"The Basketball Diaries: Duo's Decline"

Part Three

by Jenn Blackett

Disclaimer: See part one and two, please.

Warning: Mature language, mature situations, bastardization of characters, drug use, angst, darkness, OOCness, yaoi, yuri, hentai, SEXSEXSEX, mention of masturbation in this part, lemonicity. If you're under 18, or just can't handle all the aforementioned, I have warned you, do not hold me responsible for corrupting you. *grin*

Pairings: Have been: 2x5, 5xS, RxH, RxD, RxC, 3x4.

The blonde sipped delicately at her cup of sweet hot chocolate, lightly licking away the foam gathered on her upper lip. Two hours she'd been on the shuttle, and her legs were cramping. Subtly, she uncrossed her legs and recrossed them left over right, making the silk skirt she wore shift upwards to reveal the hint of where her garter strapped to her stocking. Noticing a stare from a male passenger across the way, she smiled delightfully and tugged it down with slow, nimble fingers. "Excuse me...."

The man cleared his throat and quickly looked away to avoid getting berated by his wife.

She sometimes loved the power she had over the male sex, although her power was still not adequate enough to conquer the most elusive of males. One with such piercing eyes, and such strong hands.... Hands that had once ripped her shirt clear off her body in one riotously passionate evening before her breakup with her former lover.

*"She needs me. We can't do this...."*

But God she had wanted to. Hadn't stopped him from completing it....

*"Well, ever think how much *I* need you, Relena...."*

No, she had never known before that night.

Brushing a strand of hair from her vision, Relena Darlian gave a slight smirk, thinking to herself on that long ago night. The night everything for her had changed. She had been lovers with Hirde out of mutual need for each other, from the pain of loss they suffered, two souls seeking to make light in their darkness. Relena still cared for the girl, but nothing as passionate as she had been seared with that night.... She didn't think Hirde knew, not that the two had promised fidelity to one another. Hirde had experimented with others, male and female, as Relena had while the two had been a couple. They hadn't been exclusive, somehow knowing that would be impossible for the two, so it hadn't been a serious betrayal. Except for the matter that they had always returned to one another after their little one night stands, sometimes joined in with the other lovers for a menage a trois. Sex for pleasure. Sex for forgetting. Sex for the power of the soul. Like Chi, like the mystical, mythical power of buoko, stealing another's Chi or strength to heal one's own self. That's what their sex had been, their affairs in and out, together....

However, like Relena somehow knew Hirde would never share Duo with anyone, even if the other never slept with her, Relena couldn't share her tempting, one night stand koibito (1) with anyone else....

That's why they broke up more so than any reason that Hirde had known of.

Rules of her game had been seriously broken. Rule Number One: If you can't share a lover with your official, something is wrong. Get out! Get out now before the hurt hits you!

Hirde had expected it. She had been readied for it. Relena herself had seen to that. She didn't want to have unraveled all the hard work she herself had created for Hirde. The two had parted as friends, and Relena had gone back to her cool little world of politics, while Hirde went back to L2. Alone.

Relena couldn't allow that. She had to protect Hirde from Duo's great talent for wrecking havoc with other people. Even if the baka hadn't meant it, Hirde had been hurt. Anyone could have seen the girl had fallen hard for the braid boy, except the braid boy himself. Perhaps Hirde didn't see it herself.... From the way the girl had been protesting on the vid-phone last night, it was a certain possibility.

Uttering a sigh, Relena shook her head. Sometimes, people just couldn't see what was so plain right in front of them. This time, for better or for worse, she was going to make sure Duo Maxwell didn't hurt Hirde Schbeiker ever again....

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

She hummed a light tune to herself, then stopped herself, smirking at the thought of ever uttering something so light and jolly. The last time she had had been when Duo was her little roommate, the boy she took care of when he was injured and bleeding from some little scrape or another with the law or otherwise. Hirde couldn't even count on her hands how many times she had to pick out bullets from one of Duo's limbs, sometimes more than one, and watch the boy overcome a fever twice in her life to make sure he stayed alive and well. Hai, she had uttered light tunes when he would stay a spell with her, happy grins sent her way if she cooked a good meal for him or ignored the fact he'd bring a blonde or a brunette or a redhead, once a raven-haired little chick, up to his room to disappear for a day or so. Hirde remembered how rumpled and sleepy-eyed he'd be the next day, smelling of the laziness of sex and some other unnamable products he'd be, plopping down for breakfast with a satisfied grin as he looked to her. How she had adored that expectant gaze as she spatulaed down pancakes for him. How she had wanted to take the carving knife and cut out the hearts of the little whores he'd sleep with.

Hirde remembered how she'd listen to those moans at night, the giggles, the groans, the growls. The hard slams against the wall, and she'd make believe it was her as her hand drifted down under the sheet to rock against her virgin passage, picturing his mouth there, his hand, his cock. She had driven herself crazy so many nights that way, just using the sounds in her mind to make it seem he was really there, until she could almost feel his breath against her body, although it was just the coolness of the midnight air. The thought of him and then having to see him in the morning had been her Heaven and her Hell. To know he wouldn't feel that way ever for her.

Purgatory.

"Oh, my god, you're doing it again, Schbeiker. Do shut up about all this crap.... It's just a fucking dinner. Not a trip down merry memory lane." Determined snort.

She had let him head home to catch a shower or something, he'd said, and yes he did have her address still in his pocket, he would be there tonight for dinner. There had been a brief moment when she had been near to tackling Duo and collaring him, getting a leash so she could make sure he didn't disappear out of her life like so much smoke. There was something about him that always made her feel he would up and run off on her again. Maybe it was the fact he often proclaimed he may run.

Maybe it's the fact that he did run two years ago.

A knock at her door broke Hirde from her little grim thoughts and she peeked out of the bedroom door at Heero's usual stoic expression. He still didn't know that Duo was coming to dinner, although from the slight death glare he was giving her, Hirde could tell he figured something was up when she set out enough groceries to make dinner for three.

Prussian blue eyes slowly traveled up her form, noting the black miniskirt and tight black, turtle neck sweater with no sleeves, black pantyhose on her shapely legs, hair allowed loose and flowing about her face with the barest hint of makeup, the requisite knee-length black leather boots in place. A spark lit his eyes and he arched a brow, perhaps hoping. "Relena is coming tonight?"

Hirde bit her lip and shook her head. "Ne, Duo is."

Freezer burn on full blast. "Omae o korosu."

"Arigato, Hii-chan. Haven't heard that one in awhile."

Heero just continued to glare despite her dry tone and the rolling of her eyes. He had that stern, parental, protective look that parents get when their kids are about to do something they told them would get them in trouble and they're planning ahead on how to beat the living shit out of the guilty parties. It should have worked on her guilt, but it wasn't really. It was just making her more annoyed.

"Really, Yuy, stop glaring at me like you're my father. This dinner will be fine! It's just a little get together between friends and stuff!"

"Bull shit."

Raise of a slender brow. "Yuy! You cursed! And in English! Should I give you a gold star?"

Cold tone cut through the air. "Cut the crap, Hirde. We knew that somehow Duo Maxwell would show up back in your life, especially since this is L2, his home, so to speak. But we also knew that it was going to be tough as hell to get you back the way you used to be, strong again. And now you just want to walk right back into the arms of the man who quote, unquote "fucked" up your life!"

"Who is "we", Yuy? I know *I* certainly am not in this equation. Maybe you mean *you* and *Relena*, who even though one is my roommate and one was my lover, are trying to act like my motherfucking parents! God, I am not a babe in arms anymore!" "You could have fooled me when you nearly slit your wrists in the shower two days after you collapsed on Relena's doorstep."

"I told you fifty times already," Hirde remarked bitterly, low and dark tone. "I was just looking at the razor a moment while I was shaving my legs. Give a girl a fucking break for getting lost in thought...."

Heero's look said he didn't believe her and would never believe her. Practically, Hirde didn't believe herself, but if she thought about those times again, she'd go insane.

Not tonight. Two years, two years, two years, the mantra played.

One thing about friends, if you have a nervous breakdown once in your life, you're doomed to wear a sign around your neck, "May Go Insane At Any Moment", for all eternity. It was like people had to walk around broken glass whenever they came around you.

A sigh broke Hirde's lips, tugging on her bangs sharply a moment to center her thoughts back to the matter at hand. "Yuy, it's done and he's coming. Besides, I figured you would like to catch up on old times with Duo anyhow.... Perhaps you could get him a job with the Preventers...." She subtly prodded.

Or maybe not so subtly.

Heero snorted. "So we could keep an eye on him for your relief?"

"Ne," Hirde cast a glare that could have rivaled the Perfect Soldier's, thanks to eyes being accented by a line of kohl on each eyelid. "So that the group can come together once again. We need to stay together.... especially to stay sane...."

Heero was quiet a moment, glaring at her from under messy bangs, or maybe not glaring. It was hard to tell what was a normal look for him when he always remained so cold looking. However, even if he was staring at her with his best death glare, Hirde had gotten so used to it by now, nothing affected her.

It irked Heero to death.

"Well?" She smirked, knowing she had won this round at least. Whenever it had started becoming "rounds" of an endless battle to her, she didn't know. Hirde was a fighter in her own way. Not everyone needed a mobile suit to combat a Gundam pilot. Several moments before he snorted. "Hai, hai.... Maxwell may come to dinner since there is no other way to stop him now, lest shooting him." He paused a moment and looked thoughtful. Hirde was really glad Heero stopped carrying that gun around under his jacket all the time. Spandex had went its way a long time ago.

"I knew you'd see it my way!" Uttering a laugh, Hirde gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and waltzed over to the door. "Now, you'll get your reward when Relena comes. Whatever you guys do, I don't even want to know...."

"Omae o korosu, Schbeiker."

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6:00 and all's well in Hirde Schbeiker Land. Not when Duo Maxwell will walk through that door.

~~TBC

(1)Kobito: lover