I Backward Cast My E'e Part 13
Duo triumphantly stabbed the 'equals' button on his calculator, only to end up staring at a number that was far too large to be correct. "Christ, this is tedious! What's the use of having a programmer boyfriend if he can't write a program to do error propagation for me?"
Heero snorted and continued with his work at his laptop. "What, you only love me for my algorithms?"
"The more time you save me, the more nookie we can get!"
"...Well, when you put it that way... no."
"You suck."
"Not tonight. I need to be able to hand this off to Alan tomorrow."
Duo chuckled. The guy managed to be both distractedly sexy and nerdily focused at the same time. "Man, I need a break. Want something to drink?" He got up, stretched, and crossed over to where Heero sat to plant a quick kiss on his cheek.
Heero handed over his mug. "Thanks."
"No prob." As at home in Heero's fridge as he was in his own, he refilled Heero's mug from the fridge, then pulled his own cup off the drying rack and poured himself the same. He yawned after returning Heero's mug and sat back into his own space, staring at the neat rows of numbers making up his data set. Having to crunch the inaccuracies on them again seemed a daunting challenge just then. He got up and went to the bathroom just as a way to stall, came back out, and saw from Heero's monitor that he had just kicked off a compile of his code. "Ah, excellent timing. I need a refill on this, too." He tugged on Heero's sleeve.
"Duo--"
"Don't worry, it'll beep when it's done. It'll take a few minutes, right?" Another tug saw Heero getting out of his seat to follow dutifully to the couch. Duo settled in next to him with a contented sigh that smothered another small yawn. "Just a couple more weeks, and... this is the second to last time we'll have to do this ever again."
Heero glanced at his laptop's screen from across the room and decided that, with Duo nestled comfortably against his side, he was not unhappy that his progress bar was moving as slowly as it was. "Definitely not thinking post-grad?"
"Well, I won't rule it out entirely, I guess." He didn't really think he'd be interested in more schooling, but in his field, an advanced degree certainly didn't hurt. "I'd give it a few years, though. Still, they don't have finals like we have finals."
"You'd still have to do the error calculations."
"I'd try to get an undergrad to do it for me. Or maybe I'd finally be able to convince my brilliant and successful programmer boyfriend to write me a little program to do it for me." Hell, once he was out of undergrad, he would finally be allowed to not write out all of the calculations by hand and life would be wonderful.
"That'd still be a lot of data entry on your part."
He patted Heero patronizingly on the leg. "Don't bother me. I'm dreaming."
"Oh, well maybe I ought to leave you alone with your dreams, then." Heero shifted in his seat as if intending to return to his desk.
Duo held on to his arm. "Hey, you ain't going anywhere, babe. You're a star in most of 'em."
Heero wasn't sure how he felt about that. "I hope dream-me doesn't have a chance against real-me."
"Hmmm." Dream-Heero was capable of an awful lot, but he did have his down sides. "Well, dream-me prefers dream-you, I think, but real-me prefers real-you."
It took a moment's consideration, but Heero relaxed a little. "Okay, fair enough."
"Dream-me gets to have a lot more fun than real-me, though." He wiggled his toes at his textbooks sitting on the floor in front of them.
"Is he sunbathing on the beach right now or something?"
"Mmmmm. Beach." Now there was a good idea. He closed his eyes and expanded on it. "With dream-you doing the whole cabana boy thing, with the palm fronds and the pina coladas."
"At the same time?"
"And the sunscreen. Can't forget the sunscreen."
Heero looked at the satisfied smirk on Duo's face and couldn't help but feel inadequate. "Dream-me has skills real-me could never dream of."
Duo cracked open an eye to examine his boyfriend's faintly insecure expression. One and a half years now, and Heero still had his moments. "Lucky for you, real-me doesn't want a dream-octopus. Real-me wants real-you." His smirk turned into a smile as he snuggled in a little more closely.
One and a half years now, and Heero was still surprised how happy he was that his reality had diverged so far from anything he had ever dreamed. "Well, that's what you get for going to the beach."
"Octopi?"
"Octopi."
If that didn't deserve a big fat kiss, he didn't know what did. He acted upon that impulse, and then voiced another. "Let's go somewhere this winter break."
Heero blinked. "Like where?"
"I dunno. Anywhere. A beach somewhere?"
"It's December."
"So? Okay, maybe not. Some places don't have seasons, right? I dunno. This is our last big vacation. I mean, assuming we get into our summer programs, we're just gonna have a couple of weeks to settle in before we have to start work."
"Spring break?" Heero suggested. Wasn't that the more traditional time to cut loose before entering the real world?
"Not long enough."
"To do what?"
"I don't know, I said," Duo answered impatiently. "Everyone's always going places over spring break, anyway. This is our chance to get away. So let's go... somewhere. Anywhere!"
"Vacation's in a couple of weeks, and it's a busy time of year. I'm not sure--"
"We can find something. Vacation goes on for four weeks. I'm sure we can find something. Maybe toward the end when all the regular people go back to work. Whenever's fine. Let's just get outta here."
Heero thought Duo seemed more agitated than excited all of a sudden, and there was only one thing that Duo was getting agitated about on a regular basis these days. "Anywhere... but here?"
As soon as his meaning was grasped, Duo deflated slightly. "...Just... let's just not be here."
He kissed Duo's temple. "If you just don't want to be found... you can always just stay with me. Or we can stay with my dad for a bit. Trowa and Quatre and Wufei will all be back in town at some point. Or... we can go somewhere. I just... don't want you feeling like you've been forced out of your own home."
"Well, duh, I don't want to feel like I'm being forced out, either." He pouted glumly. "I just... I mean, I wasn't planning on staying away for the whole month. That'd be stupid. It's not like I could avoid her forever, if she decided to come by. She could come by tomorrow, for all I know. And it totally wouldn't be fair to leave Howie to the wolves. But... can we still just go somewhere? Take a little break? Maybe just a few days?"
"Of course." His computer had long since beeped in completion of his task, but Heero thought a few extra minutes on break wouldn't hurt his ability to finish his work on time.
TBC...
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