Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is owned by people far more rich and powerful than
I am (for whatever that's saying).
Warnings: AU, shounen ai (1+2)
Author's Ramblings: Okay, when I went off to college, I started writing
these "everyday life" stories. This is sort of the culmination of them,
since it depicts what I think would happen if the guys lived "normal" lives
and met in college. I know that this idea is far from new, but hey, you
know what they say; you write what you know.
Welcome Distractions
By Rapunzel
Chapter 15: Technical Difficulties
The talking to Duo had given Wufei had apparently had an effect after all. Granted, Wufei didn't change overnight; for the rest of the evening, he didn't speak to Heero, although he would shoot cautious glances at him every now and again. Heero wondered if the two of them would ever be at ease with each other again. He was just beginning to fear that they never would when Wufei stood up.
"I'm hungry," he announced, "and the dinning halls close early tonight. Do you want to go to dinner?"
Heero blinked in surprise, but showed no other loss of composure. "Sure," he said.
Dinner was a rather subdued affair, but neither one of them said anything nasty to the other. They even attempted a small conversation. It was an improvement, and over the next few days, things continued to improve between them. Heero noticed that Wufei was still distinctly uncomfortable having him in the room if he was changing, but other than that, things were almost back to normal.
Of course, Heero had almost forgotten what normality for them included.
It was the outraged shriek that brought him running down the halls Monday evening. Throwing open the door to their room, he expected to find the place converted by some Dorothy-induced disaster. What he found instead was Wufei, sitting at his desk, literally shaking with rage. For a moment, Heero seriously considered calling an ambulance, since it looked as though Wufei was about to have an aneurysm.
"What's wrong?" he demanded.
Wufei pointed an unsteady finger at the computer screen. "That... That... That..." He was so angry, he couldn't even think of appropriate wording.
"What?" Heero asked, although he had a feeling he didn't want to know.
"DOROTHY!!!"
~*~*~
Meanwhile, on the second floor, two girls sat together in their room, one humming happily as her printer whirred.
"What are you so cheerful about?" her roommate asked.
The humming girl smirked. "You can gloat no more, for though you may have your Legolas poster, I have... THIS!!"
With a triumphant gesture, she snatched a piece of paper from the printer tray, holding it up to show her roommate. From the page, Wufei, in all his shirtless glory, glared out at them. The picture was centered on his torso, and barely showed the duct tape holding him in place.
"Wow," the roommate said. "Where did you get that?"
"Dorothy scanned her pictures and posted them online. She's sent an email around the dorm with a link to them."
Her roommate's eyes lit up. "Hey, that means I can access them too!"
"You can," the first girl agreed. "But _I_ have a color printer. I don't even have to go online anymore."
"I have to admit," the other said, "that's the best use for a color cartridge that I can think of."
The first girl eyed the printout with an air of satisfaction. "I think I'll put this on the ceiling, right above my bed. That way, he can glare down at me as I sleep."
Her roommate just shook her head. "Have I ever told you that you're seriously disturbed?"
"Many times. Many, many times..."
~*~*~
The first thing Duo said when Heero told him about the email with the link to the pictures was, "Send a forward to Hilde."
"Wufei won't appreciate that," Heero pointed out.
"Wufei doesn't have to live with the woman; I do. She's been whining for the past three days about not getting any pictures. Hopefully, this will shut her up. I swear to God, I've got to find her a boyfriend. The only question is where I'm going to find a guy who's nuts enough to date her."
"That's not a very nice thing to say about your roommate."
"Maybe not, but there's a ring of truth in it. Hilde is very intense and energetic. She's also very independent. She has a tendency to scare guys off before they ever get around to really dating. Makes my job harder."
"I'm sure she'll find someone," Heero said. "After all, Valentine's day is this Friday, so romance is kind of on people's minds right now."
"That's true enough," Duo replied. "It's only a few days off now."
"What should we do for it?" Heero asked.
"I'm taking you out to dinner," Duo said.
Heero smirked. "What, is this supposed to imply that you're the 'man' in this relationship, if you're the one taking me out?"
Duo returned the smile. "Not at all. But since I've been here a year longer than you have, I know where the good restaurants are."
"The traditional dinner and a movie?" Heero asked.
"Seems like as good a start as any. I mean, if you think about it, we haven't actually been on an official date yet, unless you count all that time you spend at my apartment. And there was talk about showing a special Valentine's Day movie in the biggest lecture hall on campus."
Heero rolled his eyes. "It'll probably be a chick flick."
"But," Duo said, "admission is cheap for students. Anyway, if it a chick flick, we can just make fun of it. That's entertainment in and of itself. What do you say?"
"Fine," Heero said.
"Great!" Duo grinned. "I'll meet you here on Friday as usual and we'll go on from there."
~*~*~
At two thirty on Friday afternoon, Duo sat fidgeting nervously. Heero was late, and Duo was sensitive to delay ever since the time he had waited for Heero in vain.
/Even Heero wouldn't be dense enough to leave me waiting on Valentine's Day without an explanation,/ Duo thought. /He'll come, even if it is just to tell me he has to cancel./
Just as he was starting to get truly worried, he caught sight of Heero. His hands were behind his back, and he didn't bring them into sight until he reached the table and sat down. When he did, he held out a book and a small, napkin wrapped package.
"Been raiding the shelves again, Heero?" Duo asked teasingly.
"It's for you," Heero replied.
Curious as to what Heero had got for him, Duo reached out and took the book from Heero. It was heavy, and its spine was extremely thick. Once he looked at the title, he understood why.
"A dictionary?"
Heero shrugged sheepishly. "I remember you always complained last quarter because you didn't have one, and I didn't know what else to get you. Somehow, I don't think flowers are your thing."
Duo laughed. "They're not really. And if you'd given me chocolate, Hilde would have swiped it all. Thanks, Heero, this'll be really useful. But what's with the napkin?"
Heero looked at the ground, shuffling his feet slightly. "Well, a dictionary didn't really seem like an appropriate gift by itself, so I thought you should have something to go along with it."
"And chocolate chip cookies are more appropriate?" Duo asked, having opened the napkin to disclose its contents.
"Sugar is a traditional part of Valentine's Day," Heero responded seriously.
"They look like dinning hall cookies," Duo said. Since he was studying the cookies, he almost missed the way Heero's face suddenly went red.
"That's because I stole them from the dinning hall at lunch," Heero mumbled.
Duo couldn't help himself, he threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, Heero, you're too much!"
"Hn," Heero snorted, face still red. "I was working with limited resources."
"I understand that," Duo said, still grinning broadly. "And I didn't say I didn't appreciate the gift either." So saying, he stood up, moved over to Heero's chair, and sat down, ignoring the fact that the chair was already occupied. "I appreciate it a lot," he purred next to Heero's ear, ignoring how Heero gulped quietly in surprise. Then he kissed him.
Heero, who had been hoping that something of the sort would happen, accepted the kiss easily. Sliding his arms up, he put them around Duo's waist, drawing his boyfriend in closer to him. Duo responded readily, leaning into Heero and deepening the kiss.
The chair tipped ominously. Neither young man paid any attention.
With a crash, the chair went over backwards, spilling both its occupants onto the floor. Heero, being on the bottom of the heap, got by far the worst of it. His head struck the tile floor with a *crack*! Duo went sprawling and rolled a few feet before coming to rest in a heap. He immediately scrambled to his feet and hurried back over to Heero, who was still in the fallen chair, feet in the air, head against the floor. He wasn't moving.
"Heero?" Duo called in concern as he knelt on the floor beside the motionless young man. "Heero, are you okay?" He reached out and shook Heero gently by the shoulder.
Heero's eyes blinked open, and looked at Duo. He seemed to be trying to focus, and he shook his head once, but stopped, wincing. "Duo," he said, "why are there two of you? It's a duo of Duos."
"Uh oh..."
~*~*~
"Other people go to movies or restaurants or clubs or what-have-you for Valentine's Day. Where do I get to go? The Student Health Center. How utterly unromantic."
Duo sighed heavily and shifted in his seat, still griping under his breath. Sitting in the waiting room of the campus health center, waiting for Heero to finish being checked over by the doctor, was not how he had envisioned spending his Valentine's Day.
"Of all the stupid things to happen! I've never seen one of those chairs go over like that before. Why did it have to do it now?" If he had been very religious, he would have sworn that some higher power was playing with him.
Just then , Heero stalked back in with a middle aged woman in tow. Duo leapt to his feet to greet them. "Heero, how are you?"
"He has a mild concussion," the woman said. Duo identified her as either a doctor or a nurse of the health center. "However," she sent an irritated glance at Heero, "he refuses to be taken to a hospital."
"I'm fine," Heero growled. "I don't need to go to a hospital."
"Heero," Duo began, but he was not allowed to finish.
"No!" Heero snapped. "I had plans, and I'm not going to change them!"
Duo sent a helpless look at the woman and shrugged in defeat.
The woman heaved a resigned sigh. "Very well," she said, lips pressed together tightly in irritation. "I can't make you if you're determined not to. But you still have to be cautious." And she proceeded to give Duo a list of instructions on how to care for Heero, including a little lecture on pain killers, and how often to wake him up when he went to sleep. Then she made Heero sign a form saying that he had been advised to seek further medical attention and had refused. When she was done, Duo thanked her profusely and left with Heero.
"You should have gone to the hospital," Duo needled after they were out of the building.
"I don't need to," Heero said stubbornly. "Besides, it would ruin our plans."
"I think we should revise our plans anyway," Duo said. "After all, I'm sure that you should be resting instead of wandering around."
Heero sent him a look. "I hardly think that what we had planned would be too stressful for me."
"Fine, fine, I give in," Duo said. "Have it your way. But if you start to feel dizzy or tired or anything like that, you have to tell me, okay?"
Heero nodded absently.
~*~*~
"You still sure you're up to this?"
"I'm sure," Heero insisted tiredly. His words might have had a little more conviction if it had not been the third time in the past half an hour that he had repeated them.
He and Duo were standing in a long line of people waiting to be let into the lecture hall to see the movie. They had been standing there for forty minutes, and it didn't seem like they would be moving any time soon. The students running the showing were apparently having "technical difficulties." "Meaning," Duo had said, "that they can't find pieces of the film." Apparently, such occurrences were common for campus movies.
"You know what they say; you get what you pay for." was Duo's take on it. "On-campus movies are cheap, but you have to put up with little delays like this in return."
The little delay was turning into a long one. Heero was beginning to wish that he'd brought a book, although when he'd mentioned this to Duo, Duo had told him that he'd wreck his eyes trying to read in the dark. Since the line consisted mainly of couples, quite a few people had turned to necking as a way to pass the time. The couple in line right in front of them began a little make out session of their own, and Heero wondered what the consequences of splashing them with cold water would be.
"You know," Duo purred next to his ear. "We could try that too, if you want."
Face turning crimson, Heero shook his head.
Duo chuckled. "I thought not," he said, "but I figured I might as well ask, seeing how fascinated you are with them." He jerked his head towards the pair in front of them.
"I was wondering how they'd react if I told them to break it up because they're in public."
"Aw, leave them be," Duo said. "They're adults, in the eyes of the law if not in their own minds. Besides," he added, lowering his voice, "we've kissed in fairly public places."
"And look what came of it," Heero grumbled.
"True," Duo said, but he was not given a chance to elaborate further, since the line began to actually move.
"The line! It moves! It must be magic!" Duo cried, drawing strange looks and a few giggles from some of their neighbors.
As they finally walked into the darkened lecture hall, Heero leaned over and whispered, "What are we seeing again?"
"Moulin Rouge," Duo whispered back. "It's supposed to be romantic."
Heero, who didn't watch movies very often, had never heard of this one, but he nodded anyway.
As it turned out, they did not watch Moulin Rouge, or at least not all of it. The "technical difficulties" spilled over into the actual showing, and the visuals were liable to cut out without a moments notice, so that they ended up hearing but not seeing large chunks of the movie. Still what he could see of the movie wasn't too bad, although he could have sworn he'd heard most of the songs in it somewhere before.
"That's because they ripped them off from a lot of other things," Duo whispered when he voiced his opinion.
Finally, the technical staff outdid themselves by losing one of the movie reels, causing the plot to suddenly jump from point A to point G with no bridge in between. After apologizing profusely for the problems, the audience was sent away with a refund.
"Well," Duo said brightly as they left, "that wasn't so bad. We got to see most of Moulin Rouge for free."
"We didn't get to see the end," Heero pointed out.
"We can rent it sometime," Duo answered breezily. "Besides, we know the ending. She dies, they tell you that in the beginning."
Heero sent him a look, but made no comment.
"So," Duo asked, "my place or yours?"
~*~*~
"You two are so sickeningly sweet that it makes me want to hurl," Hilde said.
The pair on the couch ignored her. Duo sat relaxing, one arm over the back of the couch, and the other resting across Heero's back. Heero was not sitting, but was curled up on the couch, his head in his boyfriend's lap, close to sleep.
Duo's apartment had been the obvious place for them to end up; Heero preferred braving Hilde to spending the night with Wufei, and Duo had promised him Quatre's bed, since its regular occupant was spending the night with Trowa and would not return before morning at the earliest.
At that moment, Heero could have cared less about the bed. He was quite content to drift off where he was, with his warm, living pillow and Duo's hand occasionally trailing through his hair.
"So," Duo asked him quietly. "What did you think?"
"Nice," Heero murmured sleepily.
"I agree," Duo said, smiling. "We had some difficulties, but all in all, it was a good Valentine's Day."
Tbc
Author's Note: I'm afraid that this is going to have to get put on hold for about the next month or so. Unfortunately, since I left college and came home for the summer, inspiration has dried up, which is why this chapter was so long in coming. Hopefully, once I get back to my college campus and my own computer, the muse will return and inspire me to write more. Until then, you won't see anymore chapters of this.
Welcome Distractions
By Rapunzel
Chapter 15: Technical Difficulties
The talking to Duo had given Wufei had apparently had an effect after all. Granted, Wufei didn't change overnight; for the rest of the evening, he didn't speak to Heero, although he would shoot cautious glances at him every now and again. Heero wondered if the two of them would ever be at ease with each other again. He was just beginning to fear that they never would when Wufei stood up.
"I'm hungry," he announced, "and the dinning halls close early tonight. Do you want to go to dinner?"
Heero blinked in surprise, but showed no other loss of composure. "Sure," he said.
Dinner was a rather subdued affair, but neither one of them said anything nasty to the other. They even attempted a small conversation. It was an improvement, and over the next few days, things continued to improve between them. Heero noticed that Wufei was still distinctly uncomfortable having him in the room if he was changing, but other than that, things were almost back to normal.
Of course, Heero had almost forgotten what normality for them included.
It was the outraged shriek that brought him running down the halls Monday evening. Throwing open the door to their room, he expected to find the place converted by some Dorothy-induced disaster. What he found instead was Wufei, sitting at his desk, literally shaking with rage. For a moment, Heero seriously considered calling an ambulance, since it looked as though Wufei was about to have an aneurysm.
"What's wrong?" he demanded.
Wufei pointed an unsteady finger at the computer screen. "That... That... That..." He was so angry, he couldn't even think of appropriate wording.
"What?" Heero asked, although he had a feeling he didn't want to know.
"DOROTHY!!!"
~*~*~
Meanwhile, on the second floor, two girls sat together in their room, one humming happily as her printer whirred.
"What are you so cheerful about?" her roommate asked.
The humming girl smirked. "You can gloat no more, for though you may have your Legolas poster, I have... THIS!!"
With a triumphant gesture, she snatched a piece of paper from the printer tray, holding it up to show her roommate. From the page, Wufei, in all his shirtless glory, glared out at them. The picture was centered on his torso, and barely showed the duct tape holding him in place.
"Wow," the roommate said. "Where did you get that?"
"Dorothy scanned her pictures and posted them online. She's sent an email around the dorm with a link to them."
Her roommate's eyes lit up. "Hey, that means I can access them too!"
"You can," the first girl agreed. "But _I_ have a color printer. I don't even have to go online anymore."
"I have to admit," the other said, "that's the best use for a color cartridge that I can think of."
The first girl eyed the printout with an air of satisfaction. "I think I'll put this on the ceiling, right above my bed. That way, he can glare down at me as I sleep."
Her roommate just shook her head. "Have I ever told you that you're seriously disturbed?"
"Many times. Many, many times..."
~*~*~
The first thing Duo said when Heero told him about the email with the link to the pictures was, "Send a forward to Hilde."
"Wufei won't appreciate that," Heero pointed out.
"Wufei doesn't have to live with the woman; I do. She's been whining for the past three days about not getting any pictures. Hopefully, this will shut her up. I swear to God, I've got to find her a boyfriend. The only question is where I'm going to find a guy who's nuts enough to date her."
"That's not a very nice thing to say about your roommate."
"Maybe not, but there's a ring of truth in it. Hilde is very intense and energetic. She's also very independent. She has a tendency to scare guys off before they ever get around to really dating. Makes my job harder."
"I'm sure she'll find someone," Heero said. "After all, Valentine's day is this Friday, so romance is kind of on people's minds right now."
"That's true enough," Duo replied. "It's only a few days off now."
"What should we do for it?" Heero asked.
"I'm taking you out to dinner," Duo said.
Heero smirked. "What, is this supposed to imply that you're the 'man' in this relationship, if you're the one taking me out?"
Duo returned the smile. "Not at all. But since I've been here a year longer than you have, I know where the good restaurants are."
"The traditional dinner and a movie?" Heero asked.
"Seems like as good a start as any. I mean, if you think about it, we haven't actually been on an official date yet, unless you count all that time you spend at my apartment. And there was talk about showing a special Valentine's Day movie in the biggest lecture hall on campus."
Heero rolled his eyes. "It'll probably be a chick flick."
"But," Duo said, "admission is cheap for students. Anyway, if it a chick flick, we can just make fun of it. That's entertainment in and of itself. What do you say?"
"Fine," Heero said.
"Great!" Duo grinned. "I'll meet you here on Friday as usual and we'll go on from there."
~*~*~
At two thirty on Friday afternoon, Duo sat fidgeting nervously. Heero was late, and Duo was sensitive to delay ever since the time he had waited for Heero in vain.
/Even Heero wouldn't be dense enough to leave me waiting on Valentine's Day without an explanation,/ Duo thought. /He'll come, even if it is just to tell me he has to cancel./
Just as he was starting to get truly worried, he caught sight of Heero. His hands were behind his back, and he didn't bring them into sight until he reached the table and sat down. When he did, he held out a book and a small, napkin wrapped package.
"Been raiding the shelves again, Heero?" Duo asked teasingly.
"It's for you," Heero replied.
Curious as to what Heero had got for him, Duo reached out and took the book from Heero. It was heavy, and its spine was extremely thick. Once he looked at the title, he understood why.
"A dictionary?"
Heero shrugged sheepishly. "I remember you always complained last quarter because you didn't have one, and I didn't know what else to get you. Somehow, I don't think flowers are your thing."
Duo laughed. "They're not really. And if you'd given me chocolate, Hilde would have swiped it all. Thanks, Heero, this'll be really useful. But what's with the napkin?"
Heero looked at the ground, shuffling his feet slightly. "Well, a dictionary didn't really seem like an appropriate gift by itself, so I thought you should have something to go along with it."
"And chocolate chip cookies are more appropriate?" Duo asked, having opened the napkin to disclose its contents.
"Sugar is a traditional part of Valentine's Day," Heero responded seriously.
"They look like dinning hall cookies," Duo said. Since he was studying the cookies, he almost missed the way Heero's face suddenly went red.
"That's because I stole them from the dinning hall at lunch," Heero mumbled.
Duo couldn't help himself, he threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, Heero, you're too much!"
"Hn," Heero snorted, face still red. "I was working with limited resources."
"I understand that," Duo said, still grinning broadly. "And I didn't say I didn't appreciate the gift either." So saying, he stood up, moved over to Heero's chair, and sat down, ignoring the fact that the chair was already occupied. "I appreciate it a lot," he purred next to Heero's ear, ignoring how Heero gulped quietly in surprise. Then he kissed him.
Heero, who had been hoping that something of the sort would happen, accepted the kiss easily. Sliding his arms up, he put them around Duo's waist, drawing his boyfriend in closer to him. Duo responded readily, leaning into Heero and deepening the kiss.
The chair tipped ominously. Neither young man paid any attention.
With a crash, the chair went over backwards, spilling both its occupants onto the floor. Heero, being on the bottom of the heap, got by far the worst of it. His head struck the tile floor with a *crack*! Duo went sprawling and rolled a few feet before coming to rest in a heap. He immediately scrambled to his feet and hurried back over to Heero, who was still in the fallen chair, feet in the air, head against the floor. He wasn't moving.
"Heero?" Duo called in concern as he knelt on the floor beside the motionless young man. "Heero, are you okay?" He reached out and shook Heero gently by the shoulder.
Heero's eyes blinked open, and looked at Duo. He seemed to be trying to focus, and he shook his head once, but stopped, wincing. "Duo," he said, "why are there two of you? It's a duo of Duos."
"Uh oh..."
~*~*~
"Other people go to movies or restaurants or clubs or what-have-you for Valentine's Day. Where do I get to go? The Student Health Center. How utterly unromantic."
Duo sighed heavily and shifted in his seat, still griping under his breath. Sitting in the waiting room of the campus health center, waiting for Heero to finish being checked over by the doctor, was not how he had envisioned spending his Valentine's Day.
"Of all the stupid things to happen! I've never seen one of those chairs go over like that before. Why did it have to do it now?" If he had been very religious, he would have sworn that some higher power was playing with him.
Just then , Heero stalked back in with a middle aged woman in tow. Duo leapt to his feet to greet them. "Heero, how are you?"
"He has a mild concussion," the woman said. Duo identified her as either a doctor or a nurse of the health center. "However," she sent an irritated glance at Heero, "he refuses to be taken to a hospital."
"I'm fine," Heero growled. "I don't need to go to a hospital."
"Heero," Duo began, but he was not allowed to finish.
"No!" Heero snapped. "I had plans, and I'm not going to change them!"
Duo sent a helpless look at the woman and shrugged in defeat.
The woman heaved a resigned sigh. "Very well," she said, lips pressed together tightly in irritation. "I can't make you if you're determined not to. But you still have to be cautious." And she proceeded to give Duo a list of instructions on how to care for Heero, including a little lecture on pain killers, and how often to wake him up when he went to sleep. Then she made Heero sign a form saying that he had been advised to seek further medical attention and had refused. When she was done, Duo thanked her profusely and left with Heero.
"You should have gone to the hospital," Duo needled after they were out of the building.
"I don't need to," Heero said stubbornly. "Besides, it would ruin our plans."
"I think we should revise our plans anyway," Duo said. "After all, I'm sure that you should be resting instead of wandering around."
Heero sent him a look. "I hardly think that what we had planned would be too stressful for me."
"Fine, fine, I give in," Duo said. "Have it your way. But if you start to feel dizzy or tired or anything like that, you have to tell me, okay?"
Heero nodded absently.
~*~*~
"You still sure you're up to this?"
"I'm sure," Heero insisted tiredly. His words might have had a little more conviction if it had not been the third time in the past half an hour that he had repeated them.
He and Duo were standing in a long line of people waiting to be let into the lecture hall to see the movie. They had been standing there for forty minutes, and it didn't seem like they would be moving any time soon. The students running the showing were apparently having "technical difficulties." "Meaning," Duo had said, "that they can't find pieces of the film." Apparently, such occurrences were common for campus movies.
"You know what they say; you get what you pay for." was Duo's take on it. "On-campus movies are cheap, but you have to put up with little delays like this in return."
The little delay was turning into a long one. Heero was beginning to wish that he'd brought a book, although when he'd mentioned this to Duo, Duo had told him that he'd wreck his eyes trying to read in the dark. Since the line consisted mainly of couples, quite a few people had turned to necking as a way to pass the time. The couple in line right in front of them began a little make out session of their own, and Heero wondered what the consequences of splashing them with cold water would be.
"You know," Duo purred next to his ear. "We could try that too, if you want."
Face turning crimson, Heero shook his head.
Duo chuckled. "I thought not," he said, "but I figured I might as well ask, seeing how fascinated you are with them." He jerked his head towards the pair in front of them.
"I was wondering how they'd react if I told them to break it up because they're in public."
"Aw, leave them be," Duo said. "They're adults, in the eyes of the law if not in their own minds. Besides," he added, lowering his voice, "we've kissed in fairly public places."
"And look what came of it," Heero grumbled.
"True," Duo said, but he was not given a chance to elaborate further, since the line began to actually move.
"The line! It moves! It must be magic!" Duo cried, drawing strange looks and a few giggles from some of their neighbors.
As they finally walked into the darkened lecture hall, Heero leaned over and whispered, "What are we seeing again?"
"Moulin Rouge," Duo whispered back. "It's supposed to be romantic."
Heero, who didn't watch movies very often, had never heard of this one, but he nodded anyway.
As it turned out, they did not watch Moulin Rouge, or at least not all of it. The "technical difficulties" spilled over into the actual showing, and the visuals were liable to cut out without a moments notice, so that they ended up hearing but not seeing large chunks of the movie. Still what he could see of the movie wasn't too bad, although he could have sworn he'd heard most of the songs in it somewhere before.
"That's because they ripped them off from a lot of other things," Duo whispered when he voiced his opinion.
Finally, the technical staff outdid themselves by losing one of the movie reels, causing the plot to suddenly jump from point A to point G with no bridge in between. After apologizing profusely for the problems, the audience was sent away with a refund.
"Well," Duo said brightly as they left, "that wasn't so bad. We got to see most of Moulin Rouge for free."
"We didn't get to see the end," Heero pointed out.
"We can rent it sometime," Duo answered breezily. "Besides, we know the ending. She dies, they tell you that in the beginning."
Heero sent him a look, but made no comment.
"So," Duo asked, "my place or yours?"
~*~*~
"You two are so sickeningly sweet that it makes me want to hurl," Hilde said.
The pair on the couch ignored her. Duo sat relaxing, one arm over the back of the couch, and the other resting across Heero's back. Heero was not sitting, but was curled up on the couch, his head in his boyfriend's lap, close to sleep.
Duo's apartment had been the obvious place for them to end up; Heero preferred braving Hilde to spending the night with Wufei, and Duo had promised him Quatre's bed, since its regular occupant was spending the night with Trowa and would not return before morning at the earliest.
At that moment, Heero could have cared less about the bed. He was quite content to drift off where he was, with his warm, living pillow and Duo's hand occasionally trailing through his hair.
"So," Duo asked him quietly. "What did you think?"
"Nice," Heero murmured sleepily.
"I agree," Duo said, smiling. "We had some difficulties, but all in all, it was a good Valentine's Day."
Tbc
Author's Note: I'm afraid that this is going to have to get put on hold for about the next month or so. Unfortunately, since I left college and came home for the summer, inspiration has dried up, which is why this chapter was so long in coming. Hopefully, once I get back to my college campus and my own computer, the muse will return and inspire me to write more. Until then, you won't see anymore chapters of this.