Title: Catching Duo

Author: Mistress Tsunami

Archive: caveofbats. Faithweb. com (take out the spaces). Fanfiction. Net /shinchansgirl (same)

Rating: R

Pairings: 1x2, 1x5, 5xMeiran, 1x5xOCxOCxMeiran (and many odd combinations of these characters)

Warnings: AU, OOC, school-fic, angst, 1x5 LEMON in part five, which continues into part six, drug-use, Duo-torture (no NCS or BDSM, though), yaoi, shonen-ai, het, get-together fic (is that a warning?).

Many thanks to my betas: Sivy and TabiWolf

Opportunity knocked. My doorman threw him out.

-Adrienne Gusoff-

It was a day just like any other to the boy most students knew as Maxwell. He was typically classified as a high-school junkie and loner; he was seemingly high on life with all his friends, and aggravatingly silent with anyone else. These friends were few and far between, but he was still smart, or so his grades professed. However, typical could not adequately describe this boy.

Black was his usual color of choice, and he looked good in it. Some thought that the lack of color was because he was a 'Goth' child and into devil worshipping. There was no proof of any of it, but it did make him look good…beautiful, even.

He was usually talked about when the group of misfits that the school sported came up, although on average the two groups were known to avoid each other not because of some dislike for each other, but because they didn't notice the other. It didn't seem to matter.

One major slight to his school image – aside from the fact that he was shorter than most of the other students his age – was that long length of chestnut brown hair. He kept it neatly braided back away from his face, and it tended to follow him like a tail trailing down his back. Ostracized as the 'girly boy,' Duo had been pretty much left alone by his classmates to do his own thing. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement: they wanted nothing to do with Duo, and Duo wanted nothing to do with them.

And then there were the times when someone decided to touch that meter-long appendage without permission from the boy himself. Most of the upperclassmen had learned that this boy didn't care about detention; if someone touched his braid, they got a punch in the face, and that was the least of their worries.

Yes, he had landed in detention more times than anyone had bothered to count because of this. So now he was left alone, sparing those too stupid to care, and he had come to expect this. That was why he didn't appear to notice when two cobalt eyes followed him through the main doors to the public high school.

Those eyes belonged to one of the school's even less cared for students, a boy who went by the name of Heero Yuy. Heero was known as one of the cruelest troublemakers; he was a drug addict and was barely passing most of his classes. Though he could, in all honesty, do nearly all of the work assigned while sleeping, Heero chose not to, for the simple fact that he did not have a reason too. He could pass with flying colors without trying very hard if he had wanted. He didn't.

Heero turned back to his group as the braided boy disappeared from his sight behind the large doors.

"Wufei, you know who that was?" he asked, voice quiet.

"Who?" the Chinese boy - who currently had something in his mouth, the smoke from it making his black eyes slightly water – asked in return.

"Braid. Male. Sophomore or junior I think. Short." Heero breathed in the scent of Wufei's cigarette, getting a taste of the second-hand smoke on his mouth.

"I saw 'im," Meiran spoke up from her place on the ground. She leaned against the school building, positioned between two boys and angled so that, if she wanted to, she could see the whole school yard. A candle burned brightly between her bent legs, and she stared at it intently, giving the students the illusion that she wasn't paying attention. She was good at that.

Meiran was currently Wufei's girl, although that often changed in their group. They were in the same year, and both had transferred in the year before last – a mere three weeks before the school year was over. Wufei had pitied her freshman year, as he had thought that she would be another weak female, and had taken it upon himself, despite also being new, to take care of her. She had proved, over time, to be nearly his equal, if not his better, and having earned that respect from him, earned with it the right to remain his girl if she chose. They had come to a mutual agreement: they could have each other and still have 'flings' with the others in Heero's group, but no one else.

The black-haired girl reached up to grab Wufei's cigarette without looking towards him, and inhaled deeply before further explaining. "Brown hair, right? Looks like a chick, 'cept for the flat chest and hips?" Heero nodded, so she continued, handing the still smoking cigarette back up in Wufei's general direction. "He's a junior like us, yeah. In the advanced courses. Smart one, 'e is. Name's somethin' Maxwell, not your average pup now. Smart, yet don't have many friends."

"That so?" Heero grinned, pleased with the information. "Lex, you 'eard anythin' 'bout 'im?"

The blonde girl sprawled out on the cement before Meiran shook her head, sending her twin pigtails flying. They were high up on her head, making it look like she had a lot of hair, and her outfit of the day was made in a dark purple-blue, making her look paler than she was. She sketched on the cement with the charred stick she had found in the woods from an earlier camp-out, the words 'Peace and War' finding their way in front of her in a flowing bubble-script. Her name was Alexia Silverton, a German girl who claimed she could trace her lineage back to Hitler, never mind that Hitler had never had any children, and he had shot his only Mistress. She didn't consider petty details like that.

"Dun think so...wait, wasn't he that kid who was in the art thingy last year? The one they wouldn't let me enter 'cause I was 'absent' too many days or somethin'?"

"Yeah," Alex, her twin brother, a blonde in every sense of the word and damn proud of it, despite the drop in IQ, spoke up. He sat not too far away on the back of a park bench, a 20-oz bottle of cherry coke in his hands, of the safe variety. Alex was known for having a lot of caffeine in the morning, and not really caring about much else until noon. "I 'member 'im. He won last year and so 'e's the one who's plannin' the backdrops for the spring dance this year." He chuckled quietly to himself as he added, "he was offered the task of doing prom, but turned 'em down 'cause he didn't do 'preppy.' They had to practically bribe 'im to do that much."

"Let me guess," Wufei drawled, sensing immediately why Heero's attention on the boy had suddenly spiked, "you found your mark for this year. One Maxwell kid on a platter, life to be ruined because you, Heero Yuy, find him pretty."

"You got a problem with that?"

"Not really," Wufei commented, resembling the dragon he was commonly called as he blew the smoke from his cigarette - or at least, that's what it smelled like - out of his nose. "Can I help?" he added darkly, an evil smile lighting his features.

Heero's face returned the smile, and he didn't answer as the group of five walked into the school building - fifteen minutes late. This year was going to be fun, and that's all he had to say about it.

TBC...

Last Revised 2/16/05