Kracken
Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of this.
Warnings:Male/male sex, graphic, language, attempted NCS, violence
Soldier Boys
Sequel to Coming to terms
Under the Moon
"Are you sure I didn't die and go to heaven?" Duo wondered as Heero slowly lowered him into the sunken hot pool of bubbling water. He groaned in pleasure and then settled on a low step, sunk up to his neck, but braid safely trailing behind him on the pale blue tile.
Heero settled on a low, wooden bench close by. Duo eyed him. "You're NOT going to just sit there are you?"
They had both showered after their work out and there, too, Heero had hung back,
helping Duo under the spray of water, but turning his back and watching the
wall until Duo was done. Afterwards, he had taken his shower. Duo didn't want
a repeat here.
"Come on, Heero!" Duo urged.
Heero looked embarrassed. He replied, as if it wasn't something that he wanted to admit to, "After the incident in the gym.... I think-"
"You don't trust yourself?" Duo guessed, saving him the trouble. When Heero gave a tight nod, jaw clenching and blue eyes nervously counting the tile at his feet, Duo snorted. "Maybe I'm not a hundred percent, Heero, but I guarantee you, if you try something I don't like, I'll do more than kick you in the boys, got it?"
Heero grunted and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He gave another nod and then he was dropping his towel and climbing into the water as well. He sat on an opposite, underwater seat from Duo and they both bubbled in hot water up to their necks, staring at each other.
Duo laughed, "Don't you think we're past this point? I mean, we had a 'moment' in the gym already. It's not like either one of us doesn't want this."
Duo reached out and found Heero's hand. He gave a small tug and Heero drifted in the water across the short distance to his seat. He sat down gingerly.
"Relax and enjoy yourself soldier," Duo growled. "That's an order."
Again that won Duo a small smile and Heero did lean back against the wall of the pool and half close his eyes contentedly.
"I vote we let Quatre pick all the safe houses from now on," Duo sighed.
Heero grunted. "He has chosen all of them. "
"I mean, if he keeps picking ones like this," Duo amended. "I could blow up Oz every day as long as I get to come back to a place like this afterward." He eyed Heero. "Have you ever been in this kind of place before?"
"Yes," Heero replied, but didn't elaborate.
"Really?" Duo looked wide eyed, but then he sank into the water again with a sad expression. "I heard people lived like this, but I've always lived out of old crates and bare bones space ships. Even during training, I wasn't given anything except a hard bunk and a scratchy blanket in a barracks full of other people."
Heero frowned. "A place like this can exact a personal price other than monetary."
Duo blinked. "Like?"
"Expectations... duties...," Heero replied.
"What doesn't?" Duo retorted. "Even being on the street in a gang, you have to do things, do what you're told, work every day to find enough to live on... The big difference is, I was given a cold bed in a corner of a falling down building for pulling my weight and here you get everything you could possibly dream of."
"Is this what you've dreamed of?" Heero asked. "Pools of hot water, personal gyms, and room service?"
"Yeah, kind of," Duo admitted, but then thought about it and shrugged, wincing a bit at the pain that caused his side. "Okay, to be honest? This is really nice, but it's not what I've been wanting my whole life."
Heero gave him an intense look. "Tell me what you've wanted."
Duo stared and had the feeling that Heero was poised to do whatever it took to fulfill his dream. "Maybe I shouldn't say," Duo replied as he brushed wet bangs out of his eyes. "Doesn't matter anyway. It's not like any of it can come true."
Heero suddenly reached out and caressed Duo's cheek, his expression both sad and fierce. "Tell me."
Duo swallowed. It was an overwhelming feeling, having someone care about him like that; someone who wanted to make things right for him and who wanted to fulfill his dreams. On the street, he'd done whatever he had been told and had taken what he could get. In the orphanage, the rules had been strict and his future as a priest had not been arguable. Living among the sweepers and training with Dr. G, he had been given the minimal and the implied threat, to do as he was told and to excel, had been unmistakable.
"I....," Duo cleared his throat and tried again in a small voice, "I'll fight, and probably die.... but I don't want to do it alone."
Heero floated closer and his arm slipped around Duo's waist. Duo felt awkward at first, but then he relaxed and found a comfortable curve of Heero's should to rest against. Heero didn't make any promises, didn't try to hand Duo the sky and the moon. He couldn't. They were soldiers in a war. A comforting hug was all that he could sincerely offer.
"Thanks," Duo breathed.
"Hn?" Heero replied.
"For not lying," Duo explained. "I hate lying."
"As long as I can," Heero said softly in his ear. "I will stay with you."
Which said nothing, really, but it was the best that Heero could offer. Duo nodded and hated how tight his chest suddenly became. The needy core of his being wanted to clutch and cry, but he couldn't let it. Instead, he joked unconvincingly, "As long as you can stand hearing me talk?"
The arm around his waist tightened. "Don't," Heero said.
The reflexive duck and cover, Duo thought bitterly to himself. He didn't blame Heero for not wanting that right now. He deserved honesty in return. "Sorry, " Duo told him . "I know how things are, Heero. We'll just enjoy what we've got until we don't got it any more. That might be a minute, an hour, or a few days, but... any time with you is okay."
Duo felt a kiss on his ear and he blushed as Heero pulled him into a compete
embrace. They rested like that for a long while, both of them trying to enjoy
every moment to the fullest, and both of them well aware that they might not
get another chance.
______________________
"We have to chance it," Quatre said as he zipped closed his bag and slung it onto one shoulder. "Trowa and I will take the base, Wu Fei will give us backup-"
"I do not take a coward's place in a battle," Wu Fei growled, his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his eyes challenging Quatre.
"Not a cowards place," Duo interjected as he put on his shoe. "The hero place. You get to come to the rescue, cannons and lasers blazing, to save the day when those two get into trouble." He hooked a thumb at Quatre and Trowa.
Trowa frowned as he placed his bags together on the floor. "I will not be getting into trouble."
Duo snickered, teasing Trowa. "No?"
"Duo!" Quatre admonished. "This isn't the time."
"I will fight in the front lines or not at all," Wu Fei persisted. "I will not hang back and wait until they fail their mission."
"We won't fail our mission!" Trowa insisted tightly. "Your job will be to keep the leos off our backs until we can destroy the manufacturing equipment, Wu Fei. Is that more agreeable?"
Wu Fei smiled and his dark eyes glinted. "That's more to my liking. I won't let them pass me unless it is in their journey to the next life."
Quatre thought about that and it's implications, ever the strategist, and then he nodded, finding it acceptable. "All right, then, Heero and Duo?" He handed them a packet containing two information disks. "Here's your mission specs and passwords. The finished leos are being stored at this warehouse site and shipment is two days from now."
Heero scowled. "That doesn't give us much time."
"The site has minimal security," Quatre told him. "It's location is remote. I suppose that they considered it 'hidden' enough not to bother with excessive troops to guard it. Arrogance is its own down fall."
Heero nodded, agreeing with that.
"Where are the leos being shipped?" Duo wondered.
Quatre replied, looking troubled, "The colonies; L2 in particular."
Duo could understand the reasoning behind that move. "L2 is notorious for doing things that are illegal. They have a lot of hidden bays and manufacturing plants. If a person wanted to mount a strike force without anyone the wiser, that would be the place to do it."
Heero finished with his packing and looked disturbed. "If this war is moving into space, then we will have to follow it."
"Agreed," Quatre said.
"I always go where the fighting is," Trowa told them as he slung his bags onto his shoulders with professional ease.
"My duty lies where the fighting is," Wu Fei said solemnly.
Duo cracked his knuckles. "I'm ready to go when you are," he told Heero.
Heero gave him an almost smile that managed to be warm nonetheless.
"All right," Quatre prompted them. "That's in the future. Right now, we have our missions and our meeting point. Let's get going."
"Yeah, some farm house in Nowhereville," Duo grumbled as he limped after Heero. He touched a wall as he passed through the front door, "I'll miss you, man," he said to the apartment. "It was nice while it lasted."
"Yes, it was," Heero agreed without turning. He reached back and lightly brushed his fingers with Duo's. It was a split second of intimacy that Heero made sure no one else saw, and then he was back to soldier mode as if it had never happened.
Duo grinned and he felt as if he were a foot off of the ground with delight. He tried to bring himself to order, but he couldn't help the warm thrill that Heero's touch had sent through his body. The day seemed full of sunshine now, with angels singing Heero's praise, even though it was drizzling rain, over cast, and Duo knew that danger lay in wait just outside the front door of the apartment building.
"Status?" Heero asked, maybe sensing that Duo wasn't in his own soldier mode yet.
"Oh, just fine!" Duo shot back and Heero glanced back at him. "Side still hurts when I stretch it and walking is stretching it," Duo told him. "That's good though. It needs it."
Heero nodded. "I'll take point," he told Duo, meaning that, if there was trouble, Duo was to keep out of Heero's way and watch his back.
"What's our story?" Duo asked.
Heero was silent.
"Come one!" Duo urged, "We have to have our story straight. Who are we and why are we going where we're going?"
"We are visiting ailing grandmother in the country," Heero tried at last. "You are my friend and you're accompanying me."
"That's soooo old!" Duo complained.
They stopped at the front door of the building. The doorman snapped to attention and opened the door for them. Duo and Heero eyed him suspiciously as they passed through.
"Quatre said that he was all right," Duo pointed out.
"No one is all right," Heero growled back. "Everyone is suspect when secrecy is so important."
Duo sighed. "I guess this means we have to crawl through some back alleys to lose whatever Oz soldiers he MIGHT set on our tail."
Heero nodded.
"Lead on," Duo told him, knowing better than to argue.
It at least put him in the right mind set, Duo thought as they squeezed through yet another trash strewn, stinking alley. The sunshine and angels were gone to be replaced by a throbbing headache and a pain in his side that, while small and bearable, was a stabbing twinge Duo could have done without.
"Status," Heero said for the fifth time.
"Sucks, big time," Duo replied grumpily. When Heero looked back at him, he amended, "Mobile and ready for action." Heero nodded and Duo couldn't help sticking out a tongue at him behind his back. Great, Maxwell, he grumbled to himself, "That was mature."
"What?" Heero wondered, confused.
"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to say that out loud," Duo replied in embarrassment. "I'm just realizing what a whiner I'm turning out to be. I hate being like that."
"Understandable," Heero told him.
"No, it isn't!" Duo shot back, suddenly angry, at himself or Heero, he wasn't sure. He controlled himself with an effort and then shrugged. It hurt his side and he hissed in pain. "I need to be a hundred percent and I need to stay focused. I think Quatre's plush hideaway spoiled me. I hope the next safe house is full of rats and holes in the wall so I can get tough again."
Heero grunted. "You may get your wish. The specs I was shown for the safe house told me that the building was very old and hadn't had a tenant in some time."
"Jeez!" Duo swore and raked a hand through his bangs. "Sister Helen was right; watch what you pray for, because God always takes prayers seriously."
Heero chuckled darkly. "Good advice. Think more positively in the future."
"Will do," Duo laughed back and then they fell silent, every nerve strung tight as they left the alley and moved into the busy street. He pointed to a beat up car. "That one. It's so old, the owner and the police won't go too crazy trying to find it."
It was a nondescript gray car. Duo opened the trunk with a tool that disrupted the magnetic lock and, while Heero piled their bags inside, he pulled out some carefully prepared letters. Pretending to drop a bag, Duo bent and then used his body to block anyone's view as he slapped the letters over some of the ones on the license plate. It took only a moment and the he was straightening again and slinging the bag into the trunk smoothly. Heero closed the trunk lid and then they casually moved to the car doors.
Duo keyed another, small pad in his hand as if he were working a remote. He watched the tiny screen on the pad list every known combination in a matter of seconds. It found the combination to the door lock on the old car and the door popped open. Duo grinned and slid in to the passenger's side. He leaned over and popped the lock for Heero.
When Heero was in, Heero took out his own instrument, placed it over the ignition switch, and then activated it. A light blinked furiously and then the car started.
"Descrambler on," Duo chirped from his seat as he pocketed his instruments in the many pouches on his waist. "They can't track the car now by satellite." He eyed Heero as Heero pulled away from the curb. "Your name is Yui Yamamoto and mine is David Mason. We're trying out your new car, the one your parents gave you on your birthday, which was yesterday, as a matter of fact." Duo made very large and very panicked eyes at Heero, his bottom lip quivering. "Please, officer! Don't tell our parents that we drove the car by ourselves. I know we need learner's permits and adults with us. We were just so happy about the car... we promise to drive it straight home and never do it again! Please don't tell our parents!"
"That will work?" Hero wondered skeptically.
"Never underestimate the power of the big eyes and quivering lip," Duo admonished him, but then added, "The main plan is to NOT get caught, though, so let's keep that in mind."
"Roger that," Heero replied in all seriousness and pulled onto a large highway that led out of the city.
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Kracken has a yaoi book, The Angel Within, at amazon.com. and a publishing website
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