Life With Heero Arc Part 102
Preparation Part 3
An annoying buzzing sound intruded on Duo's rest. With a muttered curse, he rolled over, reached out, and slapped the alarm's snooze button without even opening his eyes.
Behind him, Heero mumbled sleepily, "Five more minutes isn't going to help."
Duo huffed out a weary sigh. "I know." Five minutes of dozing wasn't even a drop in the bucket after five consecutive sixteen-plus hour workdays.
The mattress creaked and shifted, and Duo expected to hear the thwack of bare feet hitting the floor. Instead, a warm body pressed against his back, an arm wrapped around his waist, and a chin tucked itself into the crook of his neck. Heero didn't say anything; he just sighed quietly, his breath tickling Duo's neck. Duo didn't say anything either, just intertwined his fingers with Heero's and tried to relax, keeping one eye on the clock the entire time. Nice as it felt to just lie here and simply be for a while, he'd really prefer to get moving before that damn obnoxious alarm went off again.
'At least today's only going to be an eight-hour day,' he thought with weary gratitude. 'Of course, we'll probably be so tired when we come home that we'll end up sleeping instead of actually doing anything, but then, right now, just spending the whole day lying here together and resting sounds pretty damn good...'
Just before the alarm went off, Duo reached over and hit the snooze button one more time. Heero didn't comment, but the arm wrapped around Duo tightened, pulling their bodies a fraction more tightly together.
For a few minutes, they simply lay there, soaking up the early morning peace and quiet and enjoying each other's company. Finally, Duo reluctantly murmured, "Hate to say it, but we've really gotta get up."
Lips brushed lightly against Duo's neck. "I know."
With a mutual weary groan of resignation, they separated and rolled out of bed.
It was going to be one damn long day.
***
'Two sheds down, four more to go...' Considering that it had taken four people about forty workhours each in order to get those two sheds cleared out and inventoried - not counting the additional labour by employees who'd sorted the discarded material and stored the inventoried goods - and considering that two of the remaining sheds were smaller...
That meant that they should have no problem finishing the inventory before the auditor's arrival. Assuming, of course, that they managed to maintain their current pace. Which was hopefully not too optimistic of an assumption.
Stifling a yawn, Duo awkwardly wiped the sweat off his face with the inside of one arm, careful not to get his dirty, gritty glove too close to his eyes. Abruptly, he realized that something about the nearly constant cacophony of creaks, rattles, and groans inside the shed seemed - different - and he froze in mid-wipe. "What the hell..." he muttered, casting a cautious gaze around the shed's interior. Everything looked okay, and the braces they'd placed along the walls were all in place...
But still, something seemed - off.
"Hey, Hil, hold still and be quiet a minute, will ya?" he called across the aisle. Hilde gave him a grumpy glare, but stopped sorting through a pile of assorted car engine parts and waited. Despite the silence, Duo couldn't hear anything that he could pinpoint as different from earlier. "Guess I'm just imaginin' things," he decided with a shrug. "Unless you hear something that sounds kind of funny too..." He gave Hilde a questioning look.
Raising an eyebrow, she said drily, "Other than the repeated odoriferous visits of that chili you had for lunch? Nope, not a thing."
Duo grimaced. "Ha, ha. Everybody's a comedian," he grumbled irritably. Yeah, the chili had been a definite mistake, but Hilde's comments had gotten old after the first dozen times. He gave an exasperated sigh, then insisted, "No, seriously Hil. Do you hear anything that just sounds kinda - off?'
She scowled at him, but stood silently and listened for a few moments. Finally, she shook her head. "No. Now, if you don't mind, some of us have better things to do than stand around listening to the colony spin." Suiting actions to words, she returned to her previous task.
Unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong, Duo made the rounds, checking the wall braces both inside the shed and outside as well. All of them were securely in place, and he could see no indications that the dilapidated building had shifted and become more unstable. Shaking his head, he chalked his uneasiness up to being overtired and went back to work.
Heero would be just about done unloading the last pallet load for Rick to inventory by now; he wanted to have another pallet filled up and ready to go by the time that Heero got back with the forklift. The sooner they got this damn inventory over with, the sooner they could get their personal lives back.
TBC...
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