Moments in a Dorm Room Part 3
Sheep and Sleep

"Hey, flyboy."

"Yes?" He responded with a bored tone that said what he thought about the name without actually saying it. He knew he probably shouldn't encourage Duo by answering to the sometimes ridiculous nicknames he came up with, but it was easier than contending them, especially since Duo seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of them. If one was rejected, another would take its place. Heero had learnt how to pick and choose his battles. He'd save his fight for something a little less trifling.

"You do realize it's a Friday night, right?"

"Yes." An obvious fact even without his impeccable time sense.

"Then why the hell is your nose stuck in a textbook? One that isn't even for one of our classes, no less?"

"Better than one of the texts for our classes." He'd picked up the book on fluid dynamics from the local used bookstore. It was a little dated, but fluid dynamics hadn't changed much in recent years. He knew it was rather non-standard recreational reading, but he couldn't quite justify to himself the frivolity of reading fiction. Not yet. For now, doing a little research into satisfyingly complex material would have to suffice.

"Ha, you're as bored in class as I am, aren't you?"

"Of course." In the math and science classes, at least. They had all been placed in the most advanced classes the school had to offer, and still, they knew it all. They were Gundam pilots, after all, and they could perform such routine calculations in their sleep. The literature class was at least somewhat different from his usual fare. He'd never had to analyze a poem before. Still, it all became meaningless once one figured out what the teacher wanted to hear and gave it to him.

"I can't believe this."

"This what?" There had been a good number of things over the last couple of weeks since they'd been placed here that Duo couldn't believe. Heero usually heard about them every day or two.

"This!" He waved his hand around to encompass everything in their room and beyond. "I can't believe they stuck us in this stupid place. As if we're going to learn anything here."

"They expect us to learn how to socialize with our peers." They were in for a letdown at the rate things were going.

"These people aren't our peers, Heero. They're... they're..." The best he could come up with was a disdainful, scornful sound. "You don't buy that, do you? It disgusts me to no end that these mindless drones will be considered our peer group for the rest of our lives."

Heero finally took his eyes off the page he was reading for more than a mere glance and shot a look across the room. "If you don't like them so much, then why do you spend so much time with them?" he asked, keeping his tone neutral to disguise the fact that he was truly curious. Duo seemed to do so many things that didn't make much sense to him.

"The more time I spend with them, the more I come to realize what sheep they are." Of course, that didn't quite answer the question. "The more I get to know the people we were fighting for, the more disappointed I get."

"I wasn't fighting for the rich teenagers of Earth. Were you?"

He snorted, faces flashing before his mind's eye. "Hell, no, I guess not. And here I thought you were an idealist, soldier-boy. You seem like the kinda guy that'd lay it all down on the line for the sake of anybody."

"I have my standards."

Duo stared at him for a long moment, then laughed loudly. "What, no one over a hundred seventy-five centimeters? No one born on a Tuesday? No one born dirtside?"

"No one whose lives wouldn't be affected no matter which side won." He didn't think there were very many of those people. Even the criminal elements would see their business rise or fall with war or peace. Even among the children of diplomats they were surrounded by, though some of them couldn't have cared less who lived and who died, they would be affected by the status of their parents within the government, the rules those governments established, the precedents those governments set.

"Hn. Not bad. But I was right. Pathetically idealistic."

"Oh?" Heero Yuy had never considered himself an idealist. Practicality was his religion, but that didn't mean he couldn't have a hope or two, and maybe even a dream. Such things were important, if one was to have something to strive towards. He would never have supported Relena otherwise.

"But maybe I was just as pathetically idealistic as you were. Maybe even more, since I should have known better." The people he had known on L2 would probably be just as downtrodden, no matter who was running the show, and yet he had been fighting for them. Go fig. Then again, they'd always been more of a fringe benefit. His main purpose had always been a little closer to revenge, or justice, perhaps. Eye for an eye. Fighting back the only way he knew how. Fighting because he had to do -something-. He didn't know if that made him feel better or worse about himself, and he didn't want to find out. Sometimes he thought it would be better for people to be oppressed by an evil regime. At least that way, it was an expected situation. Being let down by a government that was supposed to care was a betrayal.

"Why's that?"

"You mean you actually want to get to know lil' old me?" he evaded deftly. "I feel so honored."

"You will have long term easy access to me in my sleep. Of course I want to get to know you." It was just one of several reasons he had for trying to figure Duo out. Another of which was that trying to converse with Duo sometimes took enough concentration that it could actually distract him from the minor headaches he had on occasion.

There was something terribly amusing about that statement. "You are just a barrel of laughs sometimes, you know that, Yuy? What about these last few weeks? I've had access to you then, and I haven't done anything to you."

"But you've probably been too busy wondering if I am going to knife you in your sleep for you to do anything to me in mine."

Well, couldn't deny that, although his apprehension had perhaps not been so specific as concern about being knifed. He was still adjusting to just having someone in the same room as he while he slept. At the best of times, he slept lightly. It was not uncommon for him to wake at the end of every sleep cycle, and even with Heero being as quiet a sleeper as he was, the mere sense that someone was near, that sense that had kept him alive so very many times, was enough to make it difficult for him to lower his alert enough to sleep well. "Heh, so next time you look at me like you think I'm crazy, you can thank yourself. It's all your fault I don't get enough REM."

"You need to go without REM for about 72 hours before you can be declared insane." Heero didn't quite know why he didn't just go back to studying his fluid dynamics. Duo simply had the strange ability to draw him into thoroughly irrelevant and nonsensical discussions like these, which only increased Heero's curiosity about him, which in turn increased his willingness to carry on these conversations. It was a vicious cycle, but heck, like Duo had said, it wasn't as if there was anything else to do, and if there was one thing that could annoy Heero to no end, it was enforced idleness.

"Ah, that's legally insane, my friend," Duo corrected meticulously. "Legally. I don't need to be declared 'legally' insane to be a little crazy." Not that he cared much for 'legally' at all.

Hm. Perhaps Heero would have to do a little research into chronic insomnia. If Duo was right, it would certainly explain a few things. Upon consideration, Heero would actually deem Duo more complicated and complex than fluid dynamics. "You like being a little crazy," Heero observed without the hint of a question.

Duo grinned, and it seemed entirely contained within the upward tilt of his lips. "Unpredictable, you mean. Predictability'll get ya killed."

"The line between unpredictability and unreliability can be fine," he answered after a slight tilt of his head in acknowledgment of the point. There was a peculiar gleam in his eye, which Duo easily recognized as the warning it was. Unpredictability was tolerable, but unreliability was a threat, and threats were to be neutralized. Although the five former pilots were not still working together as a team, per se, they still existed as a unit, under a single classification, and together they would rise or fall in this period of probation. If one of them was found to be a threat, then all of them would be thrown along for the ride.

Duo grinned at him again, this near-baring of his teeth less confined than the last. This time, a dark humor graced the rest of his expression. "That's why I prefer to work alone. Can't be unreliable if there's no one counting on you to watch his back."

"So long as you labor towards some higher goal, there will always be someone relying on you," he answered softly. His was the voice of one who had long shouldered such a burden, and done so willingly.

Duo snorted. "Higher goal? Whatever. It's just me, soldier-boy, doing what I gotta."

"Then be careful you do not let yourself down."

He stared at him for a few long seconds in a mixture of annoyance, incredulity, and personal pain. "Forget this. I'm going out. There must be something to do here on this godforsaken chunk of dirt."

OWARI

 

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