"Can you believe it? We've been up here twice in less than eight hours -"
"What's going to happen now, Heero?"
"It is a university..."
"Hey, it's that guy with the hair -"
"Couldn't they have at least waited till after I got off my shift?"
Duo's eyes were open and shut in the second it took for the sunlight to blind him.
"I think he's coming to..."
"Do you think they'll make him cut it?"
Duo tried to bolt upright, but hands held him down.
"Easy there... the ambulance will be here any minute."
"It's probably held up by that parade on the other side of campus."
"What parade? The feminist speech gala, you mean?"
"Gala, protest, parade - it's all the same thing here."
"You have no idea what this society puts women through!"
"Clearly you've never been a man in a gender studies course!"
Duo groaned and tried to move again. If he was going to be laid up here, he didn't want to listen to this.
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"Now I'll never get moved today."
"Relena."
"Look, Heero, I'm worried about this guy, too," she off-handedly gestured to the near-prone figure laid out on the concrete. "But there's not much we can do about that now - after all, we've done enough."
"I was the one that hit him."
"Yes, but you can't possibly take all the blame. He clearly wasn't paying attention... and he wasn't crossing at a corner or a crosswalk, and I don't think he even looked both ways..."
This was Relena's way of trying to make him feel better, he knew. She was just trying to cheer him up by displacing the blame. But Heero didn't need that right now. He didn't know what he needed, but... Heero rubbed his temples.
This wouldn't have happened if he just wasn't so tired.
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Trowa thumbed the pen knife in his hand. It was black with skull and crossbones with "MAX" in calligraphy beneath it.
'You really should learn to be more careful, Duo,' he shook his head and put the pen knife aside for now. He'd crossover to the co-ed dorms later and return it, 'That one could never stay quiet for long...'
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Quatre groaned and rolled over. He'd just gotten to sleep when the sound of sirens in the distance lulled him awake. He should've shut his window. It was probably another fire alarm... pot-smokers or something. He pulled the pillow over his head and tried to get back to sleep.
"It's that guy with the hair..."
"Do you think they'll have to cut it??"
The pillow hadn't hit the floor before Quatre was out the door.
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Somehow, this was what all those English classes amounted to. Being near death and all Duo could think about was what Derrida would possibly have to say about this situation. Or, how to re-evaluate his circumstance in the post-modern perspective... or the fact that he was picturing the mother he never knew in his mind was some subverted Oedipus complex.
None of the voices around him sounded familiar. They were all buzzing, some louder than others, but they weren't exactly helping in anyway... though they were keeping him awake. They wouldn't let him move his head, or anything else for that matter, but someone was kind enough to shade his eyes so he could open them. In the shade, however, he was just as tempted to keep them shut. It would take care of that final paper he had due next week.
"DUO! Holy fucking shit mother Mary Joseph!"
That was strange. That voice sounded familiar, but the words didn't seem to fit.
"Speak to me, Duo! Has he said anything?! Jesus Christ!"
... After all, Quatre was raised Muslim. 'Guess I was a bad influence in more ways than one...'
"Get out of my way!!"
'What happened to being polite, eh, Quat?'
"Duo, say something - anything -... Please, Duo..."
Duo felt hands brushing his hair out of his face and opening his eyelids.
"I can't go another year in this place without you -"
'And here you were the one who was always afraid people would get the 'wrong idea' about us...'
"Honestly, Duo, what the hell were you thinking?! Getting hit like that!"
Duo would've rolled his eyes if he wasn't afraid they mightn't roll back.
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"Do you think they're... I mean, that the two of 'em are -"
"Relena."
"What? ... it's a valid question."