A bonus fic posting for this week...
Sep. 1st, 2005 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calic0cat...since I've kept everyone waiting so long for it already. I was deeply shocked when this suddenly decided to cooperate last night.
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Title: Kindergarten Heero
Chapter: 16/?
Author: Calic0cat <calic0cat@fastmail.fm>
Story Started: June 8, 2003
Genre: Shonen Ai/Yaoi, Drama, Romance, Fusion
Pairing: 1x2, 13x6, 5xM, TxH
Rated: R(?)
Warnings: AU, OOC, Swearing, Death (*not* one of the guys)
Archives: At http://www.calic0cat.net/ (my site) and at Mediaminer.org under Calic0cat. Anyone with archive permission for my other fics can help themselves.
Disclaimer: Duo and Heero and the rest of the GW gang aren't mine. This story is. Nuff said.
'Thinking'
"Speaking"
*** Time passing or scene change
Author's Notes: This is a fusion with the movie "Kindergarten Cop". Blame that pic of Heero with a ferret and the fact that the "Kindergarten Cop" DVD was on a sale rack and caught my attention. Feedback is appreciated.
#################################################
The school was utterly deserted.
"I knew that we should have left last night," Khushrenada said as he climbed sulkily back into the rental car. "Now we'll have to wait until school starts on Monday to find Mariemaia."
Knowing better than to remind Trieze that not only had he been *more* than willing to delay their departure last night, but that he'd also been the one to make them late arriving at the airport this morning, Milliardo instead looked around for some indication of why the school was closed so early today. Noticing a flyer posted on a nearby lamppost, he retrieved it and took it back to the car with him. "This must be where everyone is," he commented, handing the flyer to the other man.
"A funfair. How very - rustic." Trieze sniffed disparagingly. "One would hope that Leia has not sunk so low as to take my daughter to such a thing."
Cautiously, well aware of his lover's rather inflexible stance on appropriate behaviour for his social class, Milliardo suggested, "However, if, perchance, she *is* in attendance, the jet *is* on standby..."
"...and we would not have to spend the weekend in this backwater," Trieze completed. "True. Very well, then. To the..." He made a moue of distaste. "...funfair."
***
"Uncle Duo! Look, cotton candy!" Tugging her uncle's arm excitedly, Helen tried to drag him towards the nearby cart.
Reluctantly pulling his attention away from the low-voiced conversation taking place between Heero and his partner, Hilde, Duo tousled Helen's hair absently. "In a minute, sweetie." He couldn't hear everything over the noise of the funfair, but at least if he had some idea what was going on, he'd have a better chance of making sure that Heero filled him in on the details afterwards.
"Please..." she pleaded. "Please please please please please..."
"Helen..." Duo warned. He knew that she wasn't having as much fun as she'd expected, due to the precautions that he and Heero were insisting on, but the whining was starting to get out of hand. If she kept this up, he really was going to take her home and send her straight to bed. This kind of behaviour wasn't acceptable, and she knew it.
Heero's voice interrupted before Duo had a chance to lay down the law. "Why don't you two go ahead?" he suggested. "Hilde and I still have a few things to discuss, and just standing around waiting isn't very much fun for Helen."
Frowning, Duo started to protest, "I have a right to know..."
"You do," Heero agreed immediately. "And I give you my word that I'll tell you everything later." He'd promised honesty earlier, and he intended to keep that promise.
Duo hesitated. If he and Heero were going to have any chance of making a relationship work, he was going to have to trust Heero, to have faith that Heero wouldn't lie or hide things from him. If he couldn't do that, then he might as well call it quits right here and now. 'Can I believe him? Can I trust him not to deceive me, not to hurt me or Helen?'
Heero's heart sank as the silence stretched out between them. Though he couldn't blame Duo if he wasn't quite prepared to accept his word, Duo's obvious hesitation hurt. And it made him wonder whether they could ever really get past the damage that his initial deceit had caused.
"O...okay," Duo finally stammered out. The brilliant smile that Heero gave him in response was almost enough to erase his lingering uncertainty.
"Yay!" Helen cheered. Yanking enthusiastically on Duo's arm, she dragged him away. "Cotton candy! Come *on*, Uncle Duo!"
"Easy there, just settle down a little," Duo told her firmly. "Stop pulling and behave yourself." He tugged her back to his side. She heaved a put-upon sigh, but didn't resist. Joined hands swinging between them, they walked the short distance to the cotton candy vendor's cart. "Okay, kiddo, which kind do you want? Pink? Blue?"
"Both!" she decided, pointing to the multi-coloured cone on display.
"You're going to have to brush your teeth *twice* tonight, young lady," Duo warned as they waited in line.
Helen wrinkled up her nose but nodded in acceptance. If that was what it took to get her cotton candy, then she'd do it. At least she was finally getting to do *something* that she wanted to. Uncle Duo wouldn't even let her go in the maze with her friends; he'd made her go through it with him and Mr. Yuy, and that wasn't *nearly* as much fun. He'd even made her use the porta-potty while he waited outside the door, instead of letting her go in the park washroom all by herself.
The line moved slowly ahead, and it was finally their turn. "One multi-coloured, please," Duo requested. "And one blue." 'What the heck,' he decided. 'The funfair only happens once a year, and eating cotton candy's just part of the experience.' Besides, maybe Heero would share it with him.
"Here you go, sir," the vendor said, holding out Helen's treat.
Duo released her hand in order to take it and pass it to her. While the vendor was busy making his cone, he pulled out his wallet so that he would have the payment ready when his own cone was handed over. Money and the candy changed hands, and Duo turned away from the cart. "Okay," he began, looking down to see if Helen had managed to get all sticky yet.
She wasn't there.
'Just take it easy,' Duo told himself, firmly reining in his immediate panicked reaction. 'She was here just a minute ago; she can't have gotten far. Calm down and take a good look around.' But as minutes of fruitless looking and calling passed, the panic grew. Finally, he decided to go back and get Heero and Hilde. Three could comb the grounds more quickly than one. 'Besides, maybe she went back there,' he thought, hoping desperately.
***
After Uncle Duo handed her cotton candy to her, Helen moved a few steps away from the vendor's cart, so that she could see past the line-up behind them. Watching the crowd move by, she caught a brief glimpse of a brightly flowered shirt. 'Coach Howie!' Wanting to say hi, she darted off in pursuit of that familiar shirt. "Coach Howie!" she shouted as she lost sight of him in the crowd, but she could barely even hear *herself* over the noise of the midway, so she wasn't really surprised when he didn't come back. Halting abruptly, she started to turn to go back to her uncle, but the person behind her didn't stop quite so quickly and ran into her.
Helen tried to catch her balance, but she dropped her cotton candy, and when she tried to catch it before it hit the ground, she stumbled and fell hard. Afraid of being stepped on, she scrambled back to her feet as fast as she could. Knees aching, hands scraped and stinging, she sniffled and tried not to cry. 'I want Uncle Duo!' Struggling through the crowd, she headed back to where she thought she'd came from, only to discover that she'd gotten turned around when she fell, and now she didn't know *where* she was. Jostled along by the flow of foot traffic, she managed to find a narrow gap between two midway booths, and slipped into its welcoming stillness for a few minutes.
She'd lost her cotton candy, and *she* was lost, and her hands and knees hurt, and Uncle Duo was going to be mad 'cause she was supposed to stay close, and... Helen sniffled and curled up on the ground behind an overflowing garbage bin. "...and I want my mommy!" she whimpered as the tears started to roll down her cheeks.
***
Heero watched Duo and Helen walk off through the ever-increasing crowd. 'He's giving me a chance, *really* giving me a chance. He hesitated, but he still decided to trust me...'
"Earth to Yuy, come in, Yuy."
A hand waved in front of Heero's face, blocking his view just long enough for the crowd to swallow up those he was watching. Turning back towards Hilde, he gave her an annoyed glare. It didn't wilt her amused expression in the slightest.
"Oh man, have you got it bad," she chuckled, shaking her head.
"Keep your mind on the case, and out of my personal life," Heero growled irritably. Things between him and Duo were much too fragile at the moment for him to put up with teasing, no matter how good-natured.
Unfazed, Hilde just laughed and gave him a commiserating thump on the shoulder. "Ah, but your personal life *is* part of the case," she reminded him with a smug grin.
Unable to deny it, he scowled and changed the subject. "Where's Khushrenada now?"
Instantly sobering, she told him, "According to the flight plan filed by his pilot, he should have landed at the airport here in Astoria an hour or so ago."
"He's *here*?!" Heero hissed in disbelief. "And you just let me send Duo and Helen off on their own?!"
Hilde rolled her eyes. "Relax, Yuy. Chief Gee was assigning someone to tail him; he won't get a chance to try anything. Besides, he doesn't even know who Maxwell is or what the kid looks like, remember? Let alone where to look for them."
"I think *you* need to remember that this is Khushrenada we're dealing with," Heero snapped, eyes scanning the crowd in search of Duo and his niece. "Anything is possible."
Huffing in exasperation, she responded, "Yuy, I think you've been chasing this guy a little too long. He's not some sort of superman."
"No, he's just as wily as a fox, and slippery as an eel," Heero retorted sharply. "Not to mention having the killer instincts of a piranha and the social conscience to match."
Just then, he spotted Duo coming towards them, very clearly distraught - and very clearly alone.
***
Helen didn't know how long she sat on the ground and cried. Long enough that her hands had mostly stopped bleeding, and her nose was running and her eyes were itchy, but not long enough for Uncle Duo to find her. 'I wanna go *home*...' Well, if Uncle Duo couldn't find her, she'd just have to find him. Still sniffling, she wiped her face on her shirt, got back to her feet, and started to walk again.
Suddenly, someone blocked her path. "Well now, I do believe that this is the young lady we're looking for."
She looked up. And up. The man in front of her was even taller than Uncle Duo.
"What's the matter? Don't you remember me?" he asked.
Helen frowned at him. "No. And I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers." She tried to step around the tall man, but someone else was in the way.
"But I'm not a stranger," the tall man said very seriously as he bent and picked her up.
#################################################
And now, I'm off to bed since there's a horse show tomorrow, which means an early morning and a long, tiring day...
*****************************
Title: Kindergarten Heero
Chapter: 16/?
Author: Calic0cat <calic0cat@fastmail.fm>
Story Started: June 8, 2003
Genre: Shonen Ai/Yaoi, Drama, Romance, Fusion
Pairing: 1x2, 13x6, 5xM, TxH
Rated: R(?)
Warnings: AU, OOC, Swearing, Death (*not* one of the guys)
Archives: At http://www.calic0cat.net/ (my site) and at Mediaminer.org under Calic0cat. Anyone with archive permission for my other fics can help themselves.
Disclaimer: Duo and Heero and the rest of the GW gang aren't mine. This story is. Nuff said.
'Thinking'
"Speaking"
*** Time passing or scene change
Author's Notes: This is a fusion with the movie "Kindergarten Cop". Blame that pic of Heero with a ferret and the fact that the "Kindergarten Cop" DVD was on a sale rack and caught my attention. Feedback is appreciated.
#################################################
The school was utterly deserted.
"I knew that we should have left last night," Khushrenada said as he climbed sulkily back into the rental car. "Now we'll have to wait until school starts on Monday to find Mariemaia."
Knowing better than to remind Trieze that not only had he been *more* than willing to delay their departure last night, but that he'd also been the one to make them late arriving at the airport this morning, Milliardo instead looked around for some indication of why the school was closed so early today. Noticing a flyer posted on a nearby lamppost, he retrieved it and took it back to the car with him. "This must be where everyone is," he commented, handing the flyer to the other man.
"A funfair. How very - rustic." Trieze sniffed disparagingly. "One would hope that Leia has not sunk so low as to take my daughter to such a thing."
Cautiously, well aware of his lover's rather inflexible stance on appropriate behaviour for his social class, Milliardo suggested, "However, if, perchance, she *is* in attendance, the jet *is* on standby..."
"...and we would not have to spend the weekend in this backwater," Trieze completed. "True. Very well, then. To the..." He made a moue of distaste. "...funfair."
***
"Uncle Duo! Look, cotton candy!" Tugging her uncle's arm excitedly, Helen tried to drag him towards the nearby cart.
Reluctantly pulling his attention away from the low-voiced conversation taking place between Heero and his partner, Hilde, Duo tousled Helen's hair absently. "In a minute, sweetie." He couldn't hear everything over the noise of the funfair, but at least if he had some idea what was going on, he'd have a better chance of making sure that Heero filled him in on the details afterwards.
"Please..." she pleaded. "Please please please please please..."
"Helen..." Duo warned. He knew that she wasn't having as much fun as she'd expected, due to the precautions that he and Heero were insisting on, but the whining was starting to get out of hand. If she kept this up, he really was going to take her home and send her straight to bed. This kind of behaviour wasn't acceptable, and she knew it.
Heero's voice interrupted before Duo had a chance to lay down the law. "Why don't you two go ahead?" he suggested. "Hilde and I still have a few things to discuss, and just standing around waiting isn't very much fun for Helen."
Frowning, Duo started to protest, "I have a right to know..."
"You do," Heero agreed immediately. "And I give you my word that I'll tell you everything later." He'd promised honesty earlier, and he intended to keep that promise.
Duo hesitated. If he and Heero were going to have any chance of making a relationship work, he was going to have to trust Heero, to have faith that Heero wouldn't lie or hide things from him. If he couldn't do that, then he might as well call it quits right here and now. 'Can I believe him? Can I trust him not to deceive me, not to hurt me or Helen?'
Heero's heart sank as the silence stretched out between them. Though he couldn't blame Duo if he wasn't quite prepared to accept his word, Duo's obvious hesitation hurt. And it made him wonder whether they could ever really get past the damage that his initial deceit had caused.
"O...okay," Duo finally stammered out. The brilliant smile that Heero gave him in response was almost enough to erase his lingering uncertainty.
"Yay!" Helen cheered. Yanking enthusiastically on Duo's arm, she dragged him away. "Cotton candy! Come *on*, Uncle Duo!"
"Easy there, just settle down a little," Duo told her firmly. "Stop pulling and behave yourself." He tugged her back to his side. She heaved a put-upon sigh, but didn't resist. Joined hands swinging between them, they walked the short distance to the cotton candy vendor's cart. "Okay, kiddo, which kind do you want? Pink? Blue?"
"Both!" she decided, pointing to the multi-coloured cone on display.
"You're going to have to brush your teeth *twice* tonight, young lady," Duo warned as they waited in line.
Helen wrinkled up her nose but nodded in acceptance. If that was what it took to get her cotton candy, then she'd do it. At least she was finally getting to do *something* that she wanted to. Uncle Duo wouldn't even let her go in the maze with her friends; he'd made her go through it with him and Mr. Yuy, and that wasn't *nearly* as much fun. He'd even made her use the porta-potty while he waited outside the door, instead of letting her go in the park washroom all by herself.
The line moved slowly ahead, and it was finally their turn. "One multi-coloured, please," Duo requested. "And one blue." 'What the heck,' he decided. 'The funfair only happens once a year, and eating cotton candy's just part of the experience.' Besides, maybe Heero would share it with him.
"Here you go, sir," the vendor said, holding out Helen's treat.
Duo released her hand in order to take it and pass it to her. While the vendor was busy making his cone, he pulled out his wallet so that he would have the payment ready when his own cone was handed over. Money and the candy changed hands, and Duo turned away from the cart. "Okay," he began, looking down to see if Helen had managed to get all sticky yet.
She wasn't there.
'Just take it easy,' Duo told himself, firmly reining in his immediate panicked reaction. 'She was here just a minute ago; she can't have gotten far. Calm down and take a good look around.' But as minutes of fruitless looking and calling passed, the panic grew. Finally, he decided to go back and get Heero and Hilde. Three could comb the grounds more quickly than one. 'Besides, maybe she went back there,' he thought, hoping desperately.
***
After Uncle Duo handed her cotton candy to her, Helen moved a few steps away from the vendor's cart, so that she could see past the line-up behind them. Watching the crowd move by, she caught a brief glimpse of a brightly flowered shirt. 'Coach Howie!' Wanting to say hi, she darted off in pursuit of that familiar shirt. "Coach Howie!" she shouted as she lost sight of him in the crowd, but she could barely even hear *herself* over the noise of the midway, so she wasn't really surprised when he didn't come back. Halting abruptly, she started to turn to go back to her uncle, but the person behind her didn't stop quite so quickly and ran into her.
Helen tried to catch her balance, but she dropped her cotton candy, and when she tried to catch it before it hit the ground, she stumbled and fell hard. Afraid of being stepped on, she scrambled back to her feet as fast as she could. Knees aching, hands scraped and stinging, she sniffled and tried not to cry. 'I want Uncle Duo!' Struggling through the crowd, she headed back to where she thought she'd came from, only to discover that she'd gotten turned around when she fell, and now she didn't know *where* she was. Jostled along by the flow of foot traffic, she managed to find a narrow gap between two midway booths, and slipped into its welcoming stillness for a few minutes.
She'd lost her cotton candy, and *she* was lost, and her hands and knees hurt, and Uncle Duo was going to be mad 'cause she was supposed to stay close, and... Helen sniffled and curled up on the ground behind an overflowing garbage bin. "...and I want my mommy!" she whimpered as the tears started to roll down her cheeks.
***
Heero watched Duo and Helen walk off through the ever-increasing crowd. 'He's giving me a chance, *really* giving me a chance. He hesitated, but he still decided to trust me...'
"Earth to Yuy, come in, Yuy."
A hand waved in front of Heero's face, blocking his view just long enough for the crowd to swallow up those he was watching. Turning back towards Hilde, he gave her an annoyed glare. It didn't wilt her amused expression in the slightest.
"Oh man, have you got it bad," she chuckled, shaking her head.
"Keep your mind on the case, and out of my personal life," Heero growled irritably. Things between him and Duo were much too fragile at the moment for him to put up with teasing, no matter how good-natured.
Unfazed, Hilde just laughed and gave him a commiserating thump on the shoulder. "Ah, but your personal life *is* part of the case," she reminded him with a smug grin.
Unable to deny it, he scowled and changed the subject. "Where's Khushrenada now?"
Instantly sobering, she told him, "According to the flight plan filed by his pilot, he should have landed at the airport here in Astoria an hour or so ago."
"He's *here*?!" Heero hissed in disbelief. "And you just let me send Duo and Helen off on their own?!"
Hilde rolled her eyes. "Relax, Yuy. Chief Gee was assigning someone to tail him; he won't get a chance to try anything. Besides, he doesn't even know who Maxwell is or what the kid looks like, remember? Let alone where to look for them."
"I think *you* need to remember that this is Khushrenada we're dealing with," Heero snapped, eyes scanning the crowd in search of Duo and his niece. "Anything is possible."
Huffing in exasperation, she responded, "Yuy, I think you've been chasing this guy a little too long. He's not some sort of superman."
"No, he's just as wily as a fox, and slippery as an eel," Heero retorted sharply. "Not to mention having the killer instincts of a piranha and the social conscience to match."
Just then, he spotted Duo coming towards them, very clearly distraught - and very clearly alone.
***
Helen didn't know how long she sat on the ground and cried. Long enough that her hands had mostly stopped bleeding, and her nose was running and her eyes were itchy, but not long enough for Uncle Duo to find her. 'I wanna go *home*...' Well, if Uncle Duo couldn't find her, she'd just have to find him. Still sniffling, she wiped her face on her shirt, got back to her feet, and started to walk again.
Suddenly, someone blocked her path. "Well now, I do believe that this is the young lady we're looking for."
She looked up. And up. The man in front of her was even taller than Uncle Duo.
"What's the matter? Don't you remember me?" he asked.
Helen frowned at him. "No. And I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers." She tried to step around the tall man, but someone else was in the way.
"But I'm not a stranger," the tall man said very seriously as he bent and picked her up.
#################################################
And now, I'm off to bed since there's a horse show tomorrow, which means an early morning and a long, tiring day...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-01 09:54 pm (UTC)ummm .. when do you plan to update again?
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:45 pm (UTC)*grins*
As for the next update to KH - well, I'm hoping it'll be sooner rather than later, but I'm not going to make any guarantees. A couple of minor plot adjustments were what got things moving again, so hopefully that means that I'll be able to keep going now. *crosses fingers*
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:07 am (UTC)Good part; Helen is a perfectly believable little kid... not a bad kid, not a perfect kid. I think you've struck a very good balance with her. *nod nod*
And Duo; man... I really feel for him in that moment of looking down and having the kid not be where you left them. And yes, they can wander off just that damn fast. >_>
His need to trust Heero is just so... gah! heartwrenching! But his hesitation is so understandable.
Hey... you wanna borrow my foxhole? Cause you're gonna get some serious poking over that ending... :D
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:04 pm (UTC)Helen - I've really been trying to keep her as a realistic little kid. I'm glad that she is coming across that way.
Kids wandering off - oh yeah, it can happen very damn fast. Witnessed a case in point at the horse show today.
We were driving our draft team (horses alone weigh about 2000 lbs between the two of them; add in the wagon and two adults and you're looking at 2500+) up towards the show ring. One of the team is only two, and very green (inexperienced), and both horses were pretty wired today, meaning that they had basically two gaits - trot, and prance - and "whoa" tended to require considerable insistence and have rather delayed results. Not that 2500+ lbs exactly stops on a dime at the best of times.
Anyway, there was a woman with two kids standing and talking to another horse owner over to the side and just ahead of us. One second, she's got a kid on each side of her, a second later, the boy (five or six, maybe?) is way the heck out in front of our team. Guh. Talk about heart attack time. I hollered, his mom looked up and yelled... Least the kid didn't freeze when mom yelled and he looked up to see these two great big horses coming at him; he got the heck out of the way on his own, but I think I've got a few more grey hairs, and I think his mom about had a heart attack.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:27 am (UTC)EEEEEEE! Cliffhangerifficness! So lovely. I hope you ARE getting a productivity high from all the cliff jumping you're indulging in. I'll just be lining up in the back with my parachute, ready to jump the next one, and the next one...
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 07:52 am (UTC)Have a good time at the show!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:12 pm (UTC)Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! I am so glad to finally get this story moving again.
Have a good time at the show!
Other than a few grey-hair inducing moments (see above reply to Sunhawk's comment for one example *sweatdrops*), it really was a good show. The two-year-old got Junior Reserve Grand Champion in halter, and we ended up with a total of 2 firsts, one third, four fourths, and one fifth for the day. Of course, now we get to spend most of tomorrow cleaning harness before putting it away... :P
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 08:02 pm (UTC)great job, as always
no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-03 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 11:16 am (UTC)Well, even those who have seen the movie should be in suspense at this point. This is where all of those little changes to the storyline have really added up, and all bets are off.
Hopefully, the next chapter won't take too long to get finished, now that this story's finally decided to cooperate again.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 11:18 am (UTC)