Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Pull Up For The J! ❯ Sunday Morning ( Chapter 12 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Manga-Chick 
...And the woman's name was Une...
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Hentai | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.21.2005 | Pages: 3 | Words: 6.0K | Visits: 222 | Status: Completed
...And the woman's name was Une...
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Comedy / Drama / Hentai | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 09.21.2005 | Pages: 3 | Words: 6.0K | Visits: 222 | Status: Completed
Chapter Twelve~
“Sunday Morning” = No Doubt
Trowa stared at Catherine with much apprehension, his sister approaching him with a crazed expression in her wide, gray eyes. The airport wasn’t as crowded as it had been in the previous times he’d been here, so there wasn’t that many people about. He watched his sister approach him, her steps hurried and purposeful, her own skin pale with the stress she’d been suffering since she found out the awful news just days earlier. Trowa felt his stomach curl inward with much trepidation, his hands shaking as he stuffed them into his jeans pockets, sure that she knew how sick he felt by the lost expression on his face.
But the moment she reached him, her hand was up and slapping him hard across the face, the slap resounding throughout the area as people in the terminal looked at them curiously. Trowa held his cheek, looking at her in shock as she whirled from him, stomping off in the other direction to claim her suitcases and bags.
“I can’t believe you, Trowa!” she shouted over her shoulder, thin legs carrying her surprisingly fast toward the baggage claim area. He had to stride fast to keep pace with her, his cheek stinging with the earlier slap. “This is–! This is–! Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing that woman?! That–that–whore bitch! Goddamn her! Goddamn you, Trowa! Why didn’t you tell me?!”
Trowa sighed, shoulders slumping as his hazy mind raced. All the meth in the world couldn’t have drowned out his intense mortification and degradation of his person as he smoked it. Wired quite dreadfully on the accursed stuff, he found himself losing track of time and space as he fought to keep up with his older sister’s strides. He’d do anything to forget what had happened in Spain, anything!
“You could have told me you were seeing her! I would have told you who she was!” she wailed as she made her way into the baggage claim area, pointing out her belongings to her stiff younger brother. Trowa hastily gathered all that he could, and she claimed the rest. As they made their way to the taxi cabs outside, she looked at him sharply. “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?!”
“No.”
“Not even your stupid pussy-ass boyfriend?!”
“I told him that I cheated on him with a woman named Amelie, but gave him no other details,” Trowa reported in a low tone, humiliation coursing through his veins and making his blood run cold.
“FUCKING BITCH!” Catherine screamed as they walked out the doors. Several people were startled by the scream, looking at them in both fear and terror, a security guard hurrying over to see what the problem was. Trowa glanced at them all, watching the guard warily and hoping that it wasn’t too obvious that he was high. “I will kill her! I will ruin her! Fucking whore! I hope her pussy shrivels up and dies! GODDAMN IT, TROWA! Why do you men think with your dicks?!”
Many people looked upon Trowa with a mixture of concern, pity and disgust as Catherine continued her tirade, picking out a Mercedes, whose driver hurried out from his seat to help them load her things into the trunk. After they were finished, and were settled in the backseat, Catherine hit him again, shrieking with frustration.
Numb, Trowa just pulled his seatbelt on and stared out the window as they left the airport.
Catherine ground her palms against her eyes and looked at him wearily. “You haven’t seen it, have you?”
Trowa shook his head in answering reply, finding that words wouldn’t express what he was feeling right now.
“Don’t. Don’t ever–even if you get curious...that fucking bitch. WHORE!!”
The driver cringed and put up the divider quickly.
In mortification, Trowa put his hands over his face. “I didn’t know, Catherine. How the hell was I supposed to know she was...she–Christ.”
“If you would have told me you had met her in the first place, I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU!” Catherine ended in a furious shriek, hitting him several times with her bunched fists. She then kicked at the passenger side seat in fury, her heels nearly sinking into the material. “I’ll fucking kill her for doing this to you, but it was your own stupidity that got you here in the first fucking place! She already has the video circulating the ‘Net, ala Paris and Rick, Trowa! It’s going to be available here, soon, but that’s fucking crap because the Internet’s much faster and more accessible!! And you’re not underage, so it’s not child porn! GODDAMN IT, TROWA! How could you be so stupid! That woman’s making a profit off of you!”
“Don’t...don’t rub it in,” Trowa muttered, wiping his eyes, which had grown suspiciously wet. His face continued to burn a steady red color, and he didn’t think he could ever show his face around school. If anyone heard that he held company with a renowned international porn mistress that had filmed every single one of their trysts and put it forth in a video...oh, God...he was so embarrassed. He wanted to move to a distant planet and never look back.
“I can get my lawyers on the case immediately. In fact, I’ve already spoken to Tom, and he’s drafting up a protocol we can follow on getting this suit up and running,” Catherine growled, shaking with unvented rage.
Trowa shook his head. “NO! No, don’t do that, please! I mean, lawsuits are made public! If you do this, everyone will find out! That, and you both of are fucking big-time stars, Catherine! It’ll all be in the tabloids by the next day! Don’t do it, please! I don’t want anymore attention!”
“TROWA...oh God, you fucking idiot...you idiot...” Catherine whimpered, tears running down her cheeks as she regarded her younger brother, her only surviving family member. She threw her arms around her brother’s shoulders and sobbed against his chest. She ignored the telltale smells of his drug-use, figuring that he needed it at this moment and time. It was very understandable, and she would help him later get more. “I wish this hadn’t happened! I wish...I shouldn’t have brought you along...oh, God, this fucking sucks! I’m so sorry! I was a horrible chaperone! Leaving you all by yourself...I’m so sorry!”
Trowa sniffled against her hair, wiping his own eyes. “This fucking sucks, Cathy. I didn’t know...I didn’t know she filmed everything, and I don’t even know where she hid the camera!”
Catherine withdrew from him, wiping her eyes. She had mascara and liner smudged over big gray eyes, and her lipstick was slightly smeared. She wiped at both. “She bragged about it, you know. She had a tiny vid-cam set up in the form of a brooch that she wore on her cardigan. Do you remember seeing a cardigan with her whenever you...met her?”
Trowa recalled the first night, when Amelie Une–who was nicknamed ‘Lady Une’ in international porn circles throughout the world–came to his hotel wearing that small dress and a cardigan. And how she’d draped it over the television set...getting a very good view of Catherine’s bed, where they had...and...she’d taped it all. Taped it, sent it to a video studio to have it edited and redone to voyeur porn standards, complete with corny music, and was now registering as a hit under the title, “Mrs. Robinson”.
To know that he’d been a participant in the raunchy video–of which, if he’d known she was a goddamned porn-star, he’d never had bothered with her in the first place!– that Catherine had personally viewed just to make sure that it was him (oh, God, his sister saw him fucking an older woman, and they’d gotten so explicit), made him eager to disappear deep into the bowels of Earth, to never show his face again. Thousands of people were now viewing that video, watching him fuck and be fucked by the tempting “Lady” Une, and if his classmates found out...oh, God. The shock and mortification of it all demanded that he be wired and under the constant haze of his addictions just to numb it all! And if Quatre found out...
Oh, God, Quatre wasn’t going to want him anymore. People would look at him, whisper, watch the video and look at him differently...he wanted to hide. There was no way he was going to go back to school! He had to transfer. If he had to leave without letting Quatre know–! He would. He had to get out of New Park. He had to go somewhere far, far away. To escape that bitch’s evil video and the leers that would accompany it. How utterly degrading, humiliating, sick! He couldn’t get over it. Why him?! Why HIM?! Was this some karmic backlash for him cheating on Quatre?! If it was, it was the ultimate payback! Never again would he be tempted by another person, no matter what deal or tiff was going on with him and his lover.
He wiped his face with one shaking hand, feeling his stomach curl with upset action. “This fucking sucks, Catherine,” he sniffled. “I never wanted this to happen...so many people are going to watch it and know what I look like, what I do. I don’t like this! I hate her!”
“You can’t stop it now, Trowa,” Catherine said, blowing her nose into a used tissue she’d had wadded in her pocket. “It’s going to come here to the States pretty soon. My boss was telling me that with your age and the fact that it’s Lady Une, it’s going to be a hit here, as well. But he was complimenting you. He thinks that at least five of those orgasms were real.”
“CATHERINE.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Every woman fakes it, but sometimes–! This is so disgusting, I’m complimenting my baby brother on his sexual escapades with my rival in the porn industry!” Catherine wailed, thin shoulders shaking with her grief.
Trowa wrapped his arms around his middle, trying to control the shakes that were causing his body to quiver violently. Ducking his head, he tried not to think about what he was going to tell Quatre. About what his classmates would do if they saw that video. It just wasn’t fair–that woman had scouted him out, picked him up, and failed to tell him what she did for a living! He’d asked, and she’d merely replied that she was an entertainment producer for Lilly-Ann Psychedelics, and he’d assumed it was just a minor producing studio that remained only in Spain. He hadn’t pried for any other info.
How could she do this? How could she have deceive him so?
No matter that she was making the big bucks off their trysts. Didn’t she think what he would feel about it? Sure, some guys were all over such things–if they were ever given the chance, they’d skip, jump and leap to be in a starring production with such a big-time actress in a explicit video–but he wasn’t one of those guys! He hated attention! And intimate things were to be only that–intimate and private. Not broadcast via Internet and porn shops.
He wiped his face again, mouth working. No matter how many times he clenched his teeth, licked his lips, worked his lower jaw, the problem was not going away.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
Quatre stared at the empty side of Trowa’s/Jared’s room, and blinked. It was obvious Trowa hadn’t been there–the bed was still made, and Jared had flatly informed him that he hadn’t seen Trowa since Friday morning. Quatre’s brow furrowed with worry and bewilderment as he walked over to Trowa’s side of the room, and sat down on the bed, holding his ball. It was Saturday night, and there was still no sign, hide, or hair of Trowa Barton. He frowned at Jared, who adjusted his thick Buddy Holly specs and pulled one plaid covered leg up to his chest. He was looking at Quatre with mild curiosity, wanting to know what was going on.
Quatre then scowled at him, getting up from the bed, muttering, “What are you looking at, four-eyes?”
He slammed the door shut and stomped up toward his room. Trowa’s behavior was ridiculous! And he’d destroyed his cellphone, so Quatre couldn’t call him. And he’d had his on the entire time, waiting for Trowa to at least call him and let him know that he was all right...
He sighed as he reached his room, and entered, tossing his ball randomly aside. Not bothering to see where it bounced, or registering what that crashing noise meant after it hit something, he flopped belly first on his bed and lazily kicked his shoes off. The room was dark–he hadn’t bothered with the lights. Worried that Trowa was off somewhere, sick, near death, or perhaps even dead, Quatre folded his arms up underneath his chin, staring forlornly at the wall. What could it have been to make him so elusive? Was it him?
Or perhaps...this notion hadn’t even occurred then, and Felicia constantly mentioned it–but had they used protection? Maybe Trowa contracted something gross from the woman, and Catherine had called him about test results, or something, and–and Trowa was terminally ill from some disease!! Or...
Quatre grimaced, shifting, hoping that Trowa had used something in protection, to keep them clean and safe. When they started having sexual relations, they had gone through a required STD’s screening and both had received clean bills of health. Because they were monogamous, they figured they wouldn’t need protection from each other. And then this summer happened, and Trowa was with another woman, and he...well, could he get a disease from oral sex? Well...Mr. Ogre had been big enough, and the only oddity about it was the enormity of it...and there definitely wasn’t a disease...but how could you tell on a woman? Did Trowa wear a condom with her?
He wanted to hope that his boyfriend had. Still...it would be a good idea to get tested to make sure. He sighed heavily, worry and concern flitting through him, and he made a mental memo to himself to get tested tomorrow.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
The next night, Hiiro looked up from cleaning his shoes with a damp wash cloth and a bottle of shoe cleaner, and watched as Duo sat gingerly down next to him, looking somewhat exhausted and yet satisfied. With a curious frown, Hiiro studied his friend, noting the bluish color under his eyes, the lack of neatness in his braid.
“Long night?” he commented, raising his eyebrows.
“Yeah. I had a date,” Duo said on an exhale, slumping his shoulders. Obviously, Hiiro realized that it hadn’t been a good one, but it was the nature of the cat that wanted to know the rest.
“With who?”
“This girl named Barbara.”
“...was she good?”
“I won’t be curling up in front of a random fishing channel. It was adequate.”
Hiiro nodded thoughtfully as Duo stretched his legs out in front of him, hands on his knees.
“Hiiro, I need to ask you something,” Duo started slowly, staring up at the gym’s ceiling with a thoughtful expression.
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
“You broke up with Relena, right?”
“...I’m getting to it.”
Duo looked at him with a frown. “You haven’t YET?”
“I let her know that I had to talk to her after tonight’s game,” Hiiro muttered, avoiding Duo’s eyes. “But I am breaking up with her.”
“Because of that other girl, huh?”
“...Yeah.”
Duo stared at the stern profile of his friend, feeling all hope drain away. His shoulders felt even heavier, and they bowed lower. He hated feeling this way–rejection, helplessness, worthlessness...He knew he would never get Hiiro’s attention in that way–the guy was straight, and he was supposed to be, too, as well. But how could he not when constantly in said person’s presence, looking into those cobalt blue eyes, being his closest friend and confidant, and knowing that he had feelings that extended deeper than friendship?
His feelings had changed to something romantic and yearning, and though he was unwilling to go that far into admitting it, he felt that he had to do something in order to let Hiiro know what he felt about him. Even so, it was a really big risk he wasn’t quite ready to take, seeing that Hiiro had a crush on some other girl.
Lucky bitch, he thought bitterly as he straightened, clutching the bench.
“So, what were you going to ask me?” Hiiro interrupted his thoughts, wiping his shoes clean then setting them aside. He glanced at Duo, feeling a little more than annoyed that he hadn’t followed through with his declaration the other day. He knew Duo felt annoyed and exasperated at his constant decisions of breaking up with Relena, and the effect must be more than tiresome.
“What do you think of homosexuality?”
“It’s gross, but it’s their thing,” Hiiro replied honestly, examining his shoes to be sure he’d gotten all the dirt off the bright white leather. Duo gave him an intense stare that had him uncomfortably shifting. “People have feelings for each other, no matter what gender. And that’s always going to happen. In a way, it’s gross because...I don’t think I could ever be that way.”
Duo blinked, looking at him curiously. “So...yay, or nay?”
Hiiro shrugged. “Depends on the person, I suppose.”
“So, you’re basically telling me, you’d go out with a guy?” Duo asked with an intensely strong expression, trying to hide his feelings and to keep up the pretense that such things were gross. Just so Hiiro wouldn’t guess.
“NO,” Hiiro then hissed in disgust, giving Duo a frown, then a shake of his head. “No.”
Disappointment flooded through Duo, and he faced forward, exhaling loudly as he stared at the gathering teams on the court. Hiiro glanced at him with another frown. “Why?”
“What?” Duo asked, blinking.
“Why are you asking me this?”
“No reason. Just thinking...you know...”
“But why? Why think that way?”
Duo’s eyes flitted on the court quickly. “Just...thinking! I mean, look! Triton’s real obvious who he wants, and Quat’s like, happy with Trowa, and...I was just thinking. They’re happy...more so than any other straight couple...”
“You need a girlfriend, Duo. Someone permanent and not a one-night stand,” Hiiro said, making sure his laces were tight as he moved away from the bench with his ball.
Yeah, but the someone I want permanently isn’t even into me, Duo thought with a sad frown, pulling on his headband and walking onto the court.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
The flyers were up–try-outs were to begin next week, on Monday, and lasting all week. The results would be posted on Saturday. Quatre stared at the flyer, feeling a little numb with giddiness. He knew he was a shoe-in----despite his troubles with Ramos last year, he knew the coach would definitely keep him on the team. Ramos liked to win–and Quatre Winner was his easy guarantee. Quatre hoped that this year went differently, though.
He wanted to make State and capture the title, the grand-daddy of all high-school athletic accomplishments. He would treat this year as if it were his last. He hoped that no girls made the team–it would make it so much better. Girls, while essentially useful at times, were not his favorite things on the court. They were too slow, too fragile, and they definitely couldn’t handle the pressure when it came down to it. They belonged on their own team, with their own genders and their own dramas...he didn’t know why they had to enforce that stupid equal gender code on high school sports teams in the city. In Laramie, they had separate gender teams, and that was good because he was good with guys. Girls were...not good.
He sighed and made his way to his first class of Monday morning. He knew Mariemaia was going to try-out, and he hoped that whichever girl decided to wasn’t going to make it. Because he could barely handle one girl, and he doubted that Ramos would take her, anyway. She was a freshman, and would no doubt join the junior varsity team because of her class. She wasn’t that good.
With such thoughts drifting about in his brain, he wandered into his classroom, spying his close female friend. He frowned because she was busily looking at some smut magazine with a group of ‘players’, and they were intensely involved in an article, or pin-up of some sort.
The group of ‘players’ were the really good looking guys of their class–the type that were used to having girls all over them, and they were attractive, if not snotty and totally stuck-up on themselves. Most of them, he saw, were mainly the type to capture girls’ and laugh when they managed to snag one for the night. They weren’t serious about their snags, and that was viewed as all right, because they were the ‘gods’ of good-looks and worked their charm dangerously. They weren’t Quatre’s crowd at all–he wasn’t sure what his ‘crowd’ was. But they definitely weren’t part of it.
Mostly, he thought of them as snobbish ignoramuses, and people that should be avoided lest one drown in ‘playa’ vibes.
Sighing, seeing that he had nothing else to do before class started, he dropped his bag on the computer monitor of his assigned seat and walked over there. One of the boys signaled that he could take his lap as a seat, and Quatre scowled at him, giving him a frown as a couple of them chuckled.
“What are you guys looking at?” he asked, leaning over to see the cover of the smut paper edition. The woman on the cover was bent over obscenely, piercings visible. He had to wince.
“Lady Une has a new movie coming out,” one of the boys, Collin, said with a piercing grin in his direction.
“Who’s ‘Lady Une’?”
“She’s so fucking hot. Look,” Felicia said, holding out the magazine.
How is she not a lesbian? Quatre wondered to himself. Here was a girl, looking at smut magazines with a big group of guys, exclaiming and speaking in wonder at the graphic displays with something similar to the guys’ expressions. And she continued to claim that in no way, she was bi or lesbian.
“If I was a dyke, I’d let her do me.”
Quatre looked at the magazine, noting the rather tall, statuesque woman dressed in kinky black and baby blue leather. She had light brown hair, a slightly hooked nose, serious brown eyes, and looked as delicate as Venus Williams, except not quite so muscular. She wasn’t that much of a looker, but there was a commanding presence about her that demanded a man’s attention. She was modeling in various poses, looking about as sultry as RuPaul, in his opinion. Nothing about her stirred any interest in him.
He handed the magazine back, all of the curious faces staring at him, waiting for a reaction of any sort.
“Damn it,” the first guy muttered.
“You straight out gay?” one of them asked him.
“What?”
Felicia took the magazine and flipped the pages. “YOWZA! How in the world can that not hurt? I would not get pierced there. Is that even fuckin’ possible?! How will she have her baby?”
“She’s pregnant?” Quatre asked, blinking.
“Nah. I’m just looking out for her future.”
“She’s so hot. She’s really kinky, man. You should see one of her videos,” one of the players said to Quatre, hitting him lightly with the back of his hand.
Quatre directed him with a stare, because either that guy wasn’t watching where he was hitting, or he was deliberately aiming for his crotch. He stepped out of the circle to avoid any more contact.
“Front, back, sideways...it don’t fucking matter when it comes to her. Guys, gals----shit, even animals!” the guy continued, amazement clear on his face.
“She let this huge, fuckin’ Rottweiler climb up her back, dude,” Felicia said, looking truly disgusted, as did much of the other boys. “It was so fuckin’ nasty. I hadda puke my brains out. I seriously won’t look at another dog the same way again.”
“Yeah, cuz you’ll want one on you, you slut.”
“I’ll have the dog after you’re done suckin’ it off, Adrian.”
Quatre tried not to let an image flit across his brain, and shuddered. “Okay, that’s just nasty.”
“She has a new movie coming out,” the first guy said again, staring a little too intensely at Quatre. In fact, all of them were, seeming to judge his reaction. “We’re all in line to watch it. You should come watch it with us, playa! We’ll make a party out of it!”
“And this is interesting why?”
“Because! It’s Lady Une, man! UNE! She’s the most hot of the lot!”
Quatre rolled his eyes and walked back to his seat, hearing a sudden guffaw of laughter from all of them. Glancing over his shoulder at them suspiciously, they all leaned in together and began whispering fanatically, Felicia included. Suddenly self-conscious because he thought that they were somehow and for some reason talking about him, Quatre made it to his seat and sat down, frowning.
He stared up at the ceiling and began counting the billions of little holes in the plaster, wondering where Trowa was.
A chair was pulled up to him, and he looked over to see one of the players sitting there, grinning at him. Quatre was instantly wary, his eyes flitting away from the guy to the small group gathered just beyond his head, and instantly, five heads ducked behind a pin-up, and there were hushed whispers coming from them.
Oh, you bitch, he thought to himself as he focused back on the player guy, the one that had been giving minute suggestions to Quatre that he’d been interested in him.
“Where’s your man?” he asked, looking around, as if he could conjure Trowa up just from the power of asking. “I haven’t been seeing him in a while.”
“I don’t know,” Quatre replied darkly, feeling rather annoyed because he knew the guy was going to hit on him. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
“You trying out this year?”
“Of course.”
“Man, I watched you play last year. You were hella good.”
“Thanks.”
“My name’s Derrick. I don’t think we met.”
“We didn’t,” Quatre said pointedly, giving him the evil eye.
Derrick grinned again, revealing straight, white teeth. He held his hands up in surrender and walked off, bemoaning his failure. Quatre scowled at them all, especially at Felicia as she rose from her seat and hurried over.
“C’MON, QUAT!” she whined, sinking into her chair and giving him a sad face. “Forget about Trowa! Think about hittin’ it with someone else!”
“I DON’T WANT TO!”
“Quatre, Trowa’s gone. He’s out there in druggie’s ville, and he ain’t comin’ back! Move on with someone that will better appreciate you!” Felicia growled in annoyance, giving him a frown.
“I DON’T WANT TO!”
“Derrick’s cool, you know. He’s always thought you were hot. And cute. And he’s more than–!!”
“I DON’T WANT DERRICK!”
At the chorus of insults and drawn out ‘oohs’ in Derrick’s mockery, Quatre fumed, growing a little red as he glared at Felicia, who looked slapped. She dropped her shoulders.
“Fine, fine, fine. Look...I just want you to be with someone else, that’s all. Trowa’s bein’ all funny an’ all that, and I just want you to be...happy.”
“I’m happy with Trowa!”
“Whatever,” she muttered, kicking at her bag. “I got all these phone numbers and photos for you, an’ planned ta have ya’ll married off by the end of the year to give me some godchildren–!”
“IF I EVER HAVE CHILDREN, IN NO WAY WILL YOU EVER BE INVOLVED!”
“You wound me, whitey. You really, really do. Ass.”
“Bitch.”
“Pink dick.”
“Man.”
“Woman lover!”
“DYKE!”
“You GAY!”
“WHORE!”
“And proud of it, you chaste Altar Boy, you!”
Quatre sneezed suddenly, in repeated succession.
“Bless you!”
“Anyway, what’s with this Lady Une?” he asked, wiping his nose and wincing at the feel of snot on his fingers. He reached out and wiped them on her blazer, making her shout in outrage.
“Uh...nothin’...just...she’s hot,” she said with a nod, wiping at the clear mucus with the back of her computer mouse.
“And how are you not lesbian, again?”
“Can’t a chick look at another chick without having to be lesbian?” she asked on a sigh. “I totally wish I was a girl, man. Be all pretty and frilly and delicate and lovely and–”
Quatre shuddered. “Dude, that’s just scary. That’s like...RuPaul. I think of you as RuPaul whenever you dress up that way.”
“...Ouch...”
Felicia stared at him for a few seconds, then clutched her stomach with an agonized expression, her face welling up with complete pain. Quatre blinked, looking away from his monitor to see her slip to the ground in dramatized torment, wheezing. Rolling his eyes, he continued working on the other day’s assignment while she panted about her spleen being ripped out from her big toe.
Derrick was once more at his side, the smell of his cologne assaulting Quatre’s senses. He had to lean back, ready to jump up from his chair and weld it as a baseball bat against the good-looking guy’s face. He actually resembled a faint Leo DiCaprio. Thirty pounds less, really.
“You know, I’m free tonight. We can go out to the movies–!”
“NO! NO! NO! Get away from me, man! I’m not interested! I’m in a relationship!”
“Give it up, Derrick! He don’t want your stinky ass!” someone shouted from the group nearby.
Derrick looked stabbed, straightening with a hurt expression. “C’mon, man. Really. How long will that last after this shit goes down?”
Quatre speared him with an icy stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.
Felicia was suddenly between them, kneeing Derrick in the balls. As the boy bent over in true agony, she shoved him away, hissing something demonic in their direction. The group laughed as Derrick went to recover, Quatre giving Felicia a suspicious stare as she took her seat once more.
“All right, what the fuck’s going on?” he demanded as the teacher called for attention.
Felicia pinned him with an innocent expression. “What? Dude, I just defended your virtue from that whore-like snake, and you’re puttin’ me down. Seriously, you suck.”
“You guys are acting really funny around me!”
“And that’s different from what? Chill, man, chill.”
Quatre looked away from her, but couldn’t help but feel that she was keeping something from him.
After class, she ran away with a guy from the techno-geek club, cursing about a mission failure. Frowning, he dragged his bag behind him, heading to his next class. Kids moving behind him snapped and snarled over being tripped by the offending object he dragged behind him, but because he was a junior and because he didn’t care, he continued to do so, lost in thoughts about Trowa.
He was suddenly stopped in mid-step when a freshman boy, dressed a tad bit girlish and wearing a headband that kept his unruly black hair from his luminous blue eyes stopped in front of him, blushing furiously.
Unsure of what to do, unsure if what he was seeing was even a boy, Quatre stared at him in silence, people flowing around them. The boy held up a beautifully wrapped, hand-sized box that looked dreadfully pretty with an elaborate bow and shiny material.
“For...you...” the boy whispered, blushing furiously, head bowed.
Acting on reflex, Quatre took the box with one hand, and the boy giggled, turned, and sped off. His friends were waiting nearby, a gaggle of freshmen boys and girls that congratulated him for a job well done. Quatre was confused. He held the gift in one hand, his face expressing his bewilderment, and kids spearing him with glares because he was blocking the hallway.
He studied the cute box, blinking several times because it was so...pretty.
He then shrugged, wondering if Trowa had done this set-up just to be creative. Walking to his next class (after hauling up his bag and carrying it properly), he smiled and paused outside his classroom to look at the tag. It was written in a very feminine way, and he sniffed it, smelling...cologne. Frowning, he opened the gift and found that it was a single square of chocolate, bearing the imprint of some romantic gift boutique.
“Mm, candy,” he murmured, taking the chocolate square and popping it into his mouth, chewing with some love because it was mucho excellent. He tossed the gift away and walked into class.
“Sunday Morning” = No Doubt
Trowa stared at Catherine with much apprehension, his sister approaching him with a crazed expression in her wide, gray eyes. The airport wasn’t as crowded as it had been in the previous times he’d been here, so there wasn’t that many people about. He watched his sister approach him, her steps hurried and purposeful, her own skin pale with the stress she’d been suffering since she found out the awful news just days earlier. Trowa felt his stomach curl inward with much trepidation, his hands shaking as he stuffed them into his jeans pockets, sure that she knew how sick he felt by the lost expression on his face.
But the moment she reached him, her hand was up and slapping him hard across the face, the slap resounding throughout the area as people in the terminal looked at them curiously. Trowa held his cheek, looking at her in shock as she whirled from him, stomping off in the other direction to claim her suitcases and bags.
“I can’t believe you, Trowa!” she shouted over her shoulder, thin legs carrying her surprisingly fast toward the baggage claim area. He had to stride fast to keep pace with her, his cheek stinging with the earlier slap. “This is–! This is–! Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing that woman?! That–that–whore bitch! Goddamn her! Goddamn you, Trowa! Why didn’t you tell me?!”
Trowa sighed, shoulders slumping as his hazy mind raced. All the meth in the world couldn’t have drowned out his intense mortification and degradation of his person as he smoked it. Wired quite dreadfully on the accursed stuff, he found himself losing track of time and space as he fought to keep up with his older sister’s strides. He’d do anything to forget what had happened in Spain, anything!
“You could have told me you were seeing her! I would have told you who she was!” she wailed as she made her way into the baggage claim area, pointing out her belongings to her stiff younger brother. Trowa hastily gathered all that he could, and she claimed the rest. As they made their way to the taxi cabs outside, she looked at him sharply. “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?!”
“No.”
“Not even your stupid pussy-ass boyfriend?!”
“I told him that I cheated on him with a woman named Amelie, but gave him no other details,” Trowa reported in a low tone, humiliation coursing through his veins and making his blood run cold.
“FUCKING BITCH!” Catherine screamed as they walked out the doors. Several people were startled by the scream, looking at them in both fear and terror, a security guard hurrying over to see what the problem was. Trowa glanced at them all, watching the guard warily and hoping that it wasn’t too obvious that he was high. “I will kill her! I will ruin her! Fucking whore! I hope her pussy shrivels up and dies! GODDAMN IT, TROWA! Why do you men think with your dicks?!”
Many people looked upon Trowa with a mixture of concern, pity and disgust as Catherine continued her tirade, picking out a Mercedes, whose driver hurried out from his seat to help them load her things into the trunk. After they were finished, and were settled in the backseat, Catherine hit him again, shrieking with frustration.
Numb, Trowa just pulled his seatbelt on and stared out the window as they left the airport.
Catherine ground her palms against her eyes and looked at him wearily. “You haven’t seen it, have you?”
Trowa shook his head in answering reply, finding that words wouldn’t express what he was feeling right now.
“Don’t. Don’t ever–even if you get curious...that fucking bitch. WHORE!!”
The driver cringed and put up the divider quickly.
In mortification, Trowa put his hands over his face. “I didn’t know, Catherine. How the hell was I supposed to know she was...she–Christ.”
“If you would have told me you had met her in the first place, I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU!” Catherine ended in a furious shriek, hitting him several times with her bunched fists. She then kicked at the passenger side seat in fury, her heels nearly sinking into the material. “I’ll fucking kill her for doing this to you, but it was your own stupidity that got you here in the first fucking place! She already has the video circulating the ‘Net, ala Paris and Rick, Trowa! It’s going to be available here, soon, but that’s fucking crap because the Internet’s much faster and more accessible!! And you’re not underage, so it’s not child porn! GODDAMN IT, TROWA! How could you be so stupid! That woman’s making a profit off of you!”
“Don’t...don’t rub it in,” Trowa muttered, wiping his eyes, which had grown suspiciously wet. His face continued to burn a steady red color, and he didn’t think he could ever show his face around school. If anyone heard that he held company with a renowned international porn mistress that had filmed every single one of their trysts and put it forth in a video...oh, God...he was so embarrassed. He wanted to move to a distant planet and never look back.
“I can get my lawyers on the case immediately. In fact, I’ve already spoken to Tom, and he’s drafting up a protocol we can follow on getting this suit up and running,” Catherine growled, shaking with unvented rage.
Trowa shook his head. “NO! No, don’t do that, please! I mean, lawsuits are made public! If you do this, everyone will find out! That, and you both of are fucking big-time stars, Catherine! It’ll all be in the tabloids by the next day! Don’t do it, please! I don’t want anymore attention!”
“TROWA...oh God, you fucking idiot...you idiot...” Catherine whimpered, tears running down her cheeks as she regarded her younger brother, her only surviving family member. She threw her arms around her brother’s shoulders and sobbed against his chest. She ignored the telltale smells of his drug-use, figuring that he needed it at this moment and time. It was very understandable, and she would help him later get more. “I wish this hadn’t happened! I wish...I shouldn’t have brought you along...oh, God, this fucking sucks! I’m so sorry! I was a horrible chaperone! Leaving you all by yourself...I’m so sorry!”
Trowa sniffled against her hair, wiping his own eyes. “This fucking sucks, Cathy. I didn’t know...I didn’t know she filmed everything, and I don’t even know where she hid the camera!”
Catherine withdrew from him, wiping her eyes. She had mascara and liner smudged over big gray eyes, and her lipstick was slightly smeared. She wiped at both. “She bragged about it, you know. She had a tiny vid-cam set up in the form of a brooch that she wore on her cardigan. Do you remember seeing a cardigan with her whenever you...met her?”
Trowa recalled the first night, when Amelie Une–who was nicknamed ‘Lady Une’ in international porn circles throughout the world–came to his hotel wearing that small dress and a cardigan. And how she’d draped it over the television set...getting a very good view of Catherine’s bed, where they had...and...she’d taped it all. Taped it, sent it to a video studio to have it edited and redone to voyeur porn standards, complete with corny music, and was now registering as a hit under the title, “Mrs. Robinson”.
To know that he’d been a participant in the raunchy video–of which, if he’d known she was a goddamned porn-star, he’d never had bothered with her in the first place!– that Catherine had personally viewed just to make sure that it was him (oh, God, his sister saw him fucking an older woman, and they’d gotten so explicit), made him eager to disappear deep into the bowels of Earth, to never show his face again. Thousands of people were now viewing that video, watching him fuck and be fucked by the tempting “Lady” Une, and if his classmates found out...oh, God. The shock and mortification of it all demanded that he be wired and under the constant haze of his addictions just to numb it all! And if Quatre found out...
Oh, God, Quatre wasn’t going to want him anymore. People would look at him, whisper, watch the video and look at him differently...he wanted to hide. There was no way he was going to go back to school! He had to transfer. If he had to leave without letting Quatre know–! He would. He had to get out of New Park. He had to go somewhere far, far away. To escape that bitch’s evil video and the leers that would accompany it. How utterly degrading, humiliating, sick! He couldn’t get over it. Why him?! Why HIM?! Was this some karmic backlash for him cheating on Quatre?! If it was, it was the ultimate payback! Never again would he be tempted by another person, no matter what deal or tiff was going on with him and his lover.
He wiped his face with one shaking hand, feeling his stomach curl with upset action. “This fucking sucks, Catherine,” he sniffled. “I never wanted this to happen...so many people are going to watch it and know what I look like, what I do. I don’t like this! I hate her!”
“You can’t stop it now, Trowa,” Catherine said, blowing her nose into a used tissue she’d had wadded in her pocket. “It’s going to come here to the States pretty soon. My boss was telling me that with your age and the fact that it’s Lady Une, it’s going to be a hit here, as well. But he was complimenting you. He thinks that at least five of those orgasms were real.”
“CATHERINE.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Every woman fakes it, but sometimes–! This is so disgusting, I’m complimenting my baby brother on his sexual escapades with my rival in the porn industry!” Catherine wailed, thin shoulders shaking with her grief.
Trowa wrapped his arms around his middle, trying to control the shakes that were causing his body to quiver violently. Ducking his head, he tried not to think about what he was going to tell Quatre. About what his classmates would do if they saw that video. It just wasn’t fair–that woman had scouted him out, picked him up, and failed to tell him what she did for a living! He’d asked, and she’d merely replied that she was an entertainment producer for Lilly-Ann Psychedelics, and he’d assumed it was just a minor producing studio that remained only in Spain. He hadn’t pried for any other info.
How could she do this? How could she have deceive him so?
No matter that she was making the big bucks off their trysts. Didn’t she think what he would feel about it? Sure, some guys were all over such things–if they were ever given the chance, they’d skip, jump and leap to be in a starring production with such a big-time actress in a explicit video–but he wasn’t one of those guys! He hated attention! And intimate things were to be only that–intimate and private. Not broadcast via Internet and porn shops.
He wiped his face again, mouth working. No matter how many times he clenched his teeth, licked his lips, worked his lower jaw, the problem was not going away.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
Quatre stared at the empty side of Trowa’s/Jared’s room, and blinked. It was obvious Trowa hadn’t been there–the bed was still made, and Jared had flatly informed him that he hadn’t seen Trowa since Friday morning. Quatre’s brow furrowed with worry and bewilderment as he walked over to Trowa’s side of the room, and sat down on the bed, holding his ball. It was Saturday night, and there was still no sign, hide, or hair of Trowa Barton. He frowned at Jared, who adjusted his thick Buddy Holly specs and pulled one plaid covered leg up to his chest. He was looking at Quatre with mild curiosity, wanting to know what was going on.
Quatre then scowled at him, getting up from the bed, muttering, “What are you looking at, four-eyes?”
He slammed the door shut and stomped up toward his room. Trowa’s behavior was ridiculous! And he’d destroyed his cellphone, so Quatre couldn’t call him. And he’d had his on the entire time, waiting for Trowa to at least call him and let him know that he was all right...
He sighed as he reached his room, and entered, tossing his ball randomly aside. Not bothering to see where it bounced, or registering what that crashing noise meant after it hit something, he flopped belly first on his bed and lazily kicked his shoes off. The room was dark–he hadn’t bothered with the lights. Worried that Trowa was off somewhere, sick, near death, or perhaps even dead, Quatre folded his arms up underneath his chin, staring forlornly at the wall. What could it have been to make him so elusive? Was it him?
Or perhaps...this notion hadn’t even occurred then, and Felicia constantly mentioned it–but had they used protection? Maybe Trowa contracted something gross from the woman, and Catherine had called him about test results, or something, and–and Trowa was terminally ill from some disease!! Or...
Quatre grimaced, shifting, hoping that Trowa had used something in protection, to keep them clean and safe. When they started having sexual relations, they had gone through a required STD’s screening and both had received clean bills of health. Because they were monogamous, they figured they wouldn’t need protection from each other. And then this summer happened, and Trowa was with another woman, and he...well, could he get a disease from oral sex? Well...Mr. Ogre had been big enough, and the only oddity about it was the enormity of it...and there definitely wasn’t a disease...but how could you tell on a woman? Did Trowa wear a condom with her?
He wanted to hope that his boyfriend had. Still...it would be a good idea to get tested to make sure. He sighed heavily, worry and concern flitting through him, and he made a mental memo to himself to get tested tomorrow.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
The next night, Hiiro looked up from cleaning his shoes with a damp wash cloth and a bottle of shoe cleaner, and watched as Duo sat gingerly down next to him, looking somewhat exhausted and yet satisfied. With a curious frown, Hiiro studied his friend, noting the bluish color under his eyes, the lack of neatness in his braid.
“Long night?” he commented, raising his eyebrows.
“Yeah. I had a date,” Duo said on an exhale, slumping his shoulders. Obviously, Hiiro realized that it hadn’t been a good one, but it was the nature of the cat that wanted to know the rest.
“With who?”
“This girl named Barbara.”
“...was she good?”
“I won’t be curling up in front of a random fishing channel. It was adequate.”
Hiiro nodded thoughtfully as Duo stretched his legs out in front of him, hands on his knees.
“Hiiro, I need to ask you something,” Duo started slowly, staring up at the gym’s ceiling with a thoughtful expression.
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
“You broke up with Relena, right?”
“...I’m getting to it.”
Duo looked at him with a frown. “You haven’t YET?”
“I let her know that I had to talk to her after tonight’s game,” Hiiro muttered, avoiding Duo’s eyes. “But I am breaking up with her.”
“Because of that other girl, huh?”
“...Yeah.”
Duo stared at the stern profile of his friend, feeling all hope drain away. His shoulders felt even heavier, and they bowed lower. He hated feeling this way–rejection, helplessness, worthlessness...He knew he would never get Hiiro’s attention in that way–the guy was straight, and he was supposed to be, too, as well. But how could he not when constantly in said person’s presence, looking into those cobalt blue eyes, being his closest friend and confidant, and knowing that he had feelings that extended deeper than friendship?
His feelings had changed to something romantic and yearning, and though he was unwilling to go that far into admitting it, he felt that he had to do something in order to let Hiiro know what he felt about him. Even so, it was a really big risk he wasn’t quite ready to take, seeing that Hiiro had a crush on some other girl.
Lucky bitch, he thought bitterly as he straightened, clutching the bench.
“So, what were you going to ask me?” Hiiro interrupted his thoughts, wiping his shoes clean then setting them aside. He glanced at Duo, feeling a little more than annoyed that he hadn’t followed through with his declaration the other day. He knew Duo felt annoyed and exasperated at his constant decisions of breaking up with Relena, and the effect must be more than tiresome.
“What do you think of homosexuality?”
“It’s gross, but it’s their thing,” Hiiro replied honestly, examining his shoes to be sure he’d gotten all the dirt off the bright white leather. Duo gave him an intense stare that had him uncomfortably shifting. “People have feelings for each other, no matter what gender. And that’s always going to happen. In a way, it’s gross because...I don’t think I could ever be that way.”
Duo blinked, looking at him curiously. “So...yay, or nay?”
Hiiro shrugged. “Depends on the person, I suppose.”
“So, you’re basically telling me, you’d go out with a guy?” Duo asked with an intensely strong expression, trying to hide his feelings and to keep up the pretense that such things were gross. Just so Hiiro wouldn’t guess.
“NO,” Hiiro then hissed in disgust, giving Duo a frown, then a shake of his head. “No.”
Disappointment flooded through Duo, and he faced forward, exhaling loudly as he stared at the gathering teams on the court. Hiiro glanced at him with another frown. “Why?”
“What?” Duo asked, blinking.
“Why are you asking me this?”
“No reason. Just thinking...you know...”
“But why? Why think that way?”
Duo’s eyes flitted on the court quickly. “Just...thinking! I mean, look! Triton’s real obvious who he wants, and Quat’s like, happy with Trowa, and...I was just thinking. They’re happy...more so than any other straight couple...”
“You need a girlfriend, Duo. Someone permanent and not a one-night stand,” Hiiro said, making sure his laces were tight as he moved away from the bench with his ball.
Yeah, but the someone I want permanently isn’t even into me, Duo thought with a sad frown, pulling on his headband and walking onto the court.
#20#20#20#20#20#20#20
The flyers were up–try-outs were to begin next week, on Monday, and lasting all week. The results would be posted on Saturday. Quatre stared at the flyer, feeling a little numb with giddiness. He knew he was a shoe-in----despite his troubles with Ramos last year, he knew the coach would definitely keep him on the team. Ramos liked to win–and Quatre Winner was his easy guarantee. Quatre hoped that this year went differently, though.
He wanted to make State and capture the title, the grand-daddy of all high-school athletic accomplishments. He would treat this year as if it were his last. He hoped that no girls made the team–it would make it so much better. Girls, while essentially useful at times, were not his favorite things on the court. They were too slow, too fragile, and they definitely couldn’t handle the pressure when it came down to it. They belonged on their own team, with their own genders and their own dramas...he didn’t know why they had to enforce that stupid equal gender code on high school sports teams in the city. In Laramie, they had separate gender teams, and that was good because he was good with guys. Girls were...not good.
He sighed and made his way to his first class of Monday morning. He knew Mariemaia was going to try-out, and he hoped that whichever girl decided to wasn’t going to make it. Because he could barely handle one girl, and he doubted that Ramos would take her, anyway. She was a freshman, and would no doubt join the junior varsity team because of her class. She wasn’t that good.
With such thoughts drifting about in his brain, he wandered into his classroom, spying his close female friend. He frowned because she was busily looking at some smut magazine with a group of ‘players’, and they were intensely involved in an article, or pin-up of some sort.
The group of ‘players’ were the really good looking guys of their class–the type that were used to having girls all over them, and they were attractive, if not snotty and totally stuck-up on themselves. Most of them, he saw, were mainly the type to capture girls’ and laugh when they managed to snag one for the night. They weren’t serious about their snags, and that was viewed as all right, because they were the ‘gods’ of good-looks and worked their charm dangerously. They weren’t Quatre’s crowd at all–he wasn’t sure what his ‘crowd’ was. But they definitely weren’t part of it.
Mostly, he thought of them as snobbish ignoramuses, and people that should be avoided lest one drown in ‘playa’ vibes.
Sighing, seeing that he had nothing else to do before class started, he dropped his bag on the computer monitor of his assigned seat and walked over there. One of the boys signaled that he could take his lap as a seat, and Quatre scowled at him, giving him a frown as a couple of them chuckled.
“What are you guys looking at?” he asked, leaning over to see the cover of the smut paper edition. The woman on the cover was bent over obscenely, piercings visible. He had to wince.
“Lady Une has a new movie coming out,” one of the boys, Collin, said with a piercing grin in his direction.
“Who’s ‘Lady Une’?”
“She’s so fucking hot. Look,” Felicia said, holding out the magazine.
How is she not a lesbian? Quatre wondered to himself. Here was a girl, looking at smut magazines with a big group of guys, exclaiming and speaking in wonder at the graphic displays with something similar to the guys’ expressions. And she continued to claim that in no way, she was bi or lesbian.
“If I was a dyke, I’d let her do me.”
Quatre looked at the magazine, noting the rather tall, statuesque woman dressed in kinky black and baby blue leather. She had light brown hair, a slightly hooked nose, serious brown eyes, and looked as delicate as Venus Williams, except not quite so muscular. She wasn’t that much of a looker, but there was a commanding presence about her that demanded a man’s attention. She was modeling in various poses, looking about as sultry as RuPaul, in his opinion. Nothing about her stirred any interest in him.
He handed the magazine back, all of the curious faces staring at him, waiting for a reaction of any sort.
“Damn it,” the first guy muttered.
“You straight out gay?” one of them asked him.
“What?”
Felicia took the magazine and flipped the pages. “YOWZA! How in the world can that not hurt? I would not get pierced there. Is that even fuckin’ possible?! How will she have her baby?”
“She’s pregnant?” Quatre asked, blinking.
“Nah. I’m just looking out for her future.”
“She’s so hot. She’s really kinky, man. You should see one of her videos,” one of the players said to Quatre, hitting him lightly with the back of his hand.
Quatre directed him with a stare, because either that guy wasn’t watching where he was hitting, or he was deliberately aiming for his crotch. He stepped out of the circle to avoid any more contact.
“Front, back, sideways...it don’t fucking matter when it comes to her. Guys, gals----shit, even animals!” the guy continued, amazement clear on his face.
“She let this huge, fuckin’ Rottweiler climb up her back, dude,” Felicia said, looking truly disgusted, as did much of the other boys. “It was so fuckin’ nasty. I hadda puke my brains out. I seriously won’t look at another dog the same way again.”
“Yeah, cuz you’ll want one on you, you slut.”
“I’ll have the dog after you’re done suckin’ it off, Adrian.”
Quatre tried not to let an image flit across his brain, and shuddered. “Okay, that’s just nasty.”
“She has a new movie coming out,” the first guy said again, staring a little too intensely at Quatre. In fact, all of them were, seeming to judge his reaction. “We’re all in line to watch it. You should come watch it with us, playa! We’ll make a party out of it!”
“And this is interesting why?”
“Because! It’s Lady Une, man! UNE! She’s the most hot of the lot!”
Quatre rolled his eyes and walked back to his seat, hearing a sudden guffaw of laughter from all of them. Glancing over his shoulder at them suspiciously, they all leaned in together and began whispering fanatically, Felicia included. Suddenly self-conscious because he thought that they were somehow and for some reason talking about him, Quatre made it to his seat and sat down, frowning.
He stared up at the ceiling and began counting the billions of little holes in the plaster, wondering where Trowa was.
A chair was pulled up to him, and he looked over to see one of the players sitting there, grinning at him. Quatre was instantly wary, his eyes flitting away from the guy to the small group gathered just beyond his head, and instantly, five heads ducked behind a pin-up, and there were hushed whispers coming from them.
Oh, you bitch, he thought to himself as he focused back on the player guy, the one that had been giving minute suggestions to Quatre that he’d been interested in him.
“Where’s your man?” he asked, looking around, as if he could conjure Trowa up just from the power of asking. “I haven’t been seeing him in a while.”
“I don’t know,” Quatre replied darkly, feeling rather annoyed because he knew the guy was going to hit on him. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
“You trying out this year?”
“Of course.”
“Man, I watched you play last year. You were hella good.”
“Thanks.”
“My name’s Derrick. I don’t think we met.”
“We didn’t,” Quatre said pointedly, giving him the evil eye.
Derrick grinned again, revealing straight, white teeth. He held his hands up in surrender and walked off, bemoaning his failure. Quatre scowled at them all, especially at Felicia as she rose from her seat and hurried over.
“C’MON, QUAT!” she whined, sinking into her chair and giving him a sad face. “Forget about Trowa! Think about hittin’ it with someone else!”
“I DON’T WANT TO!”
“Quatre, Trowa’s gone. He’s out there in druggie’s ville, and he ain’t comin’ back! Move on with someone that will better appreciate you!” Felicia growled in annoyance, giving him a frown.
“I DON’T WANT TO!”
“Derrick’s cool, you know. He’s always thought you were hot. And cute. And he’s more than–!!”
“I DON’T WANT DERRICK!”
At the chorus of insults and drawn out ‘oohs’ in Derrick’s mockery, Quatre fumed, growing a little red as he glared at Felicia, who looked slapped. She dropped her shoulders.
“Fine, fine, fine. Look...I just want you to be with someone else, that’s all. Trowa’s bein’ all funny an’ all that, and I just want you to be...happy.”
“I’m happy with Trowa!”
“Whatever,” she muttered, kicking at her bag. “I got all these phone numbers and photos for you, an’ planned ta have ya’ll married off by the end of the year to give me some godchildren–!”
“IF I EVER HAVE CHILDREN, IN NO WAY WILL YOU EVER BE INVOLVED!”
“You wound me, whitey. You really, really do. Ass.”
“Bitch.”
“Pink dick.”
“Man.”
“Woman lover!”
“DYKE!”
“You GAY!”
“WHORE!”
“And proud of it, you chaste Altar Boy, you!”
Quatre sneezed suddenly, in repeated succession.
“Bless you!”
“Anyway, what’s with this Lady Une?” he asked, wiping his nose and wincing at the feel of snot on his fingers. He reached out and wiped them on her blazer, making her shout in outrage.
“Uh...nothin’...just...she’s hot,” she said with a nod, wiping at the clear mucus with the back of her computer mouse.
“And how are you not lesbian, again?”
“Can’t a chick look at another chick without having to be lesbian?” she asked on a sigh. “I totally wish I was a girl, man. Be all pretty and frilly and delicate and lovely and–”
Quatre shuddered. “Dude, that’s just scary. That’s like...RuPaul. I think of you as RuPaul whenever you dress up that way.”
“...Ouch...”
Felicia stared at him for a few seconds, then clutched her stomach with an agonized expression, her face welling up with complete pain. Quatre blinked, looking away from his monitor to see her slip to the ground in dramatized torment, wheezing. Rolling his eyes, he continued working on the other day’s assignment while she panted about her spleen being ripped out from her big toe.
Derrick was once more at his side, the smell of his cologne assaulting Quatre’s senses. He had to lean back, ready to jump up from his chair and weld it as a baseball bat against the good-looking guy’s face. He actually resembled a faint Leo DiCaprio. Thirty pounds less, really.
“You know, I’m free tonight. We can go out to the movies–!”
“NO! NO! NO! Get away from me, man! I’m not interested! I’m in a relationship!”
“Give it up, Derrick! He don’t want your stinky ass!” someone shouted from the group nearby.
Derrick looked stabbed, straightening with a hurt expression. “C’mon, man. Really. How long will that last after this shit goes down?”
Quatre speared him with an icy stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.
Felicia was suddenly between them, kneeing Derrick in the balls. As the boy bent over in true agony, she shoved him away, hissing something demonic in their direction. The group laughed as Derrick went to recover, Quatre giving Felicia a suspicious stare as she took her seat once more.
“All right, what the fuck’s going on?” he demanded as the teacher called for attention.
Felicia pinned him with an innocent expression. “What? Dude, I just defended your virtue from that whore-like snake, and you’re puttin’ me down. Seriously, you suck.”
“You guys are acting really funny around me!”
“And that’s different from what? Chill, man, chill.”
Quatre looked away from her, but couldn’t help but feel that she was keeping something from him.
After class, she ran away with a guy from the techno-geek club, cursing about a mission failure. Frowning, he dragged his bag behind him, heading to his next class. Kids moving behind him snapped and snarled over being tripped by the offending object he dragged behind him, but because he was a junior and because he didn’t care, he continued to do so, lost in thoughts about Trowa.
He was suddenly stopped in mid-step when a freshman boy, dressed a tad bit girlish and wearing a headband that kept his unruly black hair from his luminous blue eyes stopped in front of him, blushing furiously.
Unsure of what to do, unsure if what he was seeing was even a boy, Quatre stared at him in silence, people flowing around them. The boy held up a beautifully wrapped, hand-sized box that looked dreadfully pretty with an elaborate bow and shiny material.
“For...you...” the boy whispered, blushing furiously, head bowed.
Acting on reflex, Quatre took the box with one hand, and the boy giggled, turned, and sped off. His friends were waiting nearby, a gaggle of freshmen boys and girls that congratulated him for a job well done. Quatre was confused. He held the gift in one hand, his face expressing his bewilderment, and kids spearing him with glares because he was blocking the hallway.
He studied the cute box, blinking several times because it was so...pretty.
He then shrugged, wondering if Trowa had done this set-up just to be creative. Walking to his next class (after hauling up his bag and carrying it properly), he smiled and paused outside his classroom to look at the tag. It was written in a very feminine way, and he sniffed it, smelling...cologne. Frowning, he opened the gift and found that it was a single square of chocolate, bearing the imprint of some romantic gift boutique.
“Mm, candy,” he murmured, taking the chocolate square and popping it into his mouth, chewing with some love because it was mucho excellent. He tossed the gift away and walked into class.