/thwack!/
/swishswishswishswish/
/thwack!/
"Quatre?"
"Nn? yeah, Wufei?"
"Just whose bright idea was it to give Maxwell a triple espresso, anyway?" the Chinese pilot asked almost plaintively from where he lay on the floor, his head on one of the softest cushions he could find.
/swishswishswishswishswish-thwack!thwack!/ Duo?s yelling was audible through a floor and a raging blizzard outside. And, while any of the three in the room would not have admitted it under torture, it was quite painful as well. Then again, this WAS torture!
"I didn?t ?give? him any..." Trowa started.
"Yeah, well, someone obviously left it where he could get to it and by the sound he?s had three or four cups?" Wufei shot back. It drew a pained giggle from Quatre.
"Quatre, that is no laughing matter. I promise not to make coffee anymore," Trowa said, as solemnly as he could with a splitting headache.
"And telling him to go play roller-hockey in the basement?" Wufei continued. "Is there any more aspirin?"
"Mine and no, there isn?t," Quatre replied. Trowa winced, Wufei touched his temple. "Where did Heero get to, I wonder?"
"He?s probably killed himself by now-"
"No, I haven?t. Thinking about it, yes. Done it, no.? Heero was coming downstairs, a touch of annoyance showing through his stone mask.
"Where have you been?" the blond Arabian asked him, looking up through closed eyes and shifting his head on Trowa?s midsection.
"Upstairs on my laptop trying to ignore that baka, where else? Trying, of course, is the operative word, in more ways than one." Heero?s very mild joke did not go unnoticed, at least not by Quatre despite his splitting headache.
Silence reigned.
/swishswish-thwack!/ "And Maxwell?s done it again!..."
Except, of course, for Duo dowstairs in the basement and the roar of the wind and snow outside that locked them into this torture.
Heero seemed annoyed to no end -who wouldn?t be?- but he also seemed amused. "Hasn?t anyone tried knocking him out?"
It was Trowa?s turned to be painfully amused.
"Yeah. I did. No chance," he informed the Japanese pilot.
"He just won?t hold still long enough to let us get a good knock on his head. And we?ve got no sedatives or anything?not like he?d take them anyway," Quatre rejoined. Heero snorted.
"Tying him up won?t do any good? No, Quatre, not like that! You?re almost as much a hentai as Duo! No," and the flicker of a ghost of a laugh that had been in Heero?s ocean-dark eyes vanished. "I tried that a few weeks ago after he had a caffeinated soda and let him alone?..it did not work." He didn?t mention that the braided L2 pickpocket had slipped his best knots and two yards of rope in less than ten minutes flat, nor the fact that he?d come bouncing happily down the stairs, idly spinning the reinforcing handcuffs on one finger and mercilessly teasing him. "Of course, he needs to slow down before we can even consider doing anything? Shouldn?t that baka be crashing soon?"
"He should. Sounds like it?s possible? I say we gang up on him and hogtie him." Wufei threw the suggestion in with a wicked look that got worse as another idea came to him. "From the ceiling."
"Four on one... that would be decidedly unjust." Wufei gave Trowa a look that rolled off like a drop of water on oiled Gundanium. "That could actually be a viable idea, though?.." Trowa murmured consideringly.
"You keep your hands off of him!" Quatre and Heero returned simultaneously, giving him identical looks.
"Do you two mind cutting the stereo effect?" the L5 pilot asked. The sounds of skating and shooting downstairs stopped and during the blessed silence the four gave audible sighs of relief. Duo?s light footsteps ran up the stairs a moment later and went into the kitchen: there was a sound of liquid sloshing into a cup. Quatre suddenly looked at Trowa in terror.
"Trowa, did you remember to dump out that coffee?" As Trowa faintly blushed they all groaned. "Here we go again?..somebody just shoot me!"