"I know that you want to go in," Heero finally said, as Duo's eyes strayed toward the hallway into Preventer proper.
"Just to see that everything's running smoothly," Duo replied guiltily. "I promise, that I won't work."
"Going into work, is working," Heero pointed out. "I won't enable you."
Duo scowled. "I could just call them..."
"You could, but they have orders not to discuss anything with you," Heero pointed out. "If you're not in the loop-"
"You have no business asking about the loop," Duo finished irritably.
Heero retrieved Duo's pills, helped Duo take them, and then felt uncertain about what he wanted to say next. "I don't feel that I should return you to your home without...."
Duo rolled eyes, coughed, and then replied, "I have been handling my roommate pretty damned well, for awhile, now, Heero. He makes me soup and listens when I complain. He's been a friend... of sorts. Maybe he's gotten the wrong idea about us, but you just don't kick a guy in the face after he's been a friend."
"You've already made your feelings about that clear, Duo. I was going to say, not without stopping by a store and getting you some things that will make you more comfortable at home," Heero said.
"Oh..." Duo blinked and then snickered. "I could use some more cough drops... and kleenex."
Heero rattled the bag of pills. "Don't mix medications. Take what Sally prescribed."
"Cough drops are not medicine," Duo complained and didn't question when Heero helped him past the exit doors and into the hallway. A small smile of relief played about his lips as he added, "The menthol helps my sore sinuses."
"They are medicine," Heero insisted. "It's better if you put a dab of a mentholated cream under your nose."
"Sounds gross, and painful," Duo replied. "My nose is raw from wiping it."
"Then just put some on a tissue and hold it there," Heero suggested as they made two turns and then entered a large office.
"Okay, Grandma Yuy," Duo snickered. "Where'd you learn that stuff?"
Heero looked embarrassed. "It was on one of those vid show dramas. Some of the agents like to watch them in the commissary."
"Ah, that explains it," Duo laughed outright.
Heero scowled. "I do have skills."
"Grandma skills," Duo insisted, continuing to laugh.
It was a moment before they realized that four men were staring at them in shock. Heero was sure that they had never seen him so companionable with anyone, let alone their commander.
Duo took a moment to cough, wipe at his nose, and then face his men with what he hoped was a more than death warmed over expression. "How's it going team?"
"None of your business, sir," one of the men replied. "With all due respect, go home."
Duo waggled a finger at him. "Stand down, agent, I'm just here-"
"Against orders," another agent added.
"Against all sane logic, as usual," a third tossed in with a sigh.
"To try and check on us like we're babies that haven't been housebroken," the fourth finished.
"Puppies," Duo corrected.
"Puppies?" The man repeated, confused.
"Like puppies that haven't been... never mind," Duo sighed, but then gave his second a dismissive wave. "Just making sure that you were all alive and on your feet. I'll be going now, since you don't care how I am."
They were all around him then, in concern, now that they knew that he wasn't, at least outwardly, questioning their competence to operate without him.
"Time," Heero finally said after a few minutes and tugged Duo towards the door.
Duo growled irritably, but then ruined it with a cough. "All right, All right! See you guys later. Don't die while I'm gone."
"It wasn't on the mission plan, sir," his second called after as Heero steered Duo back towards the exit.
"I'm dizzy," Duo complained softly and Heero gave him more support.
"We should go back to Sally," Heero told him.
"Just the meds kicking in," Duo replied. "Just get me home and into bed. I'll be fine, then."
"Okay, if you're sure?" Heero stifled the urge to take Duo to Sally anyway. Like the trip to the office, though, he knew there were some battles that he wouldn't win with Duo. They weren't in a relationship, yet, that was deep enough for him to speak to Duo in a way that would make him listen.
"Thank you," Duo said and smiled at Heero. "Like my men, I don't like being treated as if I can't pee on my own."
"As long as you know when you do need help," Heero countered.
Duo frowned. "I'm as pig headed as you are when it comes to being walking wounded, when we should be in an operating room. I'll try, though. I do want to be operational as soon as possible. Being sick sucks. I don't like missing out on things."
Heero helped Duo to his vehicle. After pulling away from Preventers and heading towards Duo's home, it wasn't more than a few minutes before Duo fell fast asleep. It was a deep sleep, as if Duo had collapsed into himself. His skin was pale and his eyes were shadowed.
Heero changed direction and headed for his own home. He couldn't make an argument with himself, that was strong enough to leave Duo with a questionable room mate when he was insensible. He would keep Duo with him, and bear with his anger, until the man was fully awake again.
_______________________________________________
"This isn't my apartment," Duo slurred as he blinked, with crusty eyes, at an unfamiliar ceiling.
Heero moved cautiously into his view and asked, trying to diffuse the anger that he knew was coming, "What gave it away?"
"Oh... the wood beams... kind of obvious, really." Duo swiveled eyes and blinked at Heero. "I don't own a red leather couch, either."
"I thought that you might be angrier if I put you in bed," Heero tried. "The couch seemed neutral territory."
"Uh-huh..." Duo's eyes took in the white bead board walls, the copper colored carpeting and the solid oak furniture. "Tell me that you didn't decorate this place? I may be new to this relationship, but I know you enough to know that this place does not scream Heero Yuy."
Heero looked around and shrugged. "It was a turn key apartment."
Duo let out a hoarse chuckle. "Good. I'm still mad, but at least I'm not learning that my new boyfriend is secretly in to ' early American colonial'. I'd have to dump you."
Heero grunted in surprise. "My decorating tastes would mean that much to you?"
"No, your interests," Duo replied as he levered himself up on cushions with difficulty. "Incompatible."
"How do you feel?" Heero asked. "You didn't wake up at all when I brought you in here."
Duo tensed and glared. "Did anyone see you carry me in here?"
"Of course not. There's a stand of bushes and trees near my parking spot. The stairs are located just beyond it," Heero assured him.
Duo's glare didn't waver, even when he coughed hard. When he could speak again, he asked, "Why did this seem like a good idea?"
Heero poured Duo a glass of water from a pitcher on the coffee table and handed it to him. While Duo drank, he admitted, "I was suffering from a case of over protectiveness. I didn't think that I should leave you, unconscious, with a man who's clearly upset with the both of us."
"Why don't you just arrest him?" Duo snarled, "or make him disappear? Shit, Heero, he's just a guy, not a goddamn murderer."
Heero winced and settled in a chair nearby. "Duo, you've lived the same life that I have. Why aren't you at least wary of what might happen?"
"Paranoid, you mean?" Duo retorted. "Because you can't live life that way, Heero! You can't suspect every Tom, Dick, and Jane of wanting to kill you. You have to throw yourself out of that transport and hope your chute opens, buddy, not sit and never jump because it might fail you. Get it? One in a million guys might axe murder me for dumping them, but that leaves a hell of a lot of people taking the saner course of action. Hell, Raymond might have packed his bags and left already. That's usually the way they go, when they've had enough of me. I come home and find that I'm minus plates to eat on, towels to dry my ass, and one ex lover."
Heero ducked his head, contrite, but he couldn't shake his suspicions that Raymond could be dangerous. He had developed a sixth sense for such things during his life, and he could only suspect that Duo, who should have had the same sense, was blinded to it by his close association with the man.
"So, my kidnapper," Duo growled. "How much is the ransom and how long do you plan on keeping me here?"
"I'll take you home, now, if you want," Heero offered, though it was difficult to do so.
Duo regarded him for a long moment, took a kleenex out of a nearby box, and wiped his nose as he finally said, "What happens when you go off to work?"
"You escape?" Heero tried.
Duo grunted and clarified, "I meant, who takes care of me, then? What if I need hot soup, more kleenex, and to have my pillow fluffed?"
"Raymond does that?" Heero wondered with a sting of jealousy.
Duo grinned, "No, not really, though he does make a mean chicken soup."
"I expect an ex Gundam pilot, and commander of a crack team of special forces agents, to take care of himself while I'm not around to help," Heero told him. "It's not like you're missing a leg."
Duo snickered. "I do get sympathy from Raymond, at least."
"Do you want to be... babied?" Heero wondered.
Duo shook his head and sunk back into his cushions. "That's just a way of showing you care, really, and I think you've done that really well, by kidnapping me."
Heero laughed. Duo blinked at him and smiled.
"I like when you laugh," Duo told him. "It's all sexy and deep. I sound like a sick cat."
"You are like a sick cat, right now," Heero reminded him, but then asked, "Do you want me to take you home, right now?"
"Answer this, first, before I tell you," Duo asked. When Heero nodded, he asked, "How would you decorate this place, if you had the time?"
Heero eyed the room thoughtfully. "Metal, tile floors, gun cabinet over there near the door, a low couch that folds out into a bed, Japanese lanterns. Black, chrome..."
"Useful," Duo finished for him. "Clean, simple, ready for anything?"
Heero smiled and nodded.
Duo smiled as well. "Just like I thought."
Duo pulled out his cell phone and held it to his ear.
"Raymond, Duo, here. I'm going to be staying somewhere else for a few days. I didn't want you to think I up and left. No, I don't think you're stupid. No... No... Sorry... yeah, I would have taken my stuff if I was really leaving...You're right. What? Do you really want tot talk about this now? Okay... Look, man, I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything... Okay... Sorry... I was going to talk to you about it... You don't have to move out right away. Find a good place... Sorry, yeah I do have a good place...Just... I didn't plan on this... but it happens, you know? You would have moved out, too, if you had found someone. What? Me? Look, I had no idea you were thinking like that. Call me a moron... okay... I am... I'm a dumb shit. That's exactly why, I don't have anyone. You're lucky to get away from me. Yeah... okay.. Go ahead and yell, I deserve it. I can only say sorry. You're going... now? I don't know how to make this any better for you, man."
Duo winced and lowered the phone.
"He hung up. He was pretty pissed," Duo told Heero. "I guess you were right about how he felt. Why didn't I see it?"
"To you, he was just a roommate," Heero replied. "It's not your fault that he wanted more than that."
"I can't just drop it like that," Duo sighed, "I'm going to have to feel like a complete asshole, for awhile."
"Should I take you home, now?" Heero offered, though he really didn't feel that the situation was any safer, there.
Duo shook his head. "No, it's better when they just go. I can only hope that he at least leaves me the bed, a fork, and a spoon."
"Take out does give you those nice sporks," Heero tried as he draped the afghan over Duo better.
"I can cook... kind of," Duo groused, "But not now. All the cookware belongs to Raymond."
Duo picked at the afghan and then really looked at it. "This come with the apartment, too?"
Heero smiled at the lime and cream banded, hand crocheted, afghan. "Sally gave it to me for an apartment warming present."
"She crochets?" Duo asked skeptically.
"I think she re gifted it to me," Heero chuckled.
"You know about 're gifting'?" Duo coughed and laughed at the same time.
Heero refilled his glass of water and looked sheepish. "I tend to get those office pool gifts."
"Where they pull your name out of a riot helmet?" Duo rolled eyes. "I have enough cheap aftershave to last for years of re gifting. I'd rather have gotten a weird colored afghan."
"At least it's useful," Heero said as he put Duo's pills in reach and tapped at a small clock. "Time to take more pills."
Duo grumbled as he picked up the first one. "I'm not going to find myself in Antarctica, on a fishing trawler, when I wake up again, right?"
"You slept because you exhausted yourself, not because of the pills," Heero told him, "but, no, no fishing trawlers."
Duo took his pills, swallowed them down with the water and then looked long at Heero. "Thank you, in case I didn't get that in before. I'm really not used to someone giving that much of a shit about what happens to me after I leave headquarters."
Heero shook his head, "You're wrong, Duo, they do care. We're just good at pretending that we're all right."
Duo looked pained, but nodded. "Tough soldiers-"
"Get respect," Heero finished.
"Weak soldiers-"
"Get killed," Heero finished again.
Duo sighed. "I wonder if we're ever going to forget lessons like that?"
"We're still young," Heero replied.
Duo smiled at him. "Maybe, together, we can learn a different way?"
Heero reached out and gripped Duo's arm warmly. "I'd like that."
"Good," Duo retorted, "Then, talk to me next time and don't kidnap me. I might have decided to come here, anyway."
"Really?" Heero wondered.
"Really," Duo replied as he closed his eyes and settled under the afghan, "Only it wouldn't have been because I was scared of Raymond. It would have been because I wanted to be with you."
"That means a lot to me," Heero said and his hand squeezed tighter with emotion.
Duo snickered. "You won't be saying that when you get whatever crap flu this is."
-------------------------------------
"I hate you!" Duo growled as he dug in his pocket for his house keys.
Heero chuckled. "You can't hate me for something that is out of my control."
"Yes, I can," Duo grumbled as he finally found them and put the key in the lock. "I was with you a week, and you didn't get the flu."
"I have an exceptional resistance to germs," Heero pointed out. "Did you really want me to get sick?"
"Misery loves company," Duo replied with a snort, but then, as the door swung open, he grinned over his shoulder and added, "Of course not, idiot, but you make a guy feel like a wimp, when you do that super human stuff."
"It's not super human," Heero began as they stepped into the apartment, but then stopped as he saw how empty it was. "Didn't anything belong to you?" he had to wonder.
Duo grimaced as he looked around. "Yes, but they always take that too, for some reason, when people dump me."
Duo went into his bedroom and Heero followed, feeling on edge, as if Raymond might have left a booby trap of some sort, out of spite. It was ridiculous to think that, of course, but he couldn't shake his surge of protectiveness towards Duo. This room, at least, had been untouched, except for the addition of a note left on top of the bedclothes.
Duo picked the note up gingerly and read it, rubbing one hand at the back of his neck, while Heero looked on.
Duo had been a welcome guest in his home, but having a sick man, camped out on his couch, for days, in complete misery, had been a trial for them both. Duo had chafed at the need for rest, had complained, and made a disaster zone around his resting place, out of boredom, and had made a tension between them both, that had often made tempers short. The need to be closer to Duo, to take the next step in their relationship, despite how ill the man was, had been hard to resist, but Duo had thwarted his every attempt. He had insisted on staying 'friends', pointing out that trying anything, at that point, would be doomed to failure. He had stayed on the couch, rather than take Heero's bed, and had accepted from Heero, only the help a man might get from a nurse. He wanted to 'do it right, this time.' Duo had insisted, and seemed afraid of making a mistake that might send Heero the way of Raymond, and his previous lovers.
Duo crumpled the note up, at last, and tossed it towards a small waste bin near his bed. It bounced off the rim, and ended up on the floor. Duo was sighing as he sat on the edge of the bed, and then he shrugged and smiled at Heero. "You can guess what that said, right?"
Heero couldn't, never having been in that sort of situation before, but Duo wasn't keeping the contents a secret.
"Raymond hopes that someone hurts me as much as I've hurt him," Duo told him sourly. "Guess he didn't realize that people already have."
Heero frowned, feeling frustrated. He wanted to sit beside Duo and put an arm around him, but he didn't think that Duo would welcome it."How can he love you, and want you to be hurt, at the same time?" he wanted to know. "That doesn't make any sense."
Duo cocked his head and grinned at him. "See, it's because he doesn't really love me, Heero. He just wants to pretend, but pretending is just that, not real, with real feelings. I know all about that."
"You do?" Heero allowed himself to move closer and Duo looked up at him with an expression that was uncertain.
"It's easy to fool yourself, into thinking you're in love, when you've never felt the real deal," Duo explained."It's just 'like', though, and a lot of 'lust'. Sometimes, it just about owning someone, like you'd own a car, you really like."
"Sounds cold," Heero replied.
"That's just it," Duo said softly. "You get that part, after awhile, and it all falls apart. You can only keep an illusion up for so long."
"Is that why you keep me away?" Heero wanted to know. "Are you afraid that I don't really feel for you?"
Duo swallowed hard and ducked his head in embarrassment. "You're the reason why I know the difference now," he replied. "I'm not messing that up. I want..."
Heero sat beside Duo and slipped and arm around his waist. "I've been wanting to do this," he admitted, "but you make me feel as if I'm crossing a line that I shouldn't. You don't have to be afraid, Duo."
Duo's smile was brittle, but he leaned into the embrace. "Why shouldn't I be? You're that important to me. I've always wanted this, with you, but I never thought... and now it's happening fast, between us, and I think, it's going to go bad, if I don't slow it down and... make sure..."
"What are you making sure of?" Heero wanted to know.
Duo shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. "That is doesn't crash and burn, because I screwed it up."
Heero dared, and kissed Duo along his jaw. "Just be honest, Duo. Be yourself. Let us, happen." He felt Duo blush. It was hot against his lips.
"Being myself gets me dumped... a lot," Duo reminded him, but his hand reached out and took Heero's hand firmly.
"Because they didn't really love you," Heero replied. "They were pretending, just like you said. I'm not pretending, Duo. My feelings aren't false and cold."
"Good, because I don't want to lose any more of my braid," Duo chuckled and finally looked at him.
There was a definite need in Duo's eyes, a hot, longing that he, nonetheless, kept under control as he asked nervously,"Do you mind if we... wait... for... you know...? I mean, I know it sounds... kind of... like I'm some sort of virgin, or some..."
Heero smiled as Duo fumbled for the right words and then stopped him by saying, "I understand. I want you, in every way, but, not until you're ready, too."
Duo made an exasperated sound, "Don't be stupid! I'm a guy! Of, course, I'm damned ready. I have been ready since I saw you bench press my weight at the gym. I just don't want it messing things up. I want us thinking with our heads, not our dicks, if we decide to make this relationship long term."
"That's still going to be hard, even if we don't get into bed," Heero sighed.
"Hard... good, one, Yuy," Duo snickered, "But, yeah, I won't stop thinking about it, that's for sure, but doing it, kind of makes you feel like you've committed to something, when, maybe, you don't really want to be."
"You want to be able to back out, if things don't work out?" Heero asked, and felt the sting of strong emotions.
Duo's eyes went wide, "Not me, you. I'm already... well, I've already made up my mind, about all of this. You're the one trying to accept the booby prize."
"The what?" Heero blinked, perplexed.
"I'm no prize, Heero," Duo clarified.
Heero sighed, "So, I'm waiting for you to get over your insecurities about yourself?"
"Uh..." Duo looked flustered. "Maybe waiting for you to realize what a loser I really am?"
"Therapy, might be good for you," Heero replied and couldn't help an edge of temper.
"So I've been told," Duo snickered, but he had gone stiff against Heero.
Heero let him go and stood up. He wasn't sure how to proceed. Duo had drawn another line, he wasn't meant to cross, yet.
"Sorry," Duo said in small voice.
Heeo looked down at him, wishing that he had more experience, that he knew how to make Duo understand how he felt. "You're going back to work, tomorrow?"
Safe ground, seemed the best course of action.
Duo nodded. "I'm sure Une will have me make up for that mission that I missed. I may be shipping out right away."
The prospect of having Duo gone, for days, or even weeks, with those words, being their last, was intolerable to Heero. He leaned down, suddenly, and kissed Duo hard. When he broke it, he was almost nose to nose as he looked Duo in the eyes.
"I love you, Duo Maxwell," Heero said, each work carefully enunciated, but then he couldn't face what Duo might say in return. His feet took him out of that apartment, a stunned Duo left behind him.
---------------------------------------
Duo was frowning as he dropped his gear, outside the hanger, and continued to talk on his cell. His eyes were warm on Heero, even while his free hand made agitated motions, and his voice was angry as he spoke.
"Listen, maybe we were just surveillance," Duo said angrily, "but we were still stuck, for a week, in a bug infested, hot as hell, swamp. My men need a few days down time and our gear needs to be cleaned up."
Duo frowned, turned half away from Heero, and said, "Yeah, I'm fine. The heat was good for me. Let's not get off the subject, though. We are not ready for another mission on top of this one. I don't care what level of expertise it needs. There are other agents good at hiding in bushes, Une."
Duo frowned, rubbed a filthy, gloved, hand between his eyes, and wasn't aware of the mud that he smeared there, as he said, "Okay, so a tropical island paradise does make it sound damned good, but we'll still be hunkered down in the bushes, in the heat, waiting for the targets to do something, not surfing the waves."
Heero waited patiently as Duo argued, "I have a crack team of infiltrators, not watch dogs, Une. I feel insulted. Sugar coating it won't make me change my opinion about that. Hm... Okay, that's better. I only have to take three agents with me? That dangerous? Well, I feel less insulted. Still, we're exhausted. There's no getting around that. Okay, put in your second best team and we'll replace them in two days. Me, now? I don't get to rest? I was at death's door not two weeks... Okay! Okay! I'll go there now and lead the team. Yeah, well, you could at least say 'Thank you', Une."
Duo pulled the cell from his ear and frowned. "No thank you, I guess," he snorted and then looked at Heero apologetically. "I guess we don't get any time together. Want to grab some lunch before I launch?"
Heero smiled, "I have just enough time before I launch as well. I have my own mission."
"Details?" Duo asked as he shouldered his pack and began walking towards the commissary.
"Classified," Heero replied as he fell into step with Duo. "You?"
Duo shrugged with a weary grin. "Not classified."
Heero took hold of his arm, lightly,and steered Duo in another direction. When Duo recognized where they were going, he snorted.
"Do I stink that bad?" Duo wanted to know.
"Yes," Heero replied with a wrinkle of his nose.
"Showering will cut into our 'us' time," Duo pointed out.
"That's all right," Heero replied as he pried Duo's pack out of his hand and slung it through the doorway of the requisitions room. "Clean that,at once, and have it ready in one hour."
"Yes, sir!" a voice replied, startled.
"God, they're scared of you!" Duo chuckled as they continued toward the showers. "I would have got a 'fuck you'."
Heero didn't have a come back. His eyes were studying Duo as they walked, wanting to know if Duo's banter was to cover up how he was feeling towards him.
"Are you really all right?" Heero asked as they entered the gym shower room.
Duo grunted as he began stripping off his filthy gloves and shirt. "Tired, bug bit, and dehydrated from the heat, but no major wounds to report. I wasn't lying to Une. Those immune boosters that Sally Po gave me worked great. You know I heal up fast, Heero."
"You were sick, not wounded," Heero pointed out. "That's different."
"Well, I get over being sick, really good, too," Duo snorted. He dropped his gloves and shirt onto a bench, beside his locker, but then looked embarrassed.
"Uhm, Heero..." Duo began.
Heero nodded, once, saying, "I understand."
"Do you?" Duo wanted to know, very serious. "What you said, at my place, about... you know? I had to really think that over. It took 'us' to a whole new level. That means, that getting undressed, in front of you, is just not buds throwing off their clothes to take a shower."
Heero frowned, feeling his gut tighten. "If... If you want me to leave you alone... If you've decided that my feelings are... unwelcome... I don't want you to feel that I'm pressuring you into something that-"
Duo leaned in and kissed him hard. It was brief, but it held a lot of feeling. A man, walking by, started and blinked, at the sight, and then hurried on into the showers looking uncomfortable.
Duo glanced after him, but then his attention was on Heero again, as he said, "You're not unwelcome," Duo told him. "You're not pressuring me. You aren't doing anything that I haven't wanted you to do. We're going to make sure that this relationship is built on Gundanium, though. No hurrying, no cutting corners, and no wondering how we got from point A to point B. I want us both one hundred percent on board, with eyes wide open, and all the facts on the table. You don't even know that I have a hard time keeping the cap on the toothpaste. Maybe you don't want to clean up toothpaste spooge every morning?"
Heero laughed even though he still felt a bit of pain. "I'll make you clean it up."
Duo chuckled too, "And if I'm not good at that? You could make monuments out of the toothpaste spooge that I've never cleaned up."
Heero shook his head. "If what we have can't survive toothpaste spooge monuments..."
"Then we've made a mistake," Duo finished.
They fell silent, eyes searching eyes, but then Duo was kicking off his boots, and leaving Heero to go into the showers. "Meet me in the commissary. Get me the chicken stew and the garlic bread. Let's forget the heavy, relationship stuff, and just enjoy the time before we both have to go, okay?"
"All right," Heero agreed.
Duo looked back over his shoulder, braid swinging, and said, "Don't worry, Heero. We'll get into all of this, again, when we both get back."
Heero sighed, "I hope so, Duo."
__________________________________
"Une has a strange sense of humor," Duo growled as he holstered the gun that he had drawn when Heero had suddenly appeared near him. He relaxed behind a screen of bushes. His ear piece was almost hidden by his hair, and he adjusted it, as he glanced over at his target.
"No, I don't think that she does have one," Heero corrected him as he slid up beside Duo and looked as well. "Status of target?"
Duo scowled as he indicated the target, lounging on the white sand beach. "Sleeping under an umbrella with a marguerite, as usual."
Duo was sweating and sunburned, the pink of his cheeks looking rather attractive to Heero. It made his purple eyes that much more astonishing as he looked at Heero again, irritation plain.
"I finished my mission early," Heero explained, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was assigned to this case as backup."
"Backup?" Duo was scowling now. "Une really thinks this case needs, not only one ex Gundam pilot, but another one as backup? Has she flipped out?"
Heero shrugged. "I'm just following orders. She doesn't include me in the decision making process."
Duo suddenly reached out and touched a large bruise along Heero's jaw. "What happened there? Are you compromised?"
"Stressed tendons in my left leg," Heero replied with military correctness. "Mobility reduced 20 percent. Impact from debris on my jaw, minimal damage."
"I'm beginning to see Une's plan here," Duo grumbled.
"You are?" Heero had the urge to pick Duo's braid out of the sand and shake it out. It was lying in it heavily and caked at the end. Duo's bathing suit was caked as well, attesting to the fact that he had recently been in the water.
Duo sat back against a palm tree, adjusting the crotch of his suit, and then letting his hands hang lax between his upraised knees.He still had a view of their target, through some palm fronds and he kept his eyes on him as he replied, "Yeah. I mean, we're both not at a hundred percent. We're both on a tropical island, watching a guy, who's idea of activity is raising and lowering his drink. Before that, I was watching some idiot in a jungle do pretty much the same thing, except he swatted bugs along with taking swigs of whiskey."
"Une assured me that it required our particular expertise," Heero reminded him.
"What would you do, Heero, if she told you to stand down, take a few weeks off, and get healthy?" Duo wondered.
Heero frowned, imagining himself doing nothing. "I wouldn't like it."
"You wouldn't do it," Duo corrected him. "Neither would I. Just being down for my flu, made me crazy. She knew that I wouldn't sit still any longer. I think you would be a worse patient. So, she ends us on a surveillance gig where we have to sit and do... nothing."
"I don't think you're right about that," Heero replied and couldn't keep the skepticism out of his voice.
"Did you bring anyone with you?" Duo wanted to know.
"She told me that it didn't require anymore agents," Heero replied.
"Well, everyone she okayed to join the mission with me, all had healing injuries, so I think my theory has a lot of evidence." Duo squinted and then sighed as he moved into a crouch. "Tikki bar time."
"Hm?" Heero crouched as well and Duo looked over his clothing critically.
"You need to go native, Heero," Duo told him as he brushed sand off of his bathing suit. "Get a suit, some flip flops, and a towel, and join me down the beach. This private little club has a bar and our target likes to take a stroll down there, every few hours."
"Roger," Heero backed away from Duo, low to the ground and out of sight, as Duo swung a towel over his suntanned shoulder and stretched, making his own presence plain.
Duo's sand covered braid swung as he moved, snaking along flexing muscles and a curve of ass, as he began walking out of the palm fronds, and down the beach after their target. Heero couldn't help looking after him appreciatively.
Duo might be right about their easy assignment, but Heero knew Une well. She wasn't the type to let concern for an agent get in the way of that agent's potential usefulness in a mission. If she considered their target dangerous, Heero wasn't about to drop his guard, and he was determined to make sure that Duo didn't either.
"Nice suit," Duo told him with a leer as Heero joined him a short time later. It was sarcasm, pure and simple. Heero's suit had a military design, had legs down to his knees, and enough pockets to carry whatever he deemed necessary. His gun was tucked under an overlarge, white shirt, at the back of his trunks, in a water proof case.
Duo's suit was a plain blue,and completely unremarkable, but Heero didn't doubt that his gun was tucked exactly where Heero was concealing his.
"You suck at under cover," Duo grunted as he reached out and tucked Heero's dog tags under his shirt collar. "Not that it matters. Our target wouldn't notice us if we did a zero g dance on the tikki bar roof... naked... with flashing landing lights."
Heero frowned and slid a glance at the bar, still a little way down the beach. "Why not?"
Duo grunted as he checked Heero critically for any more flaws. "He likes women with big hooters and lots of alcohol. Other guys are just competition.. eh, maybe not competition. He is insanely rich, and can have whatever, or who ever he wants. Let's just say we're in his way, unnecessary obstacles in the scenery, and leave it at that."
Duo gave Heero's shoulder a pat, that turned into a brief caress over sun warmed skin. His smile was just as warm.
"I can think of worse ways to spend a stakeout, Heero," he said with a wink. "Whatever the reason, I'm glad you're here."
Heero couldn't help his frown and Duo lowered his hand, uncertainly. "We are on a mission," Heero reminded him.
Duo grunted and looked sour. "All business, yeah, I know, but I can still tell you how I feel, can't I?"
Heero replied, "Unavoidable, since I feel compelled to express the same sentiment."
Duo looked perplexed for a moment and then he snickered. "Heero humor. I need to see a lot more than that.... later, of course, after our relief comes."
-----------------------------------------------
"We're supposed to be tourists," Duo reminded him as he finished off his expensive meal. Sitting across from him, twirling a glass of wine, Heero was unconvinced.
"I'm certain our expense account won't cover activities that don't relate to surveillance," Heero replied worriedly.
Dressed in a big shirt that said, 'I'm with the parrot.', and a pair of flowery shorts and flip flops, Duo was a counterpoint to Heero's casual slacks and button down shirt. Duo pointed a fork at him and said, "We're actually watching one of the guy's goons, so it qualifies."
Heero looked across the glittering, expensive restaurant,and noticed that the man in question was now gone. "I won't falsify a report and I'm not paying the check."
Duo grunted as he pushed his plate away and drank his water. When he was done, he leaned back and burped.
Heero frowned at him. "You stand out, a great deal, and I don't understand your shirt."
Duo grinned. "This is a beach resort. Even this place expects you to come right off the beach and have some food. See that guy in the tie die nightmare, that girl in the bikini, and that old couple in the Hawaiian gear? How don't I fit right in? I'm with the parrot, Heero. It's tropical and stupid. That's my persona, rich, stupid, beach bum. What's yours? Rich military on leave?"
"Nondescript," Heero replied sourly. "Forgettable."
Duo cocked his head to one side. "Are you kidding me? You are not a forgettable guy. Dark, intense, blue eyes. All that wild hair. Body like a weapon. You might as well set off fireworks, because you, buddy, do not blend."
Heero found a smile. "I'm not the one everyone is looking at."
"A compliment?" Duo snickered, "or an insult?"
Heero sobered as he took in Duo's wonderful eyes, his handsome face, and his long hair, with it's cinnamon fire highlighting it's rich brown color. "A compliment," he replied and Duo smiled warmly.
"Why thank you, Mr. Yuy," Duo said and leaned in, across the table, to say, "You're a great date, do you know that?"
Heero felt a blush and replied, "I'm glad."
They were quiet for awhile and then Heero noticed Duo looking tired in the slump of his shoulders and the tightness along his mouth.
"We should go back to the hotel room and rest," Heero suggested. "We still have several hours before we have to relieve Bellamy and Thompson."
Duo nodded as he rubbed at his eyes. "Sounds good, though their cover is two guys partying on the beach, by the target's veranda. I don't think they care if we're on time."
Heero stood and his leg protested, stiff and sore from being inactive. He couldn't help the wince as he put weight on it.
"You okay?" Duo asked as he stood and put a hand under Heero's elbow.
"I'm fine," Heero assured him.
"Your leg needs a good massage," Duo told him as he used a non descript bank card, with his false name, to pay for the meal. "I can either pay for one of the hotel masseuse, or help you out myself."
Heero considered consequences. "We're on duty and you've made your feelings clear concerning waiting until we're both sure. Massaging my leg would lead to..." Desires, needs, overwhelming urges, Heero couldn't say, but Duo was looking apologetic and understanding.
"Maybe a sit in the hot tub?" Duo suggested.
Heero nodded and couldn't help asking, "Join me?"
Duo grinned. "I'll promise to stay on my side."
Heero chuckled, but their good mood was ruined when a man sneered and said to his companion, "Goddamn queers everywhere you look!"
It was their target, with a well endowed woman on his arm. She giggled as she passed them, but gave them both an appreciative look and an apologetic roll of her eyes behind her companion's back.
It took some of the sting out of the comment, but Heero still felt embarrassment and uncertainty.
"Jeez!" Duo swore. "The guy has his head up his ass and in the stone age. I didn't think there were morons like him around anymore."
"I'm sorry for such rudeness," the manager said at the doorway, bowing a little in his expensive suit and looking very apologetic. "Please don't feel that our establishment condones such behavior. You and your companion are most welcome here."
Bellamy and Thompson entered the restaurant, passing them in the doorway without any recognition. Duo grinned at the manager and shrugged as he replied, "Idiots are never in short supply. It's okay."
The manager gave his little bow again and then they were out on the sidewalk and walking towards their hotel, the setting sun making everything brilliant red and orange. Duo was frowning now, though.
"What's wrong?" Heero asked in concern. "There's a bench. Do you need to rest?"
Duo looked insulted. "I'm not the one with the screwed up leg, Heero. I just had a bad flu, not L2 fever. Sure I get tired, still, but I'm way more okay than you are."
"Then...?"
Duo jerked a thumb back at the restaurant and then jammed his hands into his pockets. "They all assumed that we were gay. That we were together."
"We did eat dinner together," Heero pointed out. "It would be natural to assume-"
"But they thought that we were gay," Duo interrupted. "That's the thing? Do you think that we look gay?"
Heero considered the question. "I don't know what gay looks like. I don't think that the manager thought that we were gay, either. He didn't express any-"
"He called you my companion, though," Duo interrupted again.
"That could mean friend, or business associate, or any other number of things," Heero replied.
"But the way he said it..." Duo looked over Heero and then down at himself, pulling at his shirt as if it might be saying something that he was unaware of. "Maybe we do look gay?"
Heero laughed. He couldn't help it. Duo looked irritated, but then he smiled.
"I'm being stupid, aren't I?" Duo wondered ruefully.
"Yes," Heero told him. "They didn't think that we appeared gay, Duo, they simply assumed that two men, sitting and having dinner together, had good odds that we were possibly in a relationship. You assumed that our target and his companion were together, didn't you?"
"Oh, yeah," Duo snickered.
"It's the same thing," Heero assured him.
"Good, because I don't really think that I look or act any different than anyone else," Duo replied.
"You do," Heero corrected him with a brief touch of fingers along his arm, "but that's because of your personality, not your sexuality."
Duo leaned in and gave Heero a bump and grinned at him. "Sure you don't want that massage?"
Heero blushed. "I do, but only when you're really ready to give it."
Duo looked serious, then, and said softly. "I almost am, Heero."
"Almost," Heero repeated regretfully. "I'll be ready when you say that you are, completely."
"After the mission," Duo told him with passion in his eyes. "I think that I will be."
________________________________________
"If I spray this on me ,one more time, I'll never have any children," Duo grumbled as he put away the bug spray.
"Were you going to have children?" Heero wondered as he brushed sand off of one knee.
Duo frowned at him as he scratched at bug bites along one arm. "You don't beat around the bush, do you? No, I wasn't, actually. That's not my kind of thing."
Heero looked relieved as he raised his binoculars and checked on their target. "I'm not inclined towards children, either," he admitted.
"Why aren't the bugs biting you?" Duo wanted to know angrily.
Heero lowered his binoculars and regarded Duo, crouched in the beach grass with the morning sun glinting in his hair. His furious face, bug bitten skin, and disheveled hair brought a smile to Heero's lips.
"You're laughing at my misery," Duo complained.
"I think it's your aftershave," Heero told him.
Duo rubbed at his smooth chin. "I don't really have to shave, Heero. I think it's the hotel soap. Since they aren't biting you, I have to assume that you didn't wash, this morning."
Heero reached out and ran fingers along Duo's chin. "You have a few whiskers."
Duo snickered. "Not enough to need shaving every day. It's just stupid genetics."
"Not stupid," Heero argued. He had to shave every day and he could see where not having to do so might bruise a man's sense of masculinity. "You have hair in other places."
That was meant to be reassuring but Duo cocked his head on one side and asked, "You want me to shave my legs and... there?"
Heero blushed and checked their target again. "No! I was simply reaffirming your..."
"Guyhood?" Duo chuckled and then swatted at another bug. "What are these damned things? I can't see them, but they are eating me alive!"
"You could go back to the hotel. They might go away, once the sun heats up the beach," Heero suggested.
Duo glared. "You're just trying to avoid answering the bath question."
"I swam in the ocean earlier," Heero replied with a smirk.
"Then maybe I should take a swim, too?" Duo nodded to where their target was sitting in a lounge chair and reading a vid paper on a small handheld screen. "He's not going anywhere soon."
Heero frowned. "We are on duty."
"When are you going to accept, that we're really on vacation?" Duo wanted to know irritably. "This would be a lot more fun if you did."
"When Une tells me that we are, and not before," Heero replied stiffly.
Duo sighed as he stood and stretched. "I'm the workaholic, Heero. If I can relax, you should be able to."
"Don't take too long," Heero told him and his voice couldn't hide his irritation.
"Our first fight," Duo sighed as he crouched again. "It was bound to happen."
"We are having an argument, not fighting," Heero corrected. "It's healthy and natural. No relationship is perfect."
"Where did you hear that?" Duo wondered, perplexed.
Heero blushed, a little. "There was a woman's magazine, in the hotel lobby. It passed the time until our target made his appearance."
"Did you take the relationship test, too?" Duo wondered with faked seriousness. "How did we score?"
"If you know about it, then you read the magazine too," Heero pointed out.
Duo blinked and then grinned. "Okay, guilty as charged. How did we do?"
"Excellent," Heero replied as he checked their target yet again. "We will have a long, faithful relationship. Our target has a visitor."
The switch had Duo opened mouthed, for a moment, and then he was all business. "Recognize him?"
Heero nodded. "He was hanging around the lobby, as well, and making cell calls," he replied. "He didn't make contact with our target when he came downstairs. I'm not sure why he's meeting with him, now."
Duo squinted over the dune grass. "Hm, a three piece suit looks freaky out on the beach. He must not care if anyone sees them."
"The target is sitting up. He's looking worried. Now he's leaving with the man," Heero reported."They look very serious."
"Vacation over," Duo said as he took the binoculars and looked himself.
"I was right," Heero insisted.
"You were right... maybe," Duo hedged. "We still don't know that this means anything."
"Inform our team mates," Heero said. "We'll follow and see what they're up to."
"You're being way cautious," Duo complained as they slowly followed their target. "They wouldn't be out here, together, if anything serious was going down."
"By the book, makes sure that being wrong doesn't end up being dead," Heero replied.
"Get that from a magazine, too?" Duo wondered.
"Preventer handbook," Heero replied. "You should read it, sometime."
"Ha, ha," Duo replied sarcastically."Fight number two and the sun isn't even up all the way. You're a cranky man first thing in the morning, Heero Yuy. I'll have to remember that in our future relationship."
Heero smiled at that. "I'm glad that you can overlook it."
"We'll work on it, together," Duo assured him, and then nodded at their target. "They just joined up with some other men. What kind of business is our target going to do in his bathing suit and flip flops?"
One of the men put an arm around the target's shoulders and drew him into the group of men as they headed back for the hotel. The target looked nervous.
"Something's up," Duo said and made the call to their team mates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, that was a bust," Duo grumbled as he lowered his binoculars. "All the suits are leaving and our target looks happy."
"We'll follow them, and check on their ID," Heero said as he dug his rental car keys out of one pocket.
"Ready for anything, aren't you?" Duo snorted as they made their way to the sandy hotel parking lot. "There are only three hotels, a boat dock, and an air strip, on this island. We could trot after them. They'll be on the other side of the island in,oh, five minutes."
"We are still recovering from injuries and illness," Heero pointed out as he unlocked the doors on the sleek, white solar car.
"That's right," Duo slid into the passenger seat with a grimace."Which means no Gundam pilot level maneuvers. Not that we were going to have any trouble. I'm telling you, they wouldn't be meeting up with our man, in front of everyone, if anything was going down."
"I agree," Heero replied as he drove the car out of the lot and onto a sandy road, "but being ready for any eventuality is a good survival tactic."
"I know that," Duo retorted, "I'm only pointing out how UNLIKELY it is."
Heero only nodded, his eyes on the road. When his cell beeped, he fished it out of another pocket and answered it. After a few terse acknowledgements, he pocketed it again.
"So? Did Preventers ID them?" Duo asked impatiently after a long silence.
"Yacht insurance salesmen," Heero replied in a neutral voice.
Duo stared and then laughed. "I told you so!"
Heero frowned, eyes on the road. "Many organizations use legitimate businesses to hide their illegal activities."
"You just will not give it up, will you?" Duo snickered as he sank down into his seat and put on his sunglasses. Grin firmly in place, he rolled down the window and enjoyed the breeze. "Let me know when there's a gun battle... or something."
Heero decided to be angry for a few minutes, but then he was glancing aside at Duo, at the tanned limbs, lax and comfortable, the smile, the hair fluttering in the breeze over his handsome face.
"You're ogling," Duo suddenly said and Heero dragged his eyes back to the road, cursing Duo's sunglasses. "It's okay," Duo told him as he looked over the tops of the rims, purple eyes sparkling. "I was ogling too. You have some damned fine arms, Yuy, and shoulders, and the way your lips almost... pout... and those damned blue eyes..."
Heero felt a stinging blush but he was smiling, too.
"Since we both have the hots for each other," Duo continued, "and we both know, for a fact, now, how much we care about each other, can't we just can the rest of the dating thing? I know I insisted... and you did, too, but it's stupid dancing around each other and pretending that we might change our minds suddenly."
Duo sounded so sure, but Heero had seen his doubts, and how strong they were. "If you're that certain, than it won't hurt to take our time, will it? If you want to rush, doesn't that mean that you're afraid that I'll-"
"I'm not afraid of anything!" Duo argued. "I'm just... sure... and tird of the celibate thing." He looked uncertain. "Unless you don't want to?"
"I was... ogling. What do you think?" Heero scoffed and Duo smiled again. "I just want it to be right," Heero insisted.
Duo shrugged and settled into his seat again. "Life is a crap shoot, Yuy. Nothing's perfect and it could all go bad in the next second... or after we both decide that it was only about sex?"
"Ah," Heero sighed.
"What?" Duo scowled. "That sounded like you were passing judgment, Yuy."
"No, just realizing where this is coming from," Heero replied.
"You're wrong," Duo said angrily. "I just want to save us both a case of blue balls by admitting that we really want to be with each other."
"They're stopping," Heero said suddenly, changing mental gears instantly, and slowing the car so that a slight curve of the sandy road almost hid them from view.
"Insurance salesmen getting suspicious that two Gundam pilots are tailing them?" Duo scoffed. "You just will not give it up, will you?"
Heero looked in his rearview mirror and then reached for his gun. "Not when I'm right."
Duo sat up, looking behind them as he reached for his own gun. A car was coming up fast behind them. "Doesn't mean a thing," he insisted as he checked his gun. Looking ahead of them again, he saw the well dressed insurance salesmen getting out of their car with guns drawn. "Okay, you're right, I'm wrong. One for the Yuy team. Ditch the car?"
"We are outnumbered," Heero told him calmly and then hit the excelerator and sent the car off of the road, with a spray of sand, and sped into the jungle. A volley of bullets followed them.
As they bumped along, the car tires spinning and trying to find purchase in the sand, Duo wondered, "What gives with them? Okay, they're the bad guys, but shooting at us gets them shit. Our backup notices we're gone and Preventers comes down on them. Doesn't make any sense."
"Unless this is end game and they're ready to leave the island," Heero replied as barely scraped the car between a stand of palm trees.
"Which means, they weren't headed to a hotel, or the airport," Duo guessed. "Their operation is out here on the island, somewhere."
"Or offshore," Heero agreed. "There was a rudimentary launch dock on the satellite photos."
"Too obvious," Duo grunted as they hit a bump and his head almost hit the roof of the car. "Has to be out here, somewhere."
"Out!" Heero growled as their wild ride ended in impenetrable jungle and he stopped the car.
They both rolled out, guns ready as they sprinted into the jungle.
"Leg?" Duo barked.
"Operational!" Heero shouted back, which meant that he would use it ruthlessly whether it was medically advisable, or not. "You?"
"Short distance!" Duo replied, which meant that they had to find cover and soon.
They were silent, then, falling back on jungle warfare training to evade their pursuers. At last, covered in sand and palm fronds and baking in the heat, they could only suffer and stay immobile as much as possible when some of the men came nosing through the jungle looking for them.
They were all quiet, the gunmen using military hand signals, and Duo and Heero pretending to be part of the landscape. It told them a great deal about their level of danger when the men moved about with well trained precision, following orders from one of the men, and using a definite grid system. Their chances of staying undetected were slim to none.
Duo used his cell and whispered their position, and situation, to their backup and then gave Heero a meaning ful look. Heero frowned, but didn't argue. They both knew who was more capable of drawing away fire while the other fell back and tried to escape for help. Pulling out his gun, Duo gave Heero's arm a squeeze that tried to convey many things. Heero's nod also spoke volumes.
Like a bird startled out of cover, Duo suddenly leapt up, sand and palm fronds flying, and began running. The men shouted to each other and some broke off from the main group and ran in pursuit, guns firing. They weren't going to give up their search for Heero, but their careful grid search was disrupted. They passed Heero's hiding place, and he quickly slipped out, and away into the jungle, before someone discovered their mistake and had his area searched.
These men were not being stupid, Heero told himself. They couldn't not know that two Preventer agents would call for their backup, and that nothing was going to keep them from warming a jail cell soon, whether they killed Heero and Duo, or not. If there was an operation going on in the jungle, and they realized that they were compromised, then these men were as much a decoy as Duo was being. They were that dedicated to their cause, that willing to give their operation time to bug out of the area.
Heero had his cell out as he ran, leg threatening to collapse under him at any moment, as he made a sacrifice as well. "Leave us. Look out for any vehicles heading for the docks. Our targets may be bugging out."
"Roger that," Bellamy replied, "but we can manage both. We called in the calvary from off shore. Backup en route, by air, to your position. ETA, two minutes."
A gunshot splattered a palm tree trunk not inches from Heero's face. He twisted, without slowing, and returned fire, as he joked, "What's taking so long?"
"Sand in the butt, from sitting on the beach," Bellamy replied with a chuckle. "Can't expect a guy to pilot in that condition." There was a pause and then, "Goddam tourists! Almost got taken out by a gyro copter."
Heero's mind jumped on that as he ducked down behind a dip of sand, unable to run any further, and kept returning fire. "Take that Gyro down!" he shouted.
"Sir?" Bellamy was incredulous. "The pilot is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops. I don't think-"
"Do it!" Heero snarled as a bullet burned his cheek.
"Yes, sir," Bellamy responded, but then, a moment later, "He's a good pilot. He's initiating evasive maneuvers. Shit! They have a jump ship disguised as a fishing boat!"
"Leave the gyro," Heero ordered. "Take out the jump ship."
"Yes, sir," Bellamy replied. "What the hell?" he said. "Even if they made space, we could still take them out nine ways to Sunday. What's the point?"
What was the point? Operating on a tourist island, walking about without concern that people would take notice of them, meeting with a man suspected of weapons trafficking, firing on Preventer agents, launching a pitiful gyro, and planning to launch a jump ship in an even more pitiful attempt to escape, didn't make any sense at all. Men didn't generally show such a willingness to sacrifice themselves for such idiotic operations.
"Smoke screen," Heero growled. "Something else is going on. I want this island locked down, now!"
"Sir, we don't have the authority..." Bellamy argued.
"Well, get it!" Heero snarled as his gun shot its last bullet.
The explosions were loud and the smell of smoke and burning machinery drifted over the jungle. Heero could see them men starting to come out of cover, cautious, but suspecting that Heero wasn't any threat now. Heero knew that he couldn't run anymore. He waited, panting with exhaustion and pain, ready for whatever came. he could only hope that Duo had escaped.
One of the men answered a cell call. He looked grim and then motioned his companions to stop. Heero saw one look scared and the others look dedicated. When they moved off, back into the jungle, as a unit, the frightened man lagged behind, as if he was trying to make up his mind to run. Heero took him down, quietly, his companions none the wiser.
When the men were far enough away, Heero whispered, very low into his captive's ear, "Tell me what's going on before I snap your neck like a chicken."
The man tittered under Heero's hand. Heero waited until he subsided, not liking the wild look in the man's eyes. He let his hand up an infinitesimal degree, and the man replied, in the same whisper, "Bomb. Big bomb. Low body count. Just enough to get attention."
Heero glared. "Where?"
The man tittered again. "Too late. We only have minutes left. Better make peace with your maker. We're about to be a black hole in the ocean."
Heero called in the emergency in a calm voice. He ordered everyone to evacuate.
"What group?" Heero wanted to know after pocketing the cell.
The man was round eyed in amazement, now, wondering why Heero wasn't panicking. "What's it matter?"
"Morbid curiosity," Heero replied, not bothering to be quiet now.
"Pan Asian Organization against elitist property ownership." He seemed proud as he said it."We're protesting the fact that wealthy individuals are allowed to own large tracks of land, and become 'Lords' over the people who are forced into state subsidized housing units on those properties."
"By blowing up an island?" Heero wanted to know in disgust.
"Yes, especially when self proclaimed, Duke Polika, is having a vacation here!" The man was warming up to his cause. "Do you know that he's lording it over almost a thousand family's in substandard housing units? I think blowing up his ass will make our point, don't you?"
"No," Heero sighed. "It never does. It makes people the enemy of your cause."
The man was looking frightened again. "Says, you. I think it'll work. By the way, it's very shitty of you to put my cause down when I'm about to die for it."
Heero shrugged.
The man eyed him. "Why aren't you scared?"
"Because I have faith," Heero replied as he shoved the man away from him after relieving the man of his gun.
"Religious faith?" the man asked as he scrambled to his feet.
"Faith in a certain man," Heero clarified.
"Nothing is going to stop that bomb," the man warned him.
"Maybe one thing... one man," Heero replied as he motioned his captive to walk ahead of him.
Heero was lying, of course. He was afraid, afraid that his future, with Duo, was about to be lost.There wouldn't be mornings waking up with Duo pressed against him. He wouldn't sit over morning coffee and argue about toothpaste spooge. He wouldn't celebrate anniversaries. He wouldn't see those purple eyes and that devil grin ever again.
Heero had the urge to shoot the man in front of him, a small revenge, that wouldn't matter when he was blown to bits minutes later. His honor and his commitment to Preventers wouldn't allow him, too, however, and he did still hold a slim hope that Duo might somehow be out there somewhere, saving their lives.
Heero could almost laugh at that faith. It was more possible that Duo was captured, that his illness had made him go into cover again, and that he would meet his fate in misery, buried in sand under a hot sun.
Heero did suddenly laugh, but for all the wrong reasons. His captive looked back at him, face sweating and chalky white. "What?" he asked nervously.
Heero smirked, "Une was wrong about what was going on here. I won't be able to enjoy telling her about it."
"You are seriously... deranged," the man replied. "Why are we even going anywhere? I'd rather not spend my last minute on a forced march under a hot sun."
"You keep saying last minutes, but it's been fifteen already," Heero pointed out. "You have a watch. Don't you know exactly?"
The man glanced down at it, wincing. He didn't look as if he really wanted to know the last second that he would live. He looked worried a moment later. "Maybe my watch isn't working?"
Heero showed the man his own watch. They were synchronized. The man looked puzzled, looked around them, and then shrugged.
"Maybe they told me the wrong time, in case I was captured?" the man suggested.
A possibility, but not a likely one. Heero's faith was growing. "Show me where your operation is."
The man lifted his chin stubbornly. "Like hell, I will."
"I can make your last moments seem like an eternity," Heero warned.
"This way." His captive led him into the deeper jungle.
--------------------------------------------------
"I'd like to go now," Heero's prisoner complained.
"Shut up," Heero growled under his breath as he watched smoke start to rise from an open,metal door, in what looked like an abandoned water treatment facility. Flat on their stomachs, under palm fronds, he ignored a hermit crab inching its way along the sand and listened carefully.
"I think, as a prisoner, that I'm allowed-" the man began to protest.
"Not a war," Heero retorted.
"I'm sure, under the law..."
"Not today," Heero told him as he stood up cautiously and pulled the man towards the door. "Today you tried to blow up an entire island of civilians. Nobody would blame me if I overstepped protocol."
"I would."
Men came boiling out of the doorway, some falling over themselves, as they cleared the smoke and ran, at top speed, into the jungle.
"Not good," Heero muttered.
"Not good at all," his prisoner agreed.
"Main control room, now," Heero ordered and shoved the man into the smoke filled doorway.
Pulling up their shirts over their noses offered a little protection, but it wasn't until they crossed through a hatch, and closed it behind them, that they escaped the choking smoke.
Heero coughed and then asked as he pushed his prisoner ahead of him, "What's causing the smoke?"
"I'm security personnel, not an engineer," the man replied between coughs. "Could be anything. Maybe something went wrong with the cargo ship? They were going to use it's engines."
"To detonate the bomb?" Heero demanded and stopped in his tracks.
"That's what the rumor was," the man replied.
"Get out of here, now," Heero ordered sharply.
"Where the hell are you going?" the man wanted to know.
"I'm going to where the smoke is," Heero told him as he opened the hatch again.
"Why?!" the man exclaimed.
"Because that's where Duo is!" Heero shouted, more to confirm the realization to himself than to the man he was leaving behind him.
It was madness, running straight into a fire zone, but Heero ducked low to escape the worst of the smoke, and ignored a blast of heat, as he entered the empty containment room where a cargo ship was powering up and down it's thrusters. Fire climbed the walls, licking up any mold that had grown there in the water treatment plants years of disuse.
A gun spun on a turret, at the top of the ship, and aimed at Heero, but Heero trusted that he wouldn't get fired on as he stepped over dead bodies, and went up the open ramp of the ship.
"Heero!" Duo's voice shouted from the open door of the cockpit. "Take the engines offline! They have the ship stuck on it's launch sequence. I have to keep manually over riding the thrusters."
Which meant that Duo was the only thing keeping the ship from detonating the bomb. Soon, though, the fire might accomplish the feat without them.
Heero used his strength to pull off panels, ripping out screws in the process. He squinted against sweat and smoke, as he looked frantically for the jump in the system that was causing the launch sequence.
"Running out of time, Heero!" Duo shouted and he sounded desperate in a way that made Heero go cold with fear.
"Status!" Heero barked.
"Bullet, right side," Duo replied.
"Shit!" Heero snarled as he tugged wires aside and found the jump. "Got it. Hold on, love!"
"Always count on you," Duo called back as if he could barely manage to say the words.
Heero heard the engines power down, but his job wasn't over yet. "Location of the bomb?"
"Left engine bay," Duo replied.
"Type of bomb?" Heero demanded as he ignored his leg, his exhaustion, and the choking smoke, as he ran for the ramp. A wall of fire greeted him and Duo's silence.
"Duo?!" Heero called as he closed the hatch on hell and raced up the ship to the cockpit. He found Duo slumped over, unconscious, blood pooling by his seat.
"Duo!" Heero called again and shook at the man. Duo still didn't respond and Heero didn't have time for anything else. He had to get the bomb out of there or the fire might detonate it as surely as the engines would have.
"They got this ship in here, somehow," Heero growled as he took the gun controls and began firing at the walls of the containment tank all around them. When the fire flared up suddenly it was his only indication that a wall had given ground and wasn't as solid as the rest.
The ship was shielded and built for battle, not an ordinary cargo ship. It was Heero's only saving grace as he aimed it's nose at the suspect wall and took a chance as he powered up coasting thrusters to give the ship enough ramming speed.
The wall gave with a crunch of metal from wall and ship, and then they were through into sunlight, with a gout of fire. Heero took the ship as far as he could before palm trees stopped him.
"Hold on, Duo!" he cried as he scrambled from the ship, still choking on the smoke in the air and called for a medic, backup, and status from the other agents, as he clambered up the ship to the right thruster bay.
The bomb was crouched there, bolted in place and blinking with lights. Seeing the scorching on the bay's edges, Heero could see how close they had come to the fire engulfing it and setting it off.
A jump ship hovered and agents jumped out, scrambling off, in every direction, to secure the site. The two medics coming in Heero's direction were cautious, until Heero called out. "Agent Maxwell is inside! Bullet wound!"
"Your status?" one of the medics called.
Heero began to say that he was operational, that Duo needed help more than he did, but a fit of coughing began that turned into a desperate struggle to get air in compromised lungs. Heero blacked out, his last sight, the thruster bay rushing up to meet his face.
---------------------------------
"We sure know how to rock sick leave, don't we?" Duo chuckled and then winced as he pressed a hand to his bandaged wound.
In the bed next to him, Heero nodded in agreement, with an unrepentant smirk. Duo raised an eyebrow at him.
"Are you all right?" Duo wanted to know.
Heero frowned and wrote on a dry erase board, 'I'm not the one with the bullet hole.'
"Don't be stupid," Duo growled. "You sucked in way more smoke than I did, running around and saving the island. Doc Sally said that it would take weeks for your lungs and throat to recover."
'I'm fine,' Heero wrote and motioned to Duo with the oxygen mask. 'Not used for an hour now.'
"A whole hour?"Duo snickered. "What a miraculous recovery."
Heero grimaced and wrote, 'You?'
Duo refrained from shrugging. "Okay, I guess. Nothing I can't stand."
Heero swung his legs out of bed and hooked one hand into his portable oxygen tank.
"You know what the nurse said!" Duo protested. "If you don't stay in bed, they'll separate us."
Heero didn't have to write, 'No chance of that in hell.' It was in his expression as he made the slow walk to Duo's bed and settled on the edge. He rested the oxygen tank between Duo's legs.
"Watch out for the goods!" Duo protested nervously and adjusted the tank more comfortably.
Duo wasn't wearing his hospital gown. He hadn't seen the point. His back tattoo was just visible along one side and covered completely on the other. Heero tucked down the blanket and checked the bandage.
"What do you think's going to happen?" Duo wanted to know irritably."They haven't let me on my feet since I got here."
Heero wrote, 'I worry, because I care.'
"I know, I know, but you need someone to worry about you, too," Duo replied and reached around Heero to smooth a hand along the bare part of his back, showing through the back of his gown.
Heero blushed and wrote, 'These gowns are useless.'
Duo grinned lecherously."I don't know about that. On you it's kind of sexy, like a peep show."
Heero removed Duo's hand and put it in his own tightly. He wrote one handed, suddenly growing serious. 'I thought I'd lost you. I thought that there weren't going to be any more chances to be with you.'
Duo patiently watched Heero write, holding the board steady for him. He pulled their clasped hands towards him and gave Heero's hand a kiss. "I thought I was at end game, too, Heero. I know what you're trying to say. You're tying to say, 'get over your hang ups and let's get together, as a couple.' I agree with that. I'm sure about us, now. This isn't rushing in to things. There isn't any doubt in my mind that we should be together."
Heero smirked and wrote, 'Actually, I was going to ask what are chances for getting some Chinese food in here, were. I'm tired of jello.'
Duo laughed even as Heero blinked on tears and wiped off the board. He wrote, 'I love you. Being with you, for the rest of my life, as my partner, answers all of my dreams.'
"You won't mind snoring?" Duo asked, "Toothpaste splatters on the bathroom mirror, my underwear tossed on the kitchen table, dirty, or two cars, up on blocks in the driveway, as I endlessly work on them, and my workaholic ways?"
'I will,' Heero admitted, 'but no one's life is perfect.'
"You're not perfect?" Duo asked, eyebrows raising. "You've burst my bubble."
Heero leaned down and kissed Duo, laughing through the kiss. When he broke it, he wrote, 'Give and take, Maxwell. That's part of love.'
"I suppose it is," Duo grinned as he slipped a hand inside of Heero's gown again, "But there are rewards for putting up with each other's faults."
Heero wrote with a sigh, 'And we'll find out what that is, after we both heal enough.'
"If you're good, and stay in your bed, that might be sooner," Duo pointed out. "Call it your incentive."
'Yours too,' Heero wrote, kissed Duo again, and went back to his bed. Once he was settled, he looked over at Duo lovingly and wrote, 'Under the circumstances, maybe we can get the nurses to move the beds closer?'
Duo smirked. "I'll insist. Maybe we have to wait at least a month to do anything interesting, but nothing is going to stop me from being close to you, now."
Heero nodded agreement.
Duo's hand caressed the part of his tattoo that he could reach. He looked thoughtful and then he said. "I put these arms around me to remember someone who cared about me, once. I think I want them changed. I still care about her, but there's another set of arms I'd rather have around me, now. Yours."
Nothing could stop Heero from crossing the space between their beds again, despite Duo's protest, and showing Duo how much that meant to him.
End