Warning:...the thing about the Victorians/Edwardians is that most people thing they were all sexually repressed. A handful of them were not. A pretty large handful, really. Some of them are in this episode. And there's other things I could warn you about. Warny-warny. There. =P Three couples are going into this story, but only one will come out significantly different. *bwa ha ha...*
Disclaimer: I know, from traipsing through every store, mall, and boutique in the Greater Toronto Area, that nobody has Gundam pilots for sale. I even offered to pay retail instead of the supposed sale price, but they still said no. Therefore, I cannot possibly own these magnificent examples of manhood, or the chicks they hang out with. Do not sue me. I have no money except that miniscule amount reserved for presents.
~~~~~~~~~~Episode Seventy-Three: Shiver
"It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest;It's no secret that ambition bites the nails of success." ~U2, "The Fly"
February 14th, 1903
Early in the morning, while most of the male population were scrambling to find the perfect pink and cream Valentine's postcards laced with flowers and cherubs and doves to give to their sweethearts, Duo and Heero were having a quite normal sparring practice in the pub basement, oblivious to the date. Since Duo was learning karate at such an amazing speed, Heero was rapidly running out of things to teach him, and could best his student with less ease at each succeeding battle. By nine o'clock, they had already had a decent workout, and wound up sitting on the mats, wondering how they could advance their studies without official tutelage.
"I don't suppose Jeffrhyss would give a few weeks off to the guy who taught you to come and teach me, would he?" Duo quipped as they slumped facing each other, cross-legged and each propping up his chin on one elbow.
"Not likely," Heero replied dully. "He wouldn't want to be exposed to the public eye anyway. Shotokan isn't being taught anywhere, and now that I've seen my own training in a more sobering light, it's entirely possible that my instructor essentially stole the method and brought it to Europe in secret. I don't imagine Master Funakoshi would be pleased if he found out."
Duo made a face. "Well, if it's theft, aren't you perpetuating it by teaching it to me?"
Heero blinked in surprise, then abashment at being caught in a technicality. He leaned back, stretched out, closed his eyes, and put his hands behind his head, making a great play of taking an escapist nap. "No talking in class."
Laughing, Duo rocked back and forth, clutching his knees to his chest playfully. Then he got up and walked in a broad circle around the makeshift gymnasium, swinging his arms and stretching in different directions. Tossing calculating and heavy-lidded glances at Heero as he strolled, he licked his lips and put forth a suggestion, a lead-in for a familiar attempt at persuasion. "You know...we've probably got the flawed method, if the Master is still working on it back home...I'll bet you're good enough that you could be taken on as his student, and then you'd get all the newest moves as they were being written into the books, right? ...and maybe, while you were there, if you had time--"
"If I had time, I could travel to Hokkaido and find my mother and father," Heero finished mechanically in a bit of a sing-song voice. Going to Japan had been just about all Duo could talk about for the last two weeks, but then, Heero had hardly talked about anything but the Ainu in the same space of time, so he was just as guilty of raising false hopes. "We don't have time for that right now."
"But we'll go there someday, won't we?"
"If I'm not that concerned about seeing my supposed homeland, I don't see why you should worry yourself about it," Heero sighed. "Granted, it's interesting, but it's not something I desperately need."
"Maybe you don't need it," Duo countered, "but it'd be nice to see you want it, even just a little bit. I've met a lot of orphans in my time, and no matter how tough they were on the outside, they all wanted a mother..."
Not seeing much point to the conversation, Heero wrangled himself up off the floor, checked the clock on the wall, and made for the door. "We might as well go home if we're not going to accomplish anything else." As he reached the doorway, he looked back over his shoulder to see if Duo was following; he wasn't. The chef looked downcast, his happy spirit trodden upon, and a wave of guilt made Heero take a few steps back and reach out to touch his arm. "There's nothing wrong with what you're saying, it's just...it's not a high priority for me right now. I found out the basics of what I needed to know about myself, and now I can let it rest for awhile and focus on the mission. Besides...having a mother might be overrated anyway. I seem to have turned out alright without one, haven't I?"
Eventually, Duo smiled, though on the inside, he wasn't entirely satisfied. Make up your mind, would ya... "Okay, fair enough. We'll talk about it when things calm down."
Heero nodded. "Wise choice." He turned back around, and the pair of them headed up the stairs to the main pub area, where Catherine was just dragging herself downstairs to start tidying the place up, though opening time was a long way off. Since both he and Wufei could impose upon her to open the back door at all kinds of ungodly hours, she had decided to save herself some sleeplessness and legwork by giving them a key apiece, so they could let themselves in and out at will. Having gotten a full night's rest she was back to her old routine quickly, and could be seen running a pushbroom across the floor when the boys emerged from the basement. They tossed each other the usual brief greetings without incident.
As Heero was just turning the corner into the kitchen for two glasses of water as per usual, however, something caught his eye on the floor, hiding at the foot of the bar itself, shadowed by one of the barstools. He paused long enough to stoop down and pick it up, with Duo watching interestedly from a nearby chair. It was a gentleman's pocketbook presumably lost the night before. It was quite thick, possibly with money, and a great deal of it. Catherine must have missed it during her closing time cleanup, and the owner would surely have been missing it by then. Heero turned it over once or twice, then looked around the room to find the landlady, whose back was turned as she dusted the light fixtures. "Cathy!" he called out.
Catherine responded quickly, twisting around to see who was calling her. "What's up?"
Once he had her full attention, Heero tossed the wallet clear across the bar with perfect aim, so the sleepy barmaid could make a perfect catch, if a startled one. "Someone dropped that over here," the boy explained simply.
"Oh!" Catherine reacted with normal surprise and worry over a lost item of such value. "Thanks! I'll put it in the lost and found," she said, and with that, she put down her duster and went to a locked box behind the bar, to secure the pocketbook inside. Heero went on to the kitchen in search of water without missing a beat.
A seemingly benign event such as this held a much deeper meaning for Duo, who watched carefully the entire time, thinking. Something about what just occurred was delightfully strange, and in his own mind, at least, it didn't mesh with what Heero had been telling him only moments before. Duo didn't quite know what it was about finding the lost wallet that was triggering such thoughts, but he expected to understand sooner or later, and until then, it was business as usual.
**********A relief to all, Trowa and Quatre were fully on speaking terms again, and so they had also gone back to eating together, chatting about any subject that happened across the table, and aside from slight residual anxiety about what one expected of the other and vice versa, everything was back to way it was before their relationship went haywire. They were also made happy, if somewhat oppressed, by Relena's order that the house be kept up to its usual shining standard, which gave them stables to tend and a conservatory to prune bits off of, in general. That morning, however, it was time for a tea break, and they were the only occupants of the kitchen table sipping cups of steaming brew, while the maids were busy elsewhere.
They sat on either side of the table, and Trowa was thumbing casually through the newspaper, lying flat to his left. Quatre had his head propped up in one hand and was stirring his tea with the other, after dropping in a couple of sugar cubes to quell his sweet tooth. He gazed and gazed, and stirred and stirred, and after several minutes he developed a curious rhythm that seemed to bang itself out without any cognitive prodding.
*...tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink...*
After awhile, Trowa stopped reading and glared at the spoon, swirling around Quatre's teacup and persistently banging into the porcelain embankments. It was hypnotic, yet annoying.
*...tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink, tickety-tink...*
Trowa cleared his throat gently. The spoon continued on in its stirring motion. "Quat..."
"Hm?"
"If you wanted iced tea to begin with, you didn't have to sprain your wrist trying to cool that down."
All at once, Quatre realised what he was doing, and stopped with a blush. "...oh! Sorry. I was...lost in thought."
"I did notice..." Trowa took a sip of his own tea, substantially warmer than Quatre's, and set it down gently, looking down at it. "What were you thinking about?"
Quatre sighed and set the spoon right down on the table, paying no mind to the drops of sugary tea spreading out on the semi-glossed wood. "I haven't accomplished very much for the mission, or my family, have I?" he began in a self-recriminating tone. "Dorothy won't return my calls, I can't fight as well as the rest of you, except with a sword, and they're a bit difficult to hide in your back pocket..."
"What are you getting at?" Trowa asked, squinting.
"If I was really making an effort, I could be finding out all sorts of valuable things, especially since I can tell when people are lying to me. I was thinking, why can't I start putting it to good use by bringing back crucial information?"
"Like what?"
Creeping up on the subject slowly, as if frightened of the response, Quatre folded his arms on top of the table and leaned over them slightly. "Like the location of Cinq's annual meeting. We only know the general area, and that won't help much with the date speeding towards us. We need an exact compass bearing to set us on the right path, and I've been trying to think of a way to get it." He paused and appeared to be studying a spot on the wall. "Byron would know, I'll bet."
Trowa blinked in disbelief at the idea. "He wouldn't tell us, Heero said so," he stated firmly, "and if he thought otherwise, he would have been the first to suggest confronting him."
"He doesn't expect Byron to tell him," Quatre added with a sly glint in both eyes. "Mister Schaefer hasn't met me yet."
"Well, he has met me, and he's not the sort of person you want mad at you."
"I want to be something to this group, other than 'just the treasurer'," Quatre said pointedly, gesturing forcefully with one hand. "I want to be the chief negotiator, and the quickest way to prove myself to Heero would be to weasel the meeting location out of Byron." Right away, he pointed at Trowa. "And don't you say one word about how I've failed with Dorothy, I'm still working on her."
Trowa whimpered melodramatically at the accusation.
"Look...I wouldn't even suggest it if I didn't think I could do it, and if we stick to heavily populated areas, Byron would have no opportunity to aim a gun at us, because he'd be revealing his location to the authorities. You know it makes sense. We could nip up to Eton, have a nice, calm conversation, trade a few insults, get what we need, and be back before dinner." At the end of his speech, Quatre leaned back, twiddled his thumbs, and looked worriedly at his only supporter. "What do you say?"
It was an absolutely ludicrous plan, one that any sane member of the cabal would have refused. Trowa, however, was once again defenceless against the aquamarine eyes blinking sadly at him from across the table. Perhaps it wouldn't be so dangerous if he went along to guard him. At least the gardener was willing to try, which was more than most folks around the house were up to lately. "...........well, maybe."
Quatre sat back and grinned, pleased to be getting his way, but just thrilled at the vote of confidence Trowa's acceptance represented. Even if, on the off-chance, they didn't get what they were after, knowing that his friend believed in him again made the risk every bit worthwhile.
**********Marcus waited in the hotel restaurant for a long time. Terrified of being late, he was there before the doors even opened, and frittered away the morning on endless cups of coffee while waiting for his luncheon date to arrive. He and Relena had finally hammered out an agreement to meet for a meal in Southampton, so she wouldn't have to venture too far away from her safe little burrow. As the chosen hour grew steadily nearer, Marcus became tense and anxious, fiddling nervously with everything on the table as the caffeine saturation in his blood reached its peak.
Sweet relief finally came when a golden-haired angel floated in, guided through the stained glass doors by the maître D'. Marcus exhaled audibly and rose to greet her, but instead of extending a cordial hand, he plunged them quickly into his pockets for the umpteenth time, to make sure the treasures he carried were still with him. He had a present for Relena, or more specifically, two possible presents. In one pocket was a long tortoiseshell box with a precious but friendly trinket inside. In the other pocket was a squarish velvet box containing a ring; it was a lovelier and much more special ring than the one he picked out for her last Christmas. Lately, he had become terrified of losing her, and what was said at the luncheon had the ability to determine which present she received.
"Lena," the boy gasped. "How are you?"
"Reasonably well," Relena said, a little bit tiredly. A gracious hotel employee pulled out her chair for her, and both youngsters sat down to freshly-presented menus. Then they were left alone. "I mustn't stay very long," the girl continued in a voice that begged not to cause offence. "I'm needed very badly at home."
Marcus frowned at the menu sadly, uncheered by the offerings of poached salmon and tiramisu. She had hardly sat down, and already she was talking about rushing back to Sutherby House. "I thought your home was meant to be in London."
"Marcus, please, I want to have a nice lunch without any arguments abou--"
"I know, I'm sorry," he amended quickly. "Um...so.....you've obviously been keeping busy, I suppose that's a good thing..."
Relena stared drably at the menu equally unenticed by the hotel's delicacies. "I want it to be a good thing," she said softly, eyes downcast.
There was a long chasm of near-total silence, during which they exchanged not a word, and spoke only sparingly to the waiter who came to take their order. An eternity seemed to follow, and the thoughts Marcus was trying to keep off the table were beating furiously on the front door of his brain, trying to get out. Eventually, the door was nudged open a crack, and one of the thoughts slipped out. "About this money business. I know how adverse you are to taking money from a friend, but--"
"No, Marcus, please don't. It's not as bad as--"
"Hear me out," the boy insisted. "If...and I'm not saying you do, but...if you needed a loan, I would be more than satisfied to put something in writing and see you properly through your current crisis. It simply wouldn't do for me to...for me to stand idly by and watch you sink into bankruptcy. I won't have it." And if she wouldn't have a loan, there was always his backup plan--asking her to marry him. Marrying for money was superbly suitable in their circles, and if they just happened to be fond of each other to begin with, so much the better.
Relena blushed and coyly smiled, and thought once more about how often she was amazed by young Marcus. He was so very different from Heero; he would give and give and give until there was nothing of him left, solely for her happiness. "I'm truly grateful to have a friend like you," she cooed, "but as kind as your offer is, I'm afraid you're a bit late."
For one horrifying moment, Marcus saw her hand move and thought she was about to display some other man's ring already embracing her finger, even though he hadn't breathed the word 'marriage' even once. Thankfully, it was a false alarm. Relena reached into a little cream-coloured beaded purse, an exact match to the simple yet elegant cream-coloured lace dress she wore, and took out a piece of paper, folded in half and half again. She placed it before him. "Have a look at that," she said with a proud smile.
With a blend of curiosity and apprehension, Marcus slowly picked up the paper, unfolded it, turned it right-side-up, and read it thoroughly from top to bottom.
**********In a remarkably short length of time, Quatre and his tailoring skills managed to whip up a second long-tailed suit and white bow tie, so that both he and Trowa could dress up to look reasonably similar to the students of Eton College. Another remarkably short time after that, they were on a train travelling a small distance west, and were back on the familiar campus right about lunchtime. They easily located Byron's boarding house again, and hung around outside the front doors, waiting for him to emerge. Trowa asked himself several times what they were doing there, chasing the boy who nearly put a bullet through his chest, but when the answer came that Quatre wanted to be a great negotiator, and then the thought that he had negotiated Trowa right into doing what he wanted him to do, all he could do was stick his hands in his pockets and pout.
Then, as if generated by a slow-moving miracle, Byron appeared out of the boarding house doors, surrounded once again by his posse of young admirers. He didn't notice the two outsiders skulking around as he and the mob sort of lolled amoeba-like across the grounds toward the main buildings. At one point, Byron seemed to grow tired of their presence, and he ordered them away. They obeyed with unnatural reverence and awe, as if receiving instructions from a burning bush. Trowa and Quatre then watched the blond boy carefully, expecting him to veer off the campus towards town, as Heero said he so often did. Instead, Byron went straight on into the thick of the older buildings and, following a winding path through doors and stairwells, ended up in a communal cafeteria.
A steady stream of young boys lined up with trays and filled them up with wholesome, socially-acceptable lunches, then took various places at long, wooden tables with backless benches on either side. Following suit, Trowa and Quatre each grabbed a tray and squished into the line, about ten students back from Byron. They drew a few curious stares from the real students who obviously didn't recognize them, and elicited curt protests as they gradually cut in front of one boy after another, trying to get closer to Byron as they hurriedly tossed miscellaneous food items onto their plates. At last, Byron turned away from the line and took a seat well away from anyone else, and Quatre quickly followed. Trowa was getting his first butterflies of the afternoon, but it was too late to stop what was taking place. The two of them injected themselves into Byron's space, sitting down exactly opposite him, and Quatre immediately took charge of the impending conversation with an imposing and confident glare. "Hello."
Byron sneered a bit at the intruders, thinking they were just more of those pesky admirers, but he soon recognized the cinnamon-haired boy, and figured that they were both pawns of the same Heero-driven outfit. He sat back and smirked. "I knew this was going to happen, I really did. This morning, my horoscope said, 'You will be accosted by well-dressed morons wielding Eccles cakes and butter knives.' The planets have spoken."
"There's no need to be rude," Quatre said calmly, "we're just here for a friendly chat."
Byron folded his arms and glared back. "Hmm. Pity there's so many witnesses, or I could shorten it to my liking."
This time, Trowa leaned forward, somewhat threateningly, a direct counteraction against Byron's thinly-veiled warning. "Did the police ever find out who fired a shot across the campus where the sons of the aristocracy live and work?"
"Don't look at me, I'm completely innocent!" Byron said, placing both hands upon his coat lapels as if supremely shocked at the mere suggestion of wrongdoing on his part. "If I recall correctly, some other menace to the public peace beat me to that honour. Apart from that little incident, I've been a veritable angel."
"Oh, of course," Quatre sniffed. "Now, if we could get to the point, we've come here for some information."
Byron jerked a thumb over his shoulder and started eating. "Library's that way."
"Actually..." Quatre made a daring move by reaching out a hand and actually pulling Byron's lunch tray away, to the center of the bench, right between mouthfuls. "We were more interested in the name of a place...and I think it's a place you know something about that the libraries don't."
"We'd like to know where the Cinq Association is having their annual fiscal meeting," Trowa finished for him.
Byron glared at them with a twisted smile, transfixing Quatre especially as he very calmly reached out and slid his tray back to it's starting position. "That's the funniest thing I've heard all week."
"Why don't we dispense with the sarcasm?" Quatre bantered.
Byron's smile disappeared. "Why don't we go down to the docks and see if morons can float?"
The threat actually rattled Quatre, but not in a way that anyone could see...except Trowa, who was finely tuned to his friend's emotions. He looked hastily to either side just in case someone had been close enough to hear, someone they could march in front of a judge, but there was no one close by. Then, he ran a hand through his cinnamon bangs and leaned forward, needlessly lowering his voice. "Exactly how much is it going to take to get what we want?"
"Whatever it is, you couldn't afford it," Byron snapped. "Now, if you don't mind, I have music class in a short while, and the clarinet section would be lost without me. Ta-ta..." With that, he scooped up all the food items he could easily carry, including his sandwich, his soup, and his bread-and-butter pudding, stacked them on top of his books, gathered up his books with exceptional balance in one hand, grabbed his juice with the other, and walked briskly out of the cafeteria without even the tiniest look back.
Quatre slouched with a huff and folded his arms gruffly. "Clarinet," he spat with venom. "I'll bet he honks like a goose."
Trowa sighed. "So what do we do now, Mr. Chief Negotiator?"
"We stick to him like glue," the gardener declared with determination. "I'm not finished with him yet."
**********".....a hotel??"
The detached, hoot-like question came from Marcus, who had finished reading the letter Relena gave him and still was unable to believe it. The letter was a revised plea for funding from acquaintances of the Peacecraft family, written after the first campaign had fizzled. It was a business plan instead of an ungarnished beg, but while the format had improved, the subject matter was ludicrous. Marcus blinked and shrugged and sputtered, parts of him moving together like a one-man band without any instruments. "I mean...a hotel?"
Relena pouted. "What's wrong with a hotel?"
"You dunno nuthin' about runnin' an 'otel," Marcus blathered, unconsciously lapsing into his natural Liverpool lilt from the stress of the situation.
"How do you know I don't?" the girl protested.
With some effort, Marcus composed himself and challenged her with his eyes. "Alright, how much do you know?"
This time, Relena's lips flapped open and shut with no sound coming out. "Well...it's...it's simple, really...one has guests, of course, and...one has to...look after them..."
"Your prowess astounds me," Marcus deadpanned.
"Don't make fun just because I don't have the right words for it! Running a hotel is just like having dinner guests over, except they spend the night! If you insist on knowing, I think I'm perfectly suited to it."
Unconvinced that what he was reading was real, Marcus leaned back and examined the letter out loud. "So...you've humbly suggested to all the friends of your family to..."
"...contribute to the conversion and renovation fund," the girl supplied cheerily.
"...write you a big, fat cheque," Marcus paraphrased, "and in return, they will each be receiving..."
"...premium privileges for use of the facility at a discounted rate," she added in a duller tone.
"...fictional shareholding which they either will never use or will abuse to the point of running you out of business," he paraphrased again, dropping the letter and watching it flit down to the table while hanging an arm uncouthly off the back of his chair. "If only flying machines were so well thought out."
"I see," Relena said icily, and she actually began to stand up. "Perhaps I was wasting my time coming here."
"Oh, no, no, sit back down!" Marcus begged her, reaching out frantically with both arms. He was saved at that moment by the arrival of their food, which she couldn't reasonably turn down, since Marcus was buying. She sat back down and attended to her napkin, avoiding his eyes while a second waiter filled each of their glasses with a dry red wine. Marcus sighed on the inside and called himself ten kinds of idiot. "I'm sorry, alright? I don't know why these daft things just pop out of my mouth, but if they have any reason at all, it's because I worry about you. I don't want to see you make a dreadful mistake."
"I don't feel like I'm making a mistake!" she declared defensively. "Suppose you loaned me some money. What then? I'd still have no way of paying you back, and I can't keep borrowing and borrowing until nobody wants to see my face anymore. With the hotel conversion, I'd have a steady source of income, and I wouldn't have to go very far into debt for very long. Between the banks and our friends, we can do it."
At that moment, she seemed so confident, so hopeful, that even if the whole thing turned out to be a horrendous mess, Marcus didn't have the heart to tell her so anymore. He toyed lightly with his crab bordelaise, smiling humbly. "If you really think so...then I'm there for you. Take no notice of me when I'm acting stupid...I really am pleased for you."
Relena favoured him with a forgiving glance and tried out her garden salad in a more relaxed mood. Once the first bite was down, she eyed Marcus in a slightly predatory way, and spoke to him in deliberately conniving tones. "You know...once we get off the ground, we're going to need some extra staff...like, perhaps...a manager...someone with class, and style, and good manners..."
"Oh, dunno 'ow good my manners are," Marcus joked, and he tore a piece off his bread roll, dipped it in the wine, and ate it, making a funny face the entire time. Relena nearly went apoplectic with shocked laughter as she slapped a hand over her mouth and kicked him lightly under the table. That was the most wonderful thing about Marcus, she thought to herself, that he always knew how to make her laugh, which was why it felt so good to be around him. As she calmed down and got on with her own meal, blushing and giggling at the stares they had drawn from around the restaurant, Marcus remembered something else that would make her smile, and put his fork down with a thoughtful hum. "Before I forget, I've got something for you."
Again, the girl's eyes lit up in anticipation of a sudden surprise. Marcus hid both hands in his coat pockets, seemed to think for a moment, then produced a long tortoiseshell jewellery box and set it down next to her wineglass with a shy smile. Relena greatly missed getting presents, and eagerly pried the box open, gasping at what lay inside--a string of shining white pearls. "Oh! ...oh, it's lovely!"
Marcus stood, walked around behind her chair, and delicately picked up the necklace while the speechless girl swept her hair off to one side, keeping a hand on her chest to prevent her heart from beating straight through it. Yes, Marcus had chickened out to an extent, but something told him that the ring would have been too much just then, that she didn't need the pressure of a surprise proposal on top of her other issues. He undid the clasp, snaked the pearls around her neck, and fastened the string back up again, admiring the whole picture breathlessly. "You're lovely," he concluded.
Positively glowing, Relena took hold of his arm, tugged him down a bit and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he went back to his seat floating on a happy little cloud. Despite a briefly rocky period, it was turning out to be a splendid lunch, and at the very least, Relena knew there was one person outside her family that she could count on. Whether or not she could ever tell that person why she really needed the money, and what she really intended to do with it, that was another matter entirely.
**********In Bridlewood's general vicinity, there was Regents Park, the named neighbourhood in which sat other homes of distinction, and there was Regents Park, the actual parkland situated on the old plains of John Nash, architect to the Crown nearly a hundred years previous. It was more than mere grass and trees, acting as home to rose gardens, sporting fields, a small lake, the Zoological Society, and spots set aside for open-air theatre in the summer. There was also a steep slope called Primrose Hill, from which one could see as far as Westminster, on those days that the park was open to the public. For some reason, Duo wanted to go walking in the park despite bitter cold and a light drizzle, but he easily convinced Heero to go with him. On one hand, Duo wanted to get away from the constant presence of the housemaids, and on the other hand, he wanted to see this rich landscape that he never would have had a hope of experiencing before, and as they walked, he made a verbal list of all the things he wanted the two of them to see and do once summer came. After a time, they scaled Primrose Hill, keeping carefully out of the way of the private residences nestled within the parklands, and stood at the top, looking out over the city in wonder.
"Kinda like the view from Tower Bridge, only safer," Duo remarked with a grin.
"I'm glad you've given up your old daredevil habits," said Heero.
"Yeah, so'm I." They both had their hands firmly tucked into their overcoat pockets, and braved a chilly wind that seemed amplified at the higher elevation for several minutes, just taking in the sight of a mist-covered metropolis, with so many treats they had yet to experience. "When you think about it, there's plenty of neat stuff to keep us busy here, without spending our--your life savings to go to Japan."
Heero rolled his eyes slightly. I knew you weren't going to stay off the subject for very long. "If you're fishing for an overseas holiday, the answer is no."
"Aw, c'mon!" Duo whined cutely. "I know I said I wasn't gonna talk about it, but I just wanna know why you're not interested all of a sudden!"
Heero tossed him a slight smirk, then set about kicking around little clumps of dirt lodged in between blades of dormant grass. "You know, before I met you, I always had my priorities straight. It was so clear, what I was supposed to be thinking about and when. I hope it's a source of personal pride for you that you've totally disrupted my thought process."
"Aww, don't mention it," Duo said proudly.
"What I'm saying is, I have a very long list of things to do, and they're all important, it's just that I'm used to finishing one task before going on to the next, and...I'm still figuring out how to cope with the freedom of being able to jump up and down the list at will."
Duo nodded thoughtfully, kicking at the ground a little bit as well. It made sense, in a way. Heero didn't place a lesser importance on finding his family, he just couldn't fix a time or date to do so. It was really nothing to worry about, compared to some of the other things he had said that morning. "So...you think having a mother is overrated, huh?"
As it dawned on Heero that he was giving the appearance of refusing the one treasure Duo would have given up half his limbs for as a child, his face went ashen and sympathetic. "I didn't mean to offend you, I--"
"No, no, I'm not mad...you just did something today that really made me think."
"What was that?"
"That wallet you found in the pub today..." Duo looked back up at him with the face he usually wore while reading one of his detective stories. "Catherine didn't see it until you pointed it out, right?"
"Right..."
"And it had something in it, right? It was probably full of money, right?"
"...probably..."
The chef shrugged innocently. "Why didn't you just keep it instead of handing it in?"
Heero squinted. That didn't sound like his little mouse at all, at least, not the person he had become in recent years. "Is that Duo-the-ex-thief talking?"
"No, seriously! Why didn't you keep whatever was inside? We need money if we're going to go crash that fiscal meeting, wherever it is, and it's for a good cause, right? Nobody would have known about it." Duo tried hard to make it sound convincing, because he wanted to watch very, very closely how his friend reacted.
Understandably, Heero was confused at the turn the conversation was taking, but his head seemed to clear when he reached way into the back of it and pulled out a long-standing rule of behaviour. "But I would have known."
"So what? What was stopping you from keeping the money?"
"I...I don't know," the butler said, looking adorably helpless. "It's just wrong."
"How do you know that?"
".....how does anyone know that?"
Duo smiled sweetly, victoriously, and smirked with his eyebrows. "Their mothers tell them so." He saw Heero's face slowly contort into a scowl of non-comprehension, as if the computer of his mind had blown a few gears in a very short space of time. "As soon as you gave up that wallet, I knew some small part of you still remembered your mother. Jeffrhyss wouldn't have taught you that it's wrong to steal, no way...probably the opposite. 'If it isn't nailed down, take it--it might be useful to the mission'...but for a little while, you had a mom who really loved you, and she was teaching you right from wrong like any mom would. It doesn't explain why she gave you up, but it must've been tough on her. I figure, if she didn't care one way or another, she wouldn't have bothered teaching you anything. That's why it's not just important for you, to go back there someday...maybe she's still around, and your dad too. They might have spent all these years wondering if you grew up okay. They might even be waiting for you."
Heero stared, but not quite blankly, as he slowly worked out Duo's line of thinking, after which he half-smirked and looked slightly away. "How'd you get so smart?"
"Maybe I had a real mom too, for a little while," Duo guessed humbly. "And maybe, just maybe, I'm smart enough to trick you into buying dinner at one of those little cafés we passed on the way up here."
"I think I'd better save you the trouble," Heero said, clearly impressed with his friend yet again. "You've done enough mental acrobatics for one day."
Duo grinned and laughed a bit, and they picked their way carefully down the hill, on the prowl for something to eat.
**********Trowa and Quatre tailed Byron relentlessly throughout the day, verbally assaulting him outside every classroom and even going so far as to toss pebbles at his boarding room window when he thought he was in for the night. Moments before he thought he would snap and start shooting things, the agent bolted out of the building, tore across the grounds, and was followed all the way off-campus and into town, even though the sun had set, and it was turning even colder.
At the limit of his patience, Byron hailed a hansom cab and tried to escape on wheels. Before the vehicle could make it up to full speed however, it hit a bit of a traffic snarl with two other carriages and an empty cart bound for market the next day. The boys ran up alongside the cab, and Quatre shook an angry finger at his foe. "Don't think you can get away that easily! We're not giving up until you give us what we want!"
"You two are really starting to tick me off, you know that!?" Byron hollered over the clattering wheels.
"It's not like we're asking for the moon! I'm sure if we looked hard enough in other places, we'd find out in plenty of time! I just thought you might want to be a gentleman and save us the trouble!"
The traffic cleared, the cab rolled forward at increasing speed, and Byron snickered to himself as he left the pests in a small cloud of dust, but when the next thing he heard was a faint voice shouting 'Follow that cab!', his spirits sank once again. Though he was blocked in by the wooden panel doors that closed over his legs, he managed to scoot to one side and twist around to see a second cab directly behind his, with the two morons inside. It seemed like they would tail him until he lost all strength, or at least they would unless he could think of a way to tire them out first.
Hmmm...I've got an idea all of a sudden. What their trouble is, is that they don't know how to relax and let things go...me, for instance. I could get them so mellow they'd forget all about pestering me. Might even be fun to watch, too. "Driver!" he shouted, banging on the roof and leaning his head out to the left. "Take the next left!"
Byron's cab veered down this street and that, and Trowa kept barking out instructions to follow at any speed necessary. The vehicles twisted and turned, rolling speedily out of the classier neighbourhoods and into the seedy boroughs of dockland. As Quatre gazed out the window, holding tightly onto whatever he could inside the tight compartment, he began to worry. The vibes he was getting from the whole area were not good. There wasn't much time to debate the soundness of their pursuit, however, as the lead cab stopped, and Byron sprang out, jogging deeper into the urban jungle. Trowa hastily paid off their own driver, and led a doubtful Quatre on what would be the last leg of the chase.
The trio ran down alleys and back passages, father and farther away from what they called civilization, until Byron suddenly ducked into a stairwell leading down. It was an ordinary-looking inlet, with a rusty railing that simply led from a spot on the sidewalk straight down, into the basement of what looked like an abandoned factory. Quatre and Trowa bravely followed Byron inside, but they didn't see him suddenly hold a handkerchief over his nose and mouth as he burst through the underground door.
Quatre's vibes were getting much worse, but he didn't want to say anything that would worry Trowa; after all, it was only a vaguely uncomfortable feeling, and he had made such a production out of extracting information from Byron earlier that it wouldn't be fitting to give up now, when they seemed so close. The boys jogged down the stairs, pushed through the unlocked door, and found themselves in very dim light, making it difficult to discern what was in the room. A yellowish glow up ahead indicated an open doorway, and they hurried through without much thought to their safety. There was another bare room past the doorway, but it was already much warmer, unnaturally warm, in fact. Still in their long-tailed Eton coats, they found themselves undoing a few buttons as they stumbled around looking for Byron. The whole place gave the impression of a disused warehouse, but why such a thing would be located underground, they couldn't fathom. A second open doorway around a sharp corner drew their attention away, and it was the last time they had an opportunity to wonder about it. In fact, all their higher brain functions were about to be suspended.
Coming from the second doorway, which, upon closer inspection, had actually been plastered into a decorative arch with shining wood trim, was a mixture of deep red light and thin white vapour. It led through a short hallway, which the boys traversed slowly, and with growing unease. Then there was another short set of steps leading down, and an identical decorative archway, from which hung dozens of strands of glass beads, all the colours of the rainbow. They obscured the view, but let out some of the light from within, light coming from many gas lamps, all somehow coloured red. As they pushed through the curtain of beads into the circular room, they found that the entire inner chamber was bathed in red light and a strange kind of smoke, with oriental rugs draped from the walls, red and purple curtains hanging in all sorts of odd places, and a recurring theme of erotic sculpture from other countries. Directly opposite the spot where they stood was a raised landing, where a trio of musicians played a harp, a soft-toned drum, and little golden chimes while sitting on a pile of velvet cushions. The intoxicating sound they produced blended into another sound, one coming from the centre of the room--a chorus of human voices, moaning sweetly, and producing the occasional giggle.
Before the boys could squint through the red light and determine the source of the voices, a very sharp and familiar voice called out from up ahead. "What-ho, weary travellers!"
Trowa and Quatre looked up at the sound and saw Byron, smiling and lounging on another pile of cushions next to the musicians. Behind him was another doorway, presumably leading to another strange chamber, and out of it soon pranced a maturely beautiful woman with flowing dark hair, olive skin, and a black gown made of partially-transparent chiffon. She crouched next to Byron and spoke in low tones to him. "I didn't know you were coming tonight...I could have saved someone for you."
"No need, my pet," Byron cooed back to the proprietress in a lascivious voice. "I've brought you some new toys to play with. They should prove...entertaining." Turning his attention to the boys thirty feet away on the other side of the room, he held up a small piece of paper folded in half. "This is the information you're looking for, gentlemen. It's here for the taking. All you have to do...is come and get it."
There was obviously a catch, but Trowa and Quatre hadn't yet seen what it was. Looking more closely around the room, however, it struck them full force in the eyeballs. The floor of the circular room was recessed about a foot into the ground, and it was lined with loose silks, and cushions, and all manner of soft things. Piled in the recessed area, to the boys' horror, was the source of the human moans and twittering giggles; there were no less than a dozen naked bodies writhing all over each other, glazed in heavily-perfumed oils and their own sweat, engaging in unspeakable acts of rampant fornication right before the boys' tender young eyes. Surrounding the mass of flesh were six trivets bolted to the raised part of the floor, with metal bowls of hot coals steaming away. A few scantily clad servants brought freshly-heated coals from open hearths on either side of the room, and sprinkled a mixture of dried leaves and crystalline powders on the hot coals at regular intervals. This was the source of the mysterious vapour, which hung over the entangled men and women like a perpetual cloud, and this was what Byron expected the boys to traverse.
Quatre seemed to be paralysed from the neck up, so Trowa did the protesting for both of them. "Why don't you come over here?" he asked, as there seemed to be no way across the room other than straight through the orgy.
"Oh, no!" Byron laughed. "You want me to believe you're worthy of what's on this paper? You're going to have to prove it."
Realising that the sight of so much sin must have been a hideous offence to Quatre, Trowa bravely volunteered. "I'll go," he said quietly, having to loosen his tie from the excessive heat in the room.
"Don't you dare leave me here," Quatre said hoarsely. "We'll both go...I'm not leaving your side for a second in this place." He also found himself loosening his tie, and a few shirt buttons as well.
Hesitantly, they began stepping slowly over to the evil morass. A look at each other and a look at the paper in Byron's hand seemed to confirm that they were doing the right thing, and they believed they could get across and back without incident. It would just be rather embarrassing, that was all. Trowa was the first to step down onto the silks and velvets, and Quatre clung both hands onto one of his arms before stepping down after. The nudes didn't seem to notice them at first, then simply worked around their intruding feet to pleasure themselves and each other without interruption. Then one of the young women grabbed Trowa's shoe and yanked it off playfully as he was trying to take his fourth step. He yelped and tried to grab it back, but it was gone, tossed somewhere off to the side where it couldn't be retrieved. Soon after, another young woman grabbed a handful of Quatre's pant leg, and he panicked, clutching Trowa tighter and practically trying to climb him like a tree.
Byron and the woman in the black chiffon gown laughed luxuriantly at the scene. "I love the middle class," the woman purred, referring to the 'pets' in the centre of the room. "I love anything that has more money than morals, but the middle class has more hypocrites than any other. Do remember that."
"Oh, I will," Byron chuckled back. He always enjoyed his visits to the crimson den, where nights of ecstasy were promised alongside complete confidentiality. Everyone in the pile had paid a dear price to be there, to throw off the shackles society had placed on them and indulge their licentious passions. When he wasn't in a private room with a wench all to himself, Byron liked to watch.
In the middle of the room, things were getting unpleasant. The boys had made it about halfway across, but the crowd had noticed their new playthings and were entreating them to join in the fun, having pulled off three shoes, two socks, a jacket, and a tie between them. As they were getting bolder, Trowa and Quatre should have been getting more defensive, but something was preventing them from fighting back. A mere split second before it began to take effect, they both realised too late that the reason Byron was sitting up on the raised landing was that he didn't care to inhale any of the strange vapour, and the vapour itself explained why. Some of it was drifting up into the noses and mouths of the two boys, and as it seeped up to their brains, a cloud descended upon their consciousness. It started with mild dizziness, then progressed into enhanced sensation wherever they were being touched, and a cosmic giddiness, like being drunk. Their eyelids grew heavier and heavier, their focus on the paper in Byron's hand drifted away, and without even knowing it, they had been pulled right down into the heap of bodies, losing more and more clothing by the second.
They were no longer aware of Byron, or the mission, or even their own names as the naked bodies converged on them both, blanketing them and exploring them without barriers. Soon, they melted into the mass and were lost, forms without identities, writhing and moaning as if they knew no other existence, nor wanted any.
**********Duo and Heero well and truly took their time getting back to the manor; the outdoors, even with its frosty winds and occasional snow flurries, was less densely populated than their own house, and sometimes they simply wanted to be alone. A feather-light coating of snow had fallen on the neighbourhood by the time they made it to the back property line and clambered over the brick wall, and it glistened like tiny diamonds in the sparse moonlight, gems small enough to make necklaces for the fairies, all over the grounds. After the snow stopped, the clouds drifted away, leaving a crystalline, starlit sky overhead, of deepest blue punctured with hundreds of multicoloured pinholes. The boys found themselves staring up at it as they strolled, which was an act that was usually out of the question for Heero. Being fixated on one thing while walking forward was exceedingly hazardous under any circumstances, as evidenced by the fact that when he was suddenly smacked upside the head with a snowball, he never saw it coming.
Duo ran away, hooting with laughter. Heero grinned evilly and gave chase, bending down as he ran to pick up glovefuls of snow with which to craft a counter attack. The braided snowball slinger apparently thought he could lose his pursuer by ducking into the hedge maze, but the hunter bravely followed him inside. As Heero wound through the twisting labyrinth of leaves and vines, a peculiar sensation seeped into his consciousness, the feeling that he had been in this same situation before. Duo's childlike laughter drifted back to him on the breeze, and the strains were so hauntingly familiar that he nearly froze in shock. Every now and again, he caught a glimpse of a chocolate brown braid trailing behind his quarry, and the familiar feeling became stronger still. He had done this before! But when?
Though he constantly heard the wavering laughter, he lost sight of Duo somehow, and became lost himself. Heero had never bothered to map out the hedge maze because he never thought he would be so silly as to wander into it, and besides, it was a child's game, and surely he was smart enough to find his way without a compass. A few wrong turns proved otherwise, as he hadn't been paying attention to where he had been going in the slightest. Heero found himself in a dead end, staring at a solid wall of coarsely-trimmed shrubbery more than six feet high, with no escape.
Duo suppressed a snicker as he peeked around the corner of the cul-de-sac in which the hunter was trapped. He crept up on him, on little mouse feet, and at the last second, when Heero realized there was somebody near and turned to look, Duo rushed forward and tackled him. They collapsed into the thin layer of snow and struggled merrily against each other, each trying to stuff more snow down the other's shirt than could be stuffed down their own. After a prolonged wrestling match, the low temperatures began to sink in, and they flopped back on their elbows, laughing with a crisp exhilaration.
Eventually they went silent, looking up at the sparkling sky that so rarely showed itself in winter, and they were blessed with the sight of a few shooting stars, also a scarce sight. It was then that Heero realised where and when he had been through that same experience. "...I had a dream just like this once."
Duo's eyebrows flipped up, impressed. "Seriously? What happens next?"
"Don't know. I woke up long before you got here." Heero then felt very lucky that he hadn't woken up so quickly this time; if it turned out to be another dream, he wouldn't complain if he stayed in bed all day just to be there. An impulse overcame him, and without any internal debate, he leaned over and gave Duo a quick kiss just below his ear, then went smoothly back to his stargazing.
Even such a brief smooch warmed Duo up considerably, but as soon as he couldn't feel the cold anymore, he was staring at the side of Heero's head with wonder. "Is it really that easy for you to do that?" he asked carefully after a long think. Heero glanced back with a bit of a confused look, so Duo couldn't pretend he was mumbling something else; he had to elaborate now. "I mean...y'know...kissing me. You can just...shut your eyes and let it happen? No guilt? No shame? No...worrying if it's the right thing to do?"
"You don't think this is a good idea?" Heero asked, sounding perplexed.
"Geez, it's not that, it's..." Duo sighed to himself, wishing he'd never brought the subject up. "Okay. I just told you how lucky you were to have a mother who cared enough to instill some morals into you, and that's great. I grew up in an orphanage surrounded by nuns. Catholic nuns. They can make you feel guilty about going to the bathroom."
Heero made a scrunched-up face that indicated he had heard more than he wanted to.
"Okay, forget that. What I'm trying to say is that, even though those nuns don't know where I am, don't know what I'm doing, don't know who I'm with, nothing...they're all expecting me to be sitting in the snow..." Uncomfortably, Duo sat up, hugged his knees to his chest, and looked away from Heero as he forced out the last few words. "...kissing a girl. There."
There were an awful lot of jokes Heero could have made about that statement, if he had the talent and the practice at making wisecracks, but he settled for something moderately clever and entirely true. "Well...it's a little cold out, but I don't mind waiting here while you run back to the church and clear it with them."
Duo laughed. "I think I'm a little past asking permission," he said, falling back on his propped-up elbows, a bit more relaxed. "But...seriously, you're lucky. You're lucky to be good enough to turn in lost wallets, but that you're not so...laden down with guilt that you can't make the tiniest move on your main squeeze without questioning your existence on the planet."
Heero didn't know quite what to say to that, but felt something should be said nonetheless. "It's up to you, Duo.....it always has been. I wouldn't turn you down, but I wouldn't make unreasonable demands, you must know that by now."
"Yeah...I know," Duo affirmed, smiling off in another direction. He wasn't entirely sure what Heero meant, or whether he knew what Duo would make of it, but it was comforting enough to lead to the suggestion that they go back inside and warm up, and get on with the next phase of the evening, whatever it might have been.
When they slipped in through the kitchen door, Duo saw a note propped up on the table, lying against a bowl of apples. He picked it up and read it aloud, at which time the boys discovered that they were all alone in the huge house. Doris, Elsie, and Bethany had all gone out to a pub for the evening, to lament their lack of Valentines, and wouldn't be back until late. Hilde's name wasn't on the note, but she wasn't in the house either. Heero met the information with his usual lukewarm statistical interest, but Duo's senses were set on fire. They were alone in the house. No interruptions, no witnesses. He tried not to let the excitement show in his voice when he suggested to Heero that they change into warmer, drier clothes and regroup in the parlour with a roaring fire and a hot toddy each. The motion was carried unanimously, and off they went.
The chef traded in his dark outdoors suit for his denims and a fuzzy red sweater a certain someone had bought him for Christmas, and Heero came dressed in the casual beiges and browns he had procured to show up Jeffrhyss some time ago. Following a recipe in the back of a cookbook, Duo made two hot cinnamon drinks with just a splash of Scotch in each, and they hauled one of the heavier sofas in front of the fireplace in the parlour, settling in for a cozy night. After a few sips of their drinks, they opted to sit on the rug so they could stretch out, and leaned against the edge of the sofa at just the right angle so they could tilt their heads back on the cushion and let the tensions of everyday life drain out through their toes.
".....this is nice."
".....mmm."
Perhaps it was the alcohol, or the warmth of the fire, but something pleasant was masking the feelings of guilt as they tried to flog Duo's mind into a more orderly state. Putting his drink down off to the side, he curled up close on Heero's right, snaked both arms around his waist and nuzzled his neck. Nothing he had ever experienced in the whole of his life felt as good as that, the simple comfort of being snuggled up to his soul mate. Heero put his drink down as well, needing two arms to give Duo a proper squeeze in return, and involuntarily drew his feet up closer so that his knees were bent, and his shins were catching more of the heat from the fire. It gave rise to another one of their quiet conversations, the kind that just seemed to sprout out of nowhere.
"Heero?"
"Hn?"
"Guilt aside...do you ever want more?"
"More than what?"
"...more than this."
"I don't know what that could be..."
"Well..." A devilish smirk crossed Duo's face and made his eyes sparkle with a mischievous light. Taking full advantage of the empty house, he got up on his knees, swung one leg over both of Heero's, and sat gingerly down in the gap between the boy's knees and the rest of his body, straddling him snugly. "If it turned out that you were interested...I could always show you," the chef purred. "I could probably do that easier than telling you." Never having been sat upon in quite that way before, Heero opened his mouth and drew breath to say something, but Duo quickly hushed him. "Shh shh! ...no talking in class."
A crafty smile was all Heero saw before Duo put both hands on his shoulders and kissed him with slow and careful motions. He certainly wasn't going to argue with that sort of treatment, so he gladly put his arms around the boy and clutched him tightly against his chest. As often happened when they were adrift in a sentimental sea, Heero's mind wandered onto subjects he never gave a moment's consideration to the rest of the time, such as the question of what Duo's hair would feel like in his hands if it were unravelled from its braid. First, though, he had to relieve the uncomfortable pressure on the back of his neck as he was being weighted against the edge of the sofa with twice as much force. He let go of Duo long enough to swing his hands back to either side of his head, and shoved hard against the sofa, knocking it out from under him, so that he landed flat on his back on the floor, taking Duo with him. Though it was a purely tactical move, Duo's impression of it was tactile and nothing else. He squirmed and let out a pleasant little moan, and in doing so, he caused something unusual to happen.
When the weight lying on Heero's midsection squirmed, it did so in just the right way as to send a series of electric shockwaves through his system, starting below his belt buckle and radiating outwards. Almost immediately, there was a sensation of tightening and swelling in the affected area, competing with Duo's weight for dominance. Mentally, Heero frowned. It was another one of those pesky malfunctions of the human body that his instructors had begun warning him about when he was twelve, and that began plaguing him regularly when he was thirteen. The only remedy was meditation, meaning he would have to stop what they were both doing and sit very quietly, exerting cognitive control over his body until the swelling was overcome. It had been many, many months since he had such an attack, so he couldn't imagine where it was coming from now; he also didn't care for the idea of stopping what he was doing, because biofeedback meditation was extremely boring in comparison with a good, long snog with Duo. Still, he would have to make a decision quickly because, as his instructors also warned him, the swelling would just grow more and more uncomfortable, and the sooner it was taken care of, the better.
Duo hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary yet, and was just overwhelmed with not only the physical sensations, but the amazement that nobody had burst in and caught them yet. The very thought of someone coming in must have jinxed them both, however, for just when he had a hand on Heero's top shirt button and was beginning to work it open, the front door slammed.
The chef sat up with a gasp, loose wisps of hair flying out from his braid and wafting back down as he turned his head to the parlour door, listening for activity down the hall. Heero just looked generally disappointed and thought to himself that if Duo was just going to sit there looking at the door, he'd sooner get the boy off him so he could get on with his badly-needed meditations. His wish was sadly granted as Duo stumbled to his feet and tiptoed frantically to the parlour door. He peeked one way down the hall, and then the other, and grew bold enough to take a few steps out in his stocking feet to search for intruders. Heero sat up just as he disappeared and went straight into damage control mode, sitting cross-legged with his arms perched limply on his knees, eyes closed and drifting into a familiar half-trance.
"Oh, Duo! I had the most wonderful day today!" Hilde's voice injected itself into the silence, uninvited.
Out in the front hall, Duo stuck his hands in his pockets after straightening out his hair a bit, and pasted on a fake smile. Yeah, and I was just about to have a wonderful night, you little... "Oh yeah? What happened?"
Hilde sighed contentedly as she twiddled her fingers around the single pink carnation she carried, and having removed her coat, she began walking down the hall on her way to hang it up on its usual peg in the kitchen. "Wufei took me out to dinner, and we went on a ferry ride, and then we went to the pictures and saw this story about a rocket ship flying to the moon, and--" Her excited chatter stopped when she passed the parlour doorway, caught a glimpse of the roaring fire, peeked inside without thinking, and saw Heero sitting Indian-style amongst askew furniture, empty glassware, and a rumpled rug. Her eyes ballooned and she turned back to Duo with a hand over her gaping mouth. "Were you two in the middle of...oh, I'm sorry!" She turned to the door and held an apologetic hand up to Heero, who opened one eye at a distance and did little else. "I'm so sorry. Go back to what you were doing, and you won't even notice I'm here, I promise. I just have to catch up on my dusting and then I'll be out of your hair." Tossing her coat into a corner, she seemed to abandon the idea of hanging it up in favour of hanging around the front halls, dusting needlessly.
Duo grumbled, walked a few paces back inside the parlour, and Hilde's voice again trickled in at an unnecessarily high volume. "I'm not listening at the door, by the way! Just carry on like I'm not even here!"
A little black raincloud followed Duo the rest of the way over to the displaced sofa, where he plunked himself down and stared with dissatisfaction at the top of Heero's head. "She just...wants us to be happy..." A thin excuse it was, but Hilde was still his friend. A minute passed, and Heero didn't move, or even acknowledge what had just happened. Duo squinted. "Uh...what are you doing?"
"Meditating."
"Oh." It seemed neither the time nor the place, but the mood was completely shattered anyway, so there wasn't much else to do. Duo leaned forward on his knees and propped his chin up in one hand, looking depressed, but it helped to remember what had happened instead of lingering on what didn't happen. He smiled a little as he stared into the fire. Nice while it lasted...
**********Throughout the night in the crimson den, more dried leaves and mind-bending powders were poured over more hot coals, and the blob of bodies worked tirelessly on itself, until the sky began to lighten, signalling the dawn. Then, the party broke up in a very ordinary fashion. The regulars dressed themselves, paid their fees to the woman in the black gown, and some said their goodbyes for another week, while others slipped out shamefully by the back door, hoping not to be seen by anyone in their sober state. Byron had actually left hours ago, having been sufficiently amused by the human toys; after all, he had school in the morning. There were only two individuals left when the sky turned from black to midnight blue, and the birds began to sing.
Cracking the dusky silence in two, Quatre came crashing out of the sunken door, up the stairs, and staggered right across the cobblestone street to land flat against another brick building. He was paler than usual, with dark circles under his eyes, and sank down to the ground with his back to the wall. When the vapours had cleared, he had only been able to find part of the clothes he came in with, but other people had left some bits and pieces behind, and so he ended up with black trousers, a brown cardigan that was at least two sizes too big, and one left shoe. He didn't look at all well.
Trowa stumbled up the same stairs soon after, clutching his head while in the grips of a severe hangover. He had managed to find the coat he was wearing earlier, but was also left with a pair of grey slacks that ended four inches before his legs did, and a white business shirt with blue ink stains all down the front. Wrapping the coat tightly around him and shivering, he looked around frantically for Quatre, and rushed across the street when he spotted him. He would have sat down on the pavement next to him, but for some reason, he couldn't, so he folded himself down on his knees with his legs trailing off to the side, and gave Quatre's shoulder a firm shake. "Are you..." That was a stupid question before it was even finished. "You're not okay, are you?"
Quatre's lips were quivering, and he was staring fixatedly across the street at the dungeon entrance. "If I was in my own country right now...I could be stoned to death for this."
"There is absolutely no way anyone could fault you for what happened in there," Trowa insisted, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself as well. "It was all...drugs and treachery...and you were only trying to help us, and your family...."
"They would need four witnesses to convict me...four witnesses who are believers..." The blond boy was still muttering on about what he had decided would be a just fate. He thought about the people he had just spent the night with, wondering if there were any among them who would help put him away, even though they were just as guilty as he was. "I don't think there were four believers of anything in there."
"Nothing's going to happen to you," Trowa repeated. "This was a million-to-one occurrence that's not likely to ever happen again, and I certainly wouldn't sell you out to your government, or whatever it is you're scared of...it's going to be alright!"
"I...I don't know...I'm just exhausted..." That much was indisputable. It had been a terribly long night, and now there was to be a terribly long day of self-accusation and feeling sick to the stomach with guilt. Before he got on the train to shame, however, he had a question. "Why are you sitting like that?"
"Um..." Trowa was hoping to hide the moderate pain he was in, at least until they got home. It hadn't worked.
Quatre's mind hurriedly replayed all of the gruesome events, searching for the cause of his friend's injury. Thanks to the narcotics, he had been transformed from a helpless victim to a very active participant in the sensual melée, and among the hazy images and sounds, something stark and glaring jumped out at him. He hadn't spent the entire night as a captive of unhappily married women who pawed at him like a pale little mink coat; at some point, he got an exceptionally strong dose of the drug and went after Trowa. Whatever happened next was blurry, but what remained in his memory was having Trowa pinned face-down on the silken floor, with one arm twisted behind him, and from there it just got more and more blurry, mercifully. The blood drained quickly from Quatre's face, and he shrank away, wide-eyed with terror. "I hurt you, didn't I!? I knew it! Oh, no..."
"No, it's not--" Just as Trowa was about to make light of his injuries, the very act of breathing seemed to bring on new twinges of pain. He winced. "It's just a dull ache. Not that bad." He soon realised he had to make it better before poor Quatre began to cry. "It's actually kinda funny when you think about it...I mean, here we both were, dancing around the subject of...and then we..."
"That's not even remotely funny."
"Alright, then how about this..." With some careful angling and a long-held breath, Trowa managed to swivel himself to face away from the wall and gingerly lowered himself to the ground. Another wince, but it was alright, especially for having a knee jabbed into his back, a shoulder half-wrenched out of its socket, and a few other things he chose not to think about. "When I was a cabin boy aboard ship," he began with a half-smile, "it was my job to bring the captain fresh coffee in the morning, six o'clock sharp, and he said if I was ever late with it, I wouldn't be able to sit down for a week."
They stared at each other, across a block of air thicker than anything they breathed in the crimson den. Quatre's mouth stretched out, though he was fighting hard against it, and as his eyes crinkled up, Trowa worried that he actually would cry, but a moment later, his sides started shaking in a very different way. Up through his thin, tired body, swaying his hair out of place and squeezing his watery eyes shut, came silent peals of laughter, and Trowa was swiftly caught up in the current. They fell against each other and laughed right there in the street until everything hurt. It could have been post-traumatic stress, but it didn't seem to matter.
In a while, they calmed down, and the sky was turning powder blue over one half of the city. They had to get home before they fell asleep there and were picked up by the police as vagrants. Trowa struggled into a standing position and checked his overall health; things still hurt, but they would heal much easier than Quatre's soul would, and he knew that soul would need a lot of care in the coming weeks. When he looked back down at him, the gardener seemed dazed and unsure of where they stood with each other once again. Trowa extended a hand down to him without a second thought. "We're still friends."
Quatre smiled a bit, took the hand that was offered to him, and let Trowa pull him upright. They rearranged their remaining shoes and socks so that they each had at least something on both feet, and they leaned against each other as they walked unsteadily in a random direction. Out of money, but with plenty of time, they would take a good long while getting back home, and when they finally made it, they would need a good long sleep before checking the bridge between them for cracks. There was even a chance that it had been made stronger.
~~~~~~~~~~
Next, in Episode Seventy-Four: As a prize for being such entertaining guests at his party, Byron reveals the location of the Cinq Association's next major meeting, but not everyone can go, due to financial constraints. The group must choose who goes, who stays, and how they will get where they need to go.
...and in the grand tradition of PG-13 stories, I never quite said what might have been said. =^_~= I'm a great believer in letting you fill in the gaps with your own imaginations. *chuckles* Ah, me...I don't have a Valentine this year, so I've just unleased some pent-up anxiety on this Episode. I hope it wasn't too much, or too little, or too weird, or anything else. Gotta keep pushing that envelope, you know. *sighs hopefully* Well, it's time to set the next date, and I think February 23rd would be as good a time as any. Gotta be going now. =^-^= *blows Valentine's kisses to you all*