Title: This is How You Remind Me

Author: Pathetic Otaku Child

Rating: T for now

Disclaimer:

I don’t own. Does anyone notice when these things are different anyway?

Pairings: 1x2x1, 3x4 in the background……poor Wufei, always the odd man out…..But we all love him anyway, right? Right? C’mon, you gotta love him!

Warnings: yaoi, shounen- ai, blatant Relena-bashing, slight Quatre bashing

Chapter Nine

Duo wearily set down the bag of groceries on the counter and turned to look at Heero, who had just brought in another load, with Relena flouncing in behind him. Heero stared back, a rather pained look on his face. ‘Help me,’ the dark haired man mouthed.

Duo smirked, but it quickly faded as Dorothy came into the room, wearing an unsettlingly smug look. Duo only hoped that she hadn’t done anything horrible.

Relena caught the look and smiled at her manager. “How about the boys fix us dinner while we go for a walk?”

Dorothy returned the smile and nodded. “That sounds excellent, Ms. Relena. We’ll be back in a bit.” With that, the two girls were gone.

Bemusedly, Duo scratched at his head. “What the hell was that all about?”

Heero shrugged. “Beats me. Well, I guess our coking classes are at least paying off, though.”

Duo laughed. “Yeah, seriously. I don’t think we would’ve survived this long without those.”

The two quickly settled into a comfortable, friendly silence as they cooked up a full fledged Italian meal, garlic bread and all. They had just set the last bowl on the table when the door opened and their visitors came back in, perhaps looking a bit too pleased with themselves.

Dinner went smoothly, and afterwards Dorothy proposed they played a game. After ten minutes of trying to decide between Monopoly (Dorothy’s idea), Life (Relena’s), Clue (Heero’s) and a Halo tournament (Duo’s), they finally settled it through rock paper scissors. Duo was lucky. He also had a great deal of fun kicking Relena’s butt.

The next day, the guys had to go to meeting with the rest of the band. Relena and Dorothy said that was fine and that they would be packing to leave anyway. On the way to the meeting, though, they stopped to get gas.

“Damn gas prices...” Duo muttered as he headed inside to pay. Heero finished filling up the tank to $35 as they had agreed and leaned against the car to wait for Duo to come back. He didn’t expect, however, Duo to come running out of the station, yelling his name at the top of his lungs and waving the national enquirer.

Heero blinked. “Duo?”

The other young man only shoved the magazine in his face, trying to catch his breath from the all- out sprint.

He gingerly took it and scanned the front page, eyes widening as he took in the headline.

‘Colony Brats new singer ex- stripper?’

“Duo?” he whispered, flipping through the magazine until he found the article. ‘An anonymous tipper dropped off an incriminating photo (shown to the right) of current singer and front man of the popular rock band Colony Brats. Reporters did a bit more digging and unearthed some of the murky history of the musician. What did he do before he was rich and famous? Our sources told us that not only did he play music on the street by day, but by night he stripped at a club in a quite seedy section of town. Also shown in the photo is Hilde Scheibeker, a fellow stripper at the club. She refused to speak to our reporters. ‘

Heero stopped reading and looked up at the other young man. Duo was staring back at him, an unreadable mixture of emotions on his face. “Duo, what-?”

“I- I don’t know how they- I mean- I’m sorry. What should I do?”

“Just a second.” Heero closed his eyes for a moment, trying to grasp this new information. So Duo had been a stripper. No big deal, right? It wasn’t the worst job in the world. Heero could feel a strange emotion just beneath his consciousness, but he was having a hard time putting a finger on it. Finally, it came to him. Jealousy.

His eyes opened. Huh? What did jealousy have to do with anything? Why would he be feeling that? He filed it away as something to be mulled over later, when Duo wasn’t staring at him.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to do damage control then, right? C’mon, we need to talk to the other guys.”

Duo looked slightly stunned before nodding and climbing into the car. Heero exhaled the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding before following suit.

A/n: GOMEN NASAI/bows at the readers’ feet/

Sorry, peoples for the wait. And it’s short. Too. But ,hey, an updates an update right/hopeful, cheesy grin/. A little thing called a life struck me. I didn’t know such things existed until I got one. I’m president of two clubs, a helper of another one, then there’s school, and other stories, and my gaming addiction. …../sigh/. There’s a whole long list of even more excuses, but I’m not going to waste your time with them.

And if you’re waiting for updates for one story, why not also check out my other ones? At least one should be updated fairly often. It seems like I get an idea for a new story everyday, whether it be fanfic or original, so it’s hard to stay focused on just a few stories. I’m also working on several fanfics that are not posted yet, so….Just do a general watch and you’ll probably get a whole bunch of random goodies. ;

Again, I’m sorry. I don’t even have enough time to read all the fanfiction I want to, much less write. Nevertheless, I will try/dramatic pose/