Duo's Demon 04

"Mmmmm...." Zechs stretched languorously before rolling over onto his back. "Ohhhhhh yesssss... that's MUCH better." He glanced over at Treize. "For a few moments there, I was afraid that you were going to have to call the medical staff to help you get my spine back into working order."

"Don't be so damn smug! Have you SEEN how big some of those hulking orderlies in the medical department are?"

"Male or female?"

"Either! Both! God, sometimes I can't even tell WHAT they are.... I swear some of those orderlies look like they can take on a LEO barehanded and win! Believe me, you wouldn't be laughing once they've gotten their hands on you!"

"How on earth do you know all this?"

"Poor Une. Slipped in her bathtub and managed to dislocate her shoulder a few days ago."

With a decided smirk on his face, Zechs said, "And how did THAT happen? The woman practices gymnastics for exercise, for god's sake. I've seen her do back-flips on a balance beam without using her hands. And you're trying to tell me she just FELL in her bathtub!?"

A wonderfully innocent expression appeared on Treize's face. "I haven't got a clue."

Zechs rolled over and pinned Treize to the bed. In a low growl, he said, "You didn't happen to be WITH her when this occurred, did you?"

"Absolutely not! I found out only after the fact."

"Sure...."

With a hurt expression on his face, Treize muttered, "What do you take me for?"

The OZ ace had the grace to look a bit guilty. "It's just that... oh, never mind. You were saying about the orderlies?" he murmured as he nuzzled Treize consolingly.

With a sigh, Treize murmured, "I just stopped in at the infirmary to check on her condition. It wasn't pretty. She was lying on a gurney with one huge orderly sitting on top of her while an even bigger one was yanking on her arm. It took about fifteen minutes to get her shoulder back into place."

Zechs blinked, then winced. "Ouch...." After a moment, he said, "You know, I never realized that you were so ticklish."

Treize grunted wearily. "Damn that drunken little devil! That bit with the feathers was positively inhuman! I think I might have sprained half my muscles!"

"What do you expect? He was trained as a terrorist. He saw a weakness and exploited it ruthlessly," Zechs retorted with a pained grimace.

After two minutes of silence, Quatre started to fidget restlessly. After five minutes of no sounds, not even Trowa's soothing pats could keep the smaller boy still.

"It's too quiet," the blond pilot repeated. He glanced up at Trowa. "I mean, we never hear Heero, but you KNOW how noisy Duo gets!"

"That's true," Trowa said thoughtfully.

Quatre was starting to have visions of poor Duo's strangled corpse sprawled atop Relena's desk. He had no doubt that Heero really loved Duo, but Quatre couldn't deny the fact that Duo occasionally had a way of teasing people until they wanted to throttle the braided pilot, just to shut him up. And if Heero was suffering from a loss of all his normal inhibitions, would he be able to resist the urge to strangle Duo if the other boy accidentally provoked him?

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For the last thirty minutes, the gagged and bound Relena had nearly been beside herself with rage. At first she hadn't understood what was going on, but after a few minutes of listening to the thumps, thuds, and muffled moans coming through the door, she realized just what sort of activity was going on... and in *her* office, no less!

Even more shocking was the fact that the other two Gundam pilots -- the one with the ludicrous hair bangs and the air-headed blond -- knew *exactly* what was happening to poor Heero, but were perfectly happy to sit back and do absolutely nothing about it. Perverts! All of them! That, or the monster calling itself Duo Maxwell had taken control of their minds as well. Yes, that was probably it. He had corrupted them all.

Her eyes started to water as she tried to think of the sort of horrors her poor Heero must be suffering at that very moment, but her imagination failed her. Just the thought of Maxwell and his foul minions pawing Heero with their slimy hands.... And all she could do was sit helplessly on her waiting room sofa and hope that Heero would survive the terrible ordeal he was undoubtedly undergoing.
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A few more tense minutes of silence passed. Finally, unable to stand the suspense, Quatre stealthily crossed the room and put his ear to the door. He heard nothing. Quatre hastily waved Trowa over. The brown-haired pilot carefully brushed his hair bang to one side and put his own ear to the door.

After listening carefully, he gave a small shake of his head. He too was starting to look a trifle concerned. The two of them were leaning even harder against the door, trying to catch the faintest sign of activity on the other side, when, without warning, the door suddenly flew open.

The abrupt loss of support only caused Trowa to wobble just a bit before he regained his balance. However, for the second time that afternoon, Quatre ended up face down on the carpet -- this time at Heero's feet.

The blond-haired boy stared up at the Wing pilot nervously. After all, less than half an hour ago, Heero had been positively eager to shoot him full of holes. A chill rippled down Quatre's spine when he saw the expression on Heero's face. He was smiling... no, he was *grinning*. "Uhh... I can explain... I didn't mean to...." Quatre babbled nervously.

In a frighteningly cheerful voice, Heero asked, "Quatre, what on earth are you doing sprawled out on the floor?" He reached down and hauled the smaller boy to his feet with no effort at all.

Quatre smiled nervously and hastily backed up until he felt the comforting presence of Trowa behind him. A quick peek at the Heavyarms pilot's face -- the slightly widened green eye and raised eyebrow -- told him that Trowa found the Wing pilot's behavior more than a little unnerving as well. They were both used to seeing a brooding, hyper-intense, occasionally suicidal Heero, but this strange psychotically cheerful Heero was making Quatre's skin crawl. And where was Duo?

Momentarily disregarding Heero's blatantly amused expression, Quatre frantically scanned the room looking for any sign of the Deathscythe pilot.

He froze when he saw what appeared to be a limp body lying on top of Relena's desk, covered with the Peacecraft's hugely expensive cashmere coat. Two bare legs, exposed to the knees, were visible at one end while several long strands of chestnut brown hair and a still, unmoving hand trailed out from underneath the coat and hung over the opposite edge of the desk.

"Duo!" Quatre blurted anxiously.

"Shhhhhh!" Heero then leaned closer to Quatre and whispered, "He's sleeping."

The figure stirred slightly and a low, husky voice exhaustedly muttered, "No, he's not...." Duo poked his head out from under the coat, brushed his unbraided hair out of his face, and gave all of them a bleary-eyed glare.

A relieved, if somewhat dazed Quatre noted that it seemed that Heero had been as good as his word. Duo looked like he had had *quite* a workout.... "Uh... are you okay, Duo?" Quatre asked.

"I feel... like a quarter mile... of heavily traveled road... but otherwise, yeah.... And tell Sally... 'a dramatically increased libido', my ASS!"

Heero calmly strolled over to the desk and patted Duo's rear end, still modestly covered by Relena's coat, with a proprietary air.

"But it's such a pretty ass," the Wing pilot in a voice of smug satisfaction. He looked rather like a cat who had not only swallowed the bird, but also polished off several dishes of cream.

Duo glared at his lover -- who was now playfully running his fingers through Duo's long brown hair -- and acidly retorted, "Well, if you don't hurry and do something about Relena's friggin' computer file, EVERYONE in the damn world is going see just how pretty it is!"

Heero chuckled easily and said, "Relax. I'll take care of it. Now why don't you just lie down and get some rest?" He leaned over and gave Duo a casual kiss on his cheek, then sauntered over to the workstation and started typing.

For a nervous moment, Quatre was afraid that Heero was going to begin singing, but the Wing pilot merely started to hum an old romantic tune... and did so surprisingly well.

"Relax, he says...," Duo said with a snort, before pulling the coat back over his head. After a minute or so, there was a soft snore.

Trowa coughed discretely, then said, "It seems that the side effects haven't quite worn off."

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From her position on the sofa, Relena couldn't get a good look into her office or at Heero's face. However, she could see Trowa's and Quatre's expressions... and they looked positively stunned and stupefied. It was worse than she feared, by god, if even Maxwell's pet thugs were upset. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes as she wondered just what had happened to her beloved Heero....

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As Trowa casually kept an eye on the cheerfully humming Heero, Quatre returned to the waiting room and was appalled to see the tears cascading down Relena's face.

As he blotted up the tears, he murmured sadly, "Oh dear. Miss Relena... I suppose finding out about Heero and Duo must have been a terrible shock to you, but I suppose it's really for the best. Surely, you can see now that all your interference isn't going to change anything. You're only making things harder on Heero if you continue to make these sorts of accusations about Duo. Why don't you just give in and accept what's going on?" When he saw the furious, defiant glare that Relena gave him, Quatre sighed and shook his head.
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Whatever effect the drugs might have had on Heero's emotional state, they didn't seem to affect his mental abilities. After about ten minutes of rapid typing, he pulled a disk from the computer and shut down the system.

Trowa murmured, "Got it?"

With a faint smirk, Heero said, "Yes. Relena's no expert. I found it within the first three minutes. I spent most of the time trying to determine whether this file had been automatically archived or backed up somewhere else in the system."

"Are we ready to leave?" Heero shook his head. "Not quite yet. This 'Amelia' computer virus is tenacious and sneaky. I need to double-check the mainframe to make sure all traces of the file is gone." He shrugged. "Besides, I need to grab some new clothes for Duo. It shouldn't take me more than 45 minutes."

Trowa glanced at the torn shreds of black clothing strewn all over Relena's office. "I see."

As he watched Heero stroll out into the waiting room, Trowa was relieved to see the unusual cheerfulness slowly disappearing from Heero's demeanor. But traces of it could still be seen in the faint smile of amusement that seemed to hover on the Wing pilot's lips.

Suddenly, the Heavyarms pilot felt a warm hand grab his wrist. He glanced down to see Duo looking up at him, a worried look on his heart-shaped face. "Trowa... would you mind keeping an eye on him? Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, huh?"

The brown-haired pilot nodded, then cocked his head slightly. "He's right. You look like you need some rest."

Duo shrugged eloquently. "Well, you know Heero. He said he was going to fuck me stupid."

The corner of Trowa's mouth twitched upward. "Ninmu kanryou?"

"Oh yeah... ninmu kanryou." Duo winked a bright violet eye, then grinned sleepily at the other pilot. "And how...," he added before pulling the coat back over his head.

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Relena felt her heart shatter into little pieces as she watched Heero walk out her office, then stop short to stare at her with cold, furious eyes. She could tell that Maxwell had been busy at work. She had no doubts that the diabolical fiend had spent the last half hour doing unspeakable things to Heero's mind, twisting and warping his memories so that everything that she'd done appeared in the worst possible light.

Just as Heero started to reach behind his back, the tall pilot called Trowa quickly walked into the waiting room, deftly took Heero's arm, and firmly escorted him out into the hallway. Relena couldn't help but notice that Heero continued to stare fixedly at her, even as the hallway door closed. Maybe there was still some hope for the two of them....

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Quatre sighed depressedly at being left to babysit Relena again. He felt a guilty sense of relief that she was gagged so he wouldn't have to keep up any sort of conversation with her. He decided to sit down on the waiting room's loveseat and not share the sofa with Relena. Considering the anger in her eyes, he wouldn't put it past her to try kicking him. After several minutes, he found himself trying to stifle a yawn. ....and that's the last thing Quatre Raberba Winner remembered....

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Lady Une -- bruised, cranky, and her arm still in a sling -- snapped at one of her subordinates as she eyed the thick banks of dark clouds rolling toward the installation. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, ma'am. The meteorological report is for sunny skies. There's no reports of any weather fronts in the area!"

"Then how do you explain THAT!" She waved her good arm at the black clouds.

Beneath the towering thunderheads, constantly illuminated from within by brilliant flashes of lightning, she could see the smeary film in the air that told her of torrential rains approaching.
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Relena stared in mingled confusion and annoyance as the small blond Gundam pilot leaned over and suddenly fell asleep on the loveseat. True, she might not be a trained fighter like Heero, but somehow, the fact that Quatre considered her so weak and harmless that he could fall asleep while guarding her was rather galling to her pride.

As she fumed silently, she once again attempted to free herself from her bonds. However, she was having little success. Maxwell, the cunning devil, apparently did an expert job. No amount of twisting or pulling was getting her anywhere.

Suddenly, she felt someone watching her. Her heart sank as she looked up and realized that she had totally forgotten one *very* important thing -- Duo Maxwell's presence. And now he stood in the doorway to her office, wearing a sinister grin.... ....and absolutely nothing else.