Not as much reviews as I had hoped but my best friend, who is a talented writer herself (No, she did not pay me to say this -.-'), asked me to continue, so I did. I kinda like the idea of Heero, Trowa and WuFei in cowboy boots with cowboy hats on. Yeeeha!

Stuck in the middle of nowhere

Chapter 2

'Is something wrong?'

Duo turned to Bob, who stood a few feet behind him, looking curiously at his cell-phone.

'Uhm, yeah actually, I think it is broken.' He lied and he shook the phone in his hand.

'Well, we can't help ya with that. Technology is not our territory.'

'But how will I get home?' He asked, pretending to be worried.

'I don't know. But the good news is, you can stay as long as you want.'

Well, if his cell-phone really was broken that wouldn't be much of a comfort to him. But now, pretending his lifeline was broken he had an excuse to hang out with a very endearing Trowa and still be able to escape when things got to... primitive. There was no luxury what so ever in this country ranch house. And he needed his luxury.

'I'll introduce you to my family.' Bob said somewhat excited. He looked down at the dog who stood beside him. 'This is Bo, my partner in tough times. He's a Dutch Shepherd.' He said proudly.

Duo eyed the old dog suspiciously but the animal ignored him. Apparently his wasn't important nor interesting. They went outside through the front door.

'You already met my wife Li Sin, wait till you meet her apple pies, hmmmm.'

Duo rolled his eyes, but then again, love went through the stomach. He followed Bob off the porch and had to keep himself from swearing as he stepped with his good shoes in a puddle of mud. He gritted his teeth and carefully followed the old man, watching his feet, carefully avoiding the puddles. It made Bob, who looked behind him occasionally, laugh. Well, at least he still had his humour. He almost bumped into Bob, when he looked up he saw they stood outside the open paddock were minutes before Trowa had been riding that wild horse. Now, he had climbed off the beast and just exited the paddock, walking towards him.

'Trowa, this is Duo, from the city. He will be our guest till he finds a way to get home.'

Duo held out his hands but all he got was an emotionless stare. He quickly put his hand back into his pocket and looked at the ground. Still feeling the gaze on him.

'I'm Duo Maxwell.'

'I'm not interested in your name.' Trowa said with a deep and angry voice, leaving Duo and his father. He took off his muddy boots before disappearing into the house.

Geez, no need to bite my arm off. Duo thought.

'Don't think of it as something personal. Trowa has always been like this.'

'With all do respect, he doesn't look one bit like you, nor your wife.'

'Li Sin is my third wife, Trowa is my oldest, from my first wife, we divorced.' Bob simply explained like it was totally normal.

'What about your second wife?' Duo asked as they walked further. The mud was now splattering up to his knees, great, these pants had cost him a fortune! He walked as careful as possible but somehow the mud just miraculously jumped on his clothes.

'Hmmm, City-boldness.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude.' Duo apologised.

Bob laughed. 'No need to apologise laddy! We'll be stuck together for a while, might as well get to know each other! My second wife blessed me with my second son: WuFei. Her name was Liu, I have a... thing for Asian women.' Bob said with a grin that made Duo cough. Did was not what he expected from a neat country family.

'Where is... WuFei?'

'Herding the cows, he should be back before dinner. He left early today.'

Herding cows... yuck. He could not imagine spending your days with cows... And then scooping horse shit out off the stable. He shivered and got a nasty taste in his mouth just from thinking about it. The Cowboy life was just not meant for him.

'My two oldest boys don't have the best social skills but then again, they are always out on their own, herding cows, breaking horses... You only learn social skills in marriage.'

Duo noticed they had reached the horse stable. Raising his eyebrow he cautiously followed Bob inside, he made a face when he smelled an unmistakable animal-shit smell. He was no animal person. He wondered what the fuck they were doing here. He prayed to got Bob wouldn't hand him the poop-scoop, because he was sure he will throw up if he had to do such a task.

'What are you doing?' He asked as he saw Bob grabbed a saddle off the rack and open one of the stables.

'Well, we're going for a ride of course, I want to show you my ranch.'

Oh god! He couldn't even ride a horse! How could he get out of this! He frantically looked around and cringed as he saw Bob went for a second saddle, placing on the back of a VERY large chestnut brown horse with white socks up to knee length.

'I'll help you with that.' Bob said smiling and ended up doing all the saddling. All the while Duo still didn't tell him about his riding incapability. And now... it was to late as he was hoisted up on the horse. It gave a soft whinny and stamped its foot. Duo swallowed, that probably didn't meant she liked it. 'Wh-whats her name?'

'Deathscythe.'

Without a reason, he hoped.

Bob guided his horse, with him on it, outside and then went back in to fetch his own horse. An even larger, black one, resembling the one Trowa was riding before, only this one was definitely different. His coat was less shiny and he had a white sock.

'Ready?'

'No.'

Bob laughed. 'Every idiot can ride a horse!' He sped off and Duo followed in a slower pace. He new the basics of riding, it was just that he was very bad in handling animals as he didn't trust them. Resulting in some painful injuries whenever he tried to get close.

Deathscythe seemed to bear him rather well, he didn't need to steer or pick up the pace for all she did was follow Bob, staying by his side the entire time. He suddenly wondered if she was smart enough to realise the man on his back was a moron so that she'd better follow her master?

Bob talked about the beautiful scenery but Duo couldn't take it in properly as he went up and down in shocking jerks. He didn't know that at a higher pace you should lift yourself from the saddle so he just sat there, slowly becoming a milkshake. He couldn't think about the nice surroundings as all he could think about was the throbbing pain that started in his butt. After a while even his back began to ache with the shocks it had to endure.

'What about... your third... wife?' He asked, he found it hard talking with the constant up and down motion. And damn his ass really started to protest and it was sure to be blue the next morning.

'What about her?'

'Any... Children?'

'Yes, the third, the youngest and probably the last, as I am beginning to get old.'

'How young?' Duo asked, trying to show his interest and trying to keep his mind off his painful butt. Talking was, to him, the remedy for all.

'Just turned eighteen. He is really excited, for this will be the first year in which he can compete in the Cowboy Contest, which is due in a month.'

Duo frowned 'You have to be older then eighteen to compete in that?'

'a-huh, it can get pretty rough at times. Last year a young kid died trying to tame a wild horse, part of the contest. The animal stamped on him so often his skull, to put it bluntly, shattered.'

'And your son wants to compete in that! And you are letting him!' He was amazed, back at home, no descent father would risk the life of his son.

'Of course, competing in the contest is what makes you a man. Heero, my son, can use some hard treatment. I don't want him turning into a housewife.' The conversation ended there, but the ride sure didn't. They rode up and down hills across grasslands and through forests for three whole hours. When they finally returned back at the stable, Duo couldn't even feel his butt anymore and somehow that was worse then feeling pain. He had a rip in his pants and some in his sleeves as they went through thick bushes... with thorns. He had so much fun... note the sarcasm.

'You okay?' Bob asked with a smile as he saw that Duo heavily limped.

'Don't worry! I'm okay!' He stumbled after Bob towards the house and the nice smells emitting from it was a nice comfort. He stopped, just to smell the fresh crisp air of early evening mixing with the heavenly aromas of dinner. THAT was the only thing good about this so far. The clean smell of food, instead of a mixture of food of your own, that of your surrounding neighbours and car gasses.

He noticed that Bo, the old Dutch Shepherd was following Bob again, he wondered where the dog had gone when they had been out riding.

He also noticed that more dogs had assembled on the porch. Next to 'his' German Shepherd, the stubborn Heather, lay a black dog, about her size with a wild coat, pointed nose and ears and curled tail. And next to that dog lay a very large, but docile looking white dog, long hair. He eyes them for a while. What on earth do you want to do with three dogs?

It was obvious that the dogs weren't allowed inside the house. But apparently Bo stood above that, as he followed them even into the house.

When he entered the house, after taking off his shoes, he saw the large dinner table was already made. It was full with pots and pans and he followed Bob as he inspected the contents. There was rice, potatoes, beef, carrots, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. A typical country dinner. Finally something he had expected. He winced as he sat down to hard and his butt connected with the hard wooden chair. He would have howled like a wolf if he was alone. But he just bit his lip and shut up.

He sat with his back to window and facing the rather large living room. He spotted another dog, number four in this household. He knew the race, a border collie. It was much smaller then the other four legged inhibitors of this house, but just like Bo it was allowed to get in and even had the privilege to lay on the couch. He could only imagine how many dog hairs there will be clinging to the seats and scratches of nails on the leather couch.

Minutes later Trowa entered and sat down at his fathers left, beside Duo. Li Sin sat down on Bobs right.

'Is Heero already back?' Bob asked as he sat down at the head of the table.

'He is upstairs, changing.'

'Don't tell me he wasted the entire day outside doing nothing.'

Li Sin sighed 'What is he supposed to do? You don't give him anything to do.'

'Well, that's because two sons are enough to do everything on the ranch. You should have given me a daughter.' Bob retorted, strangely sounding a bit angry. Like he meant it.

'She practically did.'

Duo whipped his head around. In the doorway stood a tall Chinese young man. Black hair in a tight ponytail and dark eyes. He took Duo in for a while before washing his hands and sitting down at the table, leaving one seat empty between him and his mother. That was probably Heero's seat. 'WuFei Market-Chang.' He introduced.

'I wish you would stop using you're mothers name, it is disrespectful to Li Sin.' Bob said.

'I really don't mind. What I DO mind is that you look down on your son. Heero is trying so hard to please you.'

When the door to the hallway opened all conversation went dead and Duo waited expectantly for Heero to enter. Hearing the other talk about him made him curious.

What he didn't expect was that this truly beautiful boy stepped into the room. Smiling at them, greeting them soft and politely. His skin was slightly tanned, his hair dark and messy and his eyes, his ocean blues, worked magic on him as Trowa and the showdown from this morning, was totally erased from Duo's mind. Maybe it was a good decision of him to pretend that his cell-phone was broke.

Heero reached over the dinner table and shook Duo's hand, introducing himself. Duo vaguely heard himself say his own name and for some reason his state of mind could not comprehend, Heero giggled very unmasculine and sat down beside his mother, across from Duo's seat.

Duo was about to dig in to the old fashioned food but was stopped by Bobs voice, who said a prayer. All of them entwined their hand and closed their eyes. Thanking god for the food on the table. Duo wasn't religious, so this gave him a good chance to gawk at Heero.

If he had to chose a word to describe him, it would be perfect, without a doubt. His skin was unmarred, the right shade and he could just imagine how soft it would feel under his fingers. He blushed as the blue eyes suddenly opened and looked him straight in the eye. He smiled and avoided his glance. Weird that this morning he thought Trowa would become one of his one/two night stands, but he was no longer interested in the bloodhound Bobs first wife gave birth to. Heero was more his type of guy, he was smaller, younger and girlier. But still, even when he would be surrounded by such beauty, he didn't look forward on spending days here on the ranch. For he probably had to help out, work for the food that was now free to be eaten.

'Why are you staying?' WuFei asked, his mouth still half-full, that earned him a reprimand from Li Sin.

'Uhm... well my car broke down, that brought me here in the first place and my cell-phone has also left me on my own.'

WuFei raised his eyebrow.

'That means its broken.' Duo explained with a smile. WuFei smiled back, nodded and continued to eat.

'We are honoured with your visit. We don't have much company out here.' Li Sin said, serving herself another plait. In the bright light from the lamps that hung above the table you could see even better how pale, almost grey, her face was. He guessed, by the way Bob was acting like a mother hen around her, that she was sick. Very sick. 'Heero!'

Heero flinched as his mother elbowed him.

'How many times do I have to warn you? I don't want you feeding Swift the food that is meant for YOU.'

Duo looked around the table 'Swift?'

Suddenly the head of the border collie he had seen lounging on the couch before looked over the edge of the table, eyeing the delicious beef on Heero's plait. Li Sin lay her hand on the dogs head and pushed him down. The border collie disappeared. But not long after he felt something at his feet. Startled he pulled back and knocked his chair over when he stood up fast. Looking under the table, he saw the Border Collie, Swift, looking at him. Almost mocking him with his black eyes.

'Swift must be the most incompetent sheepdog out there!' Bob said with a laugh but Heero thought not so funny of it and he ordered Swift to go back to his basket, that stood beside the couch in the living room.

Surprisingly, Swift obeyed and Duo sat back down again.

'I'm sorry mister Maxwell.' Heero apologised and resumed eating.

'Mister Maxwell is my father. Please call me Duo.'

Heero looked up, smiled, nodded, then ate again.

Hm, also not very much social skills. Duo thought, but he still thought he was beautiful.

'Tomorrow Duo, you can help us out on the ranch. That should be a laugh.'

Great, just as he feared. Work. Poop scooping and cow herding.

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'Rise 'n shine!'

Okay, so he might have slept through the irritating cackling of the chickens outside but Bob, shouting and banging on the door of the guestroom was something even a heavy sleeper like duo couldn't handle. Frustrated he threw the covers off him and shivered in the cold. He grabbed his bathrobe and opened the door. Bob raised his eyebrow.

'Why aren't you dressed laddy? We're leaving in five minutes.'

Duo looked back at his alarm clock he had packed for his trip with Mandy. It was five am. He NEVER got out of bed that early! 'This early?' He asked with a sleepy voice, already yawning, missing the comfort of the covers.

'Early? We got out half an hour later then usual! Come on! Get dressed! Don't worry about breakfast, we'll take some sandwiches with us.' With that he left, his footsteps stomping, making the wooden floors creak.

He sighed and closed the door. After he put on a simple pair of jeans and a dark blue sweater and old sneakers he went down stairs. Li Sin stood in the kitchen making sandwiches. Loud mouthed Bob was nowhere in sight. Thank god. He was a loudmouth himself, but not at five in the morning.

The border collie run towards him and all but jumped on him. He put one front leg against his hip for support, so that he could stand on his hind legs, he raised the other, as if he was begging. But Duo had nothing to please the dog with, unless it would be content on chewing on a piece of gum. He carefully stepped back and after a few endearing, but fruitless, looks the dog gave up on him and ran outside.

'He is one hyper active dog, but the sweetest.' Li sin said as she watched Swift take off. Running like his tail was on fire.

Duo smiled as he recognised the look in her eyes. It was a look his own mother gave him a lot.

'She was a handful when she was a pup, but Heero handled her, like he does with all animals.' She looked before her, staring into thin air 'They already call him the Horse Whisperer around here. Animals can sense when humans are angry or calm and Heero has something so calm about him, it tames the wildest beast.'

Duo smiled as he saw the proud look in her eyes. 'You must love your son very much.'

'Of course I do. I love all of the boys, but since Heero is the only one that is really mine... I tend to love him the most.' She said, a twinkle in her eyes as she looked at him.

This is a good mother. Duo thought and he took the sandwiches she had packed for him.

'Thank you misses Market.'

'Cut out with the formalities Duo!' She said with a smile 'You can do me a favour by calling me Lee.'

'I'll try to remember that.'

'You better search for Bob. He is like an excited puppy dog, eager to show you his ranch.'

Duo nodded, feeling way better about the upcoming day, even though he was really tired. He had taken two sleeping pills, but they haven't worked. Actually, it felt like they were starting to work now as his vision was a bit blurry.

He found Bob in the horse stable, the first place where he looked, he sat on a bench, watching his horse, contentedly scratching the head of his old dog.

This time Duo took his time taking in the barn. It had five separate stables, no doubt one horse for every family member. Bob faced the left side, where two stables were, containing his own horse and Deathscythe. Duo guessed Deathscythe was from Lee.

On the other side there were three stables. Two of them were empty. In the third, the last one of the row, stood a beautiful crisp white horse. He almost looked like the horse was emitting light because its skin reflected the sunlight so beautifully. The horse had long manes and Duo had no doubt that once running they would dance on the wind, wild and free. Looking at the horse made him feel like he was looking at a unicorn.

'That is Wing. Heero's horse.'

Why wasn't he surprised that this beauty belonged to Heero?

'What about WuFei and Trowa's horse?'

'Nataku and Heavyarms.'

Duo raised his eyebrow but bob beaten him to the punch. Before he could ask. 'Don't even ask why. I don't have a clue.'

'... So, where are we going?'

'What do you mean? We're going to stay right here.'

That's when Bob handed him the dreaded large shovel. The poop-scoop. Yippy.

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After an hour if hard and nasty work they were finally done and the stable looked as clean as a stable could be. Duo had been nervous working around the horses. Bob did the stables of his and Lee's horse he had to manoeuvre around Wing. But wing had been surprisingly docile.

They sat on the bench in the centre of the barn taking bites of the sandwiches, but Duo had trouble eating after such a task.

Bo had been lying beside the bench the entire time, his head on his paws, but now the others joined them as well and soon all the dogs, minus Swift were there with them, stealing bits and pieces from Duo's sandwich as he had completely lost his appetite. The large white dog turned out to be a Great Pyrenees, named Teddy. Sweet, docile, completely harmless, but his loud bark was enough to convince the large Bulls and horses on the ranch to obey him. At night he lay on the porch as a guard dog, protecting the house from wild animals. Bob told him that sounded more excited then it was. They had only seen a Puma once and from afar. Mostly the wildest things they encountered were squirrels.

The black dog, with ruffled hair, was Farah, WuFei's Hungarian Mudi. She was smaller then Teddy, but her personality made up for that as she was afraid of nothing.

And Swift obviously belonged to Heero, but he had been raised as a pet, not as a sheepdog.

He learned that Trowa didn't have a dog to help him out with herding. He liked to be completely alone. Even a canine was more company then he could handle.

'Ready for yor next assignment?' Bob asked with a grin that could only be described as evil.

Duo cautiously followed him outside and he so regretted ever pretending a cell-phone melt down for there, in a small paddock for of mud, connect to one with lush green grass, stood a Bull. The largest he had ever seen. It had dark brown hair and his head was just as high as his, his horns were about a foot long. He looked dangerous, he snorted loudly as Bob and Duo approached him.

'What exactly are you planning on doing?'

'We have to get him into the meadow next to the one he is in now.'

Duo swallowed. That meant getting in and trying to scare him into going through the door in the fence. Though he couldn't see why such an animal even had the ability to be scared or pried into doing anything.

'Why are you so nervous? He can't kill a fly, well, he can, but he won't.'

Yeah right, and he was the innocent virgin Mary.

'Go on Duo.' He pushed him towards the fence and as soon as he was only a feet away from it. The bull snorted even louder, stomped his foot and ran towards Duo, stopping mere inches away from the fence. Duo was long gone, he had bolted and now stood at a safe distance. At least he hoped he was safe there.

Bob laughed 'You really thought I would let you handle a bull huh? Come on, he would kill you!' Bob continued laughing as he walked away but Duo couldn't see the humour in it. Maybe because it was more dangerous then it was funny, or maybe because it was still only seven am.

He ended up doing more dirty jobs. By the end of the day he was covered in dirt, grass, some shit, more mud and whatever disgusting thing that was out there.

He was attacked by the so called tame mares in the paddock, they chased him to the fence, luckily he could climb over it just in time to avoid their stampede.

He was friendly attacked by Teddy, who slobbered all over him, his breath worse then that of Heather.

He had fallen so many times, slipping in the dirt, tripping over equipment he lost count.

His entire body hurt from the falls, the attacks, the hard work and the horseback riding they did later that day to 'relax'. And now he felt like the cow shit he had stepped in on numerous occasions.

A warm shower was promised to him by Li Sin. Who had heated up the 'ancient' boiler. Unfortunately it turned out to be quite a cold one as the hot water boiler only contained enough hot water for five minutes, and usually his showers took up to forty-five minutes to wash his now extremely dirty hair. Added to that his hair ended up as a total mess, it took him ages to comb it and now, half an hour later it was still wet and dripping.

So after his first day on the ranch, he was wet, bruised and broken, exhausted, cranky and it didn't take long for him to make his decision, actually, he had made it around noon. He was going home. To the comfy and luxurious New York, where he could take long hot showers and the toughest work he had to do there was push the elevator button that would bring him to the tenth floor where his office was.

But God, once again, showed no mercy to his person.

He walked down the stairs, he never felt this bad in his life. He was going to grab his cell-phone, which lay down stairs on the desk against the wall. The batteries should be charged by now, he had charged them even though he pretended the phone was broken. God, he even wanted to hear Mandy's voice! And that was a miracle as last weekend, it seemed so long ago, he had thought he would forever dislike the sound of her nasal voice. He didn't care that Heather had the time of her life, playing with the shepherd dogs. They were leaving on the next plane to NY!

He opened the door from the hallway to the living room and immediately searched the desk, but, strangely, his cell-phone was gone. Hearing soft clicks he twisted his head. Trowa sat at the dinner table, looking totally focussed, slightly irritated. Duo saw all kinds of small electronic part that were scattered all across the dinner table. He looked them over immediately and his mind fitted the pieces together like a million piece puzzle. His eyes grew wide and his mouth fell to the floor as the complete picture of the puzzle flashed before his eyes with bright red letters on them saying: Danger! Danger! Abort! Abort!

Trowa had fully dissembled his cell-phone!

'What are you doing!' He screamed, ripping one of the pieces out of Trowa's hand. This afternoon he had learned hi no longer liked the silent young man, now he discovered he hated him.

'You said you're cell-phone was broken. Father asked me to try and fix it, for you obviously didn't have a good time here at the ranch today.'

Duo sighed in relief. 'So you can make it?'

'Not really.'

His face went white, deadly white. 'What do you mean!'

'I don't now anything of electronics. But what's the big deal, it was already broken?'

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Duo started to hyperventilate as it just dawned to him that he now, really was stuck here. Now that he didn't want to be stuck here anymore! He really was stuck in the middle of nowhere...

Okay, I managed to turn the ranch from a nice and quiet place full of hot guys were Duo would like to hang out a little bit longer into a true hell-hole... Wow, I really do enjoy torturing Duo

More Heero-goodies in the next chapter I hope!

For now, this was Crimson Waterfall, over and out

PS: Oh god, tomorrow is a long schoolday! How will I survive! Eight hours of listening to teachers rant and rant and rant and rant and... –CW slowly falls asleep- Zzzzzz... Zzzzzz...