4. Going to meet the gang.
Disclaimer: Don't own them; wouldn't it be cool if I did though?
A:N/ I've updated. Yay for me!
And I'm so so Sorry!! Please don't hate me! I know it's been a while since I uploaded last. I should probably have warned you guys that uploading will be Very sporadic! Sometimes I might put up two or more chapters after I've had a few creative couple of days and sometimes it will take a LONG time before next chapter gets put up for whatever reason there might be. I'm easily distracted and Teshu keep bombarding me with random plot bunnies that I have to write out before I can focus on the fics I'm supposed to work on.
In my defence I can say that I also had huge problems writing this chapter. I knew what I wanted it to be about but I couldn't write it. I am also high on painkillers right now because I've been sick with fever the past week or so, so it's not really my fault if things get a bit… long and strange. I tend to find punctuation highly unnecessary when un-rested or sick. I will, however, go trough this chapter on a later date and fix mistakes like super long sentences and spelling mistakes once I'm back to normal.
There are still parts that I'm not happy with (frowns). But now I'm done with this chapter and uploading.
Remember to review! I love reviews. (Grins!)
Pairings so far: 1x2
Chapter 4 - Raimei
Going on Vacation
Raimei lay on the back of the couch, watching as Duo first more or less demolished the bathroom cabinet in search for some obscure item. Then he sped past him and disappeared into the bedroom, calling out to Heero, his voice slightly muffled since he had stuck his head into the closet, asking if Heero had seen that shirt or this gadget he wanted to show 'Cat' or something else that was too muffled to translate into normal speech. Heero, who was sitting in the armchair quietly reading a magazine, only hummed in response.
Seconds later Duo sped past him again, this time dropping to the floor while looking under the couch, sofa and armchair, Heero deftly lifting his feet of the ground so that Duo could see properly, never lifting his eyes from the magazine. The cat continued to watch with amused green eyes.
With a victorious cry of "Aha!" Duo bounced up from the floor, hand clasped around a small silvery gadget, and disappeared inside the bedroom again.
Heero did glance up from the magazine at his loves victorious cry. Spotting the small silvery gadget Duo had clasped in his hand, or more importantly, the small part of the small gadget that Heero, even over the rapidly increasing distance between himself and his love, saw and identified as something very explosive, and that most likely would, in a very spectacularly way, demolish the entire apartment should it become unstable and explode.
Heero, for the sake of his sanity, decided not to think overly much about how long that gadget had been laying under the sofa and the potentially lethal mistake it probably was to allow Duo to keep handling it; he trusted his love in that he would not bring possible unstable experiments into the apartment. He'd made Duo promise that he wouldn't after last time.
They had had to renovate the entire kitchen after a suspiciously innocent looking white thing that had at first resembled an old fashioned mp3-player had exploded. The tiles on the wall in a three feet radius from the thing had cracked and mostly fallen of, the explosion had hurled shards of the dark blue porcelain tiles through out the room. The cabinets above had started burning, and the ones below had been remarkably untouched if you did not count the fact that the objects inside them had been more or less scrambled; but the outside still looked fine, Duo had pointed out unhelpfully. The counter had been reduced to a black crispy… something; it certainly wasn't the two inch thick solid wood kitchen bench it had been anymore. The room that had previously been decorated in light and dark blue and accented in soft teal colours had been black and grey once Heero had managed to put the fire out with the fire extinguisher they kept in the storage closet.
The landlord had not been happy with them.
He opted instead to subtly watch the newest addition to the household.
From the back of the couch Raimei followed the excited mans progress as he collected various things and clothes from around the apartment with an incredulous look in his expressive emerald eyes. Tail lazily twitching from side to side ever so often.
Raimei had been with them for little over a month now. He had slowly forgiven Heero for the whole stepping-on-his-tail thing; though both Duo and Heero was sure the small cat was planning some kind of revenge.
Or at least Heero was. He had caught the cat staring at his laptop several times with a contemplating look in his green eyes. This had prompted Heero to hiding the computer when he wasn't using it. Duo just shook his head at the whole thing, thinking Heero's paranoia had reached new and, until then, unseen heights.
Raimei certainly wasn't like other cats. At least that's what Heero thought. Numerous times he had caught the small dark cat sitting on the living room table, watching the news on the TV. And it wasn't like the cat had just stumbled on the TV being on and starting to watch the moving pictures but it was like the cat really understood what it was said on the news. On occasion the tail would flick in either annoyance or excitement or some other kind of emotion. He would make noises and expressions that seemed oddly in tune with what was being said on the news, which was just a tad bit creepy since he really shouldn't be able to. Raimei seemed too especially react if it was on the rising numbers of terrorist acts in England, which was odd, Heero thought.
Now, Heero wouldn't have thought that much about this; he would have chalked it down to the fact that he really didn't have any experience or valid knowledge about cats. That is, he would have, if he hadn't found Raimei reading the newspaper one morning.
He had, in the beginning, chalked it down to him probably being overworked and hallucinating from excessive stress. A sign he needed a vacation. After all, it was not logically possible for the cat to be able to understand the text in the newspaper, or the news on the TV. Right?
But it kept happening.
And Raimei kept appearing as if he really did understand.
It unnerved Heero and he frowned. It wasn't logical. Cats where not supposed to understand that much. They understood phrases, connecting them to events and things, like the clinking of the cat food tins with food.
"Yo Hee-chan are ya ready? Lets' go." Duo called from somewhere by the front door, effectively drawing Heero out from trying to understand their odd cat. Apparently he had finished packing while Heero had pondered the cats' strange behaviour. He hummed in response and got up. Grabbing the bag that rested on the floor beside his chair, he walked out into the hallway where Duo was just about to put on his jacket, a packed bag laying beside him on the floor.
They where going to Quatres place for the next two weeks with strict orders to relax. It seemed that Une was getting fed up with the five pilots never willingly taking a vacation; apparently she had received several complaints from a lot of different directions, the company psychologist and the economy people being the two who was shouting the loudest. She had promptly acquired Quatre to help her more or less force the other four into taking some time off.
So the blond ex-pilot had pestered them for several weeks, asking them to visit, stating it had been to long since all five of them had gotten together and Relaxed. They hadn't been able to spend any time all five of them together for almost half a year now, all of them had been busy with missions and the likes.
Duo had agreed easily enough since he had missed both Quatre and Trowa, what with not seeing them every day as he did with Heero and Wufei. It took a little bit of persuasion on Duo's part but Heero had finally given in and agreed to take a few days off to relax at Quatres mansion by the sea. Trowa hadn't been that hard to convince, he would gladly take time of if it made Quatre happy.
The one that had proven to be the most stubborn about taking some time off had unsurprisingly been Wufei. He had stubbornly refused to acknowledge the fact that he hadn't taken a vacation longer than three days to rest in the last two years. The last time had been because he had been shot badly in the leg and had to take some time off for the injury to heal properly. In the end it had taken all three of Quatre, Duo and Une to persuade/harass/threaten him into agreeing to take some time off.
So now they where going to stay at Quatres place for the next two weeks. Une had wanted at least a month but was considering herself lucky for the two weeks they had agreed on so she didn't complain that much.
Duo had made sure that their neighbour, Sarah, would come over to their apartment once or twice a day to check on Raimei and make sure he had enough food and water. He was a little apprehensive of leaving the kitten for two weeks but Sarah had assured him that she would look after the 'adorable kitten'. Heero couldn't be certain, but he thought he had seen Raimei look almost disgusted when Sarah had called him adorable.
A curious mewl was heard from the floor in front of them. Looking down they saw Raimei sitting there, head cocked to the side and watching them curiously. Duo squatted down and scratched the kittens head earning a content purr.
"You be a good boy to Sarah now Mei-Chan. Don't go hiding like you did last Friday." Duo told the kitten while scratching the kittens' right chin. Raimei looked up at Duo with overly innocent eyes as if to say 'Who. Me? I'd never do that. Honestly!' He mewled cutely at them, the picture of innocence.
Heero rolled his eyes at the obvious faked innocence and Duo snorted, amused, and bopped Raimei on the head. That earnt him a low menacing growl from the kitten.
"Don't try the innocence act, Mei-Chan. You know perfectly well what I'm referring to. Sarah went hysterical when she couldn't find you for two days. She was convinced that you had managed to get out and had been hit by a car or something. And all the while you lay on top of the bookshelf, watching her as she continued to freak out. When we are on stakeouts we do not want to get a phone call from a hysterical neighbour who is crying on and on about how she 'honestly didn't mean to murder our kitten.'" Duo admonished, though there weren't much force behind the words. Heero suspected he was secretly proud of the cat.
Duo had asked Sarah to look after Raimei the week before because both of them had been assigned to a stakeout stretching from early Thursday morning to late Saturday evening. No one else had been able to go and it had been important to that particular case. Luckily they had been able to close the case after the main perp had showed up on Saturday morning alongside with his arms dealer and drug dealer for a meeting at the house they had been watching. They had caught them red-handed with illegal guns and several bags of an experimental drug that had already claimed several lives, the evidence in that house and that already gathered had solidified the case against all three of them.
But it had been on the evening of Friday that Duo's cell phone had rung and Sarah had, sobbing and wailing, proclaimed that Raimei was gone and she was certain he had gotten out through an open window that she had opened in an effort to cool the hot apartment down somewhat. How exactly she had gotten it in her mind that she had effectively murdered the cat was beyond both Duo's and Heero's understanding. It had something to do with that she had been responsible for the kitten during those three days and that he wasn't in the apartment (as far as she could tell in her very much less than calm state) and that she was convinced he had been hit by a car or eaten by a dog or something or other.
"We'll be back before you know it. Be good now." Duo stood up with a last stroke over Raimei's back and picked up his bag. Duo waggled his fingers at the kitten before he closed and locked the door.
Harry stared at the door with narrowed eyes. He knew that Duo and Heero would be gone for two weeks and that crazy female who lived two doors down would check up on him during the time they where gone. A violent shudder racked his small frame at the thought of that lunatic. She treated him as her personal squeeze toy, apparently thinking he would enjoy being hugged to death while she gushed over how 'cute' he was. He made a disgusted noise.
Why was everyone insisting he was 'Cute'? He was an adolescent black housecat; okay he knew he was small; malnutrition during childhood and being forced to sleep in a small cupboard tended to do that to ya, but he wasn't that small for heavens sake! And all females would go all googly eyed and squeal at him. Why? That reaction must be some kind of ingrained response all females where thought since very early childhood, he thought somewhat bitterly; he very well remembered both Hermione's and Ginny's reaction to his animagus form when he finaly showed them.
Sparkly eyes and squeals.
He shuddered; bad memories. He did not particularly like or want to be subjected to two of his best friends squealing, especially at him. They weren't supposed to squeal; at all!
It was at time like that, that he realised just why he liked boys better than girls.
No, he shook his head, trying to clear it. No he would not stay here while Duo and Heero left for two weeks. Now was the perfect time to find someone who could help him. Only problem was that he still didn't know where to go and he didn't fancy just walking around on the streets, hoping he would stumble upon someone that would realise who or at least what he was, and probably getting lost in the process.
As soon as the door was closed and locked, Harry spun on the spot and pelted of towards the window in the washroom where the fire-staircase was. With a little bit of concentration he was able to push the window open with the help of his magic. He'd realised quickly that he would have to practise using his magic in this form since it seemed it would take a while before he would be able to change back. Without his magic he would be defenceless. The most he could do was use his magic to push things and sometimes he managed to levitate small objects a small way. It was incredibly hard, but since he didn't have anything else to do he used the days to practise.
He rushed down the fire-staircase towards the ground and the place where he knew Duo's and Heero's cars where parked. He hit the ground and pelted towards the opening of the alleyway. Around the corner Duo's black truck and Heero's silver convertible stood by the sidewalk and Heero was just opening the backdoor to his car. Harry sneaked forward until he was hiding under the car by the back tire. He waited until Heero straightened up and turned towards the front of the car, he placed a hand on the frame of the door to push it close. Harry shot forward and silently jumped inside the backseat, just narrowly missing having his tail dismembered by the car door.
He stayed still as he heard the front door open and Heero climb inside the car, then the door slammed close. The car started and pulled away from the curb. Harry relaxed and curled up in the darkness behind the passenger seat. He wasn't sure where Duo and Heero where going but he knew there would most probably be more people there, maybe someone there would be able to notice that Harry wasn't a real cat.
He snickered mentally at the ruckus Sarah would cause when she realised once again that he wasn't in the apartment. He idly wondered how many times she would search through the rooms before she decided to call Duo. The sight of the panicking madwoman had been oddly satisfying after she had attempted to suffocate him by squeezing him like some glorified teddy bear.
He absently listened as Duo and Heero spoke, not really focusing on what was being said. Instead he was thinking about how he was going to make his two 'owners' aware that he wasn't a real cat. He had first thought of trying to use Heero's computer, though he had tried the one time Heero had left it out and quickly discovered that he couldn't just press down one of the keys but ended up pressing three or four simultaneously. He hadn't been able to get his… paws, on it after that first time, so he hadn't been able to try other ways of using it. Heero was proving to be very unhelpful by hiding it all the time; he wondered why he was doing that, he couldn't really be that paranoid as Duo kept saying and believe a cat was out to get his laptop.
Though somehow Harry figured he really was that paranoid. He shrugged and curled up a little bit tighter behind the passenger backseat, he would just have to find out another way to get the message across. The last thought that came to him before sleep claimed him was that he hoped, once he managed to convince them he wasn't normal, that they wouldn't just ship him away to some lab for experimentation.
