Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or any of the songs mentioned. But I do recommend them!
Warnings: There is a lot of lime and sleaze in this chapter, mostly focusing on Dorothy's fab, fab, body. You can skip this chapter if you want, because it contains slightly gratuitous club dancing, but you will miss Duo and Haruka's growing sense of "Dorothy is creepy." Oh, wait, I guess you won't, because I just told you. Also there is minor Haruka angst. But that's more of a summary than a warning.
Haruka was sitting on the picnic table under the tree outside the girls' dorms when Duo finally finished getting ready and went outside to wait for Dorothy. The campus lights gave the area around the table an orange glow, and left the dorms in shadow.
"Aren't you cold?" she asked him. He was wearing black pants and what looked like a fish net shirt with one solid strip around the chest.
"Naw. Well, a little. But it's not about comfort, it's about looking good."
"You look like Marilyn Manson."
"I like Marilyn Manson."
Haruka wondered if her own t-shirt, jeans, and jacket would be appropriate for the club, but she was too embarrassed to ask. She would never, ever ask Duo about fashion.
He sat down next to her. "Why'd you decide to come?"
"I dunno. I guess I just want to check it out, see what it's like. If I don't like it, I never have to go back. It's an experiment, I guess." She looked over at him and smiled in embarrassment. "It sounds dumb, but I'm being honest."
"Yeah. I think I understand. I've been around it my whole life, so it's just natural for me to go to a gay night club. You, Haruka…" He shook his head. "I'm a little surprised. Well, not surprised, 'cause there's no way you can keep to yourself for your whole life. It's inevitable. I'm just surprised you were able to work it out with your conscience."
"Well, I haven't exactly been able to do that yet. There is no way my conscience is okay with this. It's one thing to notice a girl walking past, but it's something else to go looking for a girl to hook up with."
"Everybody else does it."
"Doesn't make it right."
"And anyway, what's the difference? If you're looking, you're obviously looking to hook up. Don't be thinking you're better than me."
"I think there's a big difference between what I do and what you do, because I don't do anything."
"Yeah, and who's happier?"
"I guess that's kinda hard to judge. I'm okay."
"I'm okay, too."
A big yellow car drove up the road and skidded into the fifteen-minute drop-off spot and the horn honked.
"All right, all right." Duo hopped off the table and sauntered over to the car. Haruka followed, but she kept her hands in her pockets and her shoulders were hunched over. She was nervous, and it confused her. People didn't usually bother her, and she was used to knowing what she was doing. This was different. And then, she didn't even know if she should be doing this.
The darkly tinted window came down.
"How much?" asked Dorothy. (Author's note: Are the "Duo is a whore" jokes getting old, maybe?…Nah!)
"Two for one special tonight." Duo got in the passenger seat, and Haruka climbed in behind him. "Dorothy, this is Haruka Tenoh, Haruka, Dorothy Catalonia."
"Pleasure!" said Dorothy, putting the car in gear and peeling out.
"Same," said Haruka, fastening her seatbelt.
Duo noticed a pack of Turkish Golds below the CD player in the dash. "Mind if I bum a smoke?"
"Go ahead. Light one for me too, please?"
As Dorothy took the cigarette from Duo, she half turned around to ask, "Haruka, would you like one?"
"No, thanks," she said. "I get enough fumes at the race track."
"Haruka races cars," Duo explained, rolling down his window.
"Oh, do you really!" gushed Dorothy in a voice that was normally reserved for battles and Miss Relena. They were on the main road now, and Dorothy was driving like she was in the Indy 500.
"Yeah, every once in a while."
"I so admire drivers. Risking your life at maximum speed for the glory of victory!"
"It's really not that dangerous anymore."
"Of course it is! You must be so brave."
Now it was Duo's turn to be annoyed. He hadn't counted on competition from Haruka. How was he going to score, er, get information out of Dorothy is she was giving all her attention to Haruka?
"What do you think of this car?" Dorothy asked.
"Never seen one like it," said Haruka.
"Yes, it's a custom. It makes me more likely to get pulled over, but I don't really need to worry about that." She took a drag off of her cigarette and smiled at Duo.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"I've got connections," she said lightly.
A clue, he wondered? But Dorothy was not one to be careless. She cut off a truck, received the driver's raised finger with a laugh, and sped up. For the first time, he realized that Dorothy might be up to her own games, and he had better be careful.
They showed their ID's at the door of the club and Dorothy paid for her and Duo. Haruka was on her own. She paid and put her hands in her pockets, following the other two into the dark room.
There was a bar to the right, and a pool table near it. To the left was a dance floor, and right next to them was a raised portion of the room, with a low wall and some couches and chairs. The light made white things glow.
Haruka was at first relieved and then annoyed to see other girls like her. She was used to being an original, and was a little thrown to suddenly find herself in a room full of girls with butch hair cuts and baggy shirts. However, there were plenty of femmes with short, schoolgirl skirts and tight tops. Lots of pretty boys, collars popped, and a few goths.
Duo and Dorothy were easily the prettiest couple there. Duo in his goth get-up, but still smiling and managing to pull off his usual care-free attitude, Dorothy in a long black skirt and a corset that tied up the front and accentuated the curves of her pale chest.
The three of them stood at the edge of the dance floor. Most people were already dancing, some just bobbing their heads and some standing on top of boxes and gyrating like they were in a music video.
"Like it?" Duo yelled over "Send Me an Angel."
"Yeah!" Haruka yelled back. She noticed Duo was already wiggling around to the music, and Dorothy was surveying the crowd with the glint of a huntress in her eyes. "You guys go ahead and dance, I think I'll just watch for a while!"
"What?" yelled Duo.
"Go on!" Haruka shooed them out to the dance floor and headed for the bar. She didn't normally drink, but this situation called for it. She wondered if one of these girls would talk to her. She wondered what she would do if they did. She wondered what it meant if they didn't.
For a while she just watched. It wasn't long before Duo and Dorothy were grinding on top of boxes. They looked so natural. Not fair. Haruka could dance, but not to this 80's crap.
There was a cute bartender with short blond hair, but she was obviously straight. Haruka cursed her as a tease and went back to watching the dancers. If you were trying to figure out the sexual orientation of people by who they were dancing with, you were out of luck. Everyone danced with everyone else. Lots of hags, Haruka noticed, but also a few straight guys. Whadda ya know. Duo was now dancing by himself, but a tall, skinny, pierced guy was moving in.
"Haruka!"
She felt a hand on her arm and turned to see Dorothy standing next to her.
"Oh, hey! Nice dancing!"
"Thank you!" Dorothy laughed and leaned forward, but she didn't take her hand off of Haruka's arm.
'What the hell?' thought Haruka. 'Is she flirting with me?'
"Why aren't you out there?" Dorothy asked.
"I don't really do this kind of dancing." Haruka leaned closer to her so she wouldn't have to yell.
"Would you like me to teach you?"
What? That line was classic Tenoh. Who had turned the world upside-down?
"That's okay. Look, if anybody here does any teaching, it'll be me, okay, kitten?"
"Oh, my! Well, I am a very willing student."
"What are you studying?" This was more like it. Out of the corner of her eye, Haruka saw a tall brunette in jeans and a scoopneck shirt staring at her. Oh yes, the Tenoh magic was working.
"I'm studying…humanity. Do you know anything about that?" Dorothy's ice blue eyes suddenly scared Haruka. Why was that? Was this girl the evil Rei had sensed? As if in answer to that thought, the corners of Dorothy's mouth turned up in a sadistic smile. Haruka shivered and turned her gaze back to the dance floor.
"I know a thing or two," she said.
"Well then…" Dorothy slid her fingers down Haruka's forearm and took her hand. "Teach me." She stepped back, away from the bar. Haruka stood up and followed her. Dorothy led her right into the middle of the crush of bodies dancing to "Girls and Boys" by Blur.
Dorothy turned to face her. "Ready?" she asked, tilting her head and looking up at Haruka.
In answer, Haruka turned her around, put her hands on her hips, and pulled her close. They started moving back and forth. The music changed, and Haruka leaned her head down so that her face was almost in Dorothy's pale hair. She smelled like lilacs. Unconsciously, they got closer. Dorothy put her hand over Haruka's and guided it from her hip to the front of her skirt.
'Oh, shit,' thought Haruka, but only because Dorothy was so creepy. She quickly got over it, and didn't need Dorothy's hand to give her permission. She held her hip more firmly with one hand, but the other hand moved from the smooth fabric of the skirt to the ribbons of the corset, and slowly kept moving up. Their cheeks were touching now, and they were both smiling. Haruka pulled playfully at the bow at the top of Dorothy's corset. Haruka's brain had now shut off all unnecessary functions, such as thinking. Everything about the moment was sense—the lights, the noise, the smell of lilacs, the incredible softness of Dorothy's skin…
Dorothy reached up and put her hand behind Haruka's head. She looked up, and showed Haruka the most delicate neck ever created. "Having fun?"
"As long as you are."
"Not as much fun as we could be having." But she smiled as she turned around to face Haruka. She reached up under her shirt and touched the skin of Haruka's stomach. They kept moving to the music, and Haruka discovered that along with everything else, Dorothy also had a perfect ass.
"Hey hey hey!" said Duo, coming up next to them. "What am I, chopped liver?" Then he paused to think about how stupid that cliché was. It wasn't like he knew anyone who did like chopped liver, but it didn't really come up all that often. Why did people say that? Then he looked at the scene in front of him and remembered what he was doing.
"Enjoy the show, Maxwell," said Dorothy, still looking Haruka in the eye.
It was nice, but he was damned if someone was going to get felt up without involving him. Well, he was damned anyway, but as long as that was the case, why not?
He pushed Haruka's hands out of the way and took up a position behind Dorothy. Haruka wanted Dorothy more than she had wanted anyone in a long time, but she was in no mood to participate in something this sleazy. For heaven's sake, she had moral standards. Unlike these kids. At the bar she ordered a bottle of water.
Duo was used to these situations. Normally he was in complete control of himself, and it was his intended victim who had trouble seeing straight. But he could see that Dorothy was that kind of person too, and that excited him. This was a challenge.
They moved to the music. They were both naturally graceful, which usually showed up in Dorothy's fencing and Duo's "running and hiding" tactics. Though what they were doing now hardly qualified as dancing, they were still admired by the people around them.
As the music changed, Dorothy turned around to face him and stepped closer to him. She put her hands behind his neck and leaned her lips close to his ear. "Maxwell," she whispered. Her breath was cold.
"Yeah?" His answer was low and rough. Hoo boy, she was making him a tad uncomfortable.
Breathing out, she slowly moved her mouth from his ear down to the front of his face, until their lips were almost touching. "What do you want, Duo?"' she whispered.
"What do you mean?" he murmured. Or anyway, that was what he meant to say. He wasn't sure if any words had actually come out. Her lips were so close to his…He closed his eyes.
"What do you want to know?"
His hand was behind her head. He pushed her closer and they were kissing. The kiss became more fierce and Dorothy started biting his lip. Not nibbling, biting, and with the pain Duo held her waist more tightly. Dorothy slowly licked his lip, stepped back and smiled. He put his finger to his mouth and saw that it came away with blood on it. He looked at her. She just kept smiling. He took a breath to speak, but she cut him off.
"I think you had better have an idea of what you are getting into, before you get hurt."
"Pain doesn't bother me," he said.
"Oh, but Duo," she said, sounding worried, "I think it does."
Duo and Haruka stood in the driveway of the dorms after Dorothy dropped them off. Duo's lip was swollen, but Haruka didn't comment. Duo had been uncharacteristically quiet on the way home, and since it was after two in the morning and she had an 8:30 class, she saw no reason to fill in his silent spaces.
'He has to be cold,' she thought, but she waited because he seemed to be thinking about something.
"Dorothy…" he began.
"Is creepy?" Haruka supplied.
He smiled briefly. "Yeah. So you noticed that too, huh?"
"How could I miss those eyebrows?"
"Not just that…She could be dangerous, Haruka. This means more than you realize. So I think you should back off and leave her to me."
Haruka snorted. "So the fate of the world depends on you hooking up with this Catalonia girl?"
He looked at her. "Yeah. Yeah, something like that."
Haruka knew that Duo was fond of sarcasm. She also knew that right now he was completely serious.
"Sure, Duo," she said. "She's all yours."
But this was all she needed to convince her that the other senshi needed to look into this. Rei had been right. Something was up.
In the next chapter, several people wonder what the hell is up with Dorothy, Duo gets ragged on by Wufei, and we learn some secrets about Trowa…How is Heero getting along in a setting as social as a college campus? Which Star Trek alien race would Trowa cosplay as? Will Rei finally kill Usagi after sharing a dorm room with her? Will Quatre and Trowa "do it?" Is Heero straight or gay or what? Is there anyone out there for Haruka, or will she be stuck baby-sitting and buying alcohol for the under-age senshi? The answers to some of these questions and more in the next installment of The College Years: Eyebrows Without Kindness! Author's Note: I have already started working on this chapter, so I really am planning on updating it!