Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or Sailor Moon.
An: Don't know about this chapter. Let me know what you think.
Warning: English is not my first language, so please forgive me if they're any mistakes grammar or spelling wise. I'll try to catch as many as I can.
Summary: Usagi turns into a cat and get adopted by the gundam boys.
Cat for a Week
Day 5
Trowa Barton heard all about the disastrous mission that had ended with two gundams submerge underneath the Atlantic and Heero Yuy's subsequent rescue from an enemy facility. From the way Duo Maxwell had described the events to him the next morning at breakfast, Trowa had expected to see Yuy in a full body cast.
Instead, Yuy looked healthy and whole, grunting as he walked into the kitchen. Yuy merely grabbed his cup of coffee and left; no injuries visible unless one noticed the slight limp.
Maxwell stared after Yuy's disappearing figure. "What do you think he does in his room all day? Do you think he...you know..."
Trowa almost spat out his tea in shock at the lewd gesture.
"I don't think that's proper breakfast conversation," Winner blushed.
"What?" Maxwell looked throughly clueless. "It's a normal bodily function."
"It is, but it's not proper conversation for the breakfast table," Quatre said gently.
Maxwell rolled his eyes. "We're all guys here. I mean except for Silver," Maxwell plucked the kitten from his lap and placed her on the table. "But it's not like she'd understand if we talk about having one at the wrist."
Trowa said nothing as he drank.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have no tact?" Chang frowned.
"Yes," Maxwell replied with a serious look. "Oh come on. Don't tell me you're all prudes!"
"We're civilized. There's a difference," Chang snapped.
Maxwell shrugged. He noticed Trowa rising from his seat."Hey, where are you going?"
Trowa paused. "To sleep," he said simply. He had arrived at the safehouse only a few hours ago and he was looking forward to getting some rest before the next mission.
Chang's face suddenly looked haggard. "That sounds like a good idea," he said as he got up from his chair.
"You can't all be going to bed! It's morning! The sun is raising!" Maxwell cried out as Quatre got up with a yawn behind his hand. Maxwell suddenly yawned widely. "Never mind." He plucked the kitten and place her on his shoulder. "See ya."
"Sleep tight, Duo," Winner smiled warmly.
Trowa gave everyone a small nod. He watched as the rest of the group stumbled out of the kitchen before he locked eyes with a mischievous looking kitten.
What are you up to? he wondered, his gaze sharpening as the kitten gave him a salute with her paw.
Trowa suddenly felt too tired to ponder on it any longer. He headed to his room and blacked out the moment his head touched the pillow.
The last thing Trowa expected to find, waking a few hours later, was Wufei Chang looking just as disoriented and confused, staring blankly at their chained ankle and wrist. The jangling of the cuffs echo merrily in the silence."MAXWELL!"
...
"I'm telling you," Maxwell said as he worked to pick their locks at the kitchen table. "I didn't do it." He tugged irritably at the collar of the polo shirt Trowa had given to him.
On Maxwell, the shirt was a little too big and the shorts Maxwell had to borrow from Winner was a little too snug. It rode up whenever Maxwell shifted, revealing what Chang had put loosely as 'more of Maxwell than I'm comfortable with.'
Maxwell growled as the tip of the tool he was using suddenly broke off.
"I"m telling you, something weird is going on," Maxwell insisted. "First my entire wardrobe goes missing and now this?"
He flung the tool away in disgust. "I can't pick it."
Winner made an entrance right then, walking in with a blow torch and a saw.
Trowa exchanged a silent, discomforted look with Chang.
...
Showering had been awkward.
They had agreed to turn to the side to give each other privacy, but every now and then an inconvenient brushing of the hand occurred.
Bathroom visits, at least, was done briskly with minimal talk and no hassle.
Trowa couldn't remember the last time he had been so intimately close with anyone.
They had given the blow torch and the saw a try, but it seemed as though the cuff were immune to all earth made tools. He and Chang were stuck with one another for the unforeseeable future.
Walking, Trowa thought on it later, should have been the biggest challenge, but he and Chang were surprisingly in sync with each other. They learned to walk in step despite the height difference and Trowa managed to ignore the pain of the metal digging into his skin.
Winner continued to hover over them, worryingly watching. After Trowa's skin broke out in a rash and his ankle began to swell, the blond insisted that they sit on the couch and just watched television.
Trowa gave the feline on Maxwell's shoulder a pointed stare.
The kitten, at least, had the decency to looked a tad guilty.
Trowa had gone through half the day, locked as a three-legged, three armed human joke before Duo emerged from his room holding a key.
"I swear I don't know where this came from," Maxwell babbled. But the key worked and the cuffs fell apart with a clatter.
Trowa gave Chang an amicable nod.
"Do you hear that?" Quatre asked. His heart-shaped face had a confused frown.
Trowa looked to the hall.
Yuy's door shuddered violently. The hinges quivered as they fell apart. The clang they would have made as they hit the floor was lost in the resounding noise of the door topping backwards, leaving a gaping hole.
Inside his room, Yuy looked slightly bewildered, wary, and pissed.
Trowa heard, rather than saw, the simultaneous collapse of Yuy's bed, closet doors, and desk.
It was termites, Chang told them grimly. Termites that was suspiciously confined to Yuy's room and nowhere else.
Trowa found himself housing a roommate as Yuy had grudgingly moved in.
An hour later, Maxwell had moved in with Winner because the air condition in Maxwell's room had mysteriously broke.
"I don't have any clothes to keep from freezing!" Maxwell snapped, reminding them of the theft of his wardrobe. Somehow, in all the chaos, the extra blankets and bed sheet had gone missing as well.
Trowa frown slightly as the kitten watched everything with a pleased expression. She had a look of satisfaction on her face as she watched them miserably go through their day.
"Is there any point to this?" he asked her when they were alone. He bent down on one knee and stared into her eyes, as if trying to understand her motivation.
She had smiled at him, lips curled gently in a way that said, trust me. I know what I'm doing. Don't you worry about a thing, ok?
Trowa just stared at her blankly.
He heard about Chang's room. Between the rain coming through the open window (which refused to close) and the bees nesting inside, Chang had taken refuge on the living room couch with his pillows and covers for the night.
"I"m hexed," the Chinese pilot muttered.
And when Trowa and an annoyed Yuy came into the living room with their own set of bedding, Chang had come to the realization that he was full-blown cursed.
"What deity did I killed in my last lifetime to deserve this torture?" Chang plead to the ceiling.
Trowa made a spot for himself on the floor as Yuy viciously slapped at his arm .
"Fire ants," Trowa said to Chang.
Another hour later, Maxwell and Winner had unsurprisingly joined them.
For an unspoken fairness, they had shoved the couch to the wall and moved aside the coffee table so that were sleeping on the floor side by side, with Maxwell at one end of the room and Yuy at the other. As far away from each other as they could get.
Trowa found himself between Yuy and Winner.
"Ain't this cozy?" Maxwell said through the darkness.
"Can it, Maxwell," Chang said tiredly. He toss to the side and flung out his arm. He hit something warm and hard.
"Sorry," he muttered.
"Its alright," Winner said graciously.
Maxwell was thankfully quiet for all of five minutes. "Seriously, I can't sleep."
Trowa noticed Maxwell's silhouette sitting up.
"What do you want?" Yuy's voice came out sarcastic. "A bedtime story?"
"I normally sleep to music," Winner quietly interrupted; trying to prevent another fight.
"What kind?" Trowa asked. He turned to one side and tried to make out Winner's delicate features.
"I like Bach," Winner said shyly.
"I like Schubert."
There was a rustling sound as Chang dragged his pillow over his head.
"I like J-lo," Maxwell put in.
Trowa heard the quiet click of the safety being released.
"Go to bed, Maxwell," Yuy's voice was quiet.
Heeding the clear warning, Maxwell settled down.
"Psst, Wu-man," Maxwell whispered. "You awake?"
"Maxwell," Chang's voice gritted out. "You love your hair, right?"
Maxwell close his mouth with an audible glop.
...
2. a.m
Trowa woke suddenly when Chang shot up from sleep with a grunt. His pistol was in his hand automatically and he aimed at halting shadow. Trowa heard three other guns take point.
"Sorry," Maxwell's voice spoke. "I have to go take a dump."
"Idiot," Yuy muttered.
...
3. a.m.
"What the fuck!" Maxwell cried.
"I"m sorry," Winner's voice was apologetic. "I wanted a drink of water."
...
4. a.m
Trowa felt something wet soak down his torso.
"Maxwell," Chang's voice growled. "If this is another one of your pranks..."
"What are you talking about?" Maxwell grumbled. He shot up. "Hey, I'm wet!"
"So am I," Winner said as he sat up.
Trowa had a sinking feeling.
"Uh oh," Maxwell muttered.
"Uh oh?" Yuy snarled.
"I think the kitchen flooded."
A loud pipe creaked and groaned and Trowa felt the water around him rise.
"And the bathroom," Maxwell finished wryly.
...
5 .a.m.
Trowa could read what was going through Chang's head.
Chang had the great idea to get into his car. He was going to drive off, find a motel, and leave Maxwell far, far behind.
If only he could find his keys...
Maxwell had suggested breaking a window. "I can hotwire the car for you in a jiff," he offered. He quickly backed off when Chang hissed at him.
Their land-line was out, so there was no calling for a cab. And their cells weren't getting a signal.
In the end, everyone exhaustingly piled into Yuy's car (which wouldn't start; probably the reason Yuy was still there with them) for an uncomfortable night sleep with Yuy in the driver's side and Trowa in the passenger.
Chang looked miserable, squashed between Maxwell and Winner in the backseat.
"We can trade," Trowa offered quietly. He saw Chang's sense of honor battling with the temptation of a quick comfort behind onyx eyes.
Honor won out.
"No thanks," Chang said. He tiredly closed his eyes.
As everyone nodded off, Trowa looked out the window to where the kitten laid on the porch railing, sleeping herself.
For one moment, in the moonlight, Trowa could have sworn he saw a blond girl sleeping where the kitten had been.
When he had blinked again, all he saw was the cat.
...
6.a.m.
Usagi was in a zen-like mood as she watched the sunrise.
On that porch, on that morning of day six of her transformation, she felt a strange sort of peace as she stared into the car where the five boys slept. Quatre's angelic head was nested on Wufei's shoulder. Duo's body had slumped in his seat and his legs was crossed on the back of Heero's headrest. And the boy who can seemingly read her, Trowa, was resting his head against the window.
Every single one of them had a frown on their faces as they dreamed.
She managed, when she lingered her senses on them long enough, to catch a fleeting glimpse of what they saw behind their close eyes.
For Heero she saw an all consuming fire. For Duo she saw the burned out structure of a church. Wufei's dream almost made her wail in despair because his profound loss as the young, beautiful girl in his arms died was so strong, she almost couldn't break free from it.
There was Quatre's guilt over every killing and Trowa quiet, unspoken need for attention that he never got; a yearning for his own identity instead of the one he stole.
Usagi felt, seen, and smell it all in their dreams; the wild, terrible battles and the heavy scent of decay and death that clung to them.
Soldiers of war didn't have many happy memories to dream of.
They couldn't afford it.
Usagi couldn't help but feel compassionate and pity.
She quietly sent out tendrils of the magic she felt inside of her to soothe them. She sent Heero to a small, peaceful island surrounded by water. She sent Duo to a cliff overlooking the ocean. Wufei she placed in a field of lilies where he could meditate to his heart's content and Quatre she place in his home and into the loving arms of all his sisters and his father. For Trowa, she place him in a normal school where he sat during lunch time surrounded by laughing friends.
Usagi watched as their faces slowly relaxed. One by one, they stopped frowning and in Duo's case, there might have been a ghost of a smile.
For the first time in a long while, these boys peacefully slept as Usagi watched protectively over them.