Disclaimer: I don’t own the G-boys, though I don’t believe you can sue an insane person anyway. I also don’t own the Pokemon Trading Card Game (but I do have a complete set of Rocket Cards), nor that Nine Inch Nails song that I can’t think of the name of right now.

This story is dedicated to Mel, who generously loaned me Steve. She was going through a personal crisis at the time this was posted to the MLs and I’m glad I was able to cheer her up with it. 

Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden. She had shining curls of copper atop her head, blue-gray eyes peered out from beneath her bangs, and her pale, peaches and cream complexion was slightly reddened due to the fact that she forgot to wear sunscreen on Town Day.

But this story isn’t about her. She’s merely narrating it.

Once there was a poor couple. This story isn’t really about them, either, but we have to start somewhere.

Anyhow, the poor couple were expecting their first child, and like most pregnant women, the poor woman of this poor couple had cravings. Why she had cravings for a plant called rapunzel, we’ll never know, but she did, and since it’s relevant to the story we can’t change it to something more logical like Ben & Jerry’s Bovinity Divinity.

Unfortunately, because this couple was so poor they couldn’t afford to grow their own rapunzel. So the poor woman, whom we shall call Relena, would spend her days leaning against the wall that divided her and her husband’s property from their neighbor’s, and drool over the luscious, green plants that flourished in the neighbor’s garden. Each day her obsession grew stronger until one day she could stand it no longer.

“Heero!” she called out to her husband.

Once the hair on his body lay flat again, Heero turned to his love and answered, “Yes, Relena?”

“Heero, I want rapunzel. I need rapunzel. If I don’t have rapunzel I will surely die!”

“And your point being?”

“I want you to get the rapunzel for me, dammit!”

“How am I supposed to do that with no money, dear wife?”

“Why, you can steal it from our neighbor’s garden, my wonderful husband.”

Now Heero knew that the property next door belonged to an evil bitch. (Yes, that’s right, bitch. I refuse to further defame my fellow magickal people.) He also knew that said bitch had a reputation of doing such nasty things as skeet shooting from planes, using the people she’d thrown from them as targets. “Get it yourself.”

“But Heero!” Relena whined. “You can’t expect me, a woman in my condition, to complete such a task on my own.”

Heero snickered over the mental picture of Relena getting stuck while climbing over the wall. “No, I suppose not,” he forced out. So with that (and the theme from Mission Impossible in his head) he made his way over to their neighbor’s garden.

When he returned, Relena snatched the greens from his arms and prepared herself a nice salad. Heero watched as she inhaled her meal, amazed at how any human could eat that quickly. When she finished, she patted her stomach and said, “Mmmm, more Heero.”

“More?!”

“Yes, Heero, more.”

Heero sighed, then stomped out of the house, mumbling something about wishing he’d hear his wife say those words after certain bedroom activities.

This went on for several days. Heero would scramble over the wall, pick the rapunzel and scurry back before his presence was detected. And Relena would always ask for more.

“So this is where all my rapunzel is going?” Heero heard from behind during one of his late night raids. He turned and found himself face to face (or face to chest, to be more accurate) with the evil bitch. “Lady Une,” he whispered in fright, the greens falling to his feet. “You’re here.”

“Yes, Mr. Yuy, and so are you. Though, since this is my property, I’d like to know why.”

“It’s Relena’s fault!” Heero immediately began sobbing, hoping to save his ass. “‘More rapunzel, Heero.’ ‘I need that rapunzel, Heero.’ It was either steal your rapunzel or kill her, and I didn’t have anyplace to dump the body, so…”

“I understand. That’s why I’m willing to make a deal with you. Your wife can have all the the rapunzel she wants. In exchange I want your gundam.”

“What gundam?”

“The one on your front lawn.” The one you tell everyone is a lawn jockey.”

“It is a lawn jockey.”

“Oh please, Heero! Lawn jockeys are not usually equipped with live beam cannons.”

“Hn.”

“I take it that’s a ‘no’?”

“You better believe it.”

Lady une thought for a moment, then asked, “How about your first born?”

“Deal.” And so the two shook hands. Heero gathered up the rapunzel he had previously spilt and headed back to his wife with the news.

A short time later, Relena gave birth to their first child, a boy. No sooner had the baby made his debut when Lady Une arrived to claim her payment. Relena bawled her eyes out, cursing both the woman and her husband for making such a pact. Heero reminded his wife that is was her own damn greed that got her into this mess (of course he conveniently forgot to mention how Une originally wanted the gundam).

Lady Une took the boy and raised him as her own. She named him Duo (okay, so maybe the rapunzel cravings weren’t relevant) and saw to it that he had everything he needed. She kept him clean and well dressed, homeschooled him, and took great pleasure in brushing his ever-growing mane of chestnut.

When Duo turned 15, the evil bitch thought it best to move the boy to a safer place. So she took Duo deep into the forest, to a tower she had specially built for the purpose. It was tall, cylindrical, and had no stairs. The only way to get to the room at the top was by climbing the ladder which magickally appeared.

Upon reaching the room, it was explained to Duo that in the future, the only way to get to and from the room in the tower would be with the aid of his now fourteen foot long braid. Duo frowned as he realized this meant he was now a prisoner. Lady Une tried to console the young man, wanting him to understand that this was for his own good. “There are a lot of freaks and weirdoes out there who want nothing more than to taint such a pure and innocent treasure.”

Duo nodded, acknowledging her statement. He didn’t feel any better, though, as she slipped out the window, promising to return in the evening.

At this time the narrator would like to point out that the evil bitch just locked the pure, chaste, virginal Duo into the tippy top of a phallic shaped building. We now return to the story.

Duo did his best to entertain himself while the bitch was away. He had several needlework projects going, including a blanket, a sweater and a teddy bear; there were many books to read and he quickly learned he could keep them as long as he wanted because nobody at the library dared to charge Lady Une fines; but his favorite pastime seemed to be cranking up the stereo system and singing and dancing around the tower.

One afternoon, Prince Quatre happened to be riding in the area when he heard Duo’s beautiful voice singing.

“I wanna fuck you like an animal! I wanna feel you from the inside!”

Quatre found where the wonderful sound was coming from. He threw a small rock into the tower’s window hoping to catch the attention of the source. Duo popped his head out, searching for the bastard responsible for the knot upside his head. Violet eyes met aqua. It was love at first sight.

“Who the hell are you?” Duo asked.

“I am Prince Quatre,” the beautiful blonde answered, “and who may I ask is the lovely vision before me?”

“The name’s Duo,” the boy blushed. “Hey, you wanna come up here and hang out? I’m starting to get a little cabin fever.”

“Um, sure. But how do I get up there?”

“Oh yeah,” Duo tossed his head to one side and down came a long, thick braid. He then wrapped a portion that was close to him around a peg near the window. “Climb on up.”

Prince Quatre admired the fascinating length of hair briefly before taking hold and pulling himself up. When he reached the top and saw the beauty up close, it was all he could do to keep from ravishing him right then and there. “You must marry me,” he begged.

Duo stared hard at the prince. ‘He’s handsome, much better looking than that old bitch. He’s a prince, so he must be rich. Now if he can only take care of my needs.’ “Do you play the Pokemon Trading Card Game?”

Quatre pulled a box out of the pack that just happened to be on his back. Inside were eleven decks and some loose cards he was keeping together to build future decks. “Of course I do, doesn’t everyone?”

Duo could barely conceal his excitement. Sure, Lady Une would sometimes battle him, but she put no real effort into building her decks, so they always sucked.

The two spent the rest of the afternoon battling. Duo learned that the prince had a fondness for psychic pokemon. Quatre learned that even a psychic deck isn’t immune to the wrath of Misty’s Polywhirl and kept praying that Duo would flip tails. By the time Quatre had to leave, Duo was certain he was destined to be his soul mate.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” was his answer.

“I thank you for the honor.”

“But there is one problem,” Duo added, “since my hair is the only access to this room, I have no way of getting down. Maybe if you bring me some yarn everyday I can crochet some sort of ladder?”

“Then I shall bring you some yarn everyday. And when the ladder is completed I will take you away to my kingdom.” Prince Quatre then bid farewell with a kiss that would’ve knocked Duo’s socks off had he been wearing any. Duo waved as the prince rode away.

Quatre stopped by to visit his soon-to-be-prince daily. He enjoyed spending time with Duo. It was the same for Duo. Together they would play games, dance, and make music together. On occasion, when the mood struck, they would also make hot, steamy monkey love.

“Ook! Ook!”

“Beg pardon?” Quatre asked.

“What? I didn’t say anything,” replied Duo.

Quatre looked up from where he was lying comfortably atop Duo. “Um, why is there a monkey in bed with us?”

Steve! Making hot, steamy monkey love does not require the actual presence of monkeys!

“Chitter. Ook!”

Yeah I’m sure you could show them a thing or two, but now’s not a good time. Why don’t you run on home. Tell Mel and Emily I said ‘hi’.

“Ooook.”

Okay now where were we? Oh yeah. Now let’s fast forward a bit.

One late morning Duo awoke. He noticed he felt a bit ill. In fact, he didn’t feel well at all. While spewing his guts he came to the realization that he was with child.

“The hell you say!”

That’s what it says here.

“Where? I’ve never come across this in any of the Rapunzel books I’ve read!”

That’s probably because you’ve read the kiddy books. In the original story Rapunzel became pregnant. That’s how the… never mind you’ll have to find out for yourself.

“Okay, let’s just say for the sake of argument, that Rapunzel does become pregnant in the story. Hello! I’m male! It’s physically impossible!”

Got it covered. Oh Wu Fei?

“I’m not coming out!”

Not the best choice of words for a young man in a tutu and lace wings.

Wu Fei flit in through the window and materialized full size before Duo. “This is so humiliating,” he groaned. Raising his wand, he began to recite. “I’m the Fertility Fairy, I’m here to lend a hand. If a child is what you need, then, your wish is my command. Fiddle faddle fuddle, meeyo miyo mup. Whack my wand upon your head and you are now knocked up.” Poof! Wu Fei disappeared in a cloud of silver glitter.

“Hey! What is is with everyone hitting me on the head? And why do I have a sudden craving Ben & Jerry’s?”

As I was saying, Duo discovered he was with child. Now this sort of thing you can hide for awhile, but, unfortunately, it gets a bit difficult as things begin to develop.

“I certainly hope you don’t expect me to breastfeed.”

After a few months, Duo was finding himself in this very situation.

“There will be hell to pay if I get stretch marks!”

Because he kept fit he didn’t start showing until late in his pregnancy, so his due date was only about two months away when Lady Une discovered his condition and threw him out on his ass.

“I tried to keep you sweet and innocent, but you couldn’t keep in your pants! I hope this teaches you a lesson in celibacy!”

Duo had tears in his eyes. He was pregnant, currently homeless, and had no idea where Prince Quatre was. If that wasn’t bad enough, the bitch had cut his braid off.

“My braid!” Duo cried as he ran further into the dark forest.

The next day Prince Quatre arrived at the tower. He had grown tired of waiting on Duo to complete his crocheted ladder, so he decided to bring a portable one with him. Boy was he surprised when reached the top and found the evil bitch instead of his bride.

“What have you done with him?” Quatre demanded.

“Everything!” shouted a couple of lost audience participants from the local showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“Not quite!” Une shouted back. “I merely punished him for his stupidity. Like I’m going to punish you for yours!” With that she scratched at the prince’s beautiful aqua eyes, thus blinding him before pushing him out the window.

As luck would have it, Prince Quatre was caught by an old, long lost friend.

“Prince Quatre! Are you okay?”

“Trowa?”

“It is I,” the tall bishounen replied as he set the prince down.

“Oh, Trowa! You’ve done a heroic thing, saving my life. How can I repay you? I know! I’ll Knight you!” Quatre pulled a sword out of thin air and began waving it around.

“Thanks, but I’ll have to pass,” he said while disarming his now blind friend. “I think one circumcision a lifetime is enough.”

Duo eventually gave birth to twins. He never did see Quatre again, but upon learning that the prince had run off with his knight in shining armor, he sued for a shit load of child support and alimony (Did I mention this story takes place in California?) and lived happily ever after in his mini mansion.

“Oh, Quatre.”

“Oh Trowa!”

“Ook!