The Gods of Good Luck
----
31 December,
A.C. 197, 9 PM: the party begins
"Quatre-sama!"
Rashid called up the stairs in a voice that, despite its mildness, could
carry easily to the far ends of the house.
"A car has just pulled into the driveway."
"They're here? They're
really here?" Abruptly the tall
Arab was almost bowled over by a flying blonde-headed form as Quatre sailed
down the stairs. His excitement leaked
from his brimming aquamarine eyes, radiated from his flushed face and the grin
that threatened to split his face in two.
He'd been glowing like a child all day, in anticipation of seeing his
friends again.
Now he smoothed his shirt hastily, his gaze flickering to the door,
waiting for the bell. Rashid watched
him bounce on his toes for a few seconds before suggesting dryly, "Perhaps
you should go out to meet them?"
"Do you think so?"
Quatre's entire face lit up and he raced for the door, flinging it wide
just as a young God of Death was reaching up to ring the bell. "Duo!"
"The one and only," the boy in question chimed, laughing
out loud as Quatre threw his arms around his neck. "Yeah, Q-man, it's good to see you too. The rest of the gang here yet?"
Quatre shook his head,
pulling Duo into the house after him.
"Not yet, you're the first.
Say--isn't Hilde coming?"
Duo shook his head with a rueful grin. "Not this time. I'm
supposed to give you a big kiss for her though. She's going to a party with the
Let-me-tell-you-about-oh-so-wonderful Tomas." He rolled his eyes at the image of his absent best friend and her
crush, and shrugged. "Don't blame
her for ditching us, Quatre, she's got it bad."
Quatre was too excited for his happiness to dim in the slightest,
and Duo had a feeling he knew why.
"Well I'm just glad you could make it, Duo. I really missed all of you. I'm sure there were other things you could
have been doing tonight...."
Duo cut him off, laughing.
"What, and miss the chance to get Heero good and drunk before he
watches Relena's big speech on TV? What
could possibly top that?" He
tossed himself onto the couch and liberated a handful of chocolate-covered
peanuts from their captivity in a nearby candy dish. "I've missed everybody just as much as you have."
"Then you should visit more often," Quatre reprimanded
him playfully, then fairly flew out of his chair as the doorbell chimed
again.
"Probably Catherine and Trowa," Duo said slyly, watching
the blonde boy carefully. Sure enough,
the mention of a certain former Gundam pilot turned circus performer's name
sent Quatre into a new round of excited agitation, tugging at his wrinkled
shirt hem. Duo just shook his head and
laughed. Up for a mission, Shinigami? he asked himself as Quatre's undaunted
exuberance provided him with an opportunity to give Trowa the same greeting hug
he'd given Duo. Get those two fools together by the stroke of midnight? Why yes, I think I am. Ninmu Ryokai, as Heero would say.... Oh, but this party was going to be fun!
31 December,
A.C. 197, 10:45 PM: the situation degenerates
"I never," Heero slurred, hoisting his glass toward the
ceiling, "um...I never got my hair caught in a motorcycle engine."
Duo obligingly lifted his glass to his lips. "If I didn't know you better, Heero,
I'd say you were trying to get me drunk."
"Remind me again," Wufei said carefully through his own
alcoholic haze, "why we're playing this ridiculous game?" He tried to scowl, but by this point in the
night, he lacked the fine motor skills in his face.
"Cause we always used to play it back in the old days, duh," Duo reminded him, ducking to
avoid Heero's flailing glass. "The
rest of us, who like to have fun, thought it would be kind of a nice trip down
memory lane."
"Hmph." Wufei
turned to practicing his angry glare in the reflection of his gin-and-tonic.
"Does that mean you don't want to take your turn, Wu?"
Quatre asked sweetly, curled around himself, his back leaning against the
bottom of the couch.
Wufei looked up sharply.
"No! After all, it's only
just that I get my revenge on you for your
last turn, Winner!" A moment's
pause for thought, and then he declared grandly, "I never went to a nightclub dressed as an onna."
Quatre turned several shades of pink and mumbled something into his
glass as he took a drink.
"WHAT?" Duo demanded, choking on his own laughter. "Quatre, man, you never told us
that! You went out in drag?"
Quatre hid his face in his knees.
"Trowa. It's your
turn. Hurry. Please."
Trowa shook his head, hiding a rather amused sound himself. "All right, but...." He wanted to hear this story too, but Quatre
looking pathetic was a sight no-one could possibly resist. "Fine.
I've never slept with Relena Peacecraft."
There was a general chorus of moans as Heero, Duo, Quatre, and
Catherine exchanged unhappy glances and downed their penalties. Wufei and Trowa contrived to look drunkenly
superior.
"True," Catherine muttered mischievously under her
breath. "You've never slept with
anybody."
Trowa decided the dignified thing to do would be to ignore
her. Of course, drunk people are seldom
if ever dignified, so he elected instead to pounce on her, pin her to the
ground, and tickle her til she squealed.
"Hey, don't take your sexual frustrations out on me!" the
knife-thrower was gasping through ragged giggles. "You're cute, but you're my br--ack!" One flailing elbow knocked into Duo's arm,
jarring him and spilling the contents of his glass all over his lap.
"Watch it!" Duo
tried to jump out of the way, but his reflexes just weren't what they would
have been were he completely sober. He
scooted backward, crabwalking, only to bump into the immovable object that was
Wufei.
"Maxwell! Watch where
you're going!"
"I'm trying to get away!" Duo, unable to defend himself, his glass empty and its contents
soaking his pants, retreated to the kitchen for a refill and a towel.
Catherine extricated herself from beneath Trowa, gasping for
breath. "Meanie, Trowa, you gave
me the hiccups! I think I hurt
something!"
Trowa did not look repentant in the least.
"Well?" Heero demanded, crossing his arms over his chest
and staring hard at Trowa. The effect
was diminished somewhat by the way the former Wing pilot was swaying like
bamboo in a breeze. "Is it
true?"
Trowa pretended not to have heard.
Heero, normally a reticent person, didn't like being ignored after
consuming several glasses of various distilled substances, and made a grab for
Trowa's arm. "I said, is it
true?" he repeated, latching onto said abused appendage like a limpet.
"Why on earth do you care?" Wufei asked, trying desperately to come to Trowa's defense,
though even he wasn't sure why.
"Were you hoping he was saving himself for you?"
"Naw," Heero confided--loudly. "I got over 'im a long time ago...soon's I saw 'im looking
at Quatre...."
Quatre, who up til this moment had been staying away from the
conversation where it was nice and safe, promptly tried to crawl under the
couch. Trowa turned six shades of red
and tried to shake Heero off his arm.
Wufei rolled his eyes and gave up in disgust. Catherine, before the situation could degenerate further--never
mind she started it--interrupted the general mayhem to announce, "There
she is!" and all eyes in the room
turned to focus on the TV screen and the new President of the World
Nation. Whether they'd slept with her
or not.
31 December,
A.C. 197, 11:15 PM: the situation degenerates further
Duo, finally finished holding Quatre's hair dryer over his pants,
decided his mission wasn't going very well.
Thanks to Heero's little announcement, Trowa had managed to avoid any
sort of eye contact with Quatre for the last half hour. And that, Shinigami vowed, would simply not
do. There had to be a way to turn
Heero's faux pas to their advantage, he just had to figure out what it was.
"Say...." He was distracted from his mission, when he
went to put the hair dryer away, by the wealth of THINGS in Quatre's medicine
cabinet. "He's got a lot of stuff
in here. Aspirin...good, hell, we're all
gonna need that tomorrow. He wears
Drakkar noir? That's my cologne
too. Always knew he had good
taste. What the hell is...raspberry
flavoured...? Quatre, Quatre, I never
knew...." Shaking his head, he shoved the hair dryer back into the cabinet
and tried to close the door. The cord
got stuck, and the door flew open, dumping everything even remotely in contact
with the hair dryer onto the floor at Duo's feet. He sighed as he knelt down to gather the things up and return
them to the shelves--one container had broken and was leaking goo all over his
boots. "Just me making a mess again...damnit..." But his self-deprecating laugh was tolerant
and easy. Like Quatre, nothing would
dim his enthusiasm for seeing his friends after such a long time.
He returned downstairs to see the rest of the drunken fools crowded
around the TV. "Is Relena
on?" he asked needlessly.
"How's she look?"
"Tired," said Quatre.
"Fatter," said Heero.
"HEERO!" yelped
Catherine, making a face. "She
does not, she looks good."
Heero, no matter how many times he had insisted he wasn't bitter,
shrugged. "Duo looks better. So do you."
Duo immediately coughed on whatever he was about to say. Quatre grinned up at him wickedly. "Remember," the blonde whispered,
"you're the one who wanted to get him drunk before the speech."
Duo sighed. "I'd
forgotten how he runs off at the mouth when he's drunk! It's been a year, so sue me!"
Quatre considered this course of action, as well as one that
involved dumping a candy-dish of chocolate peanuts over Duo's head just for the
fun of it, and decided neither was worth the effort.
"So." Duo scooted
closer to Quatre and slid an arm around his shoulders, leaning toward him
conspiratorially. May as well just do
this the blunt and easy way.
"Gonna make the moves on Trowa soon?"
Between excitement, alcohol, and scattered moments of
embarrassment, Quatre had been varying shades of pink all evening. Now was no exception. "Am I what?"
"Going to put the moves on Trowa. Do I have to spell it out for you?" Duo repeated
patiently. "You know what happens,
don't you, if you don't get somebody to give you a New Year's kiss at the
stroke of midnight?"
"No...what happens?" Quatre sounded skeptical.
"You start the year off on the wrong foot and have bad
luck!" Duo explained, exasperated. "I thought everybody knew
that!"
"Sorry," Quatre mumbled, though he looked nervous. Kissing Trowa was a highly preferable
alternative to having bad luck for the rest of the year, but still....
"I think she looks fine," Trowa could be heard saying
from the floor between Heero and Catherine.
"Hmph. Not worth it,
Trowa, don't even bother," his sister--who also claimed not to be
bitter--informed him flatly.
Trowa shrugged. "I
just said she looked good, she's really not my type. But she's an old friend, and has
just been elected President, so are you two gonna shut up so we can hear what
she says, or not?"
"We know what she's gonna say," Heero pointed out. "It's going to be about total pacifism,
not having weapons, and everybody living happily ever after in harmony."
Wufei sighed. "I never
did figure out what was going on with you two...make that any of you...."
Heero shrugged. "The
good guy's supposed to get the princess at the end of the story, what can I
say? Things didn't work out once people
weren't trying to kill us anymore and we had to interact like normal
humans."
Wufei stared at him blankly.
"You, Yuy? A normal
human?"
Heero shrugged and stared at the floor. "Yeah, exactly.
That's why she moved on to Duo, apparently."
Wufei turned his gaze to the boy with the braid, who shrugged. "Wasn't anything, really. She was just all broken up about things not
working out with Heero. Don't you know
how this stuff goes? You always rebound
to the best friend." A wicked grin
spread across his face. "You might
say I was just the stepping-stone between Heero and Quatre."
Quatre had figured out by this point there was no way he was going
to fit under the couch. "Yeah,
well. We all know how that ended,
right? So let it go."
Wufei shook his head, though it was hard to tell from his expressionless
dark eyes if he was prolonging this torture on purpose or not. "Oh, I do, but I don't think the rest
of them do yet. Won't you share,
Quatre?"
"No." Quatre curled up into the smallest ball it was
possible to contort his body into.
"No, I don't think I will."
"This doesn't have anything to do with you going out in drag,
does it?" Duo asked suspiciously.
Wufei coughed delicately and Quatre whimpered. "Wow. You guys
really did screw each other up--Relena moved on to Cathy...you dressed up like
a girl...."
Quatre fixed Duo with what he hoped was a very Zero-system glare.
Duo took note of this and decided the conversation had gone on long
enough. "So now we're all here
getting drunk, and she's up in front of the world making speeches. That's the way the cookie crumbles. Truthfully, I'd rather be us."
Trowa, shaking his head at his friends as if they'd all gone
insane, hauled himself up by the side of the couch. "Maybe this is too much for some of them...." he
suggested, indicating Heero and Catherine, who were glaring at the TV
screen. It was probably fortunate for
Quatre's big-screen that the knives and explosives had been left elsewhere for
the night. "Let's go out and find
a good spot to watch the fireworks."
31 December,
A.C. 197, 11:55 PM: the madness continues
Duo and Quatre were very intelligent people, with a good grasp of
strategy and tactics, even when tipsy.
They had put this expertise to good use in contriving to get everyone
onto Quatre's roof and arrange things so that Trowa was stretched out on a
blanket next to Quatre without--they assumed--ever knowing they had planned it
that way. They were extremely proud of
their subtlety. It probably never
occurred to them that Trowa--who had won the I've-Never game so thoroughly he
wasn't nearly as drunk as they were--might have been strategising a bit
himself, let alone had his sister's help in doing it.
Nah.
From the roof, they could see the entire village stretched out
below them. Lanterns were lit along the
streets, and crowds of people congregated in the middle of them. Raucous, electrifying music filled the air
and trickled up to the former pilots to infiltrate their skin and set their
nerves tingling.
"They're gonna start soon!" Catherine said happily, dangling her legs off the edge of the
house.
"Everybody get ready!"
Duo proclaimed. "I don't
want anybody having bad luck all year, so you ALL have to find somebody to
kiss!"
"WHAT?" demanded Wufei.
Duo was getting tired of explaining this. But oh, how clever he was to be insisting on this! Clever and drunk. Drunk people on the roof.
What a brilliant plan this was.
"You have to have a new year's kiss, or you'll have bad luck,"
he explained, just like he'd told Quatre.
"It's not the Chinese new year," Wufei pointed out, but
he did look a little concerned. He
didn't want bad luck all year....
"Hush!" Quatre said quickly, "they're
starting!"
The shout began from the village below, and the pilots joined
in. "9...8...7...."
Quatre was getting nervous.
Suppose Trowa didn't want to be the one to kiss him? Then again, it couldn't hurt to try. Right?
Thank Allah for alcohol.
Wait--that wasn't right, Allah didn't approve of alcohol. Even on New year's eve? He was getting distracted again.
"6...5...4...."
Catherine shot a look backward at Quatre and her brother. They'd better kiss. And then they'd better go off together, or
she was going to have to tie them up and--
"3...2...1! HAPPY NEW
YEAR!!!!" they all shouted--the village, the pilots, the people on the
television still blaring downstairs.
Quatre nibbled his lip awkwardly, and leaned over to kiss
Trowa. They met halfway, and bumped
noses, pulling back to grin at each other nervously in the half-dark.
"Let's try that again," Trowa suggested. Quatre threw his arms around Trowa's neck
and did just that. And again...and
again...and again.
Duo looked over at them with satisfaction. "Ninmu Kanryou," he muttered
happily to himself.
"What was that?"
a calm voice said next to him.
"Duo, are you stealing my lines?"
Duo turned to grin widely at Heero. "Yup. I sure
am."
Heero looked over his friend's shoulder at the couple still kissing
on the blanket. "Is that what all
the new year's kiss business was about?"
Duo shrugged. "It's
true. Kiss somebody or you'll have bad
luck," he said, his violet eyes gleaming with undisguised mischief.
"I've had plenty of bad luck already," Heero decided, his
speech still slurring a little, and he grabbed Duo's face and pulled him close
for a hungry kiss. Duo, his body
abruptly forgetting how to breathe, threw his arms around Heero's neck and
clung there.
Wufei and Catherine, after a long look around at the rest of their
friends, just looked at each other.
"I don't want--" they began at the same time, and stopped,
and grinned.
"I'm only doing this in case Duo's right," Wufei said
firmly.
Catherine nodded. "I
know. Me too. But a year's worth of bad
luck just isn't worth risking."
They stared at each other for a moment longer.
"Maybe if we close our eyes?" Catherine suggested.
Wufei nodded. "Good
idea."
They did. They reached out
to cup one another's face, just to make sure they didn't mess this up too
badly--was a bad kiss worse than none at all, or was it just the effort that
counted? Have to check with Duo on that
later--and bumped noses awkwardly, and giggled, and finally managed to press
their lips together. They started to
pull away, then, lest they tempt the gods of bad luck too much, they tried it
again.
Hmm. The second time worked
a little better. And the third.
Duo, finally remembering how to breathe and move, opened his eyes,
pulled his mouth from Heero's and looked around. Despite the shock of seeing Wufei and Catherine wrapped around
each other like that--he thought he might have a heart attack, but at least
Heero seemed willing to resuscitate him--he decided the night was a definite,
resounding success.
Heero pulled him into his arms again, possessively, and Duo smiled
happily. "Happy new year,
Heero."
"Happy new year," the blue-eyed boy replied. "Say, Duo--do you smell that?"
Duo blinked.
"What?"
Heero shrugged. "I
thought it was you--it smells like raspberry."
Duo snickered.
"Happy new year, Quatre," Trowa whispered, when they
paused to take a breath.
Quatre nuzzled into his neck and beamed happily. "Happy new year, Trowa...it really
is...I think I'm having good luck already!"
Trowa grinned at him wickedly.
"Wanna get a whole lot luckier?"
~Owari~