Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Twelve ❯ Crazy For a Sharp-Dressed Man ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: Okay. You sue me, take away all my money, and I'll steal all your muffin mix. I swear! I'll do it, I'm crazy! ][ all your pastry belongs to us ][ this one's dedicated to everybody working hard at McDonald's. ^_-

Pairings: 2+1, Rx1, 3x4, Sx5, CB+2, H+2, 9x13, 1x2x1

Warnings for All Chapters: Relena, stupid humor, angst, minor violence, het, shounen-ai, yaoi, romance, language, suggestive dialogue, drugs, limey, NCS, suicide issues.

Chapter 5

"Crazy For a Sharp-Dressed Man"

"You know, I'm feeling completely objectified here."

Rosy pinched Duo's lip shut with her manicured fingers. "I won't tell if you don't," she said jokingly.

"Uhh-nevermind."

So this wasn't exactly the undressing that Duo Maxwell had been hoping for after just recently reuniting with his best friend, but he wasn't about to point that out to anyone else in the room. The American only expressed it in a tiny little snort to nobody and flatly started at the wall while the blonde woman went to work with bright yellow tape measure in hand. He wasn't in the best of moods or situations at the moment to actually fake a few smiles, but when he weighed the fact of the matter, he had no reason to bitch. While he stood half-dressed before the series of mirrors, Heero found it more comfortable to sit in the first of three leather armchairs against the wall and flip through an old Rolling Stone. The glossy paper faces of three bratty punks with green and red hair mugged at him and Duo found a flat stare to match it. There was something wrong with a situation when one couldn't find a reason as to why there was a need to be pantless. It wasn't even all that warm to tell the truth, and Duo felt, well, a bit small.

And it wasn't the most fabulous thing to feel either.

The optimal thing would have been if Duo remained as he was, stripped down to a pair of black plaid boxer and navy blue wifebeater, and that smug bastard was flipping something other than the pages of a magazine. But alas, the American knew he'd have no such luck with the very engaged and very-cold-fish-anyway Japanese pilot lounging in the leather chair. The pilot innocently sat back, eyes moving quietly across the lines with a bit of laziness, for he would occasionally tire of whatever article he was reading and sigh and flip the page.

All the while, the very chipper and knowledged-sounding blonde woman chatted as she went around her human model and seemed to analyze every last curve down to a tee of some sort. It was a bit unnerving, to have those eerily familiar amber eyes running up and down him all the time. They itched at the back of his brain because Duo could just picture them on someone else he swore he knew, but just couldn't pin point. And besides that, he was still half-naked and very skinny to boot. She would smile at him and something would always pop up in his head, the smell of an old cologne, some old joke he'd laughed at, something he just couldn't pinpoint. It was so warm and lovable, it drove him nuts.

"So, you're the famed Duo Maxwell we've been waiting on, huh? Quite the rascal, if you ask me" Rosy commented, as she pulled the tape measure completely off her shoulder and smiled faintly up at him. There was something very warm and inviting about the bright, almost-cliché smile. "So I hear you and Heero have known each other for a long time, no?"

Fighting off a little unnecessary color in his face, Duo replied, scratching at the side of his bushy head of hair. "Yeah, since we were only fifteen. It seems like such a long time ago."

"I heard you were involved in the Gundam attacks in the war back then," Rosy said pleasantly, tilting her head curiously at his waist and simultaneously pinching a length of yellow tape between each hand. Preparing to take measurements, a suit materializing in her mind.

The American blinked in surprise then whipped his head around accusingly at the taciturn brunette seated by the wall. While his head turned, the short woman tailor jumped slightly when the long plait of brown hair swung around with it, fwapping her arm as it passed. A bit jolted, she pressed the clipboard to her chest and reined in a startled yip.

"You told her?!" he yelped across the room.

Heero flipped absently through another uninteresting flurry of album reviews without looking up at his friend and let his head rest against absently his knuckles. Without seeming upset by the volume of the braided man's voice, he simply shrugged and continued to browse the glossy images of the very antiquated magazine. He skimmed over the color display of four scrappy bandmates in a fluorescent pink room pelting each other with white cake. "Duo, calm down," he said. "It's been nearly a decade since the war. The Gundam pilots are just things that high school kids drowse off to during history lectures now. We've been textbook for years now."

A sliver of a bemused smile crossed his face; Prussian eyes still buried in the magazine. "It's alright. If you're afraid you'll be attacked by some fanatic, I'll protect you."

"I knew that," Duo retorted childishly, turning a fair shade of red in the process. He folded his arms and turned back toward the blonde tailor. Tilting his head, almost disgruntled, his voice turned matter-of-fact with an apathetic overtone.

"I just don't think it's something to brag about," he grumbled, still flushed. "That's all."

The Japanese pilot shrugged again to himself and simply flipped to another page. But the sliver of a smirk still didn't fade.

The master tailor giggled to herself and shook her head in amusement. This caught the American's attention, who stood in the middle of the tinsel-laced room with his jeans in a sad little pile beside his feet, and turned his blue-violet eyes toward her adorable white smile. The tailor lifted her head and said, "Well, you're secret's safe with me, honey. You can trust me."

Duo smiled congenially back. "Nice to know not everyone has lost their integrity these days," he said with a wide, toothy smile that clearly advertised he was just poking at some fun. "You wanna be my best friend instead? I'm on the market, as it were, for a nice, honest person. Preferably a cuddler who likes romantic walks on the beach and fine dining."

"Honey, why should we stall like that? Let's get hitched! I'm free after five!"

"Sounds good!"

The two shared a conspiratory laugh, while the air was softly saturated with easy listening music from the PA. Across the room, pressed against the wall, a pair of quiet, stoic blue eyes leered noiselessly over the top of the magazine for a second, watching the brunette man laugh and the long braid of chestnut that was his trademark slide over his shoulder like a pet. He even noticed that the pilot had a cute tendency to wrap his hand around it and run his fingers along it, something oddly boyish and unforgettable. He looked so different from during the war ten years ago, not just a punk mechanic with a cheeky grin to coast him along... Charming...

The Japanese pilot suddenly blinked down at his own nose and quickly indulged himself very uncooperatively in a dull interview with some musical flash in the pan with bright teeth. At that moment, the haze that had overcome him faded out and the two voices in the room came back into existence and Heero went back to trying to read his magazine.

"Okay, honey, off with it." Her finger tugged at the collar of his blue tank top.

"What? It's cold in here! Miss Rosy, be kind! What does this have to do with getting my suit, anyway?"

"Honey, it's my shop, and I've been waiting for your cute little ass to get in here for a long time, so it's the least you can do for me."

"Alright, alright, I understand." The American sighed audibly, followed by a series of sounds of clothing and skin brushing and another article of clothing hitting the pile of blue jeans on the floor. The noises of paper being flipped from across the room slowly came to a halt, and the dim hum of music floated unchallenged through the glittering arches of gold tinsel decorating the ceiling.

"Happy now?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Do you deflower everyone like this, girl, or did you just happen to find a good excuse this time?"

"Good excuse," Rosy chirped happily. "What did you expect?"

"Well, definitely not this. Man, I suppose I should have the way Wufei and Hee-chan were snickering when they talked about it."

Rosy smiled at him teasingly, her hands on her hips. "I didn't go any easier on those guys either, so don't worry about it."

An arpeggio of chattering teeth quickly followed. "Damn, it's cold."

"Honey, that's just because you're so hot."

"And undressed," Duo added resentfully.

And suddenly, the magazine was just not interesting enough to hold the Japanese pilot's eyes down.

In the center of the room, his image mirrored thrice behind him in full color, stood the American pilot stripped down to his boyish black boxers and the tail of braided chestnut hair flowing down his back. True to his cat-like grace, the American pilot had very lean legs and torso very close to crossing the line of scrawny or girly, with bony shoulders to match. But the first thought that came to Heero's mind was how pale his best friend seemed while under the artificial lights, despite the nice warm tone of his face. It wasn't a normal lack of color brought on by unfortunate genetics, but more of an unhealthy tone caused by frequent visits of hunger. And to accentuate that point, all along the length of his torso the faint shadows of bone would poke out in relief of the light. His friend definitely had always been very skinny while still a teenager, but there was something he definitely had forgotten to mention about his life during those last ten years. He was so fragile-looking but none of the brash enthusiasm had left his smile or any of the warm glow of his face.

Heero found it impossible to stop staring, his stomach being punched with concern. Meanwhile, as the forgotten magazine lay in the Japanese pilot's lap, the blonde tailor finished taking quick and precise measurements. All the while, Duo strangely kept his arms tight against him and his mouth shut. Rosy smiled quickly at her model before clicking into the closet where rows of premade tuxedos, suits, blazers, and black dresses awaited to be fitted. Duo nodded quietly and remained standing, absently gazing up into the golden and glowing holiday decorations along the wall, with his messy brown bangs in his eyes.

As wrenching it was to set eyes upon his best friend abnormally famished chest, there was worse to be found. Just below his fifth rib, which Heero could count, there was a very large black and blue oval bruise that stood out like a splat of stark black ink on fresh paper. Heero marveled at how the very adept Rosy had missed such a horrific-looking mark.

Heero flinched as he ran his eyes over it again, drawing his eyebrows unnaturally together. It looked fresh.

As if he felt the actual weight of the eyes upon him, Duo slowly turned his head to face the Japanese pilot sitting in the chair across the room. His sincere violet-blue eyes quietly searched the strange expression on Heero's face without comprehension for a second. But soon, he realized what he was staring at with such striking worry. He'd never seen such an expression on the Japanese man's face. Duo's eyes quickly widened in surprise and the slightest bit of guilt and turned sharply away, red blooming on his face.

The American sharply folded his arms and covered the bruise he had very obviously forgotten was there.

Before Heero could open his mouth, the merry blonde tailor returned to the fitting area with a very regal black suit, a white dress shirt, and black dress pants slung carefully over her arm. Her short and light-haired image slid up next to Duo's in the mirrors splayed out behind him. She grinned at him and lifted the undershirt, hung on a plain wooden hanger, up toward the American.

"You're one lucky honey. I think I have the perfect one here for you; I should only have to take it in on the legs and sleeves a tad." The woman smiled to herself as she chatted, lifting the clean, pressed white shirt toward the twenty-five-year-old down to his skivvies and finding it snatched out of her grasp pretty damn fast. It was slung around his shoulders and buttoned up in what probably could have been a record if a stopwatch had happened to be present.

"It seems you're about the same size as your friend, Trowa, just a tad or so shorter. Who knew, huh? I barely had to look for it, too."

"Thanks, Rose," Duo granted with a sheepish smile, finishing the line of buttons at his neck. His long braid of hair was slung over his shoulder and he flipped it over his shoulder before moving up to adjust the crisp white shirt and flip the collar out. The hem hung around his hips, untucked for the simple lack of pants, and looked like the picturesque wardrobe of a bachelor wandering his house on a Sunday morning, scratching himself and rummaging through a snack drawer.

"How's it fitting?" Rosy asked while separating the next garment out from her assorted collection.

Duo glanced over his shoulder, scanned up and down his arms, and slowly seemed to forget the worried eyes upon him. A smile gladly overtook his face as he said, "Fits great, but..." The American chuckled to himself though, as he lifted his wrists up and presented them to the short blonde woman. The cuff of the sleeve completely covered his hands and only allowed the tips of his fingernails to show. He laughed again.

"It's pretty close. Trowa does have really long arms, I guess. All the better to hold Quatre with." He swung his wrists playfully so the extra fabric slapped against each other while the grin on his face grew larger.

"So, what are you waiting for? Dress me up!"

"You know," Rosy said, her tone drifting from her usual sprightliness for a moment. Her amber-brown eyes, which Duo swore he had seen somewhere before, locked tightly on his face. "You remind me a lot of my younger brother when you say that. It's kind of eerie, too. You haven't ever heard of him, have you?"

"Well, I-" Duo began, but soon was cut short by the shrill little chirp of a phone ringing in the reception area, alone on the counter. Both people in the center of the room looked toward the hallway, glanced at each other for an instant, then came to a mutual agreement. Rosy clicked over to the series of leather chairs in her heels with garments in hand and laid them down carefully next to Heero's chair. The woman then turned and trotted quickly toward the hallway as she rushed to answer the call, the second volley of shrill ringing lingering in the air. Duo watched the blonde tailor disappear around the corner and his eyes trailed hesitantly over to the groom-to-be sitting against the wall, but quickly tore away when Heero's mouth opened to speak up.

The third, mechanical ring of the phone was cut short, and Rosy's voice echoed in the hall, not far off.

"Oh, thanks," Rosy said with a giggle added up on her playful tone. "What are you doing here playing secretary, huh? Did your morning brunch with Veronika get cut short or something?"

"Unfortunately," a male voice answered with a similar playful tone. "But I'll cook her some Savannah Bow Ties for supper tonight. Here, it's Marshal. He says he needs another order from you."

Duo's heart skipped a very essential beat in pure surprise. He knew that voice like the back of his hand, only better.

"Thanks, honey."

"Yup!"

Rosy then must have lifted the phone to her ear and strode off confidently toward the reception where her green-bound scheduling book was waiting for another entry on her polished reception desk. The last sounds of her presence before the faded off were the very businesslike greeting she gave to the client on the phone. But none of that really existed in his senses beyond the reeling happy shock as he dashed from the center of the room, taking Heero's attention with him, and stopped in the entrance of the hallway strewn with boughs of Christmas holly and tinsel. All still dressed only in the black silk of boxers and a dress shirt, bringing up odd flashbacks to an old scene in Risky Business, which Duo had ironically watched on the in flight movie that morning. It really didn't faze him anymore, the idea of running around in a pair of sketchy boxers, when he recognized the man in the hallway with a great leap in his heart.

It was the best damn day of his life, first finding his best friend with the stunning blue eyes, and then finding the other best friend, the one he'd met on the road.

"Well, well, look who the cat dragged in! Good ole Precious, that's who!" Duo chirped, his grin only half as wide as it had been in the police station, but still wider than most human proportions. The 27-year-old man turned his head and ran his eyes up the strange sight, a grown man wearing only pajama articles and a large shit-eating grin he'd seen before. The other man's face lit up instantly, shaping into that warm and inviting grin he'd been trying so hard to pinpoint.

He was a relatively tall man, though not anything uncomfortable on the neck, with a clean-cut face and almost cliché, magazine-standard good looks to go with the unusual amber-brown eyes. Beneath his right eye, just on the curve of his cheekbone, was a black star tattoo that proved his identity, no matter how his hairstyle, color, or length changed from day to day or even hour to hour. {Which it frequently would.} Though he looked the image of a picturesque good-looking, sensible man, Duo was all so familiar with the boyish insanity and random cheerfulness that lay between his two pierced ears. At the moment, he seemed to have just his natural light blonde hair, looking disheveled and bushy. He wore a long black leather trench coat of sorts over his black sweater and khaki pants. Most characteristic of all was a patchwork scarf with patches of bright yellows, red and oranges wrapped around his neck and hanging down over his chest.

"Duo! What are you doing here?" He ran up to the braided man, smile a mile wide.

The American grinned in return, gesturing his arms widely. "What am I doing here? What you doing here, you crazy guy! Come here!" He threw his arms around his shoulders and was returned in the jubilant grin. When they pulled back, the man named Precious laughed and glanced down at Duo's clothing, or blatant lack of an essential article, such as pants.

"What's up with this? Having some fun with my sister or something?"

Duo reached up and ruffled the blonde mop in response, his other hand on his hip. "So, what are you doing here with your sister Rosy? I should have recognized that smile the second I walked in here. I thought you had abandoned all your family to get insanely rich and popular with everybody in Hollywood, huh?" He smiled knowingly as he continued, arching an eyebrow. "Why, you wouldn't have gone to make up with her, by chance?"

The Canadian man with the light yellow hair and amber yellow eyes gave a sheepish look not without a little humor. "I figured you were right, Duo, so I came out here after you left and guess what? I made up with her and everything's fine again! I can actually go home now, too."

"You sneaky little bastard!" Duo chirped. "I'm so proud! Didn't I tell you it would work?"

A hand again ruffled the already wind-swept and tousled brownish-brown hair and the taller man smiled sheepishly and tried to swat his hand away from mussing it any more. "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"

"Ha, you ain't getting off that easy!"

"Spare me, Du-chan!" he joked, raising his palms to a divine presence above and making a comical face.

Duo dived at his once perfect-looking crop of hair playfully; he was completely ignorant to the fact of his half-dressed state and the pair of curious blue eyes watching his reunion escapades. Precious ducked down and made little squeaking noises like a spaniel puppy in surrender as the ex-pilot leaped at him and tried locking his arm around the elusive target's head. Both men were laughing boisterously like teenage boys would while drunk and scrapping at each other and causing a loud echo in the mahogany-lined hallway.

As Duo pulled back and tried to reach down and tickle at his stomach, his tail of hair whipping around just as playfully, the older man with the yellow eyes yanked his braid, grabbed him and almost lifted him over his shoulder. The American only laughed, panting with half-exertion and a rush of pure happy adrenaline, when he was pushed against the wall, the scarf and soft fabric of the coat pressed up against him. Precious's face too close to his to be strictly of the friendship sort, too close to be innocuous. Duo blew a puff of air out an upturned lip to move a bang on the blonde's forehead with a lopsided almost sultry grin and both men started laughing radiantly, still wrapped up in their own little games to notice the other man standing in the entrance to the hallway. Their laughter was infectious, but somehow Heero couldn't find it all that funny in the pit of his stomach. The sting of seeing the bruise, clearly human-inflicted from the expression on his friends face, still hadn't faded an ounce and now he was philandering around shamelessly, adding fuel to the little flame of concern in his mind.

"You want to introduce me?" he asked in his most patient tone of voice, the most indifferently innocent expression he had in his facial vocabulary, standing stone still.

Duo turned his head and his violet-blue eyes blinked, in stark contrast to the almost alien yellow tint of his old friend's wide and innocent eyes. The expression they both held were almost that of teenagers caught red-handed in something, but both grinned with eerie similarity at the same moment. The American man straightened himself up as the other stood up and tried to brush his blonde hair somewhat into place, glancing around half-sheepishly.

"Sorry, Hee-chan, I'm just having such a great day!" He glanced back to his yellow-eyed friend and they indulged in an almost girlish giggle. Heero indulged in a weary rolling of the eyes.

"This is the guy I met while I was on wandering through California. Heero, may I introduce to you, Eduardo Felipe Sith, or other wise known to friends and the public simply as Precious," he said with a great amount of pride and flourish to his words and stood between the two best friends of his life.

One was short, dark-haired and groomed, with stony blue-eyes and a precise, intelligent air, the other taller, a bit more disheveled all around, completely eccentric with odd-colored eyes to match, and so liable to become giddy and kittenish at the drop of a dime that he seemed like a Malibu Duo instead of a Malibu Barbie. They met eyes and both reached out for a handshake. Heero nodded professionally, issuing another distant-enough, but just-warm-enough welcoming grunt while the other grinned madly and shook his hand like an overexuberent schoolboy. They drew back their hands and Precious let out a little giggle, staring at Heero with a knowing, smarmy look that didn't seem too catty on his model handsome features, and that scared him a little. The Japanese pilot managed a "Nice to meet you" through that strange smirking expression which was directed more at him then to him.

Duo obviously didn't notice, or if it had ever been directed at him, didn't mind. He smiled at the other pilot. "Precious, this is Heero Yuy. I told you about him, remember?"

"Yeah, I do," the taller, blonde man said, that smirk never fading an ounce. Amber-brown eyes bright, he relished in a little bow to the other man, his patchwork scarf hanging down far enough to brush the floorboards. It was odd; his scarf was almost as long as Duo's hair. One more strange similarity. "How could I forget about you, the man who sold the world that Duo keeps telling me about all the time."

Duo leaned in discreetly to Precious, raising a hand to cover his ear. "Actually, that's 'Saved the world.'"

"Whatever."

He waved it off and the American giggled.

Heero glanced briefly at his smiling face, then looked quickly back to the man known as Precious. He didn't quite amuse him as much.

"Well, he was right about you. You seem like quite the wonderful gentleman. Not only are you very impressive and smart, you do have the most piercing blue eyes I've ever seen, and boyo, I've gone through a lot of those!" He laughed to himself in a very Duo-ish tone, putting his hands on his hips. "God, the way Duo would gush about you! He just wouldn't shut up about you at all! Blah blah blah, Heero this, and Heero that, blabbity blabbity blah. I bet Heero's this, I wonder if Heero can do that, I wish he'd just f-"

Duo's face had turned a bright cherry-flavored shade of very very red and now lunged on the Canadian man's shoulder, slapping his down on his wrist and trying to very 'subtly' indicate he didn't want anymore by snapping hasty "Shut up!" at him.

"Precious, you promised!" he hissed in an attempt to be quieter.

"Hey, people forget sometimes, don't forget!" the blonde man answered with that deceitfully affable and equally mischievous smirk. Perhaps now Duo would understand what it was like to receive one instead of shamelessly flashing one. "Besides, doesn't Heero here deserve to have some idea of what we're talking about, huh? That's a pretty Junior High thing to do if you ask me."

There was a tiny warm pinch of fear in the bottom of the Japanese man's stomach as the apprehensive gaze of his best friend, who was still in his boxers, turned to him and tried to read his face for something. What he was looking for and couldn't find easily even with their familiarity and many warring days and nights spent working together, even mystified Heero himself. There were hints of embarrassment all over his face that Heero recognized: The tiny jerk of his eyebrow for when he'd been discovered at something, the way he'd hesitate to blink while waiting in suspense, and even how his feet would twitch with a natural flight instinct when he really got nervous or flustered. Well, he saw little hints of all of those as Duo looked at Heero and cracked a fake smile.

"He's got a lot on his plate right now, anyway, don't you Heero? I mean, why add to those stresses?" The bright smile cut away and Duo glared momentarily at the side of Precious's clean cut face with a fiery purple tint. "I know I'd be stressed out beyond measure trying to plan my wedding and get my best man prepared at the same time all while my fiancée is half-way around the world in a near war zone. It doesn't sound like fun, alright, Precious?"

The yellow-eyed man blinked and then slowly nodded as he comprehended the importance of the emphasis in that sentence, keeping that quiet and "I get it and I've shut up" look plastered on.

Heero however didn't seem to totally comprehend the implications despite the fact of his more-than-able intellect and looked innocently at the American. "What are you talking about, Duo?" he asked calmly, arching an eyebrow. "It's been fine-"

Then Duo sighed and shook his head sadly, glancing plaintively at his blonde friend. "Heero always tries to keep all the pain inside." His bottom lip quivered believably and he poked his chest above his heart, just a twinge of emotion trying to pour out but being reined in. The amount of passion he could put corny movie-contrived, heartbreaking lines and breathe some absolutely genuine life in to them was still amazing. "It's so noble of him, refusing to let his life slip away without him!"

"That's so sad!" Precious chimed in.

He drew in a sniffle, hanging his head. "I know, I know. It's very sad."

"But noble!"

"Yes! Noble!"

The Japanese man narrowed his eyes a bit in confusion, still flickering back and forth from the two old friends, lingering longer on the man with long braided hair slid over his shoulder.

"What the hell are you talking about, Duo?"

Duo put up a hand in the most apologetic way possible. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! It's all just a little bit of fun, Mr. I've-Got-No-Room-For-Fun-Just-My-Fiancée. Don't worry."

"So Heero Yuy, you wouldn't be that pilot engaged to the Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, would you? I thought I saw your name in the newspaper once before in a colony economy article," Precious said in speculation, his finger held up to his chin in a child-like manner.

Duo tilted his head to side in amazement with a good few inches opening his jaw up. "How the hell do you know about politics? You get bored reading the YM horoscopes when it doesn't say you're gonna meet some hottie with nice green eyes!"

"Actually, it's Vice Foreign Minister Peacecraft now. She's decided it would be a better support for the cause of long-standing peace between the colonies and Earth."

"Oh, that makes perfect sense," the blonde man responded, grinning a wide, toothy, and photogenic bimbo smile reminiscent of Hiroshi Nakano. "How did I miss it?"

"Am I missing something?" Duo asked quietly off to the side, his head going from side to side in.

Precious laughed at the almost ignored little wretched comment, filling the hallway again with that voice and cadence so similar to the Maxwell styling that it struck something in Heero's chest with a quick twisting motion. A quick, slightly painful motion as he imagined longer, woven dark hair… And when the older man smiled widely with another very familiar smirk and squeezed his exotic amber eyes shut there was another strike, but one of recognition in his brain that he easily connected to the truth.

"Precious? Like that famous model Precious?" Heero suddenly asked in a stoic tone, drawing all attention back up to him again.

"Yeah."

"I recognize you now," the blue-eyed man said flatly. He turned smoothly on his heels and walked out simply, leaving an unmistakable trail of mystery and confusion behind him with the others. Duo frowned slightly, not comprehending if Heero had the capacity to brush people off so coldly anymore that he had become such a kind-hearted softy. He certainly had that abrasive edge back in the war years, he remembered, as he had stared coldly down at him and told him to keep it down while fixing his mobile suit and then cracked Duo's own Gundam open for the parts and ran off.

But only a second later, he returned. And in his hand was a blue-blooded fashion magazine, the glossy, color-splashed pages paged open to a full-paged advertisement for responsible drinking featuring a young yellow-eyed man in classic black and white celebration attire holding a martini glass while standing amongst friends in a dusk-lit ballroom. There were a few flakes of confetti all around, but it was unmistakable that the model and the man with the model-good-looks were one in the same. The way the light presented him in the picture made his face look almost beautiful in a feminine way, though his appearance seemed sort of cliché beautiful and uneventful to Heero. He turned it toward Duo and Precious and asked again. "This is you, right?"

Precious grinned sheepishly and shamelessly all at the same time. "Yup! I really like that shoot, I remember. Free tequilas, you know. Rosy just likes to keep the magazines with me in them here now that I've retired from modeling for a while."

"What?" Duo asked in disbelief, his hand clamping down on the Canadian man's arm. "What do you mean? Why'd you quit? You were fabulous!"

Heero's eyebrow quirked at that last part.

Precious turned to his incredulous friend. "Well, I never told you this, but I also was forced to break up with this female model named Veronika that I really loved back when I still lived in Texas and I'm... Well, I'm married to her now and she's four months pregnant with our son."

Duo's mouth opened, but for the second time that day, he found it impossible to speak.

Once again, there was another painful blankness in the color of the American's eye. One best friend after another. Every last chance he had left not to be left alone and unlucky was slowly slipping away from him, he thought through the unmistakable pang in his chest, besides the dark-haired German girl he'd left behind. But even that wasn't a possibility anymore. The anvils returned and again tore through the hopeful butterflies in his stomach; their wings already patched and tied up. For a split-second, he let the disappointment simmer through to the surface, only to shatter it with a falsehood of a happy grin.

"Precious, that's wonderful!"

The older man laughed and flashed an array of deadly-white teeth. "It is! It's going to be a boy!"

"Thought of a name?"

"Cody, of course!"

"So, a little miniature Precious Sith... what a troublemaker he'll be!"

The yellow-eyed man grinned back, the charismatic gleam from his smile dulling a bit in light of the new evidence in favor of Duo's new heartache. "Well, Duo," he said, brushing his wind-disheveled hair into place, "I better be getting home soon. But I'll talk to you when you get back, okay? Don't want to interrupt your fabulous trip to Hawaii, now would I?"

Plastering on the gracious fake charms, Duo smiled back. "Yeah, Precious. Sun and chicks from here on out, right Heero?" He laughed nervously, not even glancing toward his other best friend when he said that because he knew that the Japanese man would recognize the falsehood in his expression in an instant.

"Of course!" the model grinned. "It'll be fantastic."

"Yeah."

The yellow-eyed man, clearing Duo's height by a few scarce inches, smiled warmly and nodded. "I'll see you later then."

Heero remained silent in the hallway; his eyes were fixed firmly on one place and immovable. So when the taller Canadian man bent ever so slightly down to equalize the difference of heights and suddenly was kissing the braided brunette man goodbye, it was locked firmly in his sights. An obvious friendly gesture, but also something hinting beyond a few beers and laughs on the couch in the living room. The American man didn't even flinch as any of this happened, but the blankness of his eyes shone a bit brighter through his thinly veiled, feigned cheerfulness, and he smiled weakly when Precious pulled back with a white grin.

"Have fun then," he bidded, as he walked a few steps down the hall and looked over his shoulder, swinging his patchwork scarf around his neck simultaneously.

"Bye," Duo replied, pulling a final scrap of happiness out of the shattered illusion that it was, resting in pieces in his stomach, enough to wave in return. He could even muster a jaunty little flick of his wrist, though his head screamed to explode. "Later, Precious."

"See ya!" With a last glimpse of amber and blonde, the man disappeared around the corner with a volley of fading footsteps to prove his departure.

For a few seconds, Heero wasn't sure Duo even realized anyone was there with him anymore. His eyes traveled silently back to the long tail of chestnut hair, following it up even more noiselessly up to his face, which was still turned toward where the model had disappeared around the corner. Only now did he feel his stomach punch with concern. The air was almost sickeningly void of any of the infectious energy always seeping from the American's pores, a sweet sense of human humor and animation that could at least penetrate even the coldest human heart. It frightened him.

Then, with a lethal precision, he turned and grinned the biggest lie within his broad smile.

"Alright then, we're not finished! I still have to get fancied up, right? Let's go!"

When the American brushed by, Heero only turned and watched him leave silently.