Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Stickshifts and Safety Belts ❯ A Beautiful Friendship ( Chapter 1 )

AN: I do not own Gundam Wing, and I really don't know who does. He's probably Japanese. I'd buy the rights, but the military doesn't pay well and I wouldn't know who to make the check out to. So let it be known! I do not own Gundam Wing. I also do not own the copyrights to Wal-Mart, Corvette, or Mattel. If you sue, I'll pay you twice the profits I'm going to make on this story. 0x2=$0. Plus I'll charge you the legal fees. So don't sue.

 

This story is going to be much more gradual than other stories, including my own, have ever been. As opposed to the usual, “HI! MY NAME'S *****, LET'S GET DOWN AND DIRTY” approach I've been known to enjoy and to write, I've decided to try my hand at some actual story telling. I hope that it meets your approval.

 

And, if not, later chapters will feature something similar to afore mentioned format, so really, you just have to skip to those chapters if I suck/if that's what you're looking for.

 

This whole story is mapped out, but I'm writing it in segments because I don't really have too much free time what with my job making me on call 24/7 (I mean it, too, I got called in on the day after Saint Patty's, a Sunday, at 3AM. Jerks.) So here's the first segment! High School AU (I haven't been in high school in a while, so forgive me if I overglorify it), stereotypical pairings (1x2, 3x4, 5+5 because I don't like WuFei), and away we go!

 

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My new foster father was the principal of my new school. Sometimes, I'm really convinced God hates me. I braided my hair quickly, knowing full and well it was going to get me made fun of by anyone who considered themselves “popular”, but I've always been able to make new friends quickly, and ones with better personalities and higher IQs than the kids who'd make fun of my braid. And really, that's what helps me sleep at night.

 

That, and knowing that sitting in the driveway was my Shinigami, a 1964 Corvette Stingray I'd saved from a junkyard with nothing but rusted out undercarriage and three bald tires, and I'd built it up to the V-8 turbo charged beauty that now screamed out my mechanical brilliance. I loves me my Shinigami. And my Shinigami loves me. I even learned how to use a sewing machine so I could redo the upholstery. That's love.

 

I grabbed my keys from the pushpin I'd put right next to my door, for the specific purpose of remembering where my keys were. By tomorrow, I'd lose them, but for today I knew right where they were. And, like I always say, tomorrow never matters when today is going fine. My foster father said school started at eight, but he wanted to see me there at seven. Apparently, my cutting-class habit had been passed along from my previous foster parents. Thanks, Ted and Mandy. Thanks a lot.

 

Salvation Army self-repaired leather jacket? Check. Walmart brand jeans I re-sewed to fit me? Check. Black T-Shirt I bought a size to small on purpose to show off my pecs? Check. Come to think of it, I might not have bought that sewing machine just for the car. I looked at my ever-impressive ten-dollar Casio watch (also from Walmart, home to all things good in this world), I walked confidently out the door.

 

It wasn't until my foster father gave me a stack of textbooks that I realized I'd forgotten to bring my back pack, which was still stuffed with the remainder of my clothes. When you get bounced from house to house as much as I do, you learn to travel light. Four t-shirts, two jeans, six socks and a pair of shoes was all I needed to be happy.

 

I sat outside the school office, twirling my key ring around my finger and whistling. “Hey,” I said to each passerby, giving them my award-winning smile and a wave. What can I say? I'm an extrovert. I need people to recognize me and say hello. For forty-five minutes, no one did. The only response I got was from some Chinese kid who looked like he was PMSing, and all he said was, “If you open yourself to new people, you open yourself to new forms of pain.”

 

Personally, I thought wearing white Hammer pants with a blue tank top after 1984 was opening yourself up to new forms of pain, but apparently this kid didn't agree. I kept whistling and twirling my keys.

 

Occasionally, out in the distance, before guys could see me clearly, I'd get a whistle and a “Hey, baby.” I live for these moments. I live to say in my gruff and clearly male voice, “Hey there, sweetie.” It's funny to watch them scatter like cockroaches under a lightbulb.

 

The only real greeting I got was from a short kid with blonde, messy hair. He was simply dressed, but his clothes were obviously of higher quality than mine (no Walmart jeans on this kid), but most importantly, he was smiling and waving back at me. “Hi,” he said. “I'm Quatre.”

 

“Oh, thank God. I was worried everyone here had an attitude.”

 

“Most of them do,” he admitted a little sadly.

 

“Oh, good. Then I'm not delusional. But I am confused. This building is two stories, but my English class is in Room 342. Where's the mysterious third floor?”

 

Quatre smiled brightly. “Yeah, the phantom third floor is actually the basement. You've got English first? Me too. Let me see your schedule.” He took the paper, glanced over it, and handed it back. “I've got pretty much the same schedule. Only difference is I've got orchestra when you've got auto shop. Let me show you around.”

 

It was getting quiet and awkward as we walked downstairs to the English classroom. “So,” I asked, trying to break the ice. “Who do you hang out with here?”

 

“No one really,” Quatre replied, the sadness still lingering in his voice. He looked at his watch impatiently, looked around as if to check it on some clock, and sighed. “So, what brings you to our school?”

 

“My foster father. He's the principal.”

 

Quatre snorted a little. “That's gotta suck. What happens if you get in trouble? He already knows.” He pointed to a door marked with a barely visible plaque saying, “342”. No name, no subject, just 342 in tiny letters. “English,” he said, as if I needed the clarification. He wanted to control the conversation, I could tell. He didn't like that I asked who he hung out with.

 

I sat next to him, in the dead middle of class. The only other two seats taken where by a girl in the back row decked from head to toe in pink, and the boy in front of me whose nose was currently buried in “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. I read twenty pages of the book before I realized it was about the Congo, and not about vampires, as the title had lead me to believe. I looked at his other books. “The Prince” and “Crime and Punishment”. Neither involved werewolves, vampires, witches, demons, or pictures in the middle taken on set when they were making the movie. There was clearly something wrong with this kid.

 

“Hey,” I chirped happily.

 

He kept reading.

 

“How ya doin', buddy?” I ask in my friendliest voice.

 

He kept reading.

 

I kicked the back of his chair. “What's up, man?”

 

“Stop that, I'm reading.”

 

I raised an eyebrow. “Don't bother, Heero's just not very social.” Quatre gave me the peace sign, as if this made up for the fact that I had just been spurned. I swore, right then and there, that I would get to know this Heero, and that one day, one day we'd be sitting in a living room chatting like old buddies.

 

My reverie was interrupted by the girl in the back row. People had started filing in to the classroom now, but she still called out to me, saying, “Don't bother Heero! I'll tell on you!”

 

Not since third grade had I heard such a meaningful and well-thought-out threat. Note to self: Do not annoy Barbie.

 

The school day wasn't as long and tedious as I thought it would be, but since I thought it would be torture, that really isn't saying much. I walked out to the parking lot with Quatre, one of the two things that made the day worthwhile. He walked up to his Volkswagon Rabbit, obviously new, and hit his key fob to unlock the door. “Need a ride home?” he asked.

 

I love this question. I love to point to my `Vette, with the ding in the door and the crack in the windshield, and the rest of it beautiful. Quatre whistled. “Guess not,” he laughed. “Did you do that yourself?”

 

“Every drop of paint, every piston, and every contrast stitch.” I smiled over at Shinigami. “That's my pride and joy.” I waved and told him I'd see him tomorrow, got in the car, and started to drive away. Heero was a block away from school when I saw him on the side of the road. “Hey, man!” I called out my window. “Need a ride?”

 

He glared at me. “No.”

 

I was driving less than 5 miles an hour to pace him now. “You suuuuUUUUUUuuuure?” I cooed.

 

“I work two blocks from here, I'm fine.”

 

People stuck behind me were beginning to honk. Heero rolled his eyes.

 

“I'll follow you the whole way to work.”

 

“You'll be killed.”

 

“If you value my life, get in the car.”

 

“All the more reason not to.”

 

“Come on, you know you want to. It's a Stingray, a classic.”

 

He ran across the street to my passenger door, waved at the people behind us in apology, and got in the car. “Turn right here,” he said, pointing.

 

And sure enough, two blocks later, he stopped me. It was a body shop and a garage, complete with a 1947 Cadillac in the parking lot to show off their work. “Hey, is this where you work?” I asked excitedly. “Man, this baby you are sitting in right now is all done by these two hands. I took from no cylinders to eight, and man did I have to redo the body work to get that engine to fit in this tiny little puppy. A Porsche engine, that was the ticket, though I hate to think I've got a German piece in my American baby, you know?” And when I looked up, he was gone.

 

“Heero, my man, this is the start of a beautiful friendship.” And then, I drove off.