=^o^= Shounen-ai! Shounen-ai! *dances*
Disclaimer: I wrote a letter to Santa Claus and asked for a set of five Gundam pilots for Christmas. He wrote back sending me a 200-page "booklet" on copyright laws and infringement suits, and said there was nothing he could do about it and how would I like a nice Gamecube instead? I'm currently thinking it over...
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Episode Thirty-Two: The Pact "Welcome be ye that are here; welcome all, and make good cheer; welcome all, another year." ~New Year's Eve toastDecember 31st, 1901 While training to be an agent of a nefarious underground organization, Heero had sat through lectures on world politics, covert surveillance, assuming identities and the top ten ways to kill a man while leaving no evidence, but the current lecture topped them all: whether to serve fruitcake or sugared almonds at his wedding feast. "I suppose we could just as easily do both," Relena chattered away, oblivious to her victim's anguish, "and we really should have something focal on the head table to draw everyone's attention in. Now, I thought perhaps an ice sculpture of a swan, but then I saw something else in one of these magazines..." She shuffled around in an impressive pile of literature on entertaining, which covered most of the dining room table where they sat, and finally extracted the magazine in question, flipping quickly through it and holding up the pertinent page in front of Heero's blank eyes. "Look! It's a pyramid of champagne glasses! You pour the champagne into the top glass, and when it overflows, it fills all the glasses underneath it! Isn't it fabulous?" "....." "Now, what about flowers? I think we should have the wedding in June so we can have roses absolutely everywhere! I know this one florist..." Heero leaned far back in his chair and studied the fresco ceiling, again. Thirty-two bunches of grapes, fifty-six vine leaves, eighteen cherubs and twelve doves, same as there was last time. A June wedding. He had exactly that long to complete his mission, pack his things, and disappear into the night. The main trouble was that he wouldn't know when he had collected enough information on Treize until Jeffrhyss recalled him from Bridlewood. The other difficulty was what would become of Duo after Heero left; he couldn't take the boy with him, not to see Jeffrhyss, and yet he couldn't stay much longer without either disappointing Duo and jeopardizing their friendship, or disappointing Relena and jeopardizing the mission. It was a lot to place on the shoulders of a boy of only sixteen. "...and then release a flock of lovebirds into the air as we dash into our waiting carriage, covered from top to bottom in pure white carnations! What do you think?" "...hn?" Relena scowled and slapped the magazine down. "Heero, you're not even listening!" Heero stopped counting grapes and gazed across the table with his best feigned innocence. "Yes, I was." "Then what did I say?" "...we're having a fruitcake swan and almonds in the champagne." Relena sighed and shook her head. "Oh...go and polish something, you're obviously not going to be one bit of use to me otherwise. Honestly, you men..." She went swiftly back to her magazines, peppered with the occasional colour plate drawing of the very latest winter fashions. Never one to pass up a golden opportunity, Heero got up and left, wondering precisely how much more of her mindless prattle he could take before he snapped and dumped the entire collection of magazines over her silly head. He was only a few yards from the dining room when a much more welcome sight greeted his tired eyes and brightened his mood. It was Duo, jogging up from the kitchen with a light, uneven coating of pastry flour decorating his hair and clothes. "Have you got a minute?" the chef asked abruptly. "Several times over," Heero said. Duo tilted his head towards the stairs with a jerk, and the pair walked silently down to the kitchen. Heero followed his lead in treading very lightly, as it was clear that Duo valued stealth very highly all of a sudden. When they reached the last step and crept into the kitchen, Heero heard why; somewhere off in the distance, perhaps only as far as the scullery, there was a very faint sound, sharp and plaintive, like someone sobbing. Duo pulled Heero aside by one arm and gave him a rather severe look. "That's Hilde in there. She's been really upset for the last week, and I can't cheer her up anymore." Unfortunate, yes, but what could Heero do? "Why do you need me?" he asked. "You're the only one who can make her feel better!" Duo whispered harshly. "You've gotta go in there and tell her you're not really going to marry Relena! Explain it to her!" "I can't get any more civilians involved in my mission," Heero protested. "I won't have it on my conscience." Duo shook his head. "You don't have to tell her why you're playing along, just promise her you won't go through with it!" He was met by a very justifiable stare of confusion, and squeezed Heero's arm in reassurance. "Just trust me on this one. Please?" Heero studied the boy's peculiar expression, a blend of honesty and secrecy, and wondered if their friendship was the only factor pushing him into a state of total trust. If it was anyone else...I don't think I'd believe him...but I have to trust my only friend. Though he still wasn't sure why, Heero nodded, drinking in Duo's grateful smile before walking quietly into the scullery. A petite brunette was sitting at a tiny table, peeling potatoes by the light of a depressingly small candle, languishing under a heavy cloud of misery and self-pity that could have been sliced with a knife and served as squares of novelty fondant. With each slow, clumsy pull of the paring knife across the gritty brown lump in her other hand, she whimpered and sobbed, unaware that she was no longer alone. Her first clue came when a slender, graceful arm reached over her shoulder and took the knife away, as if out of concern that she might slip and cut herself in her mournfully distracted state. She turned and looked up; the moment she saw Heero, her hand flew to her eyes, brushing away both old and new tears. "Is something the matter, sir?" she sniffled, distancing herself emotionally by referring to him as her rightful superior. Heero studied her face with the same confusion as he did Duo's earlier. Why would he send me to talk to you? Does he know what you did while you were half drunk? Would he trust you as much if he knew how easily you might betray him? He turned the knife over a few times in one hand and set it down on the table. "You don't have to call me that." Hilde nevertheless bowed her head respectfully, waiting for orders from above. Polish the woodwork in the sitting room, perhaps, or dust the bulbs in the electric chandeliers. "I think you should know that I have absolutely no intention of marrying Relena, but for now, it's important that I let her think I will." He watched her face for any clear and quick reaction, then shrugged slightly. "It's complicated." Hilde eyed him suspiciously. "He told you to say that." Again, Heero brought out the feigned innocence. He? He who? "Even if he did, it doesn't make it any less true." "Well, it had better be!" she exclaimed, jumping boldly out of her chair. "You and Miss Relena are totally wrong for each other, and if you have to spend the rest of your life with someone, it should be your one true soul mate, not her!" Heero raised an eyebrow, fast becoming one of his favourite gestures. "My soul mate? I suppose that would be you?" The girl failed to answer, shrinking away just enough to be visibly intimidated by the question. He stepped forward. "Have you told Duo what you said to me? Have you told him what you did?" Hilde looked away. Neither one of them needed to be reminded of the incident a few weeks previous, when she openly professed love for one man while kissing another. She was often quick to verbalize her affections for Duo, but her actions didn't always match. "I don't want to see him hurt any more than you do," she said coolly, "but if he does get hurt, it won't be because of me. Now, if you'll excuse me..." In one quick swipe, she shoved all the peeled potatoes off the table and into her outstretched apron, and strode confidently past Heero, leaving him to wonder whose side she was really on. He heard the girl meet up with Duo in the kitchen and crept to the door to watch them together. They seemed amiable to a fairly ordinary degree with each other, besides the occasional smile or hand on the arm. A memory from a few months ago bubbled to the surface of Heero's consciousness, of the day Hilde arrived at Bridlewood, and of the way she and Duo embraced on almost the exact same spot where they now stood. The ugly, wretched feeling Heero had felt in his gut that day suddenly returned, but he didn't understand it any better this time than he did the last. The only clear thing was that Hilde was becoming the most blatantly confusing person on the entire estate; nothing she said or did made sense, and that made her impossible to analyse. **********Trowa and Quatre were more and more often getting caught in a clash of their opposing intuitions, but neither one could win all the time, and so some leeway had to be given. As a result, they were afternoon guests of Lady Une, against Trowa's better judgement. Dorothy had pestered them with unwanted invitations just long enough that Quatre couldn't take it anymore and finally accepted just to shut her up. Being the very model of hospitality that she always strove to be, Lady Une gave the boys the grand tour of her mansion, after picking them up in her lavish, velvet-upholstered carriage. Though they kept their opinions to themselves, for all the crowing Une did in front of Relena about how superior her own dwelling was, the boys thought that it wasn't much more extravagant than Bridlewood. A few rooms were larger, like the parlour where she sat them down for a cup of tea, but after the way she normally carried on, they were expecting Buckingham Palace. "You must be wondering why I asked you here," Une said, gesturing to her mousy, bespectacled butler to pour the tea. The boys traded exasperated glances; redundant statements like that were a waste of time. "We're listening," Quatre said. Une smiled. "Baroness Catalonia has informed me about your...family squabble. I know what you're facing, and I know what's at stake." "Calculated down to the last penny, no doubt," Quatre replied acridly. "There's no sense in trying to pretend with us, m'lady. We all know where your real interests lie." The brunette favoured them with an even prettier smile. "Quite." She made a small gesture to the butler, who removed himself several paces to stand by the door. "I'm also aware that you two had something of a close call at the hand of one of your sisters not too long ago. It seems to me that what you really need is reliable protection, before your family gets too close. I would suggest...a sort of partnership." "You don't have anything to negotiate with," Trowa said, folding his arms. "Since we made it out of that minor skirmish alive, I'd say we have the matter well in hand, wouldn't you?" "I'm sure you should both be congratulated," Une said, "but be honest. If you hadn't been given a little extra help from that man in the alley, how far would you have gotten?" Both boys sat up with a start. They had told Heero the basics of what happened that night, and they naturally assumed Une only knew about it because Dorothy had been spying on them, a craft she improved upon at every opportunity...but they never mentioned the specifics of how they escaped. That included the burly thug who appeared out of nowhere and took Shareefa and her partners to task. Quatre leaned forward. "How do you know about that?" Une sipped her tea with a contented grin, letting them stew in their own anxiety for as long as possible before offering a response. "Consider what happened that night as a small sample of what I can do for you." Quatre's pale hands tightened around the arms of his chair as she spoke. "I can offer the services of the gentleman who saved both your hides in that alley, or you may choose another, or even several men from a large range of personal protection specialists. I will supply their salaries until such time as you win the tontine, and then, of course...I would expect a small token of your appreciation." As the hideous facts slowly but steadily began to sink in, a white-hot flame at the core of Quatre's being grew larger, and hotter, melting his reserved nature into a venomous ball of rage hovering just behind his eyes. Without warning, he sprang out of his chair and lunged at Lady Une with a strangled cry of unfettered fury. Trowa restrained him just inches away from tearing her face off with his bare hands, and the butler came scurrying back at a blinding speed to protect his mistress from the irate boy. Both Une and Trowa looked shocked; they had no idea the gentle lad was capable of such anger. "You had no right to do that!" Quatre shouted, struggling against his own bodyguard. "Shareefa might still be alive if you hadn't interfered!" "And you might be just as dead," Une reminded him calmly. She waited until the boys wore themselves down battling each other and stirred some sugar into her tea. "I wasn't going to mention it, but you owe me your life, and I believe that all debts should be repaid." Still standing just out of arm's reach, Quatre caught his breath, making no immediate effort to tidy himself up. His hair was a mess and his clothes were well-rumpled, but it suited his mood. "I don't owe you a thing," he spat. "I never asked for your 'help', and if you ever...ever send any of your goons to 'protect' us again, they'll be treated as enemies, not allies!!" Equally rumpled and out of breath, Trowa glared at her, wordlessly agreeing with Quatre's ultimatum. The trio stared, and no one moved. Finally, Quatre tugged sharply on his waistcoat to straighten it, and tossed back his feathery blond hair with a sneer of contempt. "This meeting is over." He stalked out the door with Trowa close on his heels. Lady Une took that to mean, in addition to his refusal of her services, that he was also refusing the carriage that brought them there. Very well...you can find your own way home, you ungrateful little whelp. She pushed herself out of the chair and went to the parlour window where she could watch the boys try to hail a hansom cab back to their own estate. We'll have to come to some other sort of arrangement, my dear boy. Make no mistake, this matter is far from settled. **********Heero couldn't remember actively looking forward to something ever before, but he was finding the strange new feeling to be rather pleasant. Duo was making unheard-of progress with his karate lessons, and continued to learn at an alarming rate, even when practising tired. They made a point of going to the pub for a workout two hours every day, no matter how heavy their workload was, and they both counted the minutes from the time they woke until it was time for the lesson. As a student, Duo displayed phenomenal memory, precision, strength, and determination. In the short time since the lessons began, he could skilfully execute several blocks and attacks, even quicker than Heero could remember learning them as a child. Knife hand, hammer fist, reverse punch, roundhouse kick. The balance and flexibility that made him such an excellent thief gave him an edge on the practical side, and the early start he'd gotten in Japanese helped him remember the name Heero used for every move he was taught. Shuto, tettsui, gyakuzuki, mawashigeri. Duo ate it up like candy from Heaven. And yet...he still couldn't tie his obi by himself. Wrap, wrap, tuck, knot. Heero couldn't figure out why the simple things eluded Duo the most, but continued to tie his obi for him anyway. "So what's on the slate for today?" the prize student asked, rubbing his hands together briskly. "A block to combat the front kick," Heero said. "I'll assume a left fighting stance, and you come at me with your best kick. Then I'll pivot just before the moment of impact, catch your right ankle with my left hand, and deflect the blow. It's called a scooping block. Ready?" "Are you ready?" Duo replied with a smirk. "I've been doing pretty good, you know...I just might turn out to be unblockable. Think you can handle it?" Heero betrayed none of his inner chuckling. "I might just cope." Duo's smirk grew as his opponent took up the stance. What happened next, or more specifically, what went wrong next, was almost too fast for the human eye to diagnose. Duo thrust forth with the most powerful front kick he could muster, and they both underestimated it's power. Heero twisted and caught Duo's ankle with perfect timing, but instead of being fully deflected, the foot kept going. Then Duo's other foot slipped out from under him due to the excessive forward motion, and at that point, he panicked, grabbing hold of Heero's gi at the left shoulder. Heero was just beginning to twist counterclockwise to deliver a reverse punch and finish the move when Duo tumbled over backwards, dragging his very surprised teacher down with him. Duo slammed into the mat, and Heero slammed into Duo, face-to-face and short of breath. It hurt. They were stunned for several seconds and didn't seem to notice that they were lying on top of each other in any way. Slowly, Heero came to first and propped his upper half up on one elbow, coughing and grabbing for his alignment-compromised lower back. Duo was still seeing stars but saw a vague, heavenly outline of Heero's face among the twinkling lights. "Does it count...as leaving my gi...in a heap on the floor...if I'm in a heap on the floor...while wearing it?" Duo gasped out. Heero winced good-naturedly. "We can...make allowances..." With that very practical thought, he rolled off of his student, and they laid side-by-side for awhile on their backs, waiting for the world to stop spinning so fast. Duo looked to his right, saw Heero the Indomitable flat on his back and looking peaked, and burst out laughing, miraculously cured by his own mirth. Heero looked to his left, took in the sight of his very own joyful jester, and his inner chuckling slowly became very quiet outer chuckling. It wasn't much, and it didn't last long, but by the dictionary definition, Heero laughed for what he honestly believed to be the first real time. The boys eventually collected themselves, mentally and physically, got up off the mat and went on with the lesson. When their time was up, they both changed back into their street clothes in the basement, rather than unfairly make one of them trudge upstairs to change in a different room. Since there was another layer underneath the gi, particularly covering the scars on Heero's back, he had no reservations about it, and neither did Duo, certainly. Before they went back home, however, Heero remembered something that made them both trudge upstairs anyway. He took Duo up to his rented room and asked him to help empty the closet of several bundles of newspaper. "These date back to a few days after the Queen's death," he explained. "I was released into London and began immediately scanning the media for any public information on Treize. I started ransacking Relena's morning paper to save travelling time here and back, but..." "But then I learned to read, and you had to keep it out of my grubby little paws," Duo finished with a grin. "Something like that," Heero conceded. "I've taken out all I can for my scrapbook, and I was about to throw the rest away, then I thought you might like to go through them and pick out anything you'd like to save." Duo's eyes lit up like fireworks as he looked at the piles of tightly-bound newsprint, containing all sorts of stories he'd never have been able to read if not for Heero. It was a marvellous opportunity to actually learn about the world he'd been struggling to survive in, and it seemed almost too good to be true. "There's a lot here...won't it make us late getting back?" Heero shrugged. "I've been officially relieved of duty as of Christmas Day. Let someone else pour madam's afternoon tea." Duo's smile got even wider, and he plunked himself merrily in the middle of the floor and untied one of the thick newsprint bundles. They sat and reminisced about the past year from different angles, got their hands well-coated in a thin layer of black ink, and just rounded off a very pleasant afternoon together. When Duo finally found something in the newspapers that he wanted to save, Heero went to the writing desk, opened a drawer, and produced a clean, new scrapbook to store their personal memories in, to keep them separate from the doom and gloom of the other scrapbook. "What have you found?" Heero asked, cracking open a fresh jar of paste. "Here you go..." With a smile and a flourish, Duo proudly held up his first selection from the news of the world, dated October 24th, 1901. Heero took it from him, read it, and eyed him with curious skepticism. "'Schoolteacher survives world's first trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel'?" Duo blinked at his lack of enthuhsiasm. ".......what? That's legitimate news! They say she took a black cat in the barrel with her, and when she got out after going over the Falls, the cat was snow white! We'd better not let Shadow see this, it'll scare her to pieces." The other boy's glare wouldn't budge. "Alright, smarty, what did you pick?" Heero casually handed over his selection, an article dated only a few days ago, from a small, privately-funded paper with no specific political agenda. It had a picture attached, a picture of a smiling youth with a long braid, shaking hands with a portly priest. "Hey..." Duo whispered with a matching smile, "that's me!" It was indeed Duo, the lovable boy some Londoners would recognize as the generous soul who gave up an incredible sum of money to benefit the orphans of the church that cared for him as a tiny child. He cradled the wisp of newsprint and was truly touched by Heero's choice. "I don't know what to say..." Heero just smiled and brushed some paste onto the page for which the article was destined. "The picture says it for you just fine." He sealed it into to the book, next to Annie Edson Taylor and her famous barrel, and eventually the pair wandered downstairs to order a quick meal from Catherine before going home. **********In spite of Otto's insistence that she'd catch her death of cold, Relena couldn't resist taking the family to the front lawn of the Houses of Parliament, overlooked by the Great Clock of Westminster for the New Year's Eve celebration. She and Heero piled into her carriage with Treize and Dorothy, and Otto drove, leaving the servants at home to have their own simple celebration with a deck of cards and a bottle of brandy. Duo naturally wasn't content with that, and after crawling up to bed complaining of a headache, he slipped out under the cover of darkness, bundled up in his new scarf and overcoat. A few blocks from the manor, he proudly hired himself a cab with his own money and followed them, determined not to let a certain blonde haired, blue eyed viper sink her fangs into his friend. There was a substantial crowd gathered at the pertinent spot; mulled wine and hot apple cider were in plentiful supply to keep them all warm and cheerful until the hour of midnight, and some were even singing songs to pass the time. Relena was all decked out in a fur coat and hat, and kept her hands warm in a white ermine muff while she paraded the large trinket on her arm in front of the townsfolk. The trinket, for his own part, didn't see what all the fuss was about, and found the entire production of counting down to the new year to be somewhat redundant, but he played along, for Relena's sake. As soon as she noticed his attention was waning, however, she had to give the poor boy something to do. "Heero," she cooed, "would you be a dear and fetch me a glass of cider, please?" "As you wish," he answered in his usual subservient tone. Dorothy prodded Treize in the arm and grinned charmingly up at him. "Run along and get me one too, would you?" Treize's smile was dripping with false sincerity as he turned her way. "I'd be delighted," he lied, and went off along a different route than Heero to the beverage vendors. Once the men were safely out of the way, the girl talk began. "I'm so glad we came! Doesn't everyone look jealous of Heero and me? Ooooh, I hope Lady Une sees us. It must be driving her crazy to think that I'm getting a husband and she's just an old maid!" Relena giggled into her muff while Dorothy adjusted her gloves and rolled her eyes. "I still say you're making a terrible mistake, marrying below your station," the Baroness chided. "People aren't staring out of jealousy, they're staring because they think you've gone crackers!" "Well, they can think what they like," Relena sniffed back at her, "because nobody's silly opinion is going to change my mind!" Dorothy shrugged in resignation, painfully aware of how difficult it was trying to put the girl off any idea she'd latched onto. In all things, Relena was like a bulldog with a bone, unwilling to give up her prize even if there was no meat left on it. Switching tactics, Dorothy brought up a new subject to try and dislodge the old one. "Have you given any more thought to going down to Hampshire for a few weeks?" "Oh, that..." Relena sighed. "No, I haven't thought about it, and I'm not going to until I've taken care of something much more important, tonight." "Oh really? And what's that?" Relena motioned for Dorothy to step closer so that nobody else could hear, unaware that there was a young man behind them, with his back turned, carefully listening to every word. He wore a long black mantle over a matching frock coat, with the high collar turned up, and had expertly stuffed his long rope of chestnut brown hair down the back of his coat to make himself blend into the crowd. "I really only wanted to come here because of Heero," the girl explained in a low but excited voice. "There's a little book in Father's library that tells all about different holiday traditions, and I found a lovely one for New Year's Eve that Heero and I are going to share together." The chestnut-haired youth sipped his cider and backed up half a step, listening more closely. Do tell, m'lady. "The book says that if two people kiss at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, they'll be together for the whole year to come, guaranteed!" "Oh, that old superstition," Dorothy scoffed," why do you believe such utter rubbish?" "Because it's true! And I'm going to prove it to everyone tonight when we seal our immediate future together with a single, beautiful kiss!" Not if I can help it. Just behind the girls, the young spy scowled and fought himself not to turn around and tell her exactly where to go. We'll just see who gets to Heero first, won't we? He silently moved away from the pair, who went back to their chattering, waiting for their cider delivery. The boy glanced up at the huge round face of Big Ben and saw that there were only a scant few minutes left until midnight, and he knew he had to hurry. After ducking and dodging through a thick mob of people who were already fairly tipsy from the wine, he spotted what looked like the back of Heero's head and ran towards it. Sure enough, there was the former butler, standing in line for cider with fifty other frost-bitten men on specific orders from their women. He crept up behind Heero's right shoulder, tapped him on his left, and smirked as the boy fell for it. The tousled black hair and wild blue eyes whipped to the left, found only an empty space, then whipped around to the right, and were greeted by a hearty laugh. "Duo!" the startled victim exclaimed, gripping the boy's arms with a delighted gleam in his eye. "Surprise! Glad to see me?" "Actually, yes," Heero admitted gratefully. "I don't know how long Relena wants us to stay here, and while it looks like a lot of people, there's still nobody to talk to..." That was a huge step for him, and Duo knew it. Normally, when faced with a dreadful social occasion from which he could not escape, Heero stood in a corner and sulked the whole time, not showing any desire for human contact that wasn't already obligatory, but now...now he seemed to crave that contact, and best of all, Duo seemed to be the one he craved most. "Well, don't worry about it, I'm here now. Boredom, begone!" Duo hefted up an imaginary sword and liberated Heero from the cider line that instant. They wandered off into the crowd and didn't look back. Some distance away, Treize was talking quietly with a thin, clean-shaven, very respectable-looking man, and had also forgotten his promise to Dorothy. They looked over their shoulders once in awhile, a clear indication that they had no desire to let their conversation be carelessly overheard. "It's going to be difficult without the blueprints, and without knowing exactly what we're looking for," the Count was saying quietly, "but it must be somewhere in that house." "Right you are, gov'," the thin man said. "Ol' man Peacecraft wouldn't 'ave gotten any of it outta the country wi'out somebody noticin'." Treize nodded. "Once we've persuaded her Ladyship to leave for her country estate, we can get what's left of the staff out of the way and search the house properly. I'll need at least a dozen of your top experts for the job." "At your service, sir," the thin man replied. Just then, a flutter of fur and blonde hair came rushing up to Treize, and the thin man disappeared as quickly as he had come. Treize looked down at his niece, flanked by Otto and Dorothy, and sighed. "Uncle, have you seen Heero anywhere?" Relena asked nervously. "He hasn't come back with the cider yet, in fact, nobody knows where he is, and it's nearly midnight!" Treize looked around, then up at the enormous clock tower. Indeed, time was very short, but Heero was nowhere to be seen. "If you want my advice, just let him be, my dear. We men sometimes need a moment or two alone...he'll come back soon enough" Relena was getting much too hysterical to take the hint. "But you don't understand! I have to find him before the clock strikes twelve! It's vitally important!" "If you ask me, you're well rid of him, if only for one evening," Otto sneered. "Leave him wherever he is and let him come stumbling home drunk at three in the morning. Maybe then you'll see--" Before Otto could finish his bout of pontification, Relena hefted up her skirts and ran away, determined to find her betrothed before 1901 ran out completely. Dorothy shook her head sadly. "I wash my hands of that girl. She just won't see sense." Relena looked up at the clock and gasped with fright. Less than two minutes remained. She dashed through the crowd in all directions, and thought she saw Heero standing near a lamppost, but when she called out his name, he disappeared. Again she thought she'd caught up with him by a fir tree decorated with glowing candles, but again, he flew out of sight as soon as she made her presence known. After a few more sightings she realized that there was a second person attached to his arm, and stopped calling out to him. She tailed them at a good hunting pace, dreadfully curious as to who it was that kept pulling Heero just out of reach. On the opposite end of the hunt, Duo was relieved to finally turn around one time without seeing Relena's face, but that didn't mean he was about to quit running. He led Heero by the arm on a zig-zaggy route all over the square before ducking into a narrow crevice between two tall buildings, hardly even wide enough to merit the term 'alley'. Heero offered no protest and simply followed quietly. Once they were safely tucked into the alley, Duo listened to the crowd for a moment, their rumblings of anticipation growing louder and more fervent as the magic hour approached. He smiled. "Can I ask you something?" "Ask me anything you want," Heero offered calmly. "Do you like having me for a best friend?" Heero thought briefly, then nodded. "Very much." "Well, how about this..." Duo sidestepped until they were facing each other, with their backs to opposite walls of the alley, then took a small step forward. "If there was an easy way to sort of...promise, for luck, that we'd be best friends all of next year...would you do it?" This time, Heero had such trust in the boy that he only thought half as long. "I would." Duo's grin turned lopsided with giddiness, and he half-shrugged nervously. ".....'kay......alrighty, then." They stood looking at each other while, outside, the crowd was beginning to count off the final seconds of 1901. Relena was frantically trying to trace the route her prey had taken. She had stopped searching out in the open, and began focusing on the little nooks and crannies around the square where a boy his size could hide to play a little trick on her. Yes, that had to be it. A game of hide and seek. He most surely wasn't running away... "Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!" the people shouted. With her blood pounding in her ears, she ran and ran until she spotted one dark corner where she hadn't looked--a narrow and poorly lit alleyway with few people around it. She dashed ahead. "Six! Five! Four!" Frightened of what his reward might be but determined to take it, be it a warm embrace or a punch to the jaw, Duo crept closer to Heero and took hold of him by the shoulders, backing him up against the wall. He was nearly an inch shorter and had to tilt his head up slightly to get a good look at those frosty blue eyes at such a close angle...those beautiful, sapphire pools that seemed to beckon, not rebuke. He leaned forward. "Three!" Relena skidded to a halt just inside the entrance to the alley and saw her beloved being held up against a brick wall. His assailant was barely moving, except for something shiny and snakelike tumbling out of his coat collar...a chestnut brown braid. Her breath caught in her throat. "Two!" Heero shut his eyes and concentrated mightily on the warmth in front of him, while Duo's hopeful, impish face hovered only a feather's breadth away. "One!" Their lips touched. The crowd roared with a collective cheer of 'Happy New Year', crossed their arms and held hands, linking them all into a long chain of friends and strangers. As they burst forth into a relieved chorus of 'Auld Lang Syne', Relena watched in gut-wrenching horror as the scheming, twisted street rat she had so blindly taken into her home pressed his mouth against Heero's. He had her fiancé well and truly trapped in that dark alley, and she felt sick to her stomach to think that sweet little Duo had fooled them all. The judge, the jury, the barristers, the public...everyone. In spite of the hideous feelings oozing through her self-made facade of domestic perfection, she held her tongue. It would never to do make a scene, even in the worst of circumstances, and especially since Heero didn't appear to be struggling. He must have been confused. Bewitched. Hypnotized. It wasn't his fault. It could never be Heero's fault. It would all have to be sorted out later. She slipped back out of the alley and shoved quietly through the crowd, locating Otto like a homing beacon. The trio all seemed to be waiting for her, and after seeing the determined look on her face, were anxious to hear what she had to say, her first grand revelation of 1902. "I've changed my mind. I want to go to Hampshire, and I want to take Heero with me." They all looked surprised, and Treize did a good job of hiding his surplus satisfaction. Otto nodded in a befuddled sort of way. "Very well, m'lady. Will you be taking the staff as well?" Relena replayed the gruesome scene she had just witnessed over and over in her mind. Heero had to be rehabilitated, as quickly as possible, and that meant separating him from the real problem. "Only some of them. The rest will stay here." And if it just means that Duo stays behind, so be it. There was much excited discussion at that end of the lawn, but several hundred feet away, on a patch of lawn just outside the alley, the mood was serene. Duo and Heero crept back out of the dark crevice and felt the light of a thousand handheld sparklers warming their faces, waving in the mittens of men, women, and children who wrote '1902' in the air, welcoming the new year that was barely a minute old. Just inside their tiny circle of contentment, it was no longer winter but spring. Heero had just been mildly educated in what best friends were supposed to do, and while it wasn't quite what he expected, he certainly wasn't disappointed. There was much about Duo's actions that he didn't understand, and much that he wanted to learn; a curious thought struck him, that for that moment, all too brief, he was the student and Duo was the teacher. Another thought occurred to him, that perhaps this was what being best friends was all about, not just one kiss, but a lifetime of learning from one another. The subject matter was essentially irrelevant...but nice. He glanced over at his friend and smiled. "Kyugashinnen, Duo." Duo smiled back and linked their arms together. "Kyugashinnen." Happy new year, Heero...a whole year together...just you and me. |
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Next, in Episode Thirty-Three: The household is about to be unfairly divided as Relena prepares to relocate the family to her country estate. Who counts as family and who doesn't? The only one truly happy about it all is Treize--read on and find out why!
And a big Kyugashinnen from Mitsugi to you! =^_^= Happy New Year! *fingers crackle* Oi...I need a little rest. What say we put a little distance between us and the next episode, say...January 11th? Thaaaanks. =^-^=