Disclaimer: These characters are used and abused without permission. But they enjoy it. =^_~=
~~~~~~~~~~Episode Eighty-Six: Daystalkers
"The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilised man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected." ~Anton Chekhov, "The Lady with the Dog"July 4th, 1903
Just when it seemed like the premier quality employment agency would never get Harvey Young off its books, they found him a vacant situation to fill, as a proofreader at a small local newspaper. His fastidious attention to detail and pin-point accuracy made him particularly suited to the job, which pleased his employer, the editor, but Mr. Young was just happy to be earning a regular wage again. Being able to keep an eye on the news before it even went to print would have been a bonus as well, if what passed for 'news' at this paper wasn't dog shows, bathing beauty contests, and the occasional jumble sale.
After less than a week on the job, Mr. Young was working just as hard as he had been when he started. He had a nice little desk, a high-backed clerk's stool with no lumbar support, and a darling little window through which he could gaze admiringly at the brick wall across the alley. The stack of news items and advertisements that wanted checking over for proper punctuation and typographical errors was waiting for him, faithfully, every morning at eight, and he had until six in the evening to sift through it all, though the pile sometimes seemed to grow rather than shrink. Mr. Young shared a large room with other clerks at other desks performing other vital tasks, but in the first few days of his employment, he had failed to socialize with any of them. It was long, lonely toil that, apart from the money, did nothing for the worker except strengthen his English skills.
Then, when it was just approaching one o'clock that day, there came a light rapping at his window, so delicate and secretive that no one but Mr. Young could hear it. He lowered his quill a bit, lifted his head, and saw a cheery, smiling face under a tweed cap. A hand belonging to the cheery face reached up and jerked a thumb in the opposite direction from the window, anxious to get going.
Mr. Young looked up at the clock on the wall, then pointed to an imaginary watch on his wrist and held up seven fingers. The cheery face seemed happy with this, nodded, and disappeared from the window, while Mr. Young got back to his work. As he dipped his quill into the ink, however, it dawned on him that his window was on the second floor. He paused to think, and eventually smirked. ...baka. He kept forgetting that the boy was an acrobat who specialized in alleyways.
Seven minutes later, Heero and the other clerks were let out of their cages for lunch. Duo was waiting by the front door, and slapped his friend in the shoulder as soon as he appeared. "You lecture us on getting out of the house whenever you need us, and yet you can't go to lunch a few minutes early to see me?" he scolded teasingly. "There's no justice!"
"Want to trade places?"
"...........no." They chuckled, walking away from the newspaper building, and Duo leapt into the leadership role as Heero looked to him for direction. "You're gonna love the place I found! It's not that far away, and there's a nice park in between so you can stop and feed the ducks after work!"
Heero smirked a second time and hid both hands in the pockets of his older, more tattered suit. In certain workplaces, it didn't pay to be better dressed than the boss. "I think the ducks will do just fine without my help."
"I wouldn't insult ducks, if I were you...they can gang up on a person and start pecking them all over. It can happen." Duo looked expectantly at Heero, waiting for some hint of belief in what he was saying. He didn't get one. "Okay, bang goes my idea of having an army of angry ducks at my command...would've scared Jeffrhyss to pieces, I tell ya. But never mind...c'mon!" Tugging on Heero's sleeve, Duo dragged his rolling-eyed charge out of the business district and into a lush park, the promised land of all his daydreams. Everything around them was a most glorious summer green, from the thick carpet of grass, to shrubs and tall reeds reaching up through ponds and marshes, to the towering treetops that carefully selected which of the sun's golden rays should be allowed through the canopy. The good people of the surrounding Camden neighbourhoods were out in full force, strolling through the little patch of urban forest in cream-coloured suits and lace dresses during their collective lunch break, and a chorus of well-fed sparrows and starlings serenaded them, a song only sparsely punctuated by the cry of a baby in a pram, or the yip of a gentleman's dog. A prettier slice of heaven could not have been found anywhere.
While the boys walked, Duo regaled Heero with a complete run-down of amenities at the flat he had discovered the previous day. Now that they were both earning again, they reasoned they might just be able to afford the change in accomodations, but the first sincere dialogue about money that they had shared in several weeks was cut short when Duo spotted something far more interesting. The strains of a brass band were wafting towards them on the breeze, and Duo just couldn't stand still. He took off running, and Heero had a surprisingly hard time catching up to him.
"Look at that!" Duo crowed, skidding to a halt. In a clearing, there was a great wooden gazebo with white filigree trim, and on its platform was a twenty-piece band wearing closely cropped beards and red uniforms with shiny brass buttons. Some leisure-seekers were seated before the edifice on two sets of cast iron benches, gentlemen with walking sticks and ladies with very grand hats. The band was just finishing up a sprightly brass arrangement of "The Ivy Green," and their very presence left Duo surprised and entranced, today of all days. "Those guys weren't here a little while ago! They must've just set up for the lunch crowd..."
"We don't have much time to sit and listen," Heero warned apologetically.
"Yeah, just hang on a minute..." Duo was already fishing through his pockets for coinage, ignoring Heero's logic. He started walking briskly toward the gazebo, then turned around, walking carefully backwards as he threw Heero a question. "Hey, does Japan have any kind of 'Hooray for us' day once a year?"
Heero blinked and shrugged. "I don't know."
"You should find out!" Duo ordered with a one-handed point. Then he jogged up to the band just as they finished their current piece, waving to the director and shouting, "Do you take requests!?"
Heero squinted and shook his head, mostly at the way the boy could run and jump in that flimsy tweed cap and jacket without dislodging the braid tucked in behind for safe keeping. After exchanging a few words with the genial conductor and palming him a modest tip, Duo stood back a few paces to enjoy the fruits of his labour as the band lifted their instruments and broke into a lively rendition of "The Stars and Stripes Forever." Duo swayed and bounced in place to the beat of the march, almost dancing. Even thousands of miles away, he still found low-cost ways to celebrate his homeland.
Everything was going splendidly, and Heero thought to himself that they really had plenty of time to see the flat without chopping short one of Duo's happier moments, until his eyes began wandering all around the park and beyond. Heero's keen vision was still programmed to skim over and ignore civillians in order to focus on credible tactical threats, and he hadn't seen any for several months, until that very moment. An agent was on the far side of the park, moving slowly and suspiciously about as if scanning the landscape for possible targets. Heero's pulse quickened. It had been a long time since field training, but he had a good memory for faces, and the drab-looking fellow was definitely one of Jeffrhyss' men. His appearance was odd, though, because as far as Heero knew, this man didn't stray out into the open much anymore. His rank had advanced enough that he no longer needed to do his own footwork...so what was he doing in a public park?
Many possibilities swirled around Heero's mind, the first and foremost of which was that there was some sort of operation afoot that presented the perfect opportunity for sabotage, but that was soon shattered. A second agent joined the first one, and the pair of them stood together, looking out of place only to Heero's eyes, in their standard-issue dime-store suits and ratty bowler hats. They spoke to each other while subtley pointing in various directions from one end of the park to the other. Neither of these men would dare expose themselves to public view unless there was something terribly important hidden in the park. Something...or someone.
Heero felt a twisting sensation in his gut, the instinct for self-preservation's way of telling him that he was no longer safe, especially since he was unarmed that day. Suddenly concerned for Duo, he snapped his head around to the gazebo and found him conversing with a middle-aged couple in the front row. They were all chatting happily about something, but they were too far away to hear. Heero looked back at the two agents, and they were walking his way. They didn't appear to have seen him yet, but their path would take them too close not to notice him, if he was even the target. Heero couldn't be sure, and wasn't going to waste precious seconds carrying on a mental debate about it.
As calmly as he could, which was downright icy, he strolled up to the cast iron benches and ran a quick eye over the audience before sitting down gingerly next to a fifty-ish banker type with graying sideburns, a pinstriped suit, and a monocle over his left eye. He was asleep, having sat down to read his newspaper and not gotten past page one. His head was bent minutely forward underneath his executive black Homburg, and his hands were folded neatly in his lap; he seemed to defy gravity as he sat more or less straight up while snoring softly.
From where he was on the bench, Heero could just peer out from behind the sleeping man's head, and saw the agents striding steadily nearer, heads swivelling in all directions. While they were looking elsewhere, Heero reached up, carefully lifted the sleeping man's Homburg hat, and plopped it down on his own head, then took the newspaper that sat folded up between them and opened it, burying his face in the inky leaves. All the while he kept one eye on Duo, who was somewhat less recognizable with his hair tucked down inside his jacket; there was little concrete evidence to suggest that Jeffrhyss' men might be tailing the chef, but if either one of them made even the tiniest threatening move towards his mouse, their next several meals would be consumed through a straw during their convalescence.
Silently, the agents walked past. They glanced in the direction of the gazebo, but couldn't find what they were looking for. No more than twenty paces separated them from the back of Heero's head, but he was essentially invisible to them. Once they were safely gone, Heero put back the hat and the newspaper, all without waking their owner, and walked down the aisle between the benches just as Duo was walking back up.
"A couple from Louisiana," Duo explained with a smile, pointing a thumb behind him, where the middle-aged pair were sitting back down to enjoy the final strains of the song. "Real nice, too! Told me about this shop that imports hand-ground cayenne pepper from--"
"Yes, alright," Heero said impatiently, pulling him away by the arm. "Are we going to see this place, or what?"
Unable to sense any tension in his friend, Duo laughed off his urgency. "Of course we are! And wait'll you see the view out the front window!"
They continued on in their original direction, while the band moved on to the next number in their repertoire. Heero believed he hid any residual concern very well, but couldn't help looking over his shoulder at the rapidly departing agents every few yards until they were out of the park. In a way, Heero almost wished there had been a confrontation, because that way he would have at least known that they were after him all along. This way, he could only worry silently about their purpose.
**********Something about Wufei was not quite right lately. Few people noticed due to the extreme difficulty involved in getting to know him, but among those perceptive enough to tell the difference, one person was very worried.
Even after he pushed her away, often making her feel as unwelcome as she possibly could, Hilde kept hanging around him, searching for clues to which his sullen mood might relate. She noticed, on those occasions when she could escape her household duties, that he was eating less than normal, staring into space more than normal, and barely spoke to anyone. It hadn't been very long after she first tried to befriend him that he confided in her about his desire to see Treize suffer, no matter what the cost was to their little group, and since then, he had gone severely downhill.
Hilde went out of her way to visit him at the pub that morning, and found him standing at a front window, staring out at the street and unwilling to move. He picked the most remote window in the entire establishment, it seemed, and the rest of the clientele had learned to keep well out of his way. Against all of Catherine's advice, the housemaid felt obligated as a friend to try and break through his wall of silence, and appeared at his side during the middle of the lunch rush with a tray, bearing two lunches that she hoped they could share together. "Wouldn't you feel better if you ate something?" she asked in a soft but trembling voice. There was no response. ".....c'mon, you've been at that window all morning. What could possibly be so interesting?"
Again, no reply. Wufei continued to stare out into the street, standing ramrod straight with his arms folded, as if hell-bent on ignoring the girl. Eventually she gave up, setting the tray down on the table next to him and weaving through the sea of dining patrons to the door, throwing one last glance and a heavy sigh in the boy's direction before heading back home.
In reality, Wufei was so far gone that he didn't even notice her presence. The trance was already too deep, and he couldn't pull himself out of it even if he wanted to. While anyone else looking out that same window would have seen a simple scene of street life in Peckham, he saw the past, scrolling before him like a burnished sepia tone newsreel. In the depths of his psychotic episode, he saw an environment that was a blend of his native China and the San Francisco he knew before spiralling down into a life of petty crime. Through that window, he saw people walking about whom he knew were long dead, and some of them even slowed their pace to gaze back at him, accusingly, saying with their hollowed eyes and drawn faces, 'How could you let us die?'
Wufei twitched almost imperceptibly as the phantoms passed, accompanied by the ambient clinking of cutlery and dishes behind him, and as usual, his hallucination built up to a dizzying climax when a glowing figure in white strode out into the dust covered street that only he could see. It was a girl, dark-haired, with narrow eyes framed by long eyelashes. She hardly looked twelve years old, but contained the wisdom of all her ancestors condensed into one hurt gaze, which she slowly directed at the window. It wasn't the first time Wufei had seen the ghost, though the girl was becoming clearer, brighter, and better defined each time she appeared, accusing him at the same time as she charged him with his most important task, avenging her death. Behind the glass, his eyes widened. It was nearly time, she said, and there was much to do. Unseen by the oblivious pub patrons, Wufei nodded, slowly and faintly, and then he moved away from the window. As he made his way back up to his room to prepare, the ochre haze of the dreamworld outside gradually faded, blending his psychosis back into his personal reality without any outward signs that he was losing his grip, proof that the mentally unstable quite often looked just like everybody else.
**********Milliardo needed a personal army, that much was certain. It was the only solid fact he had, the only scrap of a plan available to him, and he clung to it even when it didn't lead him anywhere. For many days he had searched for that elusive army, in the seedy underground that stretched from one coastline to the other, at the docks and in the hidden bars populated only by thieves and cutthroats. He was highly unlikely to find persons with the necessary skills among the law-abiding, but sadly, the ones who were the most qualified were also the least trustworthy. As soon as he left Sutherby House, he was fated to return empty-handed, and he did.
He dragged himself up the front steps with a single suitcase and a terrible frown, looking more than a little disheveled in one of his father's old brown suits, and felt an utter failure. Still, it was nice to come home to an open door, a cup of tea, and a friendly face. Pegan was prepared to deliver all three, and gave his master the usual hero's welcome as a matter of protocol. "Pleasant journey, sir?"
"It rained slightly less than half the time, so I suppose so," Milliardo groaned with a hint of sarcasm.
Pegan took his suitcase and closed the door. "Miss Relena is waiting for you in the lounge."
Milliardo barely heard him, wrapped up in his own troubles and fiddling with one of his cufflinks. "Oh, yes?" he muttered.
"With some friends," the butler added. "She is most anxious to have you meet them."
There was no curiosity about his sister's new friends, only a slightly miffed concern at how she could have made new friends at all given the current state of her responsibilities. Something else worried him more, and he cleared his throat to stop Pegan from disappearing down the hall. "Miss Noin?"
Pegan paused and turned slowly, his features slipping downward. "I'm afraid she hasn't been out of her room since you left."
Milliardo's face fell also, and he stalked away from the servant, frowning once again. ...acting like a child...thinks she can get at me by punishing herself...see if I care... The last thing he had the energy for was trying to resuscitate his failing romance, but the only other port in which he could hide from his problems was in the lounge, meeting Relena's simpering little chums. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have, but he was desperate.
He could hear a pack of girls chattering away long before he reached the lounge doorway, but they weren't at all what he expected when he walked in. Relena was playing hostess to four brunettes, all of whom seemed to be anywhere from five to ten years older than she, and they also appeared to be foreign. All five of them looked up when he entered, and the chatter ceased. Relena set her cup of tea down and stood, smiling. "Right on time," she praised. "No one will ever be able to fault you for a lack of punctuality."
She stepped forward and rose up on tiptoe to kiss her brother on the cheek, but he was more intrigued with the strange assortment of girls in cornflower blue dresses, like one would find on waitresses in a restaurant. He eyed each one carefully and noticed that two of the four were identical twins, but it didn't explain much. "And who are your charming companions?"
As Relena stepped back, the oldest of the guests stood up, crowned by a flowing mantle of shiny dark hair so much like the others' that they were almost certainly related. "My name is Yasmeen Winner," she said, "and these are my sisters, Kamal, Nashida, and Asalah. There are two others besides us, but regrettably we couldn't all be here to meet you at the same time. Nevertheless, this is indeed an honour, after everything Miss Relena has told us about you."
The kind introduction blew right past Milliardo as he squinted at his sibling. "Nothing but good things, I hope..." With that, Relena squirmed.
Yasmeen swallowed, unable to hold it back. "She informed us of your...current needs, with regard to..." She had a well-rehearsed speech when she walked into the house, and it had suddenly split into hundreds of tiny pieces and gone scurrying away like ants running for cover under pebbles. The most obvious explanation that Yasmeen hadn't clicked into yet was that she hadn't expected Relena's brother, the haggard war hero, to be so tall, broad, and gloriously handsome. It might have short-circuited her brain briefly, but she recovered in the fullness of time. "You need someone to fight alongside you. Our family has agreed to help in whatever way we can. We may not seem like anyone's first choice, but you can trust us, we all swear it. There are secret skills that have been passed down to us that would be invaluable in your struggle, I promise you that. Whenever you need us, we are at your command."
Well after the end of the speech, Milliardo was still looking from face to face, wondering if they could all possibly be serious, or if this was all some sort of bizarre test to see if he still had a sense of humour after all this time. He put an arm around his sister and bent down close to her ear. "Could I speak to you for a moment? Outside?" As the girl blinked up at him, he placated the brunettes with a fake smile as he steered her towards the door. "Excuse us..."
Relena didn't like being led out into the hall by the arm, but it was better than being pulled along by the earlobe, which was what she used to get occasionally from the servants when she was a little girl exerting her bossiness. As soon as Milliardo stopped and let go of her, she twirled around to face him and delivered the first blow. "I knew you wouldn't like them."
Milliardo was having none of it. "Don't take this the wrong way, but are you mad!? Are you out of your tiny mind!? Have I really sunk so low in your eyes that I need women and children to fight my battles for me!?"
"They're good at what they do! I've seen them fight, and they're positively marvellous!"
"Compared to what!?" the ex-soldier hissed. "Which one of us has been on the frontlines of a war!? Hm!? You've never seen real fighting in your entire life! You don't know how difficult or dangerous it is! I didn't want you to know those terrible things!"
As their whispers grew harsher, their noses got closer together, her reaching up and him bending down so they could be furious across a shorter distance. "You can't shelter me forever, and you never could! I know far more about what goes on in this world than you'd like to admit, and I think I'm more than qualified to judge these ladies on their suitability!" Then, Relena was the first to back off, stepping away a few paces and turning back to glare at him. "And besides...I can already tell you you didn't find anyone suitable on your travels. And how long were you off looking? Remind me."
"This is simply out of the question."
"No matter what task they carried out, nobody would ever suspect them until it was too late. Who in their right mind would? They've already proved themselves to me, all they want now is the chance to convince you as well. Just hear them out." Then, Relena brought out her secret weapon, cuddling up to Milliardo, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her head against his chest and looking up with those big, blue doe eyes. "........please?"
Milliardo sighed heavily. The whole thing felt wrong, but not just the part about letting a pack of giggling girlies take over his most dangerous dealings, squashing his ego to the size of a grape and mashing it into the ground with their high heeled boots, one at a time. It felt so wrong to be in this position at all, of having to prove how evil he could be in order to do the world the greatest good he was able. However, when he put this one decision in perspective with the big picture, it didn't seem nearly as bad as the rest of the decisions he would have to make quite soon. His only hope was that his plan to impress the selection committee would be so frightening that the girls would reneg on the contract of their own accord. "...alright."
Grinning, Relena pulled him back into the lounge where the four sisters were waiting expectantly for their answer. "I'm willing to take you on for a trial period," he told them. "Just as myself and my...'employer' are under evaluation by the Cinq Association, so too will you be under evaluation by me. I've been thinking long and hard about what task to give my new staff once I found them, so I might as well give it to you straight, before we go any further. If you agree to my terms, you're welcome to try and impress me. If not, you're free to go."
Eventually, Yasmeen nodded, and the girls all sat down. "We're listening..."
**********On a quiet little street in a quiet little corner of Camden, there was a large three-story home owned by a little old lady with many cats. She lived in a little cottage-like building attached at the back, and rented out the three levels of the main house as separate apartments, and by doing this, had managed to live quite well despite being widowed for nearly thirty years. The first and second floors were presently occupied, but the third floor was available, and among the people vying for ownership of the lease were two young men, presumably fresh out of school and willing to share expenses until they could each afford their own chunk of London real estate.
Inside the third-floor apartment, there was the sound of a key turning in a lock, and then the main door swung open, revealing old Mrs. Heddlewick and her two prospective tenants. "Each unit has a full bath, but only the downstairs has a kitchen," she spieled as she marched straight ahead into the suite, reaching up briefly with one hand to pat her bun of thinning gray hair and then fiddle with her cameo brooch as she turned to face them. "If you want a cooked meal, there's a dining room off the back porch. The menu is tacked onto the posterboard next to the hat stand. Prices for each meal will be added to the rent bill at the end of the week and must be paid in full Sunday morning, prompt. Rubbish pickup is on Thursdays. If you miss it, you will be expected to dispose of the refuse yourselves, and not keep it in the rooms until the next week. We have a girl that comes 'round to clean six times a month, and both she and I would prefer if the rooms were vacated before she arrived. And no dogs. Birds, cats, and perhaps I would even allow a rabbit under special circumstances, but positively no dogs. And one other thing...no young ladies, either. This is a respectable establishment, and any philandering about with the opposite sex will result in immediate eviction. Is that understood?"
It was just as well that the prim landlady couldn't see the way Duo rolled his eyes. "I think we might just be able to swing that," he said, sounding only half-serious.
"And you don't mind one extra cat?" Heero asked, looking down at his feet where two chocolate point Siamese were saying hello by rubbing up against his ankles.
"Not at all," said Mrs. Heddlewick. "Your friend told me all about your Turkish Angora, and it might even be good for her to socialize with a few of her own kind."
Duo wandered over to one of two windows in the front wall that opened the space up to the city below, and on the horizon, one could just make out a vertical blob that could have been the Tower of London. "What did I tell ya about that view, huh?" he boasted, making a sweeping gesture at the glass. It might not have been an ocean view with palm trees and golden sands, but it beat most of the views in his life by miles.
Heero was fairly quiet during the showing, for his own reasons. The more he thought about his experience in the park, the less he thought that setting up house in some domestic fantasy was a good plan overall. Who were they looking for? And if it's me, why leave it so late? ...no, it couldn't be me, not after all this time. Just my ego talking... Try as he might to convince himself otherwise, however, the whole event was very disturbing, and he couldn't help but feel threatened. The details of the rooms didn't register in his mind, because far too much of it was being taken up with endless loops of speculation, and concern for Duo's safety.
A banging from downstairs interrupted the proceedings, and Mrs. Heddlewick seemed to know immediately what the problem was. "Oh...if you'll excuse me, I expect that's Mr. Fortesque, forgotten his key again. He's rather absent-minded." She excused herself and padded delicately back down two flights of stairs to the lobby, and the boys could hear her opening the door and conversing rather loudly with a person on the doorstep. "Where have you left your key this time, Mr. Fortesque?"
"Eh?" came the slow, weak reply.
"I said, where have you left your key this time!?" Mrs. Heddlewick's voice increased in volume, but somehow stayed friendly and respectful.
".....key? I 'aven't got my key, I've left it somewheres."
"I know that, but where did you leave it!?"
".......eh?"
Duo snickered, thinking old Mr. Fortesque must have been deaf as a post, but swiftly got back to the point of the visit. He picked up where the landlady left off in pointing out all the unique and wonderful features of the apartment, starting with the two-bedroom aspect, bounding from one corner to the other as he spoke, and felt safe speaking frankly because as long as they could hear Mrs. Heddlewick yelling at Mr. Fortesque, he knew they couldn't be overheard. "Now be honest and tell me what you think of this setup! There's one bedroom in behind here, and another one on the other side of the room there, and the bath's in the middle and it all looks out over the next street so we can practically see into peoples' backyards! We can alternate sleeping between the two rooms so that when this skirt she was talking about comes to clean, it won't look lopsided, right? It's close to your office, it's close to the Manor, and it's got that great park, too! There's no telephone, but the telegraph office is right around the corner, and then you get into all these fantastic restaurants, and I can't wait for us to sample every one of them! What do you think?"
Heero stayed fairly neutral, keeping his hands in his pockets and his thoughts to himself. "...it's very nice..."
Duo pouted. "You don't like it."
"Did I say that?" Heero snapped, almost unpleasantly. "I'm just wondering if it might be wise to...hold off on this a little while longer."
Duo thought for a moment or two, then scooted up close to Heero to judge whether he really liked the closeness. "...you'd better not be getting bored with me already, I can only bend in so many directions and that's it. I'm not double-jointed..."
This time, Heero rolled his eyes, and reached an arm around Duo's waist to reassure him while he searched for the right way to break the news. "While we were walking up this way, I saw a pair of agents."
"What...did they see you?" Duo asked, suddenly worried.
"I don't think so, but they were definitely looking for someone. It might have been me, and it might have been my imagination getting over-active all of a sudden...they just gave me a bad feeling."
"...so, what does that mean?"
"I do want this. And especially you. I just want to make absolutely certain that I'm no longer of any interest to Jeffrhyss before we get tied to a fixed address that could put us in danger. If we went back to living under the same roof and something happened to you because they were trying to get to me, I'd never forgive myself."
Duo looked down and gnawed on his lower lip, trying to distract himself with the pattern of the carpet. "How long, d'you figure?"
"I'm not sure...I just don't think now is necessarily the right time." It was agony seeing Duo slide back down into despair, and leaving him there was intolerable. While the landlady was still downstairs hollering at her other tenant, it was safe to deliver a little reassurance, so Heero backed him up into the nearest wall, slowly and deliberately, transfixing him on the same smouldering gaze that always redirected his attention. "We'll just have to hope we're the best possible tenants she sees for the next little while."
Flat up against a blank space of wall between the credenza and a framed picture of the seaside, Duo finally smiled. He knew a lot of other people in his position who would say 'Enough is enough' and leave Heero to deal with his own neuroses and peculiar problems, and it filled him with a sense of pride to hold the promise he made to Heero like a banner, a blanket that wrapped the two of them together. He pushed off the wall a few inches and reached up with both hands to playfully straighten Heero's tie. "We can wait...I'm tough, I can take it."
The elderly pair were still hollering downstairs. Nobody was anywhere near the third floor. Gazing down at Duo's throat, Heero dragged a hand lightly down the length of the boy's arm, then caught him completely off-guard by grasping the arm suddenly, twisting it counter-clockwise and pressing Duo hastily into the wall front-first. Duo gasped and flailed his other arm up onto the wall where it stuck onto the maroon and emerald striped wallpaper, while Heero advanced on him from behind, holding the trapped arm gently but firmly and brushing the orbit of Duo's ear with his nose, exhaling softly onto the exposed skin. Duo let out a quiet, shivering laugh, and then a luxurious moan as Heero's lips came in contact with his throat. With his immobilized hand, he grabbed a handful of Heero's shirt and tugged on it, entreating him to press himself into Duo's back and bring out another moan and a gasp for a reward. A ticking cuckoo clock on the opposite wall somehow became louder in comparison, and then increased another notch when the downstairs hollering ceased and was replaced by footfalls on the stairs. As soon as the change occurred, Heero suddenly let go and moved away, watching with some satisfaction as Duo lingered against the wall, unable to register his absence for several seconds. Duo was still breathing in the soaked-in scent of vanilla candles that clung to the wall, his first free hand drifting down the wall like a crawling spider. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to peel himself off and wander to the other side of the room with a deep breath, and the two made fiery eye contact across twenty feet of flowered carpet until Mrs. Heddlewick re-emerged from the stairwell.
"I'm ever so sorry," she apologized, wringing her hands. Her voice was a little crackly from overuse, naturally. "Mr. Fortesque is rather hard of hearing. Now, have you seen all that you need to see?"
The boys glanced innocently at each other, and Duo shrugged noncommittally. "I think so..."
"How long do we have to decide?" Heero asked.
The landlady looked to one side, calculating inside her head. "Difficult to say, what with the unemployment rates and such. I can't promise to hold it for you, of course."
"Of course," Heero agreed mechanically, reaching out to grasp the lady's hand gallantly. "Thank you for your time. We'll let you know."
The pair of them smiled nicely as they filed out of the flat, and as he passed the little table next to the door, Heero stopped to scratch one of the Siamese cats behind the ears. It purred gratefully and offered no opinion on what it had seen the two-leggers get up to only a few minutes earlier. Outside in the street, the boys quickly agreed that they had done the right thing, and went right into strategizing on how to handle the new threat of agents on the loose. Priorities had to be rearranged constantly.
**********Time was running short for anyone who wished to perform an exhibition feat for the Cinq selection committee. Young Master Peacecraft knew this, and Count Khushrenada knew as well. They both had to accomplish something soon. It had to be big, it had to be bold, and it had to be done by a certain deadline or it would not be considered.
Treize had several delightfully malicious thoughts on what to do, but since he loved them all, he had a great difficulty deciding which feat was best, so he decided to invite some of his closest 'business associates' over to England for a little meeting. He was so wrapped up in what presentations he was going to make to them that he missed the delivery of the morning mail to Lady Une's front doorstep, and had to go back to the foyer to sift through the dregs of party invitations and department store circulars, just in case there was anything interesting with his name on it. As he strutted around the place, shuffling envelopes, he paused by the open door to the parlour and saw Dorothy, huddled in a corner and staring out the window. A pathetic figure of a woman, she was poorly dressed with awful blue bags under her eyes, and was cuddling Anna Maria on the padded French green window seat.
Wickedly amused by her unescapable situation, the Count stopped at the doorway and chuckled. "Still moping, my flower?"
Scowling in a hurt way, Dorothy looked up, and looked away just as quickly. With no money of her own, and no co-operation from her hosts, she was effectively trapped. Almost nothing had gone right since she set foot on British soil, and her options had run unexpectedly dry. Naturally, it was taking its toll in the form of a deep depression.
Treize took no notice of her sad silence, except to mock her. "Well, never mind...even without your delightful chatter, you can pull your weight around here in other ways. You can start by taking my shirts to the laundry, if you want, only tell them no starch this time or they'll eat their own washboards."
Close to tears, Dorothy hefted up her cat and stalked out of the parlour, squeezing past Treize without touching him and crawling off up to her room, or her jail cell, whichever way one chose to look at it. The Count chuckled cruelly and switched his attention rapidly to the envelopes he held, and as it happened, one of them actually was addressed to him. It didn't happen that often, since most of his official correspondence was sent to Switzerland and then re-routed appropriately by his personal secretaries, but he was open to all sorts of possibilities when the postman rang. One odd thing about the letter, wrapped in a plain white business-size envelope with the address neatly printed in black ink, was the lack of a stamp or a postmark, indicating that it had been hand-delivered rather than going through official channels. This intrigued the Count, and he stopped to open it right then and there.
Inside was a single sheet of quality white bond paper, trifolded and slightly wrinkled from moisture. There was a strange dark marking on the inside, and only when he fully opened the page did Treize see that it was dried blood. The colour and consistency were more than a little familiar to him, but the other odd thing was the shape of the mark. It looked as though someone had dipped a large knife in the fluid, coating it completely, and then dragged it across the page in a diagonal slashing motion. The page wasn't cut, but bore the broad stain proudly, a wordless message that spoke volumes.
Treize held the page up to the light and raised an eyebrow at it. Hmmm...someone got up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning, didn't they? Crackpots were not in short supply in his circles, so he thought little of it, but folded the note back up and stuffed it into his jacket pocket on his way out the front door. Using Lady Une's money, he took a cab uptown to a little-known gentleman's club and smoking room set in a lavish chateau overlooking a cricket pitch, where one either had to be a member or the guest of a member to get in. His betrothal to Une put Treize close to the front of the list, and once he was inside, he could invite whomever he wished. This was how he assembled a small cabal of his contemporaries to discuss the matter of his upcoming feat.
The Count had a large table reserved in the main hall, between the bar and the billiard table. All around the smoke-filled space were millionaires in the finest clothes, chatting about how hard it was to find good help around their mansions and other self-absorbed topics, lit by sultry gaslamps under Tiffany shades and served drinks by pretty girls in tea room dresses. By the time Treize got to his table, his eight guests were already well into their second round of drinks and were yukking it up in two or three different languages, both enjoying and mocking British hospitality as they slurped down their vodka and gin. "Gentlemen!" the Count called to them, taking his place at the head of the table. "So good to see all of you."
"A pleasure, as always," said a bespectacled man with a thick German accent, raising his glass.
"And hopefully lucrative, as always," added a portly baron with a great conjoined beard-and-sideburns set.
"Well, that depends on you, and your decision-making abilities," said the Count. Before he could turn to the serving wench and place his own drink order, however, he noticed something on the table right in front of him, a beige manila envelope with a bulge in the centre. He looked down at it, noticed it had a neatly printed address, no stamp, and no postmark, then looked up at his partners in crime. "What's this?"
"Arrived before you did, by special courier," said a third man, a skinny ex-army officer from France. "Why don't we have another round of drinks while you ponder it?"
"More Martinis!" a fourth shouted, attracting the attention of several other patrons in addition to the nearest serving girl.
Treize smirked and shook his head, then waved to the waitress with one hand while turning the envelope over with the other. There was a strange bulk to it that didn't seem usual. It folded easily in half, so there were no documents in it, just something long, thin, and a bit chunky. While the others demanded more liquor, he tore into the envelope and peered inside, his eyes crinkling as if he didn't quite believe that the contents were real. He reached into the golden pocket of paper and pulled out a large carving knife, coated with blood and rust.
The chatter ceased, and even in their intoxicated state, the others were able to focus on the object as Treize slowly turned it this way and that, studying it analytically. "My word," a moustached man in a top hat said with wonder. "Someone wants to get their message across very badly."
Really quite amateurish, thought the Count haughtily. "Excuse me a moment..." He stood, skidding his chair back about three feet and dropping the knife back into the envelope with careless pride. He knew that whoever had left him the pretty package must be waiting for him nearby to have it out, so he made his way through the smoke-filled room to one of the less-advertised exits. Straightening his tie, he stepped outside into a warm patch of sunshine encased on all sides by a well-groomed alley surrounded by silver birch trees, and waited. When nobody appeared immediately, he took a few steps away from the door and turned around.
Sure enough, someone was waiting for him, perched high up on the mantle over the door, balancing on a strip of concrete no more than six inches deep. The figure in white leapt off the mantle, limbs contorted like a preying mantis, and landed a few feet in front of the Count, straightening up to glare him in the eye. "I see you got my message," said Wufei.
Treize held the brown envelope up and shook it like a packet of dog treats, smiling sarcastically. "All the subtlety of a brick...but twice the intelligence!"
"I've chosen not to be offended by your gift for flippancy," the boy in white snarled. "You'll learn to take me seriously soon enough."
"I'm ready to start right now," Treize said, scrunching his eyebrows and folding his arms. "I can't wait to hear what I've done to incur your wrath."
"I told you from the beginning that we had unfinished business, remember?"
"Ah yes...that was shortly before you promised me something to the effect of Heero Yuy's head on a platter, at which you failed miserably." The Count propped up one arm by the elbow and stroked his chin, pretending to see the light for the first time. "And could it be that you set me up from the beginning? Otherwise, why else would you now be working side-by-side with your alleged sworn enemy? As our English hosts would say, 'bad form, old chap'."
Wufei was unfazed, and slowly crawled toward his adversary, his expression growing more fierce with each syllable. "I follow whomever it serves my current purpose to follow, and right now my purpose is making sure you pay for your crimes. I hear that you're on the verge of what you believe will be a great success, but don't expect to enjoy it. I'll bide my time until you've almost reached the peak of your pride, and then I shall strike, I promise you." At the end, he was close enough to spit in the Count's face, but made do with a violent snarl that bore more of a resemblance to a crazed madman than to interior decorator with a chip on his shoulder. He brushed past Treize and laid a hand on the brick wall opposite the exit, where the alley took a sharp turn to the left and spilled out into the side gardens. "There's no place on Earth you can go where I can't see you," he warned before leaping over the six-foot brick wall and vanishing.
Once he was gone, Trieze let his face fall back down into a scowl of genuine concern. The boy seemed unbalanced, and opponents like that were oftentimes much more dangerous than the ones who thought out their attacks rationally. He went back inside, dropping both the manila envelope and the blood-stained note in the trash along the way, but he carried the event with him in other ways, knowing that he might never find a way to defend against this new version of his nemesis.
~~~~~~~~~~
Next, in Episode Eighty-Seven: Heero's team and Relena's army intersect as Milliardo attempts to impress the selection committee, putting innocent lives on the line in the process.
[Edit: Well, now, thanks to my Internet outage, I have to re-do some calculations here...hm...I would say, Episode 87 will be out on July 16. That should reconcile the delay with my schedule. =P Rachel is in charge of the news for awhile, as she's hard at work on a new layout, while I'm still lining up server space, and...well...that's about it for now. =) Hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday week! ]