Disclaimer:Don't own them, don't make any money off of this.
Warnings: Male/Male sex, graphic, language, violence, attempted NCS
Soldier Boys
Sequel to Games
Bombs Away
Heero's hand clamped onto Duo's shoulder and propped him up as he sagged for
the fourth time, nodding over his work. "Go to bed. I'll finish,"
Heero told him. It had been his fourth time making that suggestion and the exhausted
Duo replied just as he had the three previous times. He shook his head, blinked
blearily, and sat up straighter as he continued to work.
They were both sitting at a work table, covered in bomb making material, that had been set up in the basement of the safe house. Bare bulbs hung from wires on low ceiling beams and the smell of soldering material and chemicals combined with the smell of damp and mold. A clock placed at one end of the table blinked away the seconds until four a.m. When Heero glanced at it and saw the larger numbers change, he put his own tools down and stood up.
"We've nearly completed the work, Duo, but I can't guarantee accuracy any longer. I need to rest."
Duo waved a hand at him. "You go ahead. I don't need that much sleep."
Heero frowned. "I don't think that you are alert enough to be working on such a dangerous project. The chance for error-"
"If YOU need to sleep, go ahead!" Duo snapped irritably and hunkered over his work. "I know my own limits, Yuy!"
"Duo..." Heero stopped and stared. Duo turned and glared at him even more fiercely, his blood shot eyes twitching with exhaustion. "Here." Heero reached for his own tool and held it out to Duo. "Use this. It's better than the one you have."
Duo relaxed and even smiled as he reached for the tool. "Why, thanks Heero-buddy-" Heero dropped the tool to the table, grabbed Duo's extended wrist and, without much effort, slung Duo over his shoulder.
"You are endangering yourself and our location," Heero told him as he ignored Duo's angry struggles and carried him to the stairs. "If you make a mistake, and there is an explosion, everyone in the area will realize what we are doing here."
"You sonofabitch!" Duo panted, head down, staring at Heero's spandex clad butt, and braid trailing the dirty floor. Heero had his legs in an iron hold and no amount of twisting gave him the leverage to free himself.
A sleepy Quatre, dressed in his bathrobe and rubbing at his eyes, stared down at them from the top of the stairs. "I went for a drink of water and saw the light. Why are you still working and what's all the shouting about?"
His eyes went wide as Heero passed him carrying Duo. "We are going to bed," Heero replied. "Clean up, please, Quatre."
"Uh, sure, Heero, but...." Quatre began, still confused, but Duo cut him off, snarling desperately, "Give me your gun, Quatre! Nobody does this to Shinigami! Nobody!"
"That proves that you need rest," Heero pointed out as he headed for the stairs leading to their second floor bedroom. "A gunshot might set off the explosives."
"We need to finish the job, smartass!" Duo protested. "You are the one endangering the mission by not letting me work!"
"And you would know what kind of ass he has, since you are able to observe it so closely," Trowa said calmly as he descended the stairs, wearing only pajama bottoms, and joined Quatre. "I must agree with Heero. Fatigue and bomb making do not mix. We have two days until the mobile suit shipment. You shouldn't be so anxious."
"You people have NO idea what I have to do to make everything go off right!" Duo swore at them. "PUT ME DOWN YOU ASSHOLE AND LET ME DO MY JOB!"
"No," Heero answered shortly and began climbing the stairs.
Duo suddenly drew a knife from the sheathe at his wrist. Both Trowa and Quatre gasped and started forward when they saw it, Quatre shouting in warning, "Heero!" But Duo planted his knife deep into the stair rail, not Heero, and hung on so that Heero had to stop.
"Heero," Duo panted. "I know that you think you are right, but you are really, really embarrassing me and .... I don't like it, okay?"
Heero stiffened for a few moments, thinking, and then he put Duo on his feet, turning to regard him. "I didn't want to knock you unconscious," he explained. "I thought that this was a viable alternative." His jaw tightened and then he said, "You were being dangerous and unreasonable. You are too exhausted to work further. I took action that wouldn't cause you any physical harm so that you could continue to work after you rested."
They glared at each other, blue eyes dueling with amethyst ones. It was Duo who finally slumped. As he pulled his knife out of the stair rail, he sighed and said, "Okay." He rubbed at his eyes. "Guess you're right. Sorry for being stubborn. This is just... kind of important to me. I want to make sure that the bombs get done in time for the mission."
"Commendable," Quatre called up the stairs, "But a body can only do so much, Duo. Heero's right. You should rest and start fresh in the morning."
"It IS morning," Trowa grumbled. He scratched at his hair and continued on towards the kitchen. "I can't sleep after all of this. I'm making coffee."
"I'll join you," Quatre said quickly and trailed after him.
"I'll join you," Duo echoed mockingly. "Those two are getting awfully chummy. It's getting weird."
Heero went tense and then he asked slowly, as if he didn't want an answer, "That bothers you?"
Duo sheathed his knife and grunted. "We're all too young for that stuff and we got more important things to do... like make explosives to blow up OZ," Duo said, emphasizing the last.
Heero glanced to where Quatre and Trowa had disappeared. He looked briefly...
pained... and then his face regained it's usual set scowl as he looked at Duo
again. "You need to go to bed, now."
Duo scowled back. "Well, you're the one yakking. Shut up and let's go!"
Heero turned and began leading the way upstairs. Duo followed, sensing that
some sort of barrier had sprung up between him and Heero. He wondered at it,
reviewed his less than stellar attitude in the last ten minutes, and then decided
that HE had been the one being the asshole. "Uh, sorry, Heero. I guess
I WAS pushing myself too hard. It wasn't safe. Thanks for keeping me from blowing
myself up."
The stiffness in Heero's shoulders eased and he almost paused in mid step, then he continued on, replying, "I did what was necessary."
Duo chuckled wearily. "Is that Heero speak for, 'You're welcome?'"
"Yes," Heero replied shortly.
Duo laughed outright and then, as they topped the stairs and turned towards their shared bedroom, he warned, suddenly serious, "Don't do that again, Heero. I don't know why you thought that dumping me over your shoulder was okay, but...."
"I explained," Heero replied. "I didn't want to hurt you."
Duo frowned and told him, "But you did hurt me." When Heero turned and looked at him in concern, Duo wondered at the warm feeling that look gave him. Heero was afraid that he had physically hurt him. When Duo said, "You hurt my pride." , Heero's look of concern turned to confusion. "Don't embarrass me in front of the guys like that again, okay?" Duo asked. "If I want to look like an idiot, I'll manage it on my own, thanks."
It was clear that Heero didn't know how to reply, so Duo clapped him on a shoulder and lead the way into their bedroom as he said, "Forget about it, for now. Let's sleep!" Duo then threw himself onto his single bed, falling asleep before he hit the sheets.
Heero reached down and pulled off Duo's boots and then he swung his limp legs all the way onto the bed briskly. He almost turned to find his own bed, but then paused and looked back at his fellow Gundam pilot. Duo's face was lax in sleep, his lips parted and his eyes bruised with exhaustion. He began to snore softly.
Heero clasped his arms over his own chest, remembering the feel of Duo's body against him. The look of pain pinched his features again and then his arms dropped. He sighed and sought his own bed
Duo jerked awake some hours later, disoriented, and sat up, shoving blankets aside before he even new what they were. Seeing the familiar little room, he blinked blearily and tried to piece together how he had arrived there. Memory was fuzzy and strange. For some reason, he had a memory of staring very closely at Heero's... Duo scowled, everything coming back to him suddenly. Raking his tangled bangs out of his eyes, and digging his bedraggled braid out from underneath him, he turned to look over at the single bed where Heero slept. He didn't really expect the man to be there and wasn't disappointed. Heero slept as quiet as a mouse and was usually up and gone by daybreak. Sharing a room with Heero Yuy was like sharing with a ghost, only Duo was sure that ghosts had more of a presence.
Duo's cheeks flushed, recalling that the other pilots had seen him at his worst, carried to bed like a baby. Duo was sure that he had made Heero understand not to do that kind of thing again, but it didn't erase the fact that he had done it in the first place. Duo remembered his initial urge to attack the man and shivered. He was very capable of defending himself. Though he hadn't the same strength as Heero, he did know as much about killing with his bare hands. His first impulse, when Heero had slung him over his shoulder, was to twist and break the man's neck, but, he hadn't been that far gone. He had tried to struggle his way out of the pilot's hold, but he had NOT wanted to hurt the pilot of Wing. In retrospect, he remembered Heero saying the same thing to him. Heero hadn't wanted to hurt him either, had gone out of his way and, Duo thought with amazement, had knowingly left himself open to Duo's attack.
Duo smiled. "The guy likes me," he thought as he pulled his braid apart and ran his fingers through it absently to straighten it out. "Can't see him doing all of that if he didn't."
Duo had tried his best to be friendly towards Heero, to get him to open up and trust him, but Heero had seemed to be just what he appeared; someone as quiet as Trowa, totally mission oriented, and unwilling to enter into anything, conversation or otherwise, that was personal. Even during their long stint of bomb making, Heero had sat over his work, nodding, grunting, or only adding small comments when Duo touched on mission details. Duo, on the other hand, had talked about everything from basketball to favorite music, trying to at least let Heero know that he was open to forming a friendship that was more than two pilots helping each other complete their missions.
Loners, Duo thought as he rebraided his hair tightly, every one of them, and that was the problem he was facing. He knew that none of them had the smallest idea how nice it was to have friends and to have people you could keep close to you and trust. Being alone sucked. If he could just make them see that, and get them all together, they would make an awesome group of friends, he thought. Trowa, at least, should get it, Duo thought sourly, he had been part of a merc band, yet he seemed determined to glue himself to Quatre's side and support him against the rest of them. That wasn't good. There couldn't be an us and them, if Heero really was open to becoming friends. They had to be united.
Duo stood up and smoothed the wrinkled material of his clothes. He tugged at the priest collar, centered his cross on his chest, and then yawned hugely as he began to follow the smell of cooking that began to drift upstairs. He paused at Heero's perfectly made bed. Duo grinned suddenly and threw himself onto it. He bounced, sprawled, and then rolled to his feet again. Looking back at the rumpled blankets, he nodded in satisfaction and went downstairs.
"Duo," Trowa grumbled over the rim of his coffee cup as Duo sat at the breakfast table, "How long have you been wearing those clothes? They don't smell or look pleasant."
"Really?" Duo wondered as he sniffed at his priest coat. "I haven't worn it for even a week yet."
Heero was already seated and finishing up a nutri drink and a ball of rice in a small cracked bowl. He was using a spoon and was frowning as if it were a challenge. Duo saw that the spoon was having a hard time getting into the rice. Duo looked nervously at the stove. Quatre was standing over a pan of frying eggs and strips of something that looked like precooked ration meat. An abused pan was already toppled on it's side, the burned remains of rice stuck to its bottom.
"Maybe that smell isn't me," Duo said under his breath as he nodded towards the pan.
"Shhh," Trowa warned softly, "Anything hot is better than cold rations. Encourage Quatre."
"Thanks for cooking, Quatre!" Duo said noisily and put on a smile.
Quatre glanced over his shoulder and smiled back, pleased. "I don't think that I have done too badly."
Duo looked over at Heero and saw the young man keep a reaction well under control, but not so much that Duo didn't understand that he wasn't agreeing with Quatre's assessment. "We all gotta learn to cook and take care of things, " Duo replied. "Nobody should get stuck with doing it all the time and we need to have something besides meal 942b with side dish 784c if life is going to be worth living."
"It will support an adult's optimum health indefinitely, " Heero said as he tried to flick out some burned rice from the questionably good ones.
"So," Duo shot back. "Does that mean that you would rather eat them all the time?"
Heero paused and then replied, as he continued separating his rice. "No."
Duo said with a small, relieved, laugh, "I'm glad you're with me on that, man!"
Duo stood, sauntered over to Quatre, and looked over his shoulder.
When I watched people cook," Duo told him, "they used oil in a lot of things, Qat. That probably keeps food from sticking like that."
Quatre blinked and then replied, "That sounds right," and then he laughed good naturedly. "It is ridiculous that we are all so skilled, yet none of us can cook."
Duo shrugged. "Well, we were taught to destroy things, and, we're good at it. Right now, you're doing a real good job of destroying those eggs, Qat. Why don't you take them out of the pan now?"
Quatre picked up a utensil and tried, but the eggs were stuck fast and beginning to burn. The meat, on the other hand, went flying over the stove as Quatre forcefully tried to get the eggs out. Duo jumped forward and tried to save them, but, as he put them onto a plate, he saw that they were burned black on the bottom.
"Well, so much for breakfast..." Quatre groaned as he finally gave up and put the burning eggs off to the side of the burner. "Well, if anyone wants rice, there's still more of that," he said, indicating a bowl of different colored rice. Duo suspected that it was supposed to be all white.
Duo fished out the least burned piece of meat and gingerly tossed it from hand to hand as he said, "Good try anyway, Qat. We'll all learn eventually. How hard can it be, right?" He turned to Heero, still juggling. "Ready to start working again, Heero-buddy?"
Heero pushed his rice aside and nodded as he stood up. "Ready."
Duo tried to see some of the friendly Heero from the night before, tried to see the man who had carried him to bed and shown concern for his well being. He was met by Heero's stone like expression, his deep, inner concentration on what was probably mission specs, and his lack of even basic eye contact. There was still something there though, Duo thought, trying to work it out as he munched on his cooling piece of meat as they descended the stairs to the basement. He was beginning to see that there was a subtle side to Heero. Heero didn't really hide everything, it was just hard to see what he was thinking or feeling. Duo had to watch closely, because sometimes it was nothing more than a muscle twitch, but, like a well guarded computer, Duo was sure that, in time, he'd be able to hack into Heero's main frame and really see what the pilot was all about.
"Want some?" Duo asked as he held out his left over meat.
Heero flicked eyes at him and then at the half eaten meat in Duo's hand. He took it and finished it off in one bite as he reached the landing and began flicking on the lights over the table containing the bombs. He sat, moved his chair closer to the table, and began working without a word.
Duo wiped his greasy hand on his pants and realized that he was still standing halfway down the stairs. He had offered as a joke, not expecting Heero to say yes. He finished descending the stairs and sat down next to Heero. It was too easy to think that nothing was going on behind those eyes of Heero's except mission specs and a hundred ways to kill an Oz soldier. Duo joked and teased mainly to get Heero to think of something else. When Heero did the unexpected like that, though, Duo was convinced that Heero was hiding what he was really thinking very well. Not for much longer, though, Duo thought determinedly, and set to work.
on to Chapter 6