Track 5: Hardly Getting Over It

His phone had been blowing up all week since he dropped his album off at Quatre's office. The record was posted up for digital purchase and streaming services not that long after that. His closest friends heard it almost immediately that day he gave Quatre that Zen Arcade labeled disc. Heero was getting showered with compliments and praise for his work on what some were calling, arguably, the greatest collection of songs ever released by the Winner-founded record label.

Other bands reached out to his band to share their thoughts on his work. He noticed rave reviews being posted from all directions. They came from your average no-name music fan, to notable and reputable music publications. The record was getting bombarded with perfect to near-perfect scores. A lot of these music writers and commentators noted how much they had shifted from being a thrashing hardcore band to an entity with an ear for melody. There was still something on the record for punk fans to chew on, but critics knew that Heero was looking beyond the genre that his band made their name in.

As one music writer put it…

'Do You Remember? Are playing a huge role in convincing the underground that punk and melody aren't antithetical.'

Going forward, Heero would make sure his band would continue in that direction.

His appreciation and love for punk would always remain, but there was something limiting about it that made him want to break out of that box. Some people might abandon the band in the process, Heero predicted, but he didn't care. He would create whatever he wanted and if that meant losing some fans then so be it.

Heero leaned back into the sofa in his apartment, feeling proud at what he and his band accomplished. He honestly didn't care about all of the great things being written or said about Zen Arcade, he was just glad the album sounded exactly like he wanted it to. It was, by far, the best thing his band had recorded up to that point he thought.

It honestly made him even more excited to start working on the follow up. There were some songs that didn't make it on the record, but that Heero knew he could rework them and save it for later. He would make sure that next time recording wouldn't take as long.

New Day Rising would be released a lot quicker than Zen Arcade.

Yeah, Heero already had a name for the next album picked out.

His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket. He saw Duo's name and answered it, leaving it beside him on speaker. "Hey." he answered.

"Yo, what's up?" replied his bandmate. "At home?"

"Yeah, what's going on?" From the sound of his phone, Heero could tell that Duo was out driving somewhere.

"Nothing much, just on my way to Peacemillion. Hilde and the ladies are gonna be there so I figured I'd stop by and screw around." Heero heard him chuckle. "Wanna meet me there?"

Heero wasn't sure he wanted to go. He probably should, he thought, considering how reclusive he had been since releasing his masterwork. The past week saw him stuck at home, not doing much of anything. The record had been all he had thought about for so long, and with Sylvia's departure from his life, it made him want to dig into his work and get lost in the music. He had put so much into Zen Arcade that he needed some time to himself after finishing the record, which meant he just relaxed at home and pondered the future of his band or whatever other thoughts popped into his head.

And then there was the whole issue of his ex's replacement.

He hadn't seen Relena much since their initial meeting and truth be told he was still uncomfortable with the whole thing. Everyone else seemed to like her, but he still needed time. He had to see what she was made of and if she was worth Dorothy's praise, then MAYBE he would start looking at her differently. He just wasn't at that point with her yet.

"I don't know…"

"C'mon, come through." Duo said, eager to get his friend out of the house. "Time for a little victory lap, everyone wants to see the man who wrote the best thing G-Team ever released."

Heero didn't think that was true at all. There were a lot of albums they released that he loved. "You said your girl's band is going to be there right?"

"Well yeah, that's the only reason I'm going."

Heero actually didn't mind going down there just to hang out, it was just… her. He sighed. "I might just stay in."

"Really?" a disappointed Duo replied. "Is it because of that girl?" Duo thought he heard a grunt coming from the other line and shook his head. "Man, you're gonna have to get over this. It's starting to get old."

"Shut up." Heero was thinking about just hanging up on him now.

"Seriously though, it's one thing to be upset about Sylvia, it's another thing to be mad about the new girl."

"What do you know?" a bitter Heero responded.

"Shit, I know enough to point out that you're being an ass." Duo threw back at him. "She's a nice chick, you ain't gotta be so mean to her."

"Are you done?" Heero wasn't about to get into it with Duo about Relena. "I have no interest in talking to you about that damn woman."

"Yeah, whatever." Duo replied. Heero could already see the eye roll Duo was giving him from the other line. "Man, I feel sorry for that girl. She has no business doing you any favors. If I were her, I would just play that song just to mess with you."

That sounded weird. Her doing him a 'favor'? "What are you talking about?"

"I'm just saying," Duo continued. "I was hanging with the girls not that long ago and Relena was talking to Dorothy about taking that song Sylvia wrote about you off their set list. She thought that if we were gonna be on the road together, that you probably didn't want to hear a break up song about you every night."

"Wait…" He let Duo's words process in his head, trying to make sure he heard his friend correctly. "She… what?"

"Yeah, she doesn't want to play 'One More Hour' because she's factoring in your feelings." Duo clarified. "That girl is wasting her kindness on you. Needless to say Dorothy didn't like the idea, but she's giving Relena the final word." Duo gave a humorless chuckle. "Imagine that, her choosing not to play a song just because she doesn't want to hurt you, someone that doesn't even like her. That girl is just way too nice."

So that song, which had become incredibly popular within that band's fanbase, would not be played because Relena didn't want to make him uncomfortable… Heero kept going through this, trying to make some sense out of it. He heard Duo continue to talk, but he was just tuning him out.

Relena was taking his feelings into consideration. She didn't want to play that song… because of him. She was going to compromise her band somewhat… for his sake. This girl, who only really knew him through his music, was taking a risk so soon after accepting the job to replace Sylvia... just to please him.

It was kind of her. She was being considerate of his emotions. Relena didn't want Heero to feel bad or uneasy. Like Duo said, she was way too nice.

And if Heero were any other guy, he would deeply appreciate her decision to ax the song from their set list.

Unfortunately, this only served to piss him off. Duo was right, her act of kindness was wasted on him. He would not be treated this way. Not by anyone, and especially not by her.

She really thought he was that weak; that he couldn't handle her playing that song. Relena thought that low of him. His face contorted into an expression of anger. He grabbed his phone and felt like he could squeeze it hard enough to shatter it in his grasp.

He changed his mind.

Heero cut off Duo's ramblings. "I'll be there."

"Huh?" Duo stopped when he heard his friend speak.

"Peacemillion… I'll be there. Just give me some time." Heero said through a clenched jaw. That girl was going to get a piece of his mind. She would know exactly what he thought of her 'kind' gesture.

Dorothy had not yet arrived, but Relena was there, hanging out with Hilde and her boyfriend at the famed Peacemillion studio once again. They had been playing to pass the time and she enjoyed their company as they jammed together, killing time as they waited for the platinum blonde to make her appearance.

She got a kick out of hearing the couple bicker with each other. Relena even inquired about how her new drummer and the braided Do You Remember? guitarist met and what drove them to become musicians. They were both interesting people and were very accommodating to her. She could definitely see herself becoming good friends with Hilde and Duo.

It would be interesting to see how things worked when they shared the road together. Hilde mentioned how they played shows with each other before, but nothing like this. It was going to be a new experience for everyone involved. She would know what being on the road is like, and how it is to share this with Heero's band.

Heero…

They hadn't seen each other much since meeting here for the first time, but she hoped she would get another chance to speak with him, and Duo did mention that Heero planned on showing up at Peacemillion today. She wanted to use this opportunity to talk and let him know that she came here with the best intentions and that she wasn't trying to make him forget about Sylvia or whatever problem he had with her. She wanted a chance to set the record straight. Dorothy thought it was a silly thing for her to do, and maybe she was right, but she had too much respect for Heero to just ignore the whole situation.

Also, Zen Arcade was one of the greatest albums she'd ever heard.

She wanted to geek out about it and who better to do that with than the person most responsible for it's creation. They were both music nerds so she hoped it would be a good way to reintroduce themselves to each other. It shouldn't matter to her that they had a good relationship, he wasn't in her band after all, but it did matter. Relena was a music fan as well as a musician and that meant she adored the art produced by Heero.

Zen Arcade just made her love his band even more. She was excited to talk music with him.

She looked over and saw Duo giving her a funny look. "Something wrong?" she asked, wanting a reason for his weird facial expression.

"Oh nothing!" Duo smirked. "I was just thinking about how funny you look."

"Excuse me?" Relena arched an eyebrow at that bizarre statement. Hilde also wondered what Duo meant by that.

"Don't get me wrong," Duo began his explanation. "I don't mean that as an insult."

"Then what exactly do you mean?" Relena pressed.

"Yeah, I'd like to know too." Hilde spoke from behind her drumset, not understanding what her boyfriend was getting at.

"Here, this is what I mean…" Duo lifted one of his hands and placed it over his view of Relena, only able to see her from her torso down. She stood there with her own personal guitar hanging off of her. It was a Fender Jaguar with a blue and red color scheme. "See, when I look at you like this, standing there with that guitar, my guess is that your favorite albums are… hmm… Daydream Nation and The Queen is Dead."

Relena still wasn't sure where Duo was going with this. She gave him a funny smile. "Okay…?"

"But…" Duo moved his hand, this time he covered his view of her to only see her face. "When I look at that adorable face of yours, I would say that your favorite albums are, like, Red or 1989, something funny like that." He ended his thoughts with a humorous grin.

Relena laughed after finally hearing Duo's weird comments on her appearance. "So, are you sure that's not supposed to be an insult? Because I'll let you know right now, I think all of those albums you just mentioned are all equally amazing."

Duo snickered. "Equally, huh?"

Relena nodded, unafraid to admit that she held the same amount of reverence for records by one of the worlds biggest pop stars as she did for albums by the supremely influential underground artists that inspired her to do what she was doing now. "Yup, that's right."

"I might argue against that, but to each their own." Duo shrugged as he put his guitar down to stand over by his lady. "At least you're honest."

"Oh don't try and act like some music snob." Hilde rolled her eyes before looking at her new bandmate. "Relena, you wouldn't believe how many times I've caught him singing 'I Knew You Were Trouble' in the shower."

"Really?" Relena's eyes widened, not believing what Hilde had just told her about her boyfriend. " Well now…" a huge smirk forming as she eyed the braided guitarist.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Duo gave his girlfriend a dismayed look, feeling betrayed by her. "Babe, why're you exposing me!?"

Hilde simply shrugged. "What? It's true."

"Hilde!"

Relena laughed at the embarrassed musician. "Don't worry, I won't tell a soul. I wouldn't want anyone to question your punk cred." she winked at him.

"Ughhh… damn it, Hil." Duo's shoulders slumped for a second before he straightened himself back up. "Oh well, punk is dead anyway. We're just late to a party that ended a decade or so before we were even born."

"I guess that's true." Relena agreed. "Well in that case, maybe you can cover one of her songs at your next show, or maybe while we're out on the road together. Think Heero would go for it?"

Duo chuckled at the thought of asking Heero such a thing. "I wouldn't hear his answer because I'd be on the floor snoozin' after he lands a right hook on me for even asking him."

Another laugh escaped Relena. Now she began to wonder what opinion Heero had on Duo's guilty pleasure. She was about to say something when a fourth voice cut through.

"Hey."

They all turned to see the aforementioned man standing by the door, shoulder leaning on the entryway. His eyes focused on the lone female guitar player.

"How long have you been there?" Duo hoped he wasn't present the entire time, not ready to fess up to his hidden appreciation of bubble gum pop music.

Heero ignored him, eyes still trained on Relena. She noticed his gaze was fixated on her and had no idea what to think of it. Was he mad at her? He kind of looked it.

"I need to talk to you." Heero addressed her.

Relena looked around, making sure he was talking to her. This was a little too random. "You're talking to me right?"

Heero rolled his eyes and spun around, readying himself to leave the studio. "C'mon." He said no more and walked off.

Relena looked to the other two and they could only shrug, neither of them having a clue. She sighed and removed her guitar, heading out to follow him. She saw him leaving the building. Her feet started moving quicker to catch up. Outside, she saw Heero turn the corner to enter an alleyway. Strange place to talk, Relena thought. Why he wanted to chat with her in private, she had no idea. Well, she wanted to talk to him, too, so maybe this was a good thing for both of them.

She found him leaning his back against the wall of bricks that made up Peacemillion. His arms were crossed and she saw that Heero still had that displeased look to him. Hopefully that wasn't a bad sign.

"Okay, so… what did you wa-" Before she could even get the rest of her question out, Heero cut in.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" His eyes narrowed and focused intensely on the woman standing before him.

"Uh, what?" She didn't see that coming.

"You really think I'm weak, do you?" His tone grew hostile and Relena was taken completely off guard.

"What're you talk-"

"Let me tell you right now, I don't need your damn sympathy." Heero seethed. "You can get out of here with that bullshit."

Relena's head was shaking. What was going on? She couldn't process any of this. "Heero, I have no idea what you-"

Again, he cut her off, not allowing her a chance to finish her sentence. "Stop it, you know what you did. Don't patronize me. You're gonna play that goddamn song. I don't need your fake pity, you got that?"

"Play that song…?" Relena repeated his words to herself before something finally started to make sense. She guessed someone must've told him, probably Duo, about her plan to drop 'One More Hour' from their upcoming live performances with his band. Now it started to click. "Look, Heero I-"

"Enough with the nice girl routine." Heero started once again, pointing a finger down at her. "I know this is fake. You think I'm too weak to handle listening to a single stupid song and now you want to taunt me by treating me like some sort of wounded animal. You can go to hell, Relena." His words dripped with venom and Relena's head was spinning. She guessed now she wouldn't get that conversation with him that she wanted.

"I… I… just wanted to…"

"And just so you know, I don't view you as a worthy successor at all." Heero continued to rage. "I don't give a shit what Dorothy says, I'll never view you as a legitimate member of that band."

Those words stung, they hurt coming from him. She bit her lip and looked down at the sneakers that adorned her feet.

"You'll never be Sylvia, you'll never be half as good as her. I'm letting you know right now, there's nothing you can do to make me change my mind. As far as I'm concerned, you're wasting whatever talents you have here. But since Dorothy wants you around, the only thing I can tell you is don't screw up Sylvia's songs. You're already a lesser performer, okay." Relena swallowed down a lump as he said that. He continued to debase her. "So try your best to keep from devaluing her work, you hear me? Huh?" He saw her looking down. She couldn't even look him in the eye. How pathetic, he thought. "Do you even have anything to say?"

Moments of silence passed and Heero grunted, disgusted by her. "Fine, then I'll just go. Have a good da-" Before he could turn on his heel and leave, her voice finally broke through.

"You know… I was really excited to talk to you today." Heero looked back down at her. She still had her eyes to the ground.

"What?"

"Your album… it's honestly one of the greatest things I've heard in a long time." Her voice was low and meek. "And… I was hoping that I could talk to you about it because… I loved it so much." It was true, Relena hadn't stopped listening to Zen Arcade since she first heard it. It was all she was listening to. Heero had created such a beautiful record and she wanted to do nothing but fangirl all over it, but now...

"Relena?" Was this more of her nice girl facade coming through? It didn't feel like it was fake, but he couldn't be sure.

"But.." Relena continued. "Considering how much you really seem to hate me, it doesn't look like I'm going to get the opportunity to pick your brain about it."

"It's not about me hating you, it's ju-" Now it was time for Relena to cut him off.

"After everything you just said, you expect me to think you don't hate me?" Relena looked up to give him a look that featured a mixture of confusion and a hint of sadness. "What I was trying to do, by removing that song, was to show how much I respect you; that I cared about your feelings because I know you're still not over it."

Heero scoffed at her. "I am getting over it, in my own way. Don't act li-"

"Oh please." Relena shook her head in disbelief, not buying it at all. "If that were the case, you wouldn't have brought me out here just to belittle me and make me feel like shit, which, you know, mission accomplished. You did it, it worked."

Heero thought he heard her voice crack, as if she were on the brink of sobbing in front of him. This is what he wanted, right? He didn't care if he hurt her feelings. Wasn't she correct? Then why didn't he feel good about this? Heero questioned himself now. "That… wasn't the plan, Relena."

"Bullshit." She said with a chuckle completely devoid of humor. "But you know, some of this is on me, too. Dorothy told me not to care about how it would make you feel. I should've listened so that we could've avoided all of this. But no, the fangirl in me just wanted you to avoid whatever pain that song might have caused you. I listened to my heart instead of my brain and well, shame on m-me."

"Uh, Relena?" Heero could hear it in her voice and see it on her face. The woman was on the verge of tears and now that this blew up on him he realized that maybe he actually didn't want this.

"I don't even know why I'm letting this get to me. You're not even in my band and after all of the horrible things you said, I should be able to brush it off but… damn it, why does it hurt?" She almost growled in frustration. Was it just because she was a fan of his? It had to be, right? Now she sounded unsure with herself it greatly aggravated the young female musician. She raised a hand to cover her face with her fingers pressing on her eyes, fighting the tears that threatened to fall. She let a few sobs escape and Heero winced at the sound, regret starting to takeover.

"Hey, Relena…" Heero reached out to place a comforting hand on her shoulder but she quickly slapped it away.

"Don't touch me!" The girl spun on her heels and quickly took off.

"Fuck…" Heero muttered through a clenched jaw. He was alone in the alleyway now, shaking his head. Not like he needed himself to confirm it, but this backfired big time. He wasn't even sure what the point of this was anymore. He wanted to be straight up with her, to let her know he didn't care for her decision, but did he want to make her cry?

That he wasn't so sure of.

But much like Relena wondered why she cared about his feelings, he began to wonder why he cared about hers. It's not like it bothered him if she hated him, right? Heero wondered if he was trying to convince himself. "What the hell." Things became more complicated than what he predicted.

He moved out of the alleyway and saw Relena brush past Dorothy, who had just arrived with Quatre, to re-enter Peacemillion.

"Relena!" Dorothy called out but to no avail. She noticed her friend had her face covered and it appeared as if she were crying, or beginning to cry. She definitely heard some whimpering, of that she was certain. "What in the world…?" She looked back at Quatre who could only shrug.

The platinum blonde looked over to find Heero standing there. Dorothy looked at him as he wore a disgruntled look and back at the door to Peacemillion. She did that a couple more times before she figured it out. She lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes and took a deep breath before giving Heero a nasty look. "I'll deal with you later." She calmly spoke before hurrying into the building to chase after her friend.

Heero sighed before looking towards Quatre who gave him a look of disappointment. "I don't think that's what giving her a shot looks like, Heero."

Heero grunted, pissed off at the whole situation. He needed to get out of here. Turning away, he began walking down the street. He went over everything that had just occurred and didn't feel good about any of it. Why did he care if she cried or not? Did he come off as an asshole? Yeah, but so what? Heero reasoned.

Her voice cracking ran back through his head and his eyes narrowed as he flinched at the memory of the sound.

He needed to regroup and figure out just why he was leaving the situation with such a hollow feeling inside.

AN: The line about Heero's band at the beginning of the chapter was taken from something that a music writer named Michael Azerrad had originally written about Hüsker Dü way back in the day.

Wanted that to be noted just in case. I kinda reworked it, too.

Once again, I love you all and have a wonderful day!

Hüsker Dü - "Hardly Getting Over It"