“Bastard,” Sally grumbled as she got into her car. She pilled out of the parking lot of her boyfriend’s apartment building. End Chapter 2
(1)Ani DiFranco, “Rush Hour”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she thought to herself as she drove to her apartment nearby. “At least I never told him what I really do,” she said. It started raining outside as she started singing…
rush hour
at the day’s dawning
the rain came
and pushed me under the awning
the puddles grew
and threw themselves at me
with every passing car
I’m shielding my guitar
there were some things I
did not tell him
there were certain things
he did not need to know
there were some days
that I did not love him
he didn’t understand me
and I don’t know why I didn’t go
he said change the channel
I got problems of my own
I’m so sick of hearing about
drugs and aids and people without homes
I said, well I’d like to sympathize with that
but if you can’t understand then
how can you act
“Damn him. Why do I always pick the idiots. I don’t know why I didn’t go.”
“Why did he go?” Duo thought to himself as he awoke to an empty room. “Why do I push him away?”
He carefully crawled out of bed, thinking that breakfast would make him feel better. Downstairs he nodded at Wufei as he got coffee. Then he looked back.
“Wu-man, what happened to you? Did some cat use you as a chew toy?”
“Thanks for the sympathy, Maxwell. My stomach has decided to rebel against me.”
“Then stop with the coffee,” Duo said as he searched through the fridge. “Found it. Here, ginger ale, always good for upset tummies.
Wufei looked up in surprise as the braided pilot handed him a glass with the clear liquid. He bowed a bit in thanks before getting up and running for the bathroom.
“Poor guy,” Duo said to the now empty kitchen. “Oh Heero, I miss you.”
Quatre awoke to the sound of retching in the bathroom beside his bedroom. He moaned and rolled out of bed. He walked out of his room, curious as to who was sick. It was Wufei. He was resting his head against the side of the bathtub, looking very pale. Quatre smiled slightly at him before taking a washcloth and wetting it. He handed it to Wufei, who nodded at him before wiping off his mouth and face. “Hey, at least I won’t have to hold back his hair,” Quatre thought, glancing at Wufei’s still perfect little ponytail. Trowa appeared at the door, looking sleepy.
“Is everything ok?” he asked.
“Wufei isn’t feeling well.” Quatre said. “can you get us a trash can?” Trowa nodded and headed toward the kitchen. Duo was already there, a small trashcan sitting beside him. He handed it to Trowa along with a glass of ginger ale.
“I’ll call Sally.” He said, then as a second thought, “after I finish my coffee.” Trowa nodded and walked to Wufei’s room. Quatre was already there, putting a blanket over Wufei, who was in bed. Trowa set the trashcan down beside the bed and the ginger ale on the bedside table.
“Duo’s calling Sally.” He said to the two other pilots. Seeing that Wufei was settled he walked out the door, Quatre following.
“I asked him what he ate last night and he said just the macaroni and cheese like the rest of us, so unless we start feeling bad it’s probably a virus.” Quatre said when they were in the hall. Trowa nodded and studied Quatre a moment before beginning to walk back into the kitchen.
“Trowa!” Quatre called when he got over his discomfort at being studied. Trowa turned to look at him.
“Well, I was just wondering… uhm, Wufei won’t be eating for a while and I think Duo will be eating alone, so, uh, would you like to join me for dinner tonight?” Quatre said nervously, looking at the floor. Trowa walked up to him and put his hand on Quatre’s cheek. Quatre looked up at him in surprise.
“Yes, Quatre, I’ll join you for dinner.” Trowa said, and he briefly ran his finger across the bags under Quatre’s eyes. “and you should probably go back to sleep for a while. He then quickly pulled his hand away and turned around before Quatre could see his cheeks coloring. Quatre stood staring after him for a moment before hurrying to his room.
“Why hasn’t he answered?” Heero asked his laptop angrily. “Where is he?”
He’d sent a message to Duo the night before and he still hadn’t gotten an answer back. So the cobalt eyed pilot sat in front of his laptop waiting for his lover to respond. Wing was on autopilot to the base he had to blow up. A simple mission, get in, get out.
“Hello,” he said to the empty cockpit, then he began singing.
Hello, hello
Are you out there?
N.O.D. Are you out there?
I can’t see your face
But you left a trace on a data back-road
That I almost erased
Not even God takes this long to get back
So get back
‘Cause I hit a fork in the road
I lost my way home
I’m cut off from our main line
Like a disconnected modem
Hello
Tap in the code
I’ll reach you below
No one should brave the underworld alone
Hello, hello, hello
How do I reach you?
Word has it on the wire
That you don’t know who you are
Well if you could jack into my brain
You’d know exactly what you mean here
Mothers are trails on stars in the night
Fathers are black holes that suck up the light
That’s the memory I filed on the fringe
Along with the memory of the pain you lived in
Hello
I don’t have the password
But the path is chainlinked
So if you’ve got the time
Set the tone to sync
Tap in the code
I’ll reach you below
Hello, hello
Are you out there?
“Duo, are you out there?”
“Damn it! Of all the bad luck. That bastard landlord, I paid him and he knows it. Now where am I gonna stay?” Sally asked her empty car.
An hour earlier she’s arrived at her apartment to find that she’d been evicted. Apparently she’d never sent her check for last month. She’d gotten together all her personal belongings, not that she’d had a lot, she was a soldier after all and the apartment had come furnished.
“I guess I can live on the base, but I hate staying there,” she said to herself. Then her cell phone started ring.
“Hello. Po here,” she said stiffly.
“Hey Sally, it’s Duo. You’re not busy are you cause Wuffies sick and we don’t know what it is and it’s not food poisoning or nothin cause we all ate the same thing yesterday and we can’t go to the doctor’s cause how would we explain who we are and then…”
“Duo, stop,” she interrupted. “I’m free and I can come but I need a favor in return.”
“What kind of favor?”
“My jackass landlord threw me out and I need a place to stay.”
“You can stay here. The only thing left is the couch but I guess…”
“Duo, that’s fine. Now I need directions.”
“Well, are you a January girl?”
“A what? Duo, just…”
She was a january girl
She never let on how insane it
Was in that tiny kinda
Scary house by the
Woods by the…
“DUO! Just give me directions.”
“Sorry.”
She listened intently to his directions and started towards their house. This was just the kind of break she needed but she was just slightly worried about living with the gundam pilots. Course she had lived with men before, she had been in the army, after all.
“Pull together Sal, it can’t be that bad,” She said to herself, but even she didn’t believe it.
She walked through the woods to the tiny safehouse. She was amazed that the five mismatched pilots could live in such close quarters. Course now they’ll be six of them.
“How did I get into this,” she mumbled as she knocked on the door.
“Hi Trowa,” she said to the stoic pilot when he opened the door.
“Hello Sally,” he grunted, then pointed inside, indicating for her to come in.
“Thanks. Where’s Wufei?” she asked. After he pointed out the room she added, “Thank you so much for letting me stay. I had nowhere else to go.”
“You’re staying?” Trowa asked, more a statement than anything else.
“Yeah, Duo said I could since I no longer have an apartment. Where should I put my things?”
“Duo will get them. Wufei needs you.”
She nodded to him and walked into Wufei’s room. The curtains were closed and the room looked dark and foreboding.
“Wufei?” she asked carefully.
“Onna? Why are you here? I’m not sick,” came the gruff reply from the bed.
“That’s not what the other pilots said,” she replied, walking carefully towards the bed. Since he didn’t reply she realized that he must be sick. She laid a gentle hand on his forehead. It felt red-hot. She continued to check out his condition until he started to shake.
“Wufei, what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’re cold, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“Sorry. But you’re burning up. Let me finish checking to see what it may be. Do you want another blanket?”
He nodded and she went and got a blanket from the closet and wrapped him up in it. She continued looking over him as she started singing softly.
It’s a pity, It’s a crying shame
He pulled you down again
How painful it must be
To bruise so easily
Inside
It’s a pity, it’s a downright crime
It happens all the time
You wanna stay little daddy’s girl
You wanna hide from the viscous world
Outside
Don’t cry, you know the tears will do no good
So dry your eyes
Your daddy, he’s the iron man
Battle shipwrecked on dry land
Your mamma, she’s a bitter bride
She’ll never be satisfied
You know, and that’s not right
But don’t cry
You know the tears will do no good
So dry your eyes
They told you life is hard
Misery from the start, it’s dull
It’s slow, it’s painful
But I tell you life is sweet
In spite of the misery
There’s so much more, be grateful
Well, who do you believe
Who will you listen to, who will it be
Because it’s high time that you decide
In your own mind
I’ve tried to comfort you
I tried to tell you to be patient
That they are blind and they can’t see
Fortune gonna come one day
It all gonna fade away
Your daddy the war machine
And your mamma the long and suffering
Prisoner of what she can not see
For they told you life is hard
Misery from the start, it’s dull
It’s slow, it’s painful
But I tell you life is sweet
In spite of the misery
There’s so much more, be grateful
So who will you believe
Who will you listen to
Who will it be
Because it’s high time that you decide
It’s time to make up your own
Your own state of mind
They told you life is long
Be thankful when it’s done
Don’t ask for more, be grateful
But I tell you life is short
Be thankful, because before you know it
It will be over
Because life is sweet
Life is also very short
Life is sweet
And life is all so very short
Life is sweet
Life is sweet
As she finished singing she noticed her charge was asleep. She sighed to herself and soothed her hand over his brow. It was still warm. She kissed his forehead gently and walked out to get a cold compress.
“What have I gotten myself into?” she whispered to the room.
Duo sat on his bed looking at the schematics of Deathscythe. At least that was what it seemed like he was doing. Instead he was dreaming about his lover.
“Oh, Hee-chan.” he said before he heard a loud knock on the door. “Duo, Sally’s here.” Trowa said as Duo opened the door.
“Yeah and, oh, um, you were surprised that I offered to let her live here. She had no where else to go and we’ve got plenty of room. Well, maybe not, but with the five of us coming and going, I’m sure she wouldn’t be in the way, and besides now we have a doctor living with us which should save us a lot of trouble, and she’s nice company, and, well, um, Trowa-man, are you alright, I mean, usually you’d leave by now and well, um, yeah.” Duo babbled to the uni-banged pilot, who hadn’t moved the whole time.
“Her stuffs in the car, put it in the hall closet for now, she’s with Wufei right now.” Trowa answered back and began to walk back to his room.
“Alright Tro, I knew you’d understand.” Duo replied as he walked outside. In Sally’s car he only saw two bags, a pillow, and a plant. He put the bags in the closet, he’d let her deal with them later, he didn’t want to go through her things. Then he put the pillow on the couch and the plant on the counter in the kitchen. Duo then heard a door open and turned around to see Sally leaving Wufei’s room.
“Hey Sally, glad to see you got here safe, your stuffs in the hall closet, how’s Wuffie doing?” he asked in one breath.
“Hi, nice to see you too, thanks, and not too good.” She answered. Duo gave a short laugh and asked her if she needed anything. After he helped her find a bowl and a cloth he went back to his room to mope about his boyfriend.
Quatre grabbed Trowa’s arm. Trowa looked at him, surprised, but didn’t make a move to respond. They sat down in the small restaurant and Quatre decided to get it over with and tell him.
“Trowa?” Trowa looked up at him. “I… I love you, Trowa. I’ve loved you since I first laid eyes on you. Please… please answer me Trowa. Please talk to me.”
Trowa started at him, his lip slowly raising into a snarl.
“You freak.” Trowa said beginning to stand up. “I can’t believe you. Get away from me. I never want to see you again.” He slammed his chair under the table and stalked out of the restaurant. Quatre stared after him, his eyes slowly filling with tears.
“Trowa…” he called softly. “Trowa…”
Woke up to find
I lost my mind
Lost heart, lost nerve
I lost my favorite word
Trowa
I take my cigarettes
I give ‘em a smoke
Oh god
My heart feels froze
I’ve lost something it seems
I’ve misplaced my favorite thing
Trowa
Where does love go
If it can’t find a home
One moment here then gone
With no forwarding address
Love no longer has a house
Or residence in flesh
Take the keys
I get in the car
To out run thus
Man I’d have to get real far
Where mercy wears lace
And bottles are thieves
Which of these you took from me?
Trowa
I face myself
But there’s this draft inside
Parts of me drowned
In perpetual tide
I wanna call names
I wanna throw things around
But no bar can buy
Forgiveness another round for
Trowa
I go to the bedroom
Turn on the light
It’s like an empty altar
No angel in sight
Religion with no temple
No place to take my worship to
No god for my eyes to see
No fruit to lay at the feet of
Trowa
“Trowa…”
Quatre sat upright in bed, He had been crying in his sleep. There was a knock on the door.
“Yes?” Quatre called. He hoped it was just Duo coming to talk or something, because he needed to pull himself together.
“Quatre?”
“Oh God, Oh God, it’s Trowa…” Quatre thought, burying himself under the covers.
“What is it, Trowa?” he asked. Trowa opened the door slightly.
“Are you OK? I heard you calling my name.” He said stepping inside. Quatre turned his head into his pillow to hide the new tear tracks. I must’ve been dreaming or something.
“I’m OK. I need to take a shower now, so please…” he said in a muffled voice. Trowa nodded and backed out the door. Quatre sat up and let out a choked sob. He hoped that his dream hadn’t been a premonition.
Trowa stood outside Quatre’s door, staring at the floor. He heard movement inside, so he quickly walked into his room and closed the door. He could’ve sworn he’d heard Quatre call his name, but Quatre said that he hadn’t called him. Trowa rethought his short conversation with Quatre. He said that he may’ve been calling Trowa in a dream. Trowa sat down on his bed. If Quatre’d been calling him in a dream, then… then that would mean that Quatre dreamt about him. He shook his head. Quatre wouldn’t dream about him. He must’ve been hearing things.
“It won’t work!” he said to himself quietly. Quatre was too good for him, too pure. It was only dinner. Quatre would be better off without him. He would be better off alone.
On my own,
he sang quietly,
Pretending he’s beside me...
All alone
I walk with him till morning
Without him
I feel his arms around me
And when I lose my way i close my eyes
And he has found me
In the rain the pavement shines like silver
All the lights are misty in the river
In the darkness, the trees are full of starlights
And all I see is him and me forever and forever
And i know it`s only in my mind
That I`m talking to myself and not to him
And although I know that he is blind
Still I say, there`s a way for us
I love him
But when the night is over
He`s gone
The river`s just a river
Without him
The world around me changes
The trees are bare and everywhere
The streets are full of strangers
I love him
But every day I`m learning
All my life
I`ve only been pretending
Without him
My world would go on turning
A world that`s full of happiness
That I have never known
I love him
I love him
I love him
But only on my own...
Trowa sighed and got up. He went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face before walking up to Wufei’s room. He knocked lightly and walked in. Wufei was asleep and Sally was sitting beside his bed, humming as she replaced the wet cloth on his head.
“Will he be alright?” Trowa asked. Sally jumped.
“Oh! Trowa, I didn’t hear you come in. Yes, he should be fine, he just this virus to run through his system.” She said. Trowa nodded.
“Quatre and I will be going out to dinner tonight.” He said.
Sally chuckled quietly.
“OK, Trowa, thanks for letting me know. I suppose we’ll find something to eat.” Trowa nodded again and walked out of the room.
“Have a nice dinner!” she called after him. She straightened one of Wufei’s blankets, smiling and shaking her head.
Later that afternoon Wufei woke out of his fever induced haze to a woman softly humming and the feeling of a cool wet cloth on his forehead. Sally, his mind supplied him as the owner of the voice. She sang before then kissed me, no, wait, I’m just imagining things.
“Onna.” He called softly.
“Wufei.” She answered back, just as quietly. He opened his heavy eyelids to see her standing over him, her hand gently running down the side of his face.
“Are you feeling any better?” Sally asked.
“No. My body is cold but my face is not, it feels weird.”
“Don’t worry, once the fever breaks you’ll feel much better. I heard you vomited earlier. You need food and liquids to get better. I’ve been giving you teas while you were asleep, but do you think you could eat soup? It’ll just be us and Duo for dinner and that seemed simplest.”
“Fine. Where are…” he started.
“The other two are going to dinner in town. Quatre’s been moping lately and he asked Trowa to go out with him. And no, I don’t know what’s going on.” She smiled slightly. Wufei gave a slight laugh then watched as Sally got a thermos off the table and poured the liquid into a cup. She made a motion and he opened his mouth as she poured the healing tea, keeping her hand on his jaw the whole time. He realized the feeling of her hands on him as she replaced the cloth on his forehead and soothed down the loose strands of his hair. He pondered for a moment when that happened then his mind supplied that she’s done it. He knew he’d have to thank whoever called her. He felt her hands still on his face then they lifted his blankets and he felt the cold stethoscope against his chest. he shivered a bit at the sudden cold on his already cool skin.
“My poor dragon” he heard her whisper as she kissed his cheek. “Sweet little Wufei, why can’t I like you, not those jerks I always do.”
He felt himself being covered back up and somewhere he realized that she thought he was asleep. ‘Silly onna.’ He thought to himself as sleep pulled at him. “Why can’t she like me?”
(2)Poe, “Hello”
(3) Tori Amos, “January Girl”
(4)Natalie Merchant, “Life is Sweet”
(5) Jewel, “Emily”
(6) Les Miserables, "On My Own"