired it, and in fact considered stealing it, both rather openly.
"ButbutbutI wanted the chair! Come on, you can always sit in it, right? This might be," Duo lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper "MY ONLY CHANCE!"
Quatre was adamant. If anyone was sitting in his chair, his SPECIAL CHAIR, it was him. If Duo wanted it so bad he could sit on his lap.
He was, of course, totally unprepared for Duo to do just that, but in no way opposed to it. On the inside at least.
"Oh Q-man? I've come for the chair."
"Sorry Duo, there's a rather nice couch right there, so if you could just-"
"Pleeeeeaaase?"
"Well, no."
"Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaassse?"
"No!"
"Well then. Drastic measures it is."
And so
"You know, this isn't really polite at all. Sitting on the host I mean."
"Shhh, I'm TRYING to watch the movie."
"I imagine you see this as some kind of twisted revenge for me not giving you the towel."
"I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Of course you don't."
The movie itself was not a winner (so to speak) to Quatre, he had seen enough shooting in his life and the idea of an artificial reality seemed sofarfetched. Duo was in no way prepared to accept this judgement of course, but his position was in more than one way untenable.
"QUIT PINCHING ME!"
"Quit wriggling!
"You know if you weren't so damn comfy"
Between flashes of a black leather suited actor blowing holes in a lobby and a group of soldiers, Quatre was struck by breif flashes of feeling from Duo. I wonderDuo? Quatre paused the movie.
"Duo? Are you gay?"
Faster than Quatre had ever seen him move Duo was off the chair and standing a foot or so in front of him blushing furiously. "WHAT!?"
"It's ok! Really. You can still sit on my lap. I'm just wondering-god, I'm sorry, it's not really any of my business. It's just-no, never mind, I'm really-"
"No, damn, I'm the one who should be sorry, I should have justdammit." Duo sighed heavily. "I don'tLIKE guys" A small part of Quatre that he had been fairly sure didn't exist died.
"But" Duo ground his teeth. "You."
Silence reigned.
"Alright, I'll go find a hotel-"
Quatre grabbed Duo and sat him firmly in his former position. "Shh." Not releasing his hold, he tapped play with his foot and finished watching the movie without ever letting go of his braided prisoner.
Once the final credits rolled and some rather loud guitar music played, Quatre spoke again. "First things first, you can stay here as long as you want and chances are I'll make you stay longer. There's very few-no one else I'd rather have as a guest. So don't even think about it.
"Now then, what the hell could you find to like about me? I'm a a rich brat, remember? The wuss?" Quatre was getting bitter and he knew it, but he had always felt a littlewell, left out of the group of other pilots because he had a pacifist background.
Trowa choosing Heero over him hadn't helped.
"There's plenty to like about you, Quat. In fact, there isn't really much to NOT like." Duo's voice sounded strange from behind him, but it was loud and clear. "You're beautiful, you're kind and gracious, and even if you weren't a brutally trained and altered soldier or the God of Death it takes a strong and brave person to pilot a Gundam. And on top of that you'renice. None of the other pilots I could ever talk to. Well, Heero might disagree, but you know what I mean."
Duo smiled, realized that Quatre couldn't see, and turned around partway to display it. He found himself a little closer to the blond boy than he had planned, almost nose to nose. Soft breaths tickled faces. Eyes locked.
"Is this the part where you kiss me?" Asked Duo after a moment.
"Actually this is the bit where you kiss ME." Pointed out Quatre, perhaps a little better acquianted with romantic literature and movies.
"I see." A pause. "And how would you feel about that?"
"I'm not wholly opposed to the idealater. For now"
"For now you're pining over an idiot?"
"WHAT!?"
"That's who Trowa is. After all, he left you for Heero. He must be an idiot."
Quatre made a sound like a field full of fish dying while he thought about the words and their implications. "Idiot or not," He finally continued, "Let's justdamn, I said 'let's', didn't I?"
"Yep. Ya did."
"Sorry."
"None of that! I think I like it."
"You mean we think we like it?"
"Oh shut up, bang boy!"
(Short chapter, sumimasenbeing kicked off of computer, still haven't eaten a single honest-to-god meal all day, promised I'd put a chapter up. Well, I did! Music is System of a Down's Steal this Album!, and the movie is The Matrix. Next chapter as soon as I finish it. Cryptic, huh?)