Welcome Distractions
By Rapunzel
Chapter 12: Eventual Understandings
At ten o'clock on Tuesday morning, Heero strode purposefully up the library steps. The look of grim determination on his face and the way his eyes never wavered but stared ahead at the doors caused the other students around him to watch with curiosity. One young woman scurried hastily out of his path as he marched through the automatic doors and into the building. Nor did his pace abate once he was inside. Within five minutes, he had searched the entire first floor.
Heero climbed the stairs to the second floor, a scowl set on his face. So far he wasn't having any more success than he had had the previous day. /That braided idiot had better be here!/ he thought.
Then, as he started his rounds on the second floor, he caught sight of a braid.
~*~*~
As he pushed his cart full of books along the isle between the shelves, Duo scanned the book titles. Most of them seemed to be social science books, a change from the literature books and poetry volumes he had been stacking for the past few days. Most of the literature books were kept on the fourth floor. He had requested to work either on the fourth floor or in the reserves section, two places he knew Heero never went. He didn't want to run into the other young man, even by accident, and he fancied that Heero didn't want to run into him either. This way, Heero could still come by the library to study without being bothered by Duo's presence.
Duo was so busy wallowing in self pity that he didn't hear the footsteps behind him or sense the presence of another person until a hand shot out, grabbed his braid, and pulled. Hard.
"OW!!" Duo yelped, spinning around to confront his tormentor. "What the fu..." He trailed off. "Heero?"
"That," Heero said calmly, "was for being an idiot and avoiding me."
Duo had to open and shut his mouth a few times before he was able to work up the proper indignation. "And you're one to talk!" he snapped angrily, grabbing a handful of Heero's messy hair and preparing to yank it in retaliation. "I spent three days waiting for you to come back, but you never showed!"
"I was sick," Heero said calmly, making no move to remove the hand tangled in his hair. "What's your excuse?"
Duo paused. "You were sick?"
Heero nodded. "With the flu or something. I had to skip classes for a week. Wufei had it too; I think he gave it to me."
Duo blinked, his eyes uncertain but hopeful. The hand in Heero's hair tightened but didn't pull. "You weren't mad at me?"
"No, of course not," Heero said. "I just wanted to- mph!"
Duo didn't wait to hear what Heero had wanted to do; he did what he had wanted to do for months and kissed him. Heero was caught unprepared and stumbled backwards into the bookshelves. Books fell down to land by their feet.
"Duo!" Heero gasped when Duo let him. "Don't!"
Duo drew back, uncertainty filling his eyes again.
"You shouldn't do that," Heero continued. "I might still be contagious. You could catch whatever I had."
Duo's eyes lit up. "I'll chance it!" he growled, and then kissed him again.
When they broke apart the second time, Duo smiled rather ruefully at Heero. "I probably should have asked first if you minded, shouldn't I?"
"Yes," Heero said, "but it's okay. I don't mind at all."
Duo beamed at him. Then he frown slightly and glanced at his watch. "Wait a minute. What are you doing here anyway? You're supposed to be in class right now."
Heero shrugged. "I'm ditching, I guess."
Duo's jaw dropped. "_You_? Mr. 'I've Never Missed a Lecture in My Life'?"
Heero looked slightly embarrassed. "I needed to talk to you, and I couldn't find you at the normal times, so here I am."
"You skipped class for me?" Duo said, his smile seeming at once amused and soft. "Heero, that's... Well, it's not exactly romantic, but I'm touched."
"Hn," Heero said. "I've already missed class for the last week; one more day isn't going to hurt."
"Shh! Heero, you're bursting my bubble!" Duo said mournfully.
Heero smiled and Duo laughed, and then they both knelt down and began retrieving the books that had fallen off the shelves earlier.
"I've made more work for you," Heero said apologetically.
"Hardly," Duo said. "Compared to all that," he gestured at the cart full of books, "this is hardly anything. Anyway, I get company now, so that makes it worth while."
"You could have had company yesterday too, if I had been able to find you," Heero said. "Where were you anyway?"
"Up on the fourth floor," Duo answered. "And if I'd known you wanted to talk to me, I would have made sure you found me."
He finished putting the books back in their proper order and turned to find Heero looking slightly confused. "What?"
"This library has a fourth floor?"
Duo laughed. "Yeah, that was my reaction when I first found out too. It does, but you can only get there using the side stairs or the elevator. Most people just use the front stairs and never bother going up there."
"So it's never very crowded, huh?"
"That's right."
Heero looked as though he were contemplating something. "Once I know where it is, I think you should stack books up there more often."
"Huh?"
"Well, if not many people go up there, it shouldn't be too hard to find a private place."
Duo smirked. "Heero, I like the way your mind works."
~*~*~
Quatre watched wide eyed as Duo sauntered through the kitchen, whistling lightly as he prepared dinner. "Well, someone certainly seems to be in a much better mood."
"Good," Hilde said, not even bothering to look at her cheerful roommate. "He's no fun when he's moping around."
Quatre had to agree that; the apartment had been far too quiet and gloomy for the past few days.
"So, Duo," Hilde called into the kitchen. "I take it you've finally got yourself a boyfriend."
Duo paused, one hand still reaching up towards the cupboard above the stove. "Is it that obvious?"
Hilde nodded. "The smile is a dead giveaway. Quatre only smiles like that after he's been laid."
"Hilde!" Quatre sputtered, going bright red in the face.
Even Duo blushed slightly. "It's not like that."
"Not yet, maybe."
Duo decided to keep his mouth shut.
"So how far have you gotten anyway?"
Duo lifted his chin in the air defiantly. "I don't see that that's any of your business."
"You tell her, Duo," Quatre muttered, his face still rather pink.
"Of course it's my business," Hilde said. "Remember what I told you about sleeping just on the other side of the wall? Even if it isn't my business now, it will be soon."
Duo was suddenly very busy with the pot he had on the stove, and kept his back turned to Hilde.
"Men are so easily embarrassed," she sighed before getting up from the table and heading towards her room.
Duo turned around and looked straight at Quatre's still slightly red tinged countenance. "We need to find that woman a boyfriend to get her off of our backs."
"Agreed," said Quatre.
Duo sighed and went back to his cooking. "At least Heero doesn't have to worry about that kind of interrogation from Wufei."
~*~*~
Heero might not have been subjected to an interrogation, but what he got when he returned to his room was not much better.
"That bloody woman! She'll suspect me of murdering her roommate next!"
"Wufei," Heero said, feeling his good mood slipping through his fingers at the mere sight of his angry roommate, "slow down and start from the beginning. What's Dorothy done this time?"
"It's not what she's done, it's what she's accused me of doing!"
/Just be patient,/ Heero told himself. /You know how he gets; getting frustrated with him won't help./ Out loud, he said, "What's she accused you of doing?"
"She accused me of killing her goldfish!"
Heero blinked. "That's all?"
"What do you mean, 'That's all'? It's more than enough!"
Heero sat down, sensing the beginning of a rant. He wasn't disappointed.
"How could I possibly be responsible for the death of her fish? I didn't even know she had a fish! On top of that, I've been sick for the past week, and in no condition to drag myself down the hall, let alone up the stairs, except for absolute emergencies! Goldfish don't live that long anyway; hers probably died from natural causes. But does she listen to reason? Oh no! Just because I pulled a few harmless pranks on her, she's got to blame everything that goes wrong on me!"
Heero sighed and wished he had gone home with Duo. The war between Dorothy and Wufei had been more or less at a standstill for the past week, due to the fact that one of the contestants was out of commission. Heero was not at all pleased to see the conflict resurrected.
"You go up there!" Wufei was saying. "Try to talk some reason into her! Goodness knows I can't!"
"Me?" Heero said. "Why should I go up there? She won't listen to me."
"You'll have better luck than I did," Wufei grumbled.
"Why do I think that's not saying much?"
~*~*~
Thirty minutes later, as he stood before room 210, knocking at the door, Heero asked himself why in the world he was doing this. Of course he knew why; any chance, however small, at forestalling Dorothy's wrath was a chance to be grabbed at. Still, he would rather have been almost anywhere else. After his little "misunderstanding" with Relena, he knew he hardly ranked high on her list of favorite people.
Fortunately or unfortunately for him, Dorothy was out, and it was Relena who answered the door. "Yes?" she said questioningly when she saw him. "What do you want?"
"Listen," Heero said. "About this thing with the goldfish..."
"Oh. You've heard about that already?" Relena seemed to be avoiding his eyes, but she spoke clearly enough. "Poor Bubbles. We held a little funeral for him in the girls' bathroom this morning."
"Wufei says that Dorothy thinks he killed your fish."
"I know she does," Relena said. "See, the thing was, we just got him a few weeks ago, so he was actually a pretty young fish. That's why she thinks Wufei did it."
"But he couldn't have!" Heero insisted. "We've both been sick for the past week; he's barely been able to leave the room, and if he had, I would have known it."
"Oh, I'm sure he didn't do it," Relena said. "But Dorothy..."
"Could you tell her about his alibi?" Heero asked, feeling rather foolish. Here he was, talking about the death of a goldfish as though it were a murder.
"Sure," Relena said, still not looking at him. "I'll pass it along. But I don't know if she'll be convinced."
"Thanks," Heero said. He knew the chances of Dorothy letting go of her conviction and her grudge against Wufei were slim, but slim was still better than none. At least he hoped so.
Tbc
I hope Blue Jeans gave her fish sensible names this time. I would really hate to have a repeat episode of the last time she had a fish named Bubbles...
Chapter 12: Eventual Understandings
At ten o'clock on Tuesday morning, Heero strode purposefully up the library steps. The look of grim determination on his face and the way his eyes never wavered but stared ahead at the doors caused the other students around him to watch with curiosity. One young woman scurried hastily out of his path as he marched through the automatic doors and into the building. Nor did his pace abate once he was inside. Within five minutes, he had searched the entire first floor.
Heero climbed the stairs to the second floor, a scowl set on his face. So far he wasn't having any more success than he had had the previous day. /That braided idiot had better be here!/ he thought.
Then, as he started his rounds on the second floor, he caught sight of a braid.
~*~*~
As he pushed his cart full of books along the isle between the shelves, Duo scanned the book titles. Most of them seemed to be social science books, a change from the literature books and poetry volumes he had been stacking for the past few days. Most of the literature books were kept on the fourth floor. He had requested to work either on the fourth floor or in the reserves section, two places he knew Heero never went. He didn't want to run into the other young man, even by accident, and he fancied that Heero didn't want to run into him either. This way, Heero could still come by the library to study without being bothered by Duo's presence.
Duo was so busy wallowing in self pity that he didn't hear the footsteps behind him or sense the presence of another person until a hand shot out, grabbed his braid, and pulled. Hard.
"OW!!" Duo yelped, spinning around to confront his tormentor. "What the fu..." He trailed off. "Heero?"
"That," Heero said calmly, "was for being an idiot and avoiding me."
Duo had to open and shut his mouth a few times before he was able to work up the proper indignation. "And you're one to talk!" he snapped angrily, grabbing a handful of Heero's messy hair and preparing to yank it in retaliation. "I spent three days waiting for you to come back, but you never showed!"
"I was sick," Heero said calmly, making no move to remove the hand tangled in his hair. "What's your excuse?"
Duo paused. "You were sick?"
Heero nodded. "With the flu or something. I had to skip classes for a week. Wufei had it too; I think he gave it to me."
Duo blinked, his eyes uncertain but hopeful. The hand in Heero's hair tightened but didn't pull. "You weren't mad at me?"
"No, of course not," Heero said. "I just wanted to- mph!"
Duo didn't wait to hear what Heero had wanted to do; he did what he had wanted to do for months and kissed him. Heero was caught unprepared and stumbled backwards into the bookshelves. Books fell down to land by their feet.
"Duo!" Heero gasped when Duo let him. "Don't!"
Duo drew back, uncertainty filling his eyes again.
"You shouldn't do that," Heero continued. "I might still be contagious. You could catch whatever I had."
Duo's eyes lit up. "I'll chance it!" he growled, and then kissed him again.
When they broke apart the second time, Duo smiled rather ruefully at Heero. "I probably should have asked first if you minded, shouldn't I?"
"Yes," Heero said, "but it's okay. I don't mind at all."
Duo beamed at him. Then he frown slightly and glanced at his watch. "Wait a minute. What are you doing here anyway? You're supposed to be in class right now."
Heero shrugged. "I'm ditching, I guess."
Duo's jaw dropped. "_You_? Mr. 'I've Never Missed a Lecture in My Life'?"
Heero looked slightly embarrassed. "I needed to talk to you, and I couldn't find you at the normal times, so here I am."
"You skipped class for me?" Duo said, his smile seeming at once amused and soft. "Heero, that's... Well, it's not exactly romantic, but I'm touched."
"Hn," Heero said. "I've already missed class for the last week; one more day isn't going to hurt."
"Shh! Heero, you're bursting my bubble!" Duo said mournfully.
Heero smiled and Duo laughed, and then they both knelt down and began retrieving the books that had fallen off the shelves earlier.
"I've made more work for you," Heero said apologetically.
"Hardly," Duo said. "Compared to all that," he gestured at the cart full of books, "this is hardly anything. Anyway, I get company now, so that makes it worth while."
"You could have had company yesterday too, if I had been able to find you," Heero said. "Where were you anyway?"
"Up on the fourth floor," Duo answered. "And if I'd known you wanted to talk to me, I would have made sure you found me."
He finished putting the books back in their proper order and turned to find Heero looking slightly confused. "What?"
"This library has a fourth floor?"
Duo laughed. "Yeah, that was my reaction when I first found out too. It does, but you can only get there using the side stairs or the elevator. Most people just use the front stairs and never bother going up there."
"So it's never very crowded, huh?"
"That's right."
Heero looked as though he were contemplating something. "Once I know where it is, I think you should stack books up there more often."
"Huh?"
"Well, if not many people go up there, it shouldn't be too hard to find a private place."
Duo smirked. "Heero, I like the way your mind works."
~*~*~
Quatre watched wide eyed as Duo sauntered through the kitchen, whistling lightly as he prepared dinner. "Well, someone certainly seems to be in a much better mood."
"Good," Hilde said, not even bothering to look at her cheerful roommate. "He's no fun when he's moping around."
Quatre had to agree that; the apartment had been far too quiet and gloomy for the past few days.
"So, Duo," Hilde called into the kitchen. "I take it you've finally got yourself a boyfriend."
Duo paused, one hand still reaching up towards the cupboard above the stove. "Is it that obvious?"
Hilde nodded. "The smile is a dead giveaway. Quatre only smiles like that after he's been laid."
"Hilde!" Quatre sputtered, going bright red in the face.
Even Duo blushed slightly. "It's not like that."
"Not yet, maybe."
Duo decided to keep his mouth shut.
"So how far have you gotten anyway?"
Duo lifted his chin in the air defiantly. "I don't see that that's any of your business."
"You tell her, Duo," Quatre muttered, his face still rather pink.
"Of course it's my business," Hilde said. "Remember what I told you about sleeping just on the other side of the wall? Even if it isn't my business now, it will be soon."
Duo was suddenly very busy with the pot he had on the stove, and kept his back turned to Hilde.
"Men are so easily embarrassed," she sighed before getting up from the table and heading towards her room.
Duo turned around and looked straight at Quatre's still slightly red tinged countenance. "We need to find that woman a boyfriend to get her off of our backs."
"Agreed," said Quatre.
Duo sighed and went back to his cooking. "At least Heero doesn't have to worry about that kind of interrogation from Wufei."
~*~*~
Heero might not have been subjected to an interrogation, but what he got when he returned to his room was not much better.
"That bloody woman! She'll suspect me of murdering her roommate next!"
"Wufei," Heero said, feeling his good mood slipping through his fingers at the mere sight of his angry roommate, "slow down and start from the beginning. What's Dorothy done this time?"
"It's not what she's done, it's what she's accused me of doing!"
/Just be patient,/ Heero told himself. /You know how he gets; getting frustrated with him won't help./ Out loud, he said, "What's she accused you of doing?"
"She accused me of killing her goldfish!"
Heero blinked. "That's all?"
"What do you mean, 'That's all'? It's more than enough!"
Heero sat down, sensing the beginning of a rant. He wasn't disappointed.
"How could I possibly be responsible for the death of her fish? I didn't even know she had a fish! On top of that, I've been sick for the past week, and in no condition to drag myself down the hall, let alone up the stairs, except for absolute emergencies! Goldfish don't live that long anyway; hers probably died from natural causes. But does she listen to reason? Oh no! Just because I pulled a few harmless pranks on her, she's got to blame everything that goes wrong on me!"
Heero sighed and wished he had gone home with Duo. The war between Dorothy and Wufei had been more or less at a standstill for the past week, due to the fact that one of the contestants was out of commission. Heero was not at all pleased to see the conflict resurrected.
"You go up there!" Wufei was saying. "Try to talk some reason into her! Goodness knows I can't!"
"Me?" Heero said. "Why should I go up there? She won't listen to me."
"You'll have better luck than I did," Wufei grumbled.
"Why do I think that's not saying much?"
~*~*~
Thirty minutes later, as he stood before room 210, knocking at the door, Heero asked himself why in the world he was doing this. Of course he knew why; any chance, however small, at forestalling Dorothy's wrath was a chance to be grabbed at. Still, he would rather have been almost anywhere else. After his little "misunderstanding" with Relena, he knew he hardly ranked high on her list of favorite people.
Fortunately or unfortunately for him, Dorothy was out, and it was Relena who answered the door. "Yes?" she said questioningly when she saw him. "What do you want?"
"Listen," Heero said. "About this thing with the goldfish..."
"Oh. You've heard about that already?" Relena seemed to be avoiding his eyes, but she spoke clearly enough. "Poor Bubbles. We held a little funeral for him in the girls' bathroom this morning."
"Wufei says that Dorothy thinks he killed your fish."
"I know she does," Relena said. "See, the thing was, we just got him a few weeks ago, so he was actually a pretty young fish. That's why she thinks Wufei did it."
"But he couldn't have!" Heero insisted. "We've both been sick for the past week; he's barely been able to leave the room, and if he had, I would have known it."
"Oh, I'm sure he didn't do it," Relena said. "But Dorothy..."
"Could you tell her about his alibi?" Heero asked, feeling rather foolish. Here he was, talking about the death of a goldfish as though it were a murder.
"Sure," Relena said, still not looking at him. "I'll pass it along. But I don't know if she'll be convinced."
"Thanks," Heero said. He knew the chances of Dorothy letting go of her conviction and her grudge against Wufei were slim, but slim was still better than none. At least he hoped so.
Tbc
I hope Blue Jeans gave her fish sensible names this time. I would really hate to have a repeat episode of the last time she had a fish named Bubbles...