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Slice of Life	By : Starla_Q Category: Gundam Wing/AC > General Views: 1313 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of it's characters. I do not make any money off of this story, adultfanfiction does not make any money off of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
I've been hint dropping since chapter 6, so this is going to be a neat little hook.

Thoughts to make you think...

I've coined a phrase when I was dealing with my depression: "You don't know how sick you are until you're better." It's followed me for many years.

There's this thing called 'locus of control', you'll hear it a lot if you take any psych course. What it means is 'how you feel about your ability to control the outcome of the world around you', that is your locus(it's not an insect, lol).

When you have an 'internal locus of control', you are aware of your abilities and faults, and can cope with the stresses in your life in an effective manner(ex. I failed that test because I didn't study enough, time to try a different strategy). An 'external locus of control' is when you feel helpless because outside forces are inflicting upon your well being and you have no control(ex. This test is too hard, no one's meant to pass it except for geniuses! *gives up/world ends*).

Awareness of where your locus of control resides, can give you great personal insight. This insight can help you get what you want out of life. I make it sound so simple, don't I? It's not that easy, especially if you don't know if there's anything wrong.

What if you're unaware of the 'locus of control' you're able to harness? How long do you suffer in silence? How long before you realize you need help? Who do you ask for help when the time comes? How long before you realize which form of control you have, internal or external?

What if, what you thought was external, was really internal? Or vice-versa?

Have...any of you asked yourself these questions? o_o I do all the time, which is why I write.

We be rollin...

Chapter 12: My Locus

Monday was a bust. Quatre dropped his bag off at the front door and the strap brushed against a raw knuckle, he cringed. After school, to get his mind away from the day, he stopped off at the photo development shop to get the pictures he and Naibun took on Sunday's outing. He wanted to show her the shots they took, but when he got home she was nowhere to be found. "Is she off today?" he asked another housekeeper.

"She's on. I think she's in the cellar," she said and continued on.

A brief search ensued. He passed by the den and saw her outside, clapping cushions together over the second story balcony. Quatre decided it was best to leave her to the chores, she 'was' at work after all.

Before leaving the doorway, he saw a brisk wind blow some dust back at her, making her cough. His heart skipped a beat. For some reason, his body was telling him that something was really wrong; normally he wouldn't panic so easily. 'Is she okay?' he asked himself as he watched her catch her breath. She had to be in some sort of danger, each time she coughed the fear spread. He went outside to talk to her, "Are you alright?"

"Qua-" she coughed, "-tra. Hang-" cough, "-on. Be right with you," she said and tried to clear her throat. When she finally got her barrings, she saw Quatre crumpled in one of the bistro chairs. He too was trying to catch a breath. "What's wrong?"

He was trying to steady his breathing; it was the same kind of panic he felt on the bus the day he went out, and when he was in the fight earlier. "I thought you were in danger, or 'I thought' I thought you were in danger-" he said as he raised a shaky hand to his face, covering his eyes; he wasn't making sense, even to himself.*

"It was dust in the air, I'm okay," she assure him. It did no good, he still couldn't calm down. "Did you want me to call for somebody?"

He waved a hand at her, "I'll be alright."

"If you're sure," she said. Naibun coughed lightly into her hand so she could continue the rest of the conversation, but it caused another pang of fear to spread over Quatre. She witnessed his whole body tense up. "I'm not helping much, am I? Do you want me to leave?" Naibun could tell her coughing fit had upset him somehow.

"Would you mind? I'm sorry to be so rude," he said.

"Think nothing of it," she pointed to the door that led back into the den, "I'll wait right there for you."

Cooling down was easier when she wasn't around. His heart slowed and returned to it's normal state. He liked Naibun, but not enough to fly into a panic attack over her. Quatre never had a girlfriend before, could this be a result of the crush he was developing for her? "Even still..." he said and paused; all things considered, it was a strange occurrence however he looked at it. He went back inside.

"How are you now?" she asked in a quiet voice, sure not to tickle her throat again.

"I'm good," he held a hand over his chest, "Today took a lot out of me, I guess." Earlier that day was when he got into a physical altercation; it was the first time in a while he had raised his fists in anger. The last time he took a shot at anyone, it was from behind the helm of Sandrock. This was probably his nerves settling.

"Did you have a hard day?" she was hoping it was 'test anxiety' making him sensitive, and not her.

"You could say that," he said. After a quick run down of what happened, he explained why he was at the neighbouring school 'kicking ass'. He didn't word it as harsh, "We tried to get them to come clean in a civil manner, but they refused." A brief flash of his hand revealed a couple of skinned knuckles. The one on the end was rather red from being brushed with the book bag strap.

"I never took you to be a fighter," she said and took his hand to get a better look. She noticed the beginnings of a bruise.

Quatre agreed, "I'm not," he said, blushing from the hand to hand contact. "Normally, I dislike violence, but I knew Heero's fists would have fallen with much more force than mine did." He said that because Heero was the one being targeted, therefore, making it personal. Simply remembering the encounter at the other school caused another panic attack to rear it's ugly head.

Naibun saw this and let his hand go, figuring she caused it from her touch. "Heero? The boy who was here on the weekend?" she tried to change the topic.

"Yes," he said, keeping the swell of his pulse under wraps with some slow breathing.

"How was everyone the morning your friends stayed over?" She had left early that day, so she didn't get a chance to ask how they were feeling.

"Oh, just fine; apart from today's disturbance." He was calming down again. When he finally did come down all the way, he showed off the pictures they took together. They were so crisp, even for a cell phone camera. Naibun wanted to send them to her family overseas. Quatre gave her the disk with the picture copies and trotted off to his room for the night.

If he'd have stayed home Tuesday, everything would have been fine. But he had to get up, as he did every other day, and went to school.

Quatre would wake up at six. Eat breakfast. Brush teeth. Get dressed. Wait for the chauffeur to finish his morning cigarette. Ride with said driver to the side door of the school. It had to be the side door, it was the farthest from his locker. Sitting in class all day was draining, and getting dropped off where he did, it allowed him to get some morning exercise. He'd walk to the other end of the building, swap shoes, as was the local custom, and locate his friends. Each day; every day. Clockwork.

Unlike Heero who was graced with bad news the moment he arrived, Quatre didn't catch wind until noon; ruining an otherwise perfect day. There was another book created, this time it was Quatre and another pupil at the school who had been targeted.

To to misfortune of the poor student caught carrying the only copy, the original, Quatre wasted no time taking it from him, post haste. He was forced to be fierce to get to it too. Two days in a row, violence, he wasn't pleased. His knuckles hadn't even healed from yesterday. His mind didn't care, it had a goal, and Quatre was going to go out of the way to make his mind's way known.

This time there was no panic, it was pure rage. After washing his hands, Quatre grabbed him. "Where did you get this?" he bellowed at the smaller student, a full octave lower than he normally spoke with. Quatre had him pinned against a now dented bathroom stall by his neck, no feet on the floor anymore. It was only by chance he got caught too; Quatre walked in on the guy making a call, talking to the creator of the comic on his cell in the stall.

The guy was being over-dramatic, "I'll die before I say anything!" He pulled at the hand holding him fast, knowing not how serious a hand it was.

Quatre's free fist found it's way to the face of the boy declining his request, "Don't try me!" He left marks on the other student's neck, blisters of bright red skin bulged out from between his finger spaces. The arms that once tried to pull Quatre's hand away, fell limp and lifeless at his sides.

Heero intervened, "Quatre," and loosened his friend's grip using a moderate amount of force. The other guy hit the floor and began breathing again, gasping to do so. "You don't need to get expelled," he said and passed him the hand drawn comic off the counter. Heero swiped the guy's phone and took the number he had just been speaking to.

He took the book in hand and looked at the crumpled mass in front of him, on the floor, begging for more oxygen. A swift kick to the rib cage and Quatre's anger was curbed. "You best pass the message along. No more of this," he flipped the comic in the air, waving it at the guy on his way out of the rest room.

Heero and Duo were both there the whole time, but Duo remained flat against the back wall, wide eyed and in silent shock. There were only a handful of times he got a glimpse of Quatre's temper, each one more horrifying than the last. This time it was only a few meters away. "Maybe it's because we don't get to see it that often, but dammit Quatre, you're temper is scary."

When Quatre heard this, as if it were a reflex, his fist swung again, fast. It landed on the last locker of the hallway they were in, dead center of the aluminum door. He hit it so hard it bent, buckled off it's hinges, swung open and fell off, hitting the floor with several metallic 'clangs'. The noise echoed down the desolate corridor. "I'm going to the roof." And it was where he planned to stay for the rest of the day. He propped the door with a broom handle and took up refuge in a shady spot, hopefully cooling his head off so didn't have to rip anyone's head off.

His forehead rested on his knees as he calmed down.

With morbid curiosity, he laid the book on the ground and opened it, to see what kind of destruction it was attempting to wrought. Who had they paired him off with? "Of course," he said, seeing Naibun's name on the first page. She looked different. Quatre couldn't help but notice Naibun's proportions were 'off'. Way off. She was far curvier in the book than in real life. He didn't bother to go past the first few pages, it pissed him off too much.

Quatre let his blood pressure return to normal and managed to make it to his final class of the day. The class was shared with Duo, who did his best to assure him that no copies had surfaced. "I wonder if I'll get one of me?" he said with glee as the day ended.

"I'm glad you find it amusing," Quatre sighed, "I'm worried."

"Don't be," Duo brushed it off.

"Why not? Someone's following me-no, us; Heero too. Doesn't that bother you?" He was really put off by the whole thing. It had a certain level of creep to it, reserved only for bad harlequin novels.

"No way," Duo brushed it off.

"...you can change your name and move, right?" Quatre guessed as to why he was so lax about it; being a hacker gave you certain advantages in the modern world.

"Nope. I'd copyright myself and sue them. There's more money in it that way."

"Come again?" He gave him a sideways glance.

"I'd get a patent on my image, geez," he exaggerated, snickering.

"You didn't invent the 'braid-look', Duo," he laughed with him. They shook off the earlier shake down and turned their attention to the new book. "See, the art keeps changing." He showed off some of the less explicit pages.

"Woah," Duo exclaimed and ripped the book from his hand. "Holy hell..." he was awestruck at the bust size the artist decided to go with.

Quatre snatched the book back, "Cut that out, it's a drawing," he enclosed the comic in one of his text books, keeping it safe and flat. "Like the first one, the truth is embellished somewhat."

"I wonder if it is..." he placed his thumb and index finger along his jaw line to think.

"You've seen her, Bunni isn't that...voluptuous." He tried to get that image from his head.

"Bunny?"

"Naibun, I mean," he accidentally called her by her nic name.

Duo picked up on the error and smirked, pleased his friend was showing interest in this new girl they hired. "Who knows how many curves that girl has, she's got a corset on all the time."

"That's for medical reasons," he defended her.

"And with jugs like this," he held up the page in question, "I bet it's scoliosis," a condition that gave one an irregular curvature of the spine, like an 's'.

Quatre checked his text book and noticed the comic was missing. He grabbed the thinly bound, thirty page, monstrosity from Duo's dangling hand. "How did you get that?" He put it back.

"I know a way we can find out the truth about 'the bust'," he said with cunning.

"Whatever it is, I'm not interested," Quatre replied, sounding fatigued, and continued on past the school gates. He knew full well this plan was going to involve them sneaking in somewhere, and he wasn't up for creating more drama for himself.

"Why not? There's a swim meet tomorrow, she's on the team. Are you telling me you have a problem with swimming? If so, we're going to have some 'words' my friend," he was kidding.

Quatre shook his head, "Not...what I thought you had in mind."

"What-oh, you thought I was going to get you to sneak into the locker room to watch her change?" He made his friend turn red, "Nah, it hasn't gotten to that point yet. I can put that offer on the table though," he said, now aware of all the security flaws the school had. He could set a timer to diffuse the locks, if he wanted.

"On the table?"

"If you want to." He smirked.

"...no."

"You hesitated," Duo called him on it.

"I didn't," his tone of voice wasn't convincing.

"If we got in there," he said and held up the comic a second time, "We could hold a betting pool, to see how many people guess the correct number of sizes they put her up. There's money in this. What do you say?"

"Give that back!" he yelled and proceeded to chase Duo to the parking lot. He laid a few punches on him, fair warning given beforehand, and took the book back saying, "Touch it again, I knock you out."

"You hit like a truck," Duo said as he got up and brushed himself off, not being able to stifle his laughter any, bruised or not. "So...swim team tomorrow?"

"Yes," he said and tucked the offensive material in the middle of his large text book.

"That's what I'm talkin' about," he said with pride; there was no hesitation in Quatre that time. On the drive home they talked more about the nasty artist who was going to great lengths to make waves. "I got it," Duo's brilliant idea, "Maybe it's a conspiracy against us and not Relena, like we originally thought."

Quatre sat across from Duo in his stretch limousine; it allowed for lots of leg room. "Because of our past?" he said.

"Exactly! They're bitter about all the stuff we did with our gundams, now they're trying to shame us into hiding, out of spite." He was quite proud of himself for that breakdown.

"Maybe it's because you're past is riskay and you guys are attractive," came a female voice from the front seat. The driver window lowered completely. "Did that ever occur to you?" It was Missy, the bartender from the banquette.

It took a few seconds to register, but Duo pointed an accusing finger at the girl, "Judas!"

She held a hand up off the steering wheel to calm him, "I know, I know; I'm sorry."

"When did you start working for us?" Quatre was referring to his family's company. He also took note her lack of uniform; even their drivers had uniforms, Missy did not.

"I thought you were a bartender?" Duo said; he was sour, arms folded, unimpressed with the half-assed apology he received.

She looked to be caught off guard by the question, "I'm covering for Jeff; I do a little bit of everything. My point though: I saw you two at my sister's school yesterday." She could see Duo's narrowed blue eyes bitterly glaring at her.

"We were there on business," the less annoyed one said, trying not to give too much away.

"I heard the whole story from sis-and you two were talking kind of loud a second ago-did you find the artist?" she asked quickly.

"No," Quatre was going to continue, but hesitated; he didn't feel like talking about the book any more.

"Hmm," she saw this, "Is something else wrong?"

"Yes," Duo cut them off, "You owe me, dammit!" First Relena bailed on him, which he wasn't letting go of and now this one was doing the same thing.

She rolled her eyes, warmly smiling, "I'll mix you a 'for real-real' drink when we get to the house," she looked in the rear view mirror to see a response, "If I'm permitted inside."

"Well, yeah but...you know, we aren't really old enough," Quatre admitted. Duo shushed him with a low hiss.

"Pff," she chuckled lightly, "As if that's stopped anyone before," she chuckled louder, "Heh, not even a little."

"Fine." Duo was the one who permitted her entrance. "You have to wear the uniform...with the corset!" His folded arms remained as such. He wasn't going to unfold them until he was sure this 'Missy' was going to keep good on her word.

"Deal. But, to backtrack some," her eyes locked with Quatre, "I think I have some information you may need; about a certain comic."

Duo's arms were now uncrossed and he was holding up the offending booklet through the driver's window, "You mean this?" He then got punched in the face and lost the pilfered comic.

It happened so quickly, Missy went wide eyed. "Yes, that one a-and the other one too." she said, wondering if her second passenger was conscious, she couldn't see him anymore. Missy owed him a drink, but figured an icepack would be the better choice now.

Thoughts to make you think...

Did any of you notice the shift in language when Quatre was freaking out? XP

When I said the line "After washing his hands, Quatre grabbed him." What did I mean?

Did Quatre wash his hands before he attacked the guy? Or did I mean, Quatre waited until the other guy finished washing his hands before he grabbed him? (I'll let you know on my next update :P)
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