by Hex
Disclaimer: Don't own it. I just like to borrow the characters, throw them in different situations and see what happens.
Warnings: Minor Heero abuse, minor Duo and Quatre trauma. Sever damage to a Cherry Red Diamond (you'll understand a paragraph in, no worries).
Credits: Teddy Bear was inspired by the picture "Bribing Kisses" by Fablespinner.
And everyone on GWFF and Love TQ that liked Teddy Bear enough to give me feedback and ask for sequals/sidefics^_^
"Heero, you run 'cause you're the fastest. I'll run behind and hold it and try to throw it up." Duo said holding the "it" in his hands; a cherry red, diamond shaped kite. It had been Duo's present from his Auntie Collette on his ninth birthday. The gregarious boy's braid swung in the afternoon wind. Duo had brought two other presents with him, a black Cobra's [1] T-shirt and a pair of black high top [2] runners. His outfit was finished by a pair of black sweat pants. Today, the dirt smudge was on his forehead [3]. "Quatre, you can fly it first."
"But it's your present Duo. You should fly it first." Quatre said, looking at his friend as he jabbed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. The blonde made an annoyed noise and brushed his bangs from his eyes. The collar of the blonde's blue and red stripped shirt ruffled in the wind. The shirt was tucked into a pair of elastic waist blue jeans with rolled up cuffs [4].
"But you're not getting to do anything fun." Duo protested.
"He'll feel bad if he flies it before you, so you fly it first." Heero said unwinding some string from the spool he had in his hands giving a little slack in between Duo and himself. He made sure to tuck his green tank top into his black bicycle shorts [5] before they began.
"OK. But Quatre flies it after me, then you fly it next, Kay?" Duo said. The other two nodded their heads in agreement.
Once this consensus was made they began running the length of the rather large Winner backyard trying to catch the right wind until finally, the kite took to the air. Quatre and Duo whooped with joy as the cherry red diamond floated and shifted happily among the clouds. Heero gave a small upward curve of lips to Duo as he handed over the spool of string. Duo took it and gave the kite a little slack letting it wander as it wished in the wind. The three children had strayed to the end of the yard where the forbidden forest was covered in fresh budding leaves and young insects of spring.
"Careful Duo it'll get caught in the tree!" Quatre cried as the kite swung precariously close to the branch of a tree.
"Let's try to move over there." Duo said pointing towards a more open area of the Winner property. Just as those words left the boy's lips a loop of string slipped off the spool, that coupled with a fresh gust of wind made the kite loop de loop and wrap itself around the bough of a particularly gnarled Dutch Elm tree. The tree itself was black and twisted, jutting out of the earth like a dark, toughened, skeletal hand. No leaves, or even buds, decorated it. It was dead against the bright flush of green life that was the rest of the Forbidden Forest. The littlest of the twigs snagged the kite like claws and started to dig into the plasticy material.
"AUGH!" Duo wailed and gave a tug on the string.
"Don't pull on it Duo!" Heero said sharply. "We don't wanna wreck it."
"I think it's stuck good." Duo whimpered as the wind rustle the old creaky branches, his kite a helpless hostage to the wind and the tree's limbs.
"I'll go get my Dad and Papa Rashid. They can get it down." Quatre declared and took off towards the house.
Duo couldn't repress his sniffling. They had tried to be careful. He hadn't meant for the kite to come loose and get caught in the tree. Now that mean old tree was eating his kite [6]. It was going to be wrecked! Duo scrubbed at his eyes with his forearm. It was then he noticed that Heero was at the tree and had already made it up two of the branches. Once Heero was at level with the limb the kite was trapped on he laid flat on top of it. The bough swayed slightly in the wind as Heero slowly slithered his way towards the kite. Heero reached out and as his fingertips were only inches from the kite when there was a loud crack. Heero's eyes grew wide and he wrapped his arms around the branch as it gave way. Everything went very slowly for Duo as Heero fell landing first on his face with a strangely muffled thump, the rest of his body followed after. Duo could only stare in shock at Heero's prone form. Heero's face and knees were in the dirt, his arms stretched out on either side of his head and his backside was up in the air.
"Heero!" Duo shrieked and dove down to the felled boy's side. "Are you OK?"
The response Duo got was a whimper. Heero slowly pushed himself off of the ground and Duo blanched. Blood was pooling down from the Japanese boy's nose. Heero sniffled and wiped at his nose. The short-haired boy stared at his blood covered hand for a moment and wiped at his nose again. Noticing more blood he whimpered again. Without hesitating a moment longer, Duo stood up and dragged Heero with him. The braided boy turned his back on Heero and pulling dirty scraped arms over his shoulder crouched slightly to let Heero jump onto his back. The Japanese boy only contemplated this for a moment before getting onto his friend's back. He rested his head on Duo's shoulder as the violet-eyed boy hooked his arms around his thighs trying to avoid touching scraped and bleeding knees.
Duo walked as fast as he could, trying to clear the great expanse that was the Winner backyard. He tried to concentrate on not stumbling as he moved as quickly as his short legs would take him considering the burden he was carrying. The braided boy looked up just in time to see Quatre emerge from the house gesturing with enthusiasm to Rashid.
"PAPA RASHID!! HEERO FELL!!" Duo screamed as loud as he could. The Goliath of a man was there and taking Heero from him in the space of time it took Duo to blink. Rashid cradled Heero gently to his chest as the injured boy made a muffled protest and tried to push him away. Rashid took the steps leading to the deck three at a time and dashed into the house. Duo scrambled to follow in his wake. Quatre had dashed into the house first and bounced anxiously from foot to foot as Rashid set Heero down on a chair at the kitchen table.
"HAREEM! GET DOWN HERE!" Rashid bellowed. The three boys winced. Rashid naturally had a booming voice that seemed to carry and echo everywhere. When the big man yelled it almost made the roof shake. "Quatre grab some Kleenex for me will you?"
The blonde boy grabbed up the box of the white tissue and handed it to Rashid. The big man got Heero to tilt his head back and stuff some Kleenex up his nostrils to slow the blood down. Heero's left cheek was scraped as were his knees. His nose would most likely be sore but it didn't appear to be broken. There were scratches down his arms and a few small ones on his hands where he had lost his grip on the tree branch.
"What happened?" Hareem demanded of Rashid as he walked through the doorway and took in all of Heero's injuries.
"Quatre came to get me because the boys got the kite stuck in a tree and when we came outside Duo was piggy backing Heero and told us Heero had fallen." Rashid replied. The answer was obvious as the adults exchanged looks. Heero had gone up the tree to get the kite. Hareem left the room for a few minutes and returned with a face cloth, in-between him and Rashid the cleaned up and bandaged the injured boy.
"There we are. Now Heero, I want to know why you climbed the tree when Quatre had already gone to get Rashid." Hareem said softly, handing Heero fresh Kleenex for his nose. The bleeding had practically stopped by this point.
"It was Duo's present. He just got it! And the tree was wrecking it and......" Heero said and looked down to his feet dangling above the ground. He stuck his big toe out of the hole in his blue sneakers. "And Duo was crying."
"You're my best friend in the whole world!" Duo cried and flung his arms around Heero's neck. Heero returned the hug gingerly and wiggled his nose as Duo pulled away.
"My nose still hurts." Heero said matter of factly.
"Duo did you hurt yourself too?" Hareem asked, examining the blood smudge that was now on Heero's cheek.
"No." Duo replied, looking confused.
"But he did piggy back Heero." Rashid said. "It's all right Duo you'll just have to borrow a shirt from Quatre for now and we'll wash this one out. How about this, since the kite is already wrecked, I'll take you boys to the store and we'll buy a new one. Hareem you wash Duo's shirt and call Eileen."
The three boys cheered. Quatre scrambled up the stairs to his room and returned a moment later with a navy blue T-shirt for Duo. Once Heero was clean again, his nose had stopped bleeding and Duo was changed, the three boys left the house hand in hand following Rashid to the car. Hareem watched them pile into the car and drive off. Hareem closed his eyes and groaned. How in the hell was he going to tell Eileen about this?
[1] The Cobra's, as in the bad guys from GI Joe^_^
[2] Yes I do remember when High Tops were cool!^_^
[3] In Teddy Bear a made a comment about how as a child Duo constantly had a dirt smudge somewhere on his face. I had to be consistent you know^_^
[4] Uber geek Quatre strikes again. I'm having waaaay to much fun with this.
[5] I had to. I just had to.
[6] As I started writing this fic all I could think about was Charlie Brown and how trees would literally eat his kites. I'm a nerd what can I say.
**Special note. In this Fic Heero took on the role of K and I was Duo. At the tender age of about 7 I watched K plummet from a tree and land face first on the ground. Needless to say I still remember it pretty clearly even if the circumstances were different than they are in the fic. K and I were just tree climbing like the reckless nut cases we were and I didn't carry K back to my house. I was 7 she was 10. I was a tough little punk but I'm pretty sure I panicked too much to do that.^_^.**
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