Duo
Maxwell stood in his kitchen stirring up some macaroni and cheese when his good
ol' buddy, Heero Yuy sauntered through the unfinished wall type
doorway.
"Whatcha makin'?" Heero sniffed the air
cautiously.
"Macaroni and cheese," Duo replied, himself giving the air a
wary sniff.
"Did you burn it?"
"Nope."
"You
sure?"
"Yep."
"Then what's that smell?"
"It certainly ain't
mama's home cookin'." The unexpected voice started the two boys as they whipped
about to see Zechs' smiling face from the other doorway. "I can tell you that
much."
Duo snorted, "You have been living in America way too long,
pal."
Zechs smirked in return, "Hey, I like it here. Besides, Noin does
too." The blonde man seemed to be kinda dazed for a moment before snapping back
to reality.
"Dear lord. I have never seen such a bad case," Duo muttered
to Heero just loud enough for Zechs to hear.
"Bad case of what?" Zechs
asked before leaving the kitchen.
Duo laughed at him while poking the
weirdly watery macaroni, "She's got you whipped, boy!" His voice was high and
mocking as only a true American's would be in that situation.
Zechs
smugly popped his head back around the corner, his classic smirk painted on his
face, "So what if she's got me whipped?" Duo dropped the steak knife he was
using as a stirrer and turned to look at him, open- mouthed and awed. Heero
stifled a cold-hearted snigger.
"So what? SO WHAT? I'll tell you so what!
You are going to lose every bit of male dignity you've ever achieved just
because of some girl?" Duo was walking towards the older pilot
now.
Zechs' face was no longer amicable, "Noin is not 'some girl,' she's
my girl. Plus, if you want to talk about 'male dignity,' you look pretty damn
masculine in an apron and oven mitts with little pink flowers on them." Duo
stopped in his tracks, both literally and figuratively. Heero's stifled snigger
erupted in a crazed guffaw for a moment. The Lightning Count, pleased with his
victory turned to leave before the God of Death once again stopped
him.
"Just one more thing, Mr. Merquise."
"What do you wa--" Zechs
was cut off as Duo popped spoonful of macaroni into his mouth. He spit it out
immediately.
"Holy mother of fruitcake, what the hell was that
shit!?"
"It was just macaroni and cheese," Heero was done laughing and
decided to join into this unusual little scene.
"Tasted more like cheesy,
watery crap with big nasty chunks stuck all in it."
Duo and Heero
deadpanned then they said together, "You have been in the US way too
long."
"So have you! Look at him," Zechs gestured to Heero who was
lounging against a wall.
"What about me?"
"Since when to you say
more the five words in a sentence? And since when you laugh when you not killing
something?"
"Since I moved in here with the five of you
bozos."
Zechs and Duo looked at each other. Now it was their turn to say
something together, "Hopeless."
"Hey guys!" they heard Trowa come in and
slam the back door. They never used the front.
"We're back!" Quatre
called as he followed his best friend with the sound of rustling grocery bags.
"We got some decent food," the blonde paused to sniff the air, "Unlike whatever
it is Duo is attempting to cook."
"Cheesy, watery crap with big nasty
chunks stuck all in it."
"Thanks for that nugget of joy, Zechs," Trowa
rolled his eyes, "You've been in the US way too long."
"Why does
everybody keep saying that?" Zechs muttered to himself.
"Because it's
true!" Wufei appeared to be done with whatever it was he was doing in the
computer room.
"My goodness, aren't we grumpy!" Duo teased from the
kitchen as Wufei sent him a death glare. "I know you're glaring at me, so stop
you stuck up egg roll."
"Guys, coming from a family with more girls in
the house than Puffy, I can honestly tell you that this place is a wreck,"
Quatre began rummaging through the wreckage on the floor. "Maybe we should hire
a maid or something."
"Good luck with that, this place has gotten to the
point of stinking. My lord, the floor actually smells from the mold we've ground
into it," Zechs kicked away an aging pizza box that was probably from A.C.
142.
Duo tried to slam the lid of the trashcan down over the macaroni
that was now a strange yellow-green, "As much as I hate to admit it, this place
needs a woman's touch."
Wufei glanced at Zechs, "Well, we all know that
we got at least one woman who could help us."
"What's that supposed to
mean?" Zechs did not like the way Wufei was looking at him like a hungry
jackal.
"We all know a certain Lieutenant Noin has a certain Lightning
Count wrapped around her pinkie finger," Trowa was feeling talkative
today.
"It's just that way, too. If you think that she'd even consider
trying to clean up this wasteland, you'd be dead wrong."
"Well, in the
case of women, Hilde is a hard working girl as well," Quatre mentioned as he and
Trowa put the crappy food they bought away.
"Don't get on my Hilde, Lil'
Q, you've got 29 sisters that need to get away from that mansion of yours. Not
to mention 40 old guys to aid your every call." Duo, playing chef for the day,
tossed the macaroni dish in the sink again and tried to get the radioactive
cheese off of it.
Trowa quirked an eyebrow at the rest of the group,
"Let's see, do you think 71 people could actually do anything to this
house?"
The God of Death, giving up in the sink, set the dish in the
overflowing dishwasher and glanced at his comrades, "Better call Sally and
Catherine, too."
"Don't you think 73 is a bit of an overkill, not to
mention us, so 79 people? And if we get Une to help (which I can tell you now,
isn't going to happen) 80? Okay that is overkill to the max."
"Well, if
Heero had said that, I would have gawked, but Quatre, you have a point. We can
do this ourselves, right guys?" Zechs' comment got no response. Zechs'
astonished look changed to that of the Lightning Count once again. "I shoulda
known better than to ask you guys. Nothing but a bunch of sissies. How did you
all become Gundam pilots? I mean, I know those instructor guys were a bit off
their rockers, but to choose weaklings like you all.it makes me question their
sanity."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Wufei of course was the first to
prove his manhood.
"It means, coward," Zechs sneered, "That I don't know
how those weirdos coulda found really masculine looking girls to be Gundam
pilots. They couldn't even find pretty girls.well, never mind, I forgot about
Duo." There was a moment of shocked silence while Zechs' words sunk in. Wufei,
being the closest to the man and the one with the most pride, struck
first.
"You damn son of a--!" Zechs laughed as he danced around Wufei's
infuriated blows.
"Girl?" Duo joined in with Wufei. "Hey, buddy, if you
wanna see a pretty girl go check out that chic in the mirror!"
"Okay!
Okay! CALM DOWN!" Zechs wrestled Wufei off and managed to shove Duo away as
Heero was coming in for the kill. "I think you all get it. What I'm saying is
that we can handle this just peachy on our own. Yes, 80 people to one garbage
dump is an overkill, besides we manly men can handle a little cleaning, right?"
He then added pointedly to Wufei, who was still fuming, "We don't need our women
to take care of us, right?"
"Okay, we see your point, but if you ever try
to get a point across like that ever again." Heero's unsaid 'omae o korosu' hung
heavily in the air.
"Geez! I'm just using a little child psychology on
ya, nothin' to get all worked up about!"
Duo's mouth hung open for a
second, "Okay that's it!" He pounced on Zechs, trapping him in a headlock. Zechs
toppled over, laughing as Quatre joined in. Zechs pulled Duo off and set him
roughly on top of Quatre. Trowa rushed in on behalf of his best bud and peeled
Duo off, tossing him back to Zechs who was wrestling with Wufei at the moment.
All in all, the six guys were pretty much one big mass of laughing guys when
Noin walked in.
"What am I going to do with you all?"
Those simple
words made the scene freeze. Zechs slowly looked up from underneath Quatre while
five other stares followed his example.
"Noin?" Zechs' voice was sheepish
and muffled in the carpet, or pizza box, depending on how you looked at
it.
"What was this, um, tackle over?" a dark platinum black eyebrow was
perfectly arched in the dog pile's direction.
"He called us little
girls," Heero's voice surprisingly came from beneath Wufei, who had him in a
painful-looking headlock.
"Oh, I see. What a perfect reason to bury
someone, a stupid and clichéd insult," Noin's sarcastic tone caused the guys to
actually look around and see how ridiculous they looked. Zechs' face was smashed
into the floor by Trowa's butt, Quatre was pinning down Zechs' legs and Duo was
pulling Quatre off of Zechs. Heero was yanking on Duo's braid from his position
beneath Wufei in the previously mentioned headlock. Noin found this gathering
extremely amusing.
