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At Least Heero Got the Driver's Seat . . .
Sorta
A Weird Fluffish Gundam Wing Short Fic by
Ami-chan
Five sets of eyes glared at each other with steely determination over the roof of the tiny vehicle. Fingers twitched, battle reflexes were ready and keening, and adrenaline coursed through heated veins. The match of wills continued on, each participant oblivious to anything outside of his immediate threats.
Finally, one person spoke. Just two single, solitary, almost innocuous words.
"Driver. Call?"
They set off an explosion.
Mere nanoseconds after Heero staked out his claim, four cries of "Shotgun!" rang out into the morning air. Immediately the other pilots resumed glaring at each other.
After another few intense minutes, Wufei growled ominously, "I said it first."
"As if!" Duo snorted. "Dammit, Wu, you always get shotgun!"
"No I don't!" the Chinese pilot protested tersely. "What about that drive to Osaka?"
Duo opened his mouth to retort, stopped, paused to think about it, then gave Trowa a Look. "Okay, you and Trowa always get shotgun. Happy?"
"Quite." It was a wonder that there wasn't solidified sarcasm dripping to the floor.
While all of the Gundam pilots had their own reasons for sitting in the front, the basic logic went something like this.
Duo didn't want to be crammed in the tiny back seat with two of his fellow pilots for a good six straight hours. As well as he liked Quatre and Trowa and even considering the amusement factor inherent in teasing Wufei in close confines, even he could get tired of it pretty fast.
Quatre—as much as he wanted to be next to Trowa—didn't want to be crammed next to the aforementioned overly hyperactive Deathscythe pilot for said six hours. Same went for Trowa.
Double for Wufei. And if Duo did get shotgun, he'd also have the problem with staving off a nosebleed or something along those lines if the other two pilots got overly amorous, as they were wont to do.
So there was the problem. Solutions seemed to be rare right now.
"Why don't we put Duo in the front?" Heero asked calmly. Out of all of them, the Japanese boy was currently the most levelheaded. This was in no small part due to the fact that his own seat was secure. And damned if he'd give it up, too.
Wufei gave him a look of disgust, as Trowa pointed out, "Heero, if Duo gets shotgun, he has control of the radio." No other words were necessary as Heero suddenly paled. They had gotten multiple complaints about Duo and his stereo system in just about every school they'd attended. And while Heero had become somewhat immune to it, the others had definitely not.
"Hey!" Duo yelled. "No fair, Trowa!" The Heavyarms pilot just regarded him impassively as if to say, So?
Heero tapped the volume switch suggestively. Duo rolled his eyes.
"No, Heero, you can't break it off," Quatre said firmly. "We should leave the guy's car in one piece, you know. It's the least we can do."
Heero shrugged and pulled his hand away. Quatre beamed at him.
Trowa checked the clock in the dashboard. "We were supposed to have set out about half an hour ago, you guys."
Heero heaved a sigh of impatience. Duo looked annoyed. Wufei rolled his eyes.
"Well, maybe if Duo was the driver . . .?" Quatre suggested, then 'eep'ed weakly as even Trowa glared at him.
Wufei voiced it for all of them. "Quatre, do you have a death wish? Because letting Him drive will get you a serious case of it—fast."
"Hey!" Duo protested again. "Come on, what is this? Pick on Death-boy day?"
Quatre looked like he was going to come to his friend's defense as well, but the flesh-freezing glare that Heero leveled in his direction basically settled that. No way was the Wing pilot going to relinquish his position.
"Dammit, this isn't getting us anywhere," Duo grumbled. "We're supposed to be in New York by, what, 10? At this rate we're going to be lucky if we get there by tomorrow."
"And whose fault is it mainly?" Wufei retorted.
"How is it my fault?!"
"Well, if you weren't such a—a—"
"Oh, stop it!" A pale hand was interspersed between the two teens, who had literally come nose to nose during the last exchange. Quatre smiled weakly. "That's better."
A tense silence descended upon the group, as Heero snorted in disgust and Duo steamed. Then, a pair of eyes caught the ones closest to them. With a sadistic grin, Wufei indicated what he wanted to do with a jerk of his head.
Quatre appeared horrified, but stilled his protests as Trowa laid a hand on his shoulder. He and the last conspirator looked resigned.
And on a silent signal, they converged on the last pilot like a pack of wolves going for the kill. Not too far from the truth, really.
========
Six hours later, the car pulled into the parking lot of a seedy roadside motel. As soon as the gears ground to rest, the doors erupted, disgorging three of the four occupants, strain clearly evident on their faces.
"Never doing that again, never doing that again," Trowa could be heard chanting under his breath as he shook out his legs. With his taller frame, aches tended to accumulate very fast in the knees when they were as cramped as they had been. Plus with all the bags that had been crammed into the space between the coveted front seat and his legs . . . at least in his Gundam he had room to stretch out.
"Who's the idiot that decided to take this car for the trip?" bellowed a highly aggravated Wufei. Trowa shot him a nasty look as Quatre came perilously close to collapse. The taller pilot propped his lover upright, as the Arabian too stretched sore muscles out, accompanied by pops of tendon and bone.
The answer was drowned out by the resumed cacophony from the trunk. The impacts, through muted, nonetheless rocked the whole back half of the car. Angry, muffled yelling erupted from the securely locked compartment.
Wufei actually sweatdropped. "Do you think he got loose?"
Quatre frowned thoughtfully. "He's a master escape artist, I'll give him that, but he didn't try to open the trunk . . ."
"That's because doing so on the highway would be suicide," Trowa observed. "Even a Gundam pilot wouldn't survive an impact at 70 kilometers per hour."
"Besides," Wufei put in, "he's not out now, and he has to know that we've stopped.
With a small groan, the last of the four slowly eased out of the car, rubbing his temples. Driving with that racket for six hours had given him, as accustomed as he was to loud ground-pounding music, one hell of a headache. He threw a nasty look at the rattling car, tossed the keys to the others, then grabbed his bag and stalked into the motel.
Trowa winced. "It's not going to be pleasant once those two settle in for the night."
"If they do at all," Wufei muttered. Peering at the keys under the flickering street light, he finally picked out the right one and unlocked the trunk.
All three boys involuntarily took a step back at the sparking glare that met them. After a quick exchange of glances—I'm not untying him!—Quatre swallowed, then reached out to brush the long bangs out of the other's face. Trowa hovered over him protectively, one hand resting "unconsciously" near his gun.
The Arabian pilot started, "We're really sorry—" Wufei snorted. Trowa elbowed him "—but we had to, or we'd never have gotten on the road."
The slender blonde removed the handkerchief that had served as a makeshift gag, taking care not to let his hands get in the way of those sharp teeth; with the state the poor boy was in, Quatre wouldn't put it past him to temporarily resort to cannibalism. He would have been justified, too.
Sporting a large bump on his head, as well as assorted bruises gathered from bouncing around in a car trunk for 360-odd miles, Heero spat a couple of times to get rid of the remaining lint in his mouth, then growled, "Omae o korosu!"
~owari~
Notes: *snickering* This one stemmed from a trip down memory lane. See, the Youth Group leader our group had awhile ago owned this rather small car, and we took a lot of trips together—places like the bowling alley and stuff. It was like, a maximum four-seater car, not including the driver, and we always had five or more passengers. Which led to the weekly races for shotgun. Which led to this. ^^;;
Oh yeah: Duo was the driver, Wufei had shotgun, Trowa and Quatre were in the backseat (and no, they were not making out. *sticks her tongue out at a certain pigtailed pilot*), and poor Heero was taking the place of the luggage in the VERY back. ^_^ Which should help explain the condition of Trowa's legs.