Army of One Arc Part 2
Life with Duo
I slept, but it wasn't really all that great of sleep. I didn't dream, but I drifted in and out. Sometime in the night, I threw my tank top off; it was stiff with dried blood and uncomfortable. When I woke up once in the night, I could feel the Deathscythe pilot pressed against me. Naked skin against naked skin, since neither of us had on shirts anymore. It wasn't sexual, or not overtly so. I woke up enough to know it was only Duo's arms wrapped around me, his thick hair spilling across his face in his sleep. I slept after that a little better, feeling I was safe. Knowing I was safe.
I woke up more slowly in the morning, in a cocoon of body heat and a curtain of strawberry scented silk. Duo's hair was in my face. The covers had somehow made their way up to my shoulders. I didn't put them there, so it had to be Duo.
I tried to roll over and found Duo's arm was thrown around my waist, between my chest and stomach. His face was pressed against my shoulder, and his breath was hot against my skin.
Just to set the record straight, I am not used to waking up tangled in the arms of a guy I have only known for three days. I am not used to waking up tangled in the arms of anyone. Waking up like this would have normally been my retreat cue, but I just didn't feel like it. I was warm and safe and felt more right than I had in a long time. I felt like I was wrapped in my favorite blanket, curled up with my favorite stuffed animal. Okay... so I've never had a favorite anything, and I've never owned any stuffed animal to my knowledge... but you get the general idea. It was the same kind of comfort.
Okay, so he's gone from being a pet to a teddy bear, Yuy? Get a grip.
Anyway, even the sight of Duo using me for a full-length pillow wasn't enough to disturb me. All I knew was that I didn't want to move. Kinda like that time when you first get up in the morning and you don't have anything to be done and nowhere to be and you can just float in that half-awake, half-asleep, warm-nest-of-blankets-burrow feeling.
Yeah, I don't get a lot of those mornings.
I laid there looking over at him for a few minutes, then felt him stir a little. His lips brushed against my shoulder, and the sensation sent a chill down my spine. Ditto with his fingers tightening against my waist. Suddenly, I had to get out of there. I had about three seconds until he woke up and I had no clue what you were supposed to say to someone you woke up half-naked next to. It was something my training sure as hell didn't cover. My heart pounded in my chest.
I slowly slipped out of his arms, trying to be careful not to wake him up. I picked up the warm weight of his arm and cautiously moved it off me. I rolled out of bed, landing on my feet in a crouch with a smooth thump. It hurt like hell - I could feel the bones grating together in my left leg - but it helped to wake me up a little more, too. I looked up to see if he had woken up, but he seemed asleep still. He made a soft whimper, burying his face in my pillow.
I turned away from him reluctantly, limping over to a mirror on the opposite wall to look myself over.
I'm an honest guy. I looked like hell and I admit it. I definitely didn't look like someone anyone would want to cuddle up with. I was streaked with blood and there was a bruise across my cheek where I had slammed it against the torpedoes I had been planning to destroy Wing with. I gingerly touched the gunshot wound on my arm. It was only a graze, but a deep one. My leg was worse. It was a simple fracture, and the nanomachines in my blood had reduced swelling, but they couldn't help to speed up the healing until I set the bone. Which, contrary to popular belief, I was not looking forward to.
When I turned back around, I saw that Duo was watching me, propped up on one elbow. He had pushed his hair back out of his face, and his strangely colored eyes were examining me with amusement. He gave me a lazy smirk, an expression I instantly disliked because it made him look more jaded than I would like to pretend he is, and also because it made me realize he had been awake the entire time, gauging my reaction. It was an expression that showed me he had the one-up. I scowled back at him, but his face didn't lose that otcha-buddy grin.
"Sleep better?" he asked.
I didn't answer him, only stared back at him. Even though it hurt, I crossed my arms across my chest, looking down at him. He was languidly sprawled across the bed now, that ridiculous hair puddled across the sheets, the lines of his shoulders and back smooth and flawless. The covers had slipped down to the small of his back, so I had a good view.
"Heero. Earth to Yuy, Earth needs you, Yuy."
Unfortunately, he caught me looking. Which made me blush. Dammit, I hate being embarrassed.
"Hn?" I dragged my eyes back to his face. There was a mischievous grin there now, which mortified me even more. He enjoyed bewildering me.
"We gotta find you some clothes and get those in a washer. Bloodshed red clashes with forest green, in case you haven't noticed. And we gotta get those wounds cleaned up before they get infected. You gotta get that leg fixed up and take a shower, no offense. And we have to go find your mobile suit, despite the fact that you seemed awful anxious to blow it to hell the day before yesterday. You get-um message, Kemo sabe?"
I felt the scowl return to my face. I don't like to be mocked anymore than anyone else, thank you very much. But the comment did provoke me into speaking. "Shower?" I asked. I pride myself on being able to ask simple questions. I try to keep word usage to a minimum.
"Yeah, it's at the end of the hall. Community shower for the barracks, but everybody'll have taken theirs and gotten out to deck by now. You'll have it to yourself. I'll use the one at the other end," he added, as if suddenly remembering that while I may be comfortable enough sleeping next to an almost complete stranger, showering with one was a completely different proposition.
"Hai." I grabbed my shirt, then turned back to look at him. Duo still hadn't moved, as if he didn't plan on getting up for awhile. "What am I supposed to wear while these are washing?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot." The Deathscythe pilot pushed down the covers and got out of bed. He wasn't dressed in anything now but a pair of black silk boxers with little smiley faces on them. Go figure.
He got up and rummaged through a chest of drawers, pulling out a pair of socks, a pair of boxers with little Monopoly pieces on them, a pair of ragged khaki shorts that looked like cutoffs, and a worn white baggy wifebeater that looked like it had last been worn by a big redneck named Bubba.
I raised an eyebrow to show my opinion of the wardrobe. Duo caught the glance and blushed himself. Score: Yuy - 1, Maxwell - 1. See, I can play that game too.
"They're not mine," he said, laughing a little sheepishly. "Except the boxers."
"They're adequate," I replied, grabbing the bundle of clothes. I turned towards the door, limping out into the hall.
"Hey Heero!"
I looked back at him.
The Deathscythe pilot stared after me, his long hair dragging all the way to the backs of his legs. Even after sleeping on it, the hair wasn't tangled. It fell in feathery waves. "What?" I asked irritably, upset over being distracted by his strangely beautiful physical appearance again.
His face was serious, but there was a pleading undertone to his expression, as well. "You wouldn't really have shot that girl, would ya?"
There was something in his face that said he didn't want to think badly of me. I turned my back on him and limped doggedly to the bathrooms. I could feel his eyes on my back the entire time, but I didn't turn back.
I grabbed a couple of towels at the bin, then, before I shoved open the door to the community shower, I called back to him without looking back at him. "Duo!"
"Yeah?"
"If I had, would you have killed me?" I pushed the door open and went into the bathroom. If he was as stupid and foolish as he sometimes acted, he'd probably need time to think about it.
~*~
The shower was a group one, but Duo was right. I was the only one in it. I put my dirty clothes and my clean clothes on one end and washed on the other. I cleaned myself, scrubbing hard as if I could never be clean again. I always felt like that after battle. But it never changed. I sat on the tiles under the hot, beating water, hugging my knees and hoping Duo wouldn't come in. It hurt to stand up. I tried to blank out. Usually when I try to blank out, I can, but just then, I couldn't block the sound of the water, the heat, the smooth tiles, or my thoughts.
What was I doing here? I should have been off on my own by now. I should have left in the middle of the night. I know that. But I didn't.
Anyway... Maxwell's crew had the manpower and the equipment to recover Wing. Which was something I didn't have on my own. Finally, a logical answer for the fact that I was hanging around. The other explanation, which was that I couldn't force myself to leave Duo yet, was a reality I wasn't prepared to face.
I leaned my back up against the wall, letting my bangs fall in my face, my hair plastered to my skull. I sat there until the water until it went cold. Thinking. I may not be the quickest thinker out there - Quatre is a lot better at thinking on his feet than I am - but I have and always will think things through well before following a course of action.
I got up and turned off the water. The silence seemed deafening. After drying off, I put on the clothes that Duo had set out for me. Once I was dressed, I checked myself out in the mirror. It startled me into a laugh.
~*~
"What are you doing?"
"Hnnnnn...nnn!" There was a snapping sound that I felt more than heard as I set my fractured leg. There was a bright flash of pain as I manipulated the ends of the bone, but it dulled drastically when I put them into proper place. I grabbed a wrench and some cloth, splinting it.
"Oh man, I think I'm going to be sick..."
I looked up from the spot where I was lying on the deck. Duo was behind a dolly tow, which was currently pulling Wing to the deck of the carrier salvage ship. His face did look paler than usual, and I suppressed a smirk as I stood up, testing how much weight my leg could carry. With the nanomachines, I figured it would be half-knit in two days, maybe three. Fully healed in a week, tops. I couldn't afford to be compromised on the battlefield.
There was a loud groaning sound as the tow finally brought Wing to the deck of the ship and onto a transport with a thud. I looked up at it. it didn't seem to be in too bad of shape, but it definitely wasn't operational.
"Man, first I save your life, and then I pull in your suit. You owe me and the guys big time, buddy." Duo had jumped out of the tow and walked over beside me, putting his hands on his hips. "She ain't in great shape though, is she?"
"I can have it repaired in three days."
"Says the guy who fixes his broken leg with a wrench." I started to scowl at him, but he waved at me dismissively, laughing me off. "Yeah, sure. I believe you, buddy. Don't get me wrong, I totally believe you could get this puppy's tail waggin' again in three days, but there's just one thing you forgot. It's just that you can't even get new parts for this hunk 'a junk in three days."
"Three days."
Duo laughed again. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, buddy." He rummaged in his pocket for fishing line, a small bottle of iodine, and a needle. I had already sewn up my leg, but I couldn't reach my arm to do it.
"Hold still so I can do this, Heero." I obeyed, leaning up against Wing's head with my other arm to steady myself. I watched him put iodine in the wound and put in the first couple of stitches, then I turned my head away and closed my eyes. I never flinched or jerked, but can't stand needles or syringes, and with good reason.
Duo laughed softly as he sewed, being careful not to hurt me any more than he had to. "You can set your own leg, but you're afraid of stitches? You're a trip, Heero."
~*~
"What're ya doing? You've been standing there for over an hour."
I turned from where I was leaning on the rail to watch Duo approach. He was dressed in a white buttondown shirt that was unbuttoned in the front, and a pair of jean cutoffs. I noticed that his hair was braided back again, something I hadn't noticed before. I wondered how long it took him to do it. Especially if he did it himself.
I turned back towards the rail, leaning my elbows back on it. "Watching the water." To tell the truth, I hadn't realized so much time had gone by.
Duo came up beside me and leaned against the rail, looking over the side as I did. I noticed him swaying his hips slightly out of the corner of my eye. Somewhere on the ship, someone had a CD player that was playing music that sounded vaguely Latin.
:: ...Tropical the island breeze, all of nature wild and free, this is where I long to be, la isla bonita, and when the sun will play, the sun would set so high, ring through my ears and sting my eyes, your Spanish lullaby, I want to be where the sun warms the sky, my Spanish lullaby... ::
I closed my eyes and relaxed, allowing the sun to bake away the pain in my leg and arm. It felt good, warm through my shirt, heating my back. We stood there a few minutes, not saying anything, until Duo broke the silence. I had only known him a few days, but I knew instinctively that he couldn't stand to be quiet for more than a few minutes at a time. His eyes flashed as he leaned further over the bow, pointing.
"Look, Heero! Dolphins!"
I leaned forward slightly to look. All I could see was half a dozen bullet-shaped gray streaks beneath the water. Every minute or so a curved fin would break the surface.
Suddenly, before I could react, Duo had climbed up onto the rail. A flash of panic swept me as I realized what he was about to do.
"Duo, don-"
The Deathscythe pilot was gone, dived at least forty feet into the water.
I leaned over the rail anxiously, eyes searching. I tried to remember anything about dolphins and could come up with nothing. I didn't even know what they were.
"Duo... Duo!"
Suddenly, I saw the sun flash off Duo's shoulders, and he lifted his hand to me in a wave. I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding in a relieved sigh. What did I care if Duo got eaten by dolphins? Daredevil American idiot. I didn't wave back.
"Come down! It's beautiful!" he called up, laughing. I stayed where I was for a minute, and he egged me on some more. "C'mon, Yuy, don't be a wuss! You can swim, can't you?"
// You can shoot a gun, can't you? // I thought back on one of the first things Dr.J ever said to me.
Making up my mind, I climbed onto the rail and dived into the water. I wasn't worried about the boat leaving us behind. We were anchored over the deep center of a circular reef, and far enough out to sea that OZ wouldn't be provoked into investigating us.
The water was warm from the sun. I surfaced, sweeping the hair back from my face with a flick of my head. I looked around for Duo and saw him, swimming over.
"K'so! What in the hell did you do that for?" I asked, angry. Now that relief had set in and faded, anger followed easily. He could have broken his fool neck. Hell, I could have broken my own neck following him down there.
"I wanted to swim with the dolphins," he replied casually, as if anyone would dive forty feet without thinking twice in order to swim with them. Duo ducked his head under the water, diving down after the animals. I hesitated a moment, then followed, holding my breath.
Duo was right again. They were beautiful, and more graceful in the water than we could ever be. They swam around us, frightened and curious at the same time, like shy children. They came almost close enough to touch, but I didn't try. Neither did Duo. It would break the spell.
~*~
When we had both had enough, we climbed a ladder back to deck. Duo sat on the deck, his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed casually at the ankles, basking in the sun. His hair was down again and he was rubbing it dry with a towel from the barracks. It shone like bronze gold in the sun.
"Wasn't that the most awesome thing you've ever seen?" he asked brightly, like a child.
"We could have been killed," I answered, my voice deadpan.
"I knew you'd like it," he replied cheerfully, shaking his hair out and combing it through with his fingers before pulling it into a messy braid. He didn't have a brush, so he did a bad job of it, but it did get that hair of his somewhat under control.
I leaned against the rail again, letting my hair and my clothes dry a little, sighing silently as I watched the sun set. You just can't win an argument with Duo Maxwell.
~*~
Once I had dried off, I headed into the hangar to work on Wing. My emotions were all mixed up. The only thing that would help would be to work on Wing and get it operational as quickly as possible. I was sure of it. It was the only thing I could think of to rectify the problem, anyway, and I was sticking to it.
I skipped dinner, even though all the other techs on the ship-and Duo-went down into the galley to eat. I started working on Wing instead, doing damage assessment, and basically milling around the hangar, thinking to myself.
I was arm-deep in Wing's lower right drive system when-
"HEY HEERO!"
I accidentally let go of the clamp holding my suspension rope in surprise. I grabbed the rope to stop myself from falling, dropping my wrench and burning my hand. I heard the wrench clang against the floor twenty feet below me.
// That would have hurt. // Reclamping my rope with one hand and shaking out my burnt hand with the other, I glared down at him from my harness. He looked up at my guilelessly, a plate in his hands.
"Gotcha something to eat. You haven't eaten all day. You gotta eat something, you're not a machine," he called up, his voice reproachful. Now, as long as we're going to bitch...
"Anyone ever tell you not to scream at someone who is suspended twenty feet above the ground?" I answered drily, bracing my legs against Wing's torso.
"You're so uptight, Heero. Someone stuck a lump of coal up your ass, they'd have a diamond in twenty-four hours. You need to relax."
I sighed and pushed off from the side of Wing, swinging around to the hatch. The hatch had been jammed partially by the crash - I had almost drowned, in fact - but all it had taken was some simple reconnections to fix. I almost smiled with satisfaction when the hatch slid open with a smooth mechanical hum.
I climbed into the hatch and activated Wing, watching her systems light up. The cool, no- nonsense feminine voice filled the cockpit. Programmed her myself. Everyone needs a special woman in their life, even me. I grinned.
[[ Please identify pilot. ]]
I placed my hand on the DNA pad, watched it scan.
[[ Welcome back, pilot two-four-five-seven codename Heero Yuy. ]]
"Thanks, Wing," I whispered. I carefully piloted her onto her back, then put her into standby and raised the hatch. Raising my voice, I checked perimeters.
"Wing, damage report."
[[ Lower right drive system failure. Circuitry damage in all quadrants. Estimated efficiency is at forty-three percent. Thermal energy line rupture. Beam cannon disabled. ]]
// Dammit. // I hooked my laptop into the system and reviewed the system malfunctions. I was lucky my laptop was still working at all.
"Need any help?" Duo stuck his head in the hatch. I didn't bother looking up at him.
"No."
He sat on the edge of the hatch, sighing dramatically and swinging his legs back and forth. "Look, man, why don't you just give it up? You don't have any parts... you can't fix a mobile suit without parts. Kinda need parts to fix machines, you know? Not like you with your leg..."
"Duo. Shut up."
He stopped swinging his legs as I jumped out of the hatch, grabbed a handful of tools, and hung over the side, working on the torso torque complex. "I don't even know why I saved your ass," he muttered. "You're rude, antisocial, and not only that, you think you're a freakin' mix between Superman and the Terminator... geez, man, you gotta learn how to relax..."
"Duo... omae o koroso..." I murmured softly through clenched teeth, trying to keep from slipping off and falling on my head.
"Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking, dumb American, but this dumb American no- speaka Japanese..."
"Duo!" I looked up in exasperation, ready to carry out the threat I had made a few moments before.
My laptop began to beep. I stuck my head over the side of the hatch. The screen which was showing my systems analysis slowly faded out to green screen. I jumped back into the cockpit and put in my passwords, watching words flit across the screen almost faster than I could read them.
"What's up?" Duo asked, giving up his sulking out of curiosity.
"I have a mission tomorrow morning," I replied softly. I finished reading the briefing and logged back into my systems analysis.
"Are you crazy?! This hulk ain't gonna be ready by morning! I mean, I was willin' to give you three days, man, three days, but one night?! You are out of your fucking mind!" Duo's voice wasn't harsh, but it was disbelieving.
"Tonight. I'm doing it tonight. One hundred percent efficiency by 0600 hours." I repeated slowly and calmly, as if I was talking to a child. He was an American idiot, after all.
"Out of your mind," Duo repeated, firmly, as if that was the last word on it. "You must have hit your head hard when you landed on this rock, Yuy, because it is not happening. You don't have the parts and even if you did, you don't have the time. You are a crazyass motherfucker," he added, almost with a tone of pity.
"This coming from a guy who jumped forty feet from the deck of a ship to swim with big fish."
"... Dolphins are not fish, Heero."
"Hn. Whatever."
Duo got up and started to jump off Wing, then stopped. "Need any help?" he asked. His voice sounded resigned, as if he didn't relish the idea of staying up all night helping me rebuild Wing when he knew it couldn't be done, but he would do it anyway, just to help me.
I was almost flattered. But nobody touched Wing but me. I glared up at him. "I don't need your help, Maxwell. And I don't want it, especially from some American colony grease monkey like you."
I know, I know. Total bastard, right? But I have a logical reason for blowing Duo off. I thought that if he was angry with me, it would be that much easier to leave in the morning. It would already be hard as it was. Hmmmmm... cuddle up with Duo for another good night's worth of sleep to help my wounds heal, or stay up all night on sludge coffee and adrenaline trying to get Wing off the ground for the Mission. Decisions, decisions...
I hate being the perfect soldier.
Instead of being angry with me for growling at him, he laughed. "Grease monkey, huh? Well, a grease monkey is exactly what you need, Heero-my-man, because it'll be a blue-eyed miracle if you can get this junk heap off the ground by six. Especially without parts."
I just kept glaring at him. "Maxwell, go away. I have work to do."
Duo laughed again, more softly this time. "Yeah, yeah. I'm sackin' out. It's already midnight. You got six hours, Heero. The clock's tickin'..."
Before I could yell at him again, he had jumped off of Wing and was gone. I got back to work.
As I worked, I thought about Duo. If he was a Gundam pilot, he would be going on the same kind of missions as I was. I could tell he wasn't a soldier from Project Apocalypse. I knew he might survive a few, but sooner or later, his luck would run out. I didn't want to think about that. There were major missions coming up with the Federation. I couldn't be responsible for his death, just because he was a gifted pilot too foolish and idiotic to protect himself.
I looked over at the Deathscythe. All of the other techs had retired for the night. Trying to think of a way to both protect Duo and repair Wing, I came up with the brilliant idea of stripping the Deathscythe for the parts needed by my Gundam.
It worked to my advantage on all fronts. It would piss Duo off, slow him down, and get me to my Mission. I smiled just thinking about it. It wouldn't stop Duo - I had a feeling that nothing would stop that braided fool - but it would slow him down.
I guess I just didn't want to admit to myself the bare truth: I didn't want Duo to go to battle... because I didn't want him to get hurt.
I think that's the point I started to care about someone. I don't think I'd even thought about caring about anyone or anything but the Mission for six years. Surprise, surprise..... as Trowa would say.
I got to work. Duo was right again, as usual. It was half past midnight, and the clock was ticking.
~*~
Finally, six hours later (and about twice as many cups of coffee) Wing was ready. I didn't even bother retarping Deathscythe after gutting the mech. Wing had required a little more repair than I thought. I crawled, bleary-eyed and exhausted, into the cockpit. I transformed to flight mode and taxied out onto the runway.
Through the lens, I saw Duo run out into the entrance of the hangar, a couple of the early techs shielding their eyes, watching me off. His braid was whipped out behind him. There was an amazed look on his face, and it was an expression I'll never forget. I watched him talk excitedly to the techs around him. I saw him turn his head back towards the hangar, and when he turned his face back up to Wing, his expression had completely changed. There was a look of dawning realization on his face, and shock. His amethyst eyes were wide, and I saw him raise his fist, cursing me indignantly. I couldn't read his lips or hear what he was saying over the engines, but I know enough to know it wasn't, "Farewell and good luck". I figured out as I ran the runway that I wasn't too tired to laugh, after all.
At least I was civil enough to leave him a note on Deathscythe.
Dear Duo:
I owe you one. Thanks for the parts. And the dolphins. Watch OZ. Stay safe.
-Heero
TBC...
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