Moments in a Dorm Room Part 24
Evening Run

"Okay, that's it." Duo flipped his book shut with decisive finality and leaned back in his chair. "I can't pretend to study anymore."

Heero hadn't bothered to pretend. Duo was the only person that would know whether he did or not, and Duo didn't care. "Don't you have anything else to do?"

"I've already played the hell out of every mindless game I could get my hands on." He gestured irritably at his laptop. "And I didn't want to start any new books this close to the end. And it's not like I have a lot of stuff in this room to clean up or pack. And I'm not so bored that I'll start doing what you're doing." He rolled his eyes. "Geez. I'm getting out of here. And I'm so taking your bored ass with me. I can't stand the thought of leaving you here so bored out of your mind that you'd do sit-ups to pass the time. Consider it my good deed for the day." He shook his head and stood up. "Come on. The Hub should be quiet right around now. Let's get some grub or... something. Anything. God, even fresh air!"

The sit-ups finally came to a halt. Not that Heero thought there was anything wrong with sit-ups. Exercise was a good way to burn extra energy, and he just hadn't felt like leaving the room. "How about a run around the track?"

"What is up with you and... no, wait. Actually, that does sound kind of good. Race ya."

"What'd be the point? We know you're the better sprinter, and we know I'm the better endurance runner."

"So?"

Indeed. Burning extra energy was burning extra energy. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood. "We've got all night. Let's just start at the top of the list of activities and work our way down."

To the Hub, then, the supposed center of student hanging-out, but certainly not the central hang-out of an elite non-school-sponsored club known as Gundam Pilots. The trendiness of the whole place was a turn-off, but in a school where there wasn't much else to do, sometimes a bored pilot had to make do.

They approached the building in an indeterminate fashion. The student center was okay, in a love/hate kind of way. It was generally filled with people, which made them wary, but it was generally filled with people, which made them cautiously optimistic, though the baby steps they were taking toward rejoining the rest of society were small and dysfunctional enough that neither of them would readily own up to attempting anything of the sort.

Just inside the doors, they paused to take stock of the situation. There were a few scattered people, nothing major. A study group in the corner, a smaller group taking a break over by the old pool table, and two individuals. Heero spied the sign advising them that now would be the perfect opportunity to spend whatever snack money might be left in their student boarding accounts, before the year ended and the funds disappeared permanently into the school coffers.

Duo responded to the tilt of Heero's head in that direction. "Sure." He shrugged and led the way. "But you know, it's not like it's our money, so why should we care if it goes to waste?"

Heero fell a step behind as he contemplated this. The answer he came up with was adequate, but by no means satisfactory. "Principle?"

"Ha. Try again."

He stayed silent until another reply came to mind. "Because if we don't use it, then only the school benefits. It gets something for nothing. We should make it earn its keep."

Duo shot a sidelong glance at him. "Huh. Okay. Yeah, I'll go with that. Good job, Yuy. It seems you've been able to pick up a thing or two from me."

Heero expressed his doubt with an uplifted eyebrow, but played along after he was satisfied that Duo had gotten the message. "But it couldn't have been a good thing or two, otherwise you wouldn't be able to say that nothing good had come of this place, and I know you'd like to be able to say that."

Damn, but Yuy was getting good at knowing all of his little quirks. "Yeah, yeah." He sighed. "Can't I just sort of imply it? Or sneak in a 'nothing much good' or something?"

"Or you could just admit that this place served its purpose."

"Oh, hey, 'served its purpose.' That's not a bad turn of phrase."

"Not what I was getting at." But he let it drop anyway. Or rather, he let Duo get away with the mere implication that maybe, just maybe, they were better people after spending time here. Not that it had anything to do with this place, of course. Not at all. Nope. No credit to the school or the administrators or the students or the government suits. If pressed, maybe some implied credit would get tossed negligently in the direction of time and utter boredom, but most of it would stay firmly in their own laps.

After doing some quick sums in their head and consulting a chart on the wall, they realized that there was no way they'd be able to spend as much money as was still left in their accounts by the end of the school year. Nevertheless, they got a couple of drinks from the counter as cover and settled down at a table as far away from everyone else as they could get.

"Did you hear Quatre's offer?" Heero asked, pushing aside a little flyer advertising the choir's end-of-year concert.

"Which offer?" Duo swirled his drink with his straw. "But if it's an offer you think'll probably piss me off, I'll just pretend you never brought it up."

Heero opened his mouth to automatically defend the offer, but stopped short so he could make sure he had examined its innocence from Duo's point of view. It passed muster, so out it went. "It was nothing definite. Just an offer to do some legwork for us if we need it, put us in touch with people he can maybe vouch for through his family's organization."

"What kind of people?"

"Legal people, financial people. That sort of thing. In case we have problems with our documents, for instance. Or, I suppose, if we need someone to help us sort through the tax code," he added with a wry smile.

"Hmm." Duo frowned, but only in thought. "Yeah, okay. I guess it wouldn't be bad to pick up some trustworthy-ish contacts. Better than popping open a directory and choosing one at random."

"Trustworthy-ish?"

"Hey, I don't trust suits in general. A suit that someone's vouched for is still just a suit that someone's vouched for. And in this case, it's a suit that a suit has vouched for, which, as I'm sure you can figure out, knocks a few points off the trustworthiness of things. Actually, the voucher is an entire organization of suits. You do the math."

"Fair enough. From what I recall of our government stipend, I think we'll also need to set up accounts with a banking institution of our choice so they'll have somewhere to deposit the money. I would prefer not to go through the government credit union."

"You said it. Hm. Hey, you think we need to pay taxes on that stuff? I mean, technically, we're not really earning it, right? It's just going to materialize in these accounts, and I'm probably not going to make it my primary account."

"No clue."

"You sound oddly happy about that. You finally run out of headspace or something?"

"Just looking forward to learning new things."

Christ, was that a smile lurking on the corner of his mouth? "I swear to effing God, Yuy, if I ever catch you reading a book on taxes for fun, I'm gonna burn the damn thing and then drag you out of whatever little hole you'll be rotting in and expose you to some sunlight and good times."

"...You'd do that?" That sounded suspiciously close to what some might term 'friendship'.

"Hell yeah. In good conscience, I can't watch my fellow man fall that far into utter patheticness and not do something about it."

"Noted. But you don't even know anything about taxes. For all you know, they could be fun."

"Ugh, okay, you have to stop right now before I hurt you." He looked around the room for something that could catch Heero's attention. "Hey. You never did play any pinball, did you?"

Heero looked in the direction of the unoccupied machine. "No."

Duo waited patiently for there to be a follow up to that, but there was none, so he rolled his eyes and stated the obvious. "Well? You gonna get a game in before the end of the school year?"

It shouldn't have taken any thought at all, but the response was still slow in coming. Eventually, Heero stood up and walked over there with the same sense of purpose he had walking anywhere.

Duo caught up to him staring at the silently blinking lights. "What, need some coins?" He dug around in his pocket and produced the necessary change.

Heero took it automatically, but shook his head just once. "Wondering... if it'll be the same."

"What, same as it was when you were a kid?"

He nodded. "I'm tall enough to see the whole thing now. I don't need to stand on anything."

But that wasn't what he was talking about at all, and they both knew it. "Well, nothing to do but try it." Duo reclaimed the coins and dropped them in the slot. "If it is, great. If it isn't, blame it on the school and their lame-ass pinball machine."

Sounded like a good plan to him. Heero punched the start button and watched as the thing fired itself up. This was a fairly simple machine compared to the one he'd played back in the day, but then, he suspected the engineers on the project may have spiced up their plaything. Variable gravity wells didn't seem very standard. Once Heero had identified all of the objectives and obstacles, he gauged the initial release of his ball and began his game.

Duo watched the proceedings with open curiosity. He'd never played himself, but he knew what it was all about, and it didn't take a genius to figure out which flashing lights were good and which flashing lights were bad. Yeah, if he squinted and tilted his head sideways, he could kind of see how this might be considered good training for a pilot-to-be. It was a little easier to see how a pilot-to-be might consider this good fun, though. It was an interesting challenge, and Heero was certainly meeting that challenge. He still hadn't come close to losing his ball.

But then fate must have decided that his game had gone on long enough, because at a crucial moment, someone bumped the machine, sending the ball just off course enough that it landed in the gutter and the machine flashed its 'round over!' lights before switching over to its 'ball 2!' lights.

Duo looked up at their uninvited guest with an annoyed expression on his face, just out of principle. Heero looked up with his standard completely unreadable but not really friendly expression, also on principle. He didn't care about high scores, but he did dislike intrusions and interruptions.

Rick grinned back at them with utter insincerity. "Oops, did I bump your little game off? Oh, so sorry! Better luck next time!" Over his shoulder, his attendant crony poorly muffled a snicker.

Similar thoughts ran through the minds of both the pilots. 'I could kill him with my pinky finger' made an appearance in one form or another, but mostly, their thoughts centered around how little time was left in their school year, and more specifically how little time they had to put up with the idiots. Only a couple more weeks, and then they were done, clear, out of here, and on with their lives. No sense in stirring up trouble now. Duo grit his teeth on it and manfully restrained from making a comment that would escalate things. Heero just started on his second ball.

The pinball machine rocked with another impact, this one strong enough to start the 'tilt!' lights flashing. The controls were locked out, and they watched as the second ball hit one inert paddle, then bounced, scored a few more points, teetered on an edge, and dropped down the hole.

Okay, now the dude was just asking for it. Duo was happy to oblige, but technically, it wasn't his place. It was Heero's game that had been ruined, so he was the guy that got to run the show. But if he decided to just try the third ball, then Duo was going to march him back to their room and have a good heart-to-heart with him about the virtues of beating up the morons of the world.

Heero let loose the third ball, but he didn't play it. He stared the would-be bullies straight in the eye as the ball pinged around a little, scoring him another three thousand points before its end. The lights of the pinball machine began chasing each other around the tabletop as it proclaimed that a new high score had been achieved. Normally, Heero would have left the entry blank, but since Rick was standing right there, he quickly entered in an 'HY' to mark the victory of fourth place as his. There was an obvious implication hanging in the air around them that he could have blown away first if a certain idiot hadn't decided to exercise his right to be an idiot and get in the way of things.

Rick, to his credit, picked up on the implication. Sadly, he applied that knowledge in entirely the wrong way. "Aw, you missed first place. Maybe you should try again. You might get lucky this time." He sucked soda in through the straw from the drink in his hand as if everything were perfectly innocuous.

Heero bared his teeth in a menacingly friendly fashion. "No, I think I'm done here for the night. Why don't you give it a go?"

The other boy's eyes narrowed fractionally before he smirked. "Nah, not my style. I don't play nerd games."

"Oh, that's right. Sorry, I forgot. You only play dumbass games."

Duo barely kept a straight face, but he managed. For a second. Then he decided that a satisfied, urbane little sneer might be in order.

Heero turned to him, an amused glint in his eye that Duo didn't think he'd seen before. "This is boring. Let's get out of here." He took a step away from the machine before throwing one last line over his shoulder. "Hey, here's a game for you. I'll turn my back to you, give you a free shot. Let's see if you're stupid enough to take it."

They walked away. Duo was biting his lower lip to hold the laughter in. Heero was wondering if he was supposed to be feeling this good after engaging in juvenile baiting.

There was some spluttering behind them, and then naturally Rick proved himself stupid enough to take the shot.

They sidestepped at the right moment.

About a third of a cup of soda flew through the air previously occupied by them, along with a judicious amount of crushed ice.

Rick's prepared statement of 'oops, musta slipped,' died on his lips as the soda continued along its course and landed on the head of the person that had chosen an unlucky seat today.

The adult turned around slowly. In front of him, his daughter's eyes were large as a hand snuck up to cover her mouth in... surprise? Horror? Laughter? The man growled.

Rick stammered, pointed his finger to the side. "It was their fault!" He looked where he was pointing. His finger indicated nothing but empty air.

*****

Once they were clear of the Hub, Duo felt free to let loose his wild laughter. It trailed behind them as they ran in the direction of the outdoor track, instinct automatically guiding them somewhere other than their current base of operations in case they were followed. They weren't.

Not quite at the track yet, but at least far enough away from everything else, they stopped around the corner of a building and considered themselves hidden. Duo's hands were on his knees as he bent over with breathless laughter. "Shit, Heero," he gasped. "When the hell did you get so... so... confrontational?"

Heero leaned back against the building and muffled his own heady chuckles. Yes, that was one word for it. "I don't know. It's the end of the school year? This was the last chance I may have to do something like this."

"Well, shit, Heero. When people say things like that, they're usually talking about streaking across the field during the graduation ceremony or mooning the girls' dorm."

"Not my style. I don't play dumbass games."

Duo collapsed into another fit of laughter. "Oh. God." He huffed a little more, trying to get himself under control. "When the hell did Cecilia get there, anyway? Must have been while we were playing. Guess her dad's just visiting? And he's something or another in the government, too, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he's a... undersecretary of something, I think."

"I think he's friends with one of the administrators around here, too."

"Really? Huh." Another bubble of laughter threatened to come up, but he pushed it back down. "Duo."

"Yeah?"

"Why did we just run? It's not like we did anything wrong."

Duo snorted. "You totally provoked him, man."

"He provoked me first."

"Well, yeah, but... shit. Could running be seen as a sign of guilt?"

He hadn't stopped to consider how Rick could spin the incident to give them the appearance of fault. The guy was an idiot, but he was probably used to avoiding trouble by shifting the blame. Heero reviewed his memories of the incident quickly. "There were witnesses."

Duo nodded slowly. "Yeah... yeah, there were." And they sure as hell had better stand up for them if pressed. He'd be supremely pissed if they got into trouble this close to the end of the term. If Rick made the government reconsider their release, then the guy was finally going to get what was coming to him. "And Cecilia doesn't think much of Rick. And, well, he was just standing there with the cup in his hand. Not like we 'tripped' him or something. And I guess maybe he could say we provoked him, but we couldn't have done anything big since it didn't catch anyone's attention, and throwing soda at someone's a pretty blatant fight-starter.. So phew. Okay, I think we're in the clear."

Heero concurred. Even if Rick rarely got into any official trouble for his bullying antics around the school, that didn't mean that the officials were unaware of it. At worst, the entire thing would be overlooked, but he felt a shot of smugness again when he decided Cecilia's father was unlikely to follow the footsteps of the school administrators and look the other way on this. "Still doesn't explain why we just ran."

It had just seemed to be the thing to do. There had been that split second of eye-contact, and then a mutual fleeing of the scene. Was it pilot instinct, or little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar instinct? "Oh well. What's done is done! End of the term, last chance to act like stupid teenagers and all that."

"End of the term... First chance to act like stupid teenagers, really."

"Yeah. I guess." Just like Heero to turn the whole thing into a philosophical moment. Seemed like he was never far from his contemplative mode. When had the guy ever found the time to fit in some mass destruction? "You gonna?"

"Well. No." Heero didn't even have a good idea about what stupid teenagers did, anyway, so it was just as well. "But it'll be nice having the option, don't you think?"

"In theory, yes. But God help me if I ever act like a stupid teenager the way Rick the Dick acts like a stupid teenager."

"You want me to strike you down if you do?"

"Your name God?"

"No."

"Then you can shoot me down, I guess. No lightning bolts for you, young man."

"Noted."

OWARI

 

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