Moments of Haven Part 111
Age and Good Looks
Wufei contemplated the view out the window as the jeep navigated sedately toward the highway under Heero's guidance. "Do you know your neighbors?"
"Yeah," Duo answered, happy for something to do. Heero was such a meanie, refusing to let him drive when the road this morning was open and clear and tempting. "I mean, we know them all by name and sight, of course, but it's not like we'd all hang out or something."
"Some neighbors we know better than others," Heero added.
Duo grimaced. "Some neighbors I wish we didn't know so well." When Wufei made a curious sound, Duo gestured vaguely over his shoulder, back toward the house and sort of across the street. "Like Old Man Keller over there."
"He's not that old, Duo," Heero chided, sounding like he'd said something to that effect before. "He has a daughter our age."
"Yeah, and that's the problem, isn't it?"
Wufei put two and two together and raised one eyebrow. "He thinks you're interested in his daughter?"
When Duo only crossed his arms grumpily, Heero answered in his stead, with just a tad too much cheer. "His daughter has her eye on Duo."
Duo emerged from his cloud long enough to scowl at his partner. "Yeah, well her friend's got an eye for you, too. So there."
"And meanwhile, you two only have eyes for each other?" Wufei shook his head. "How tragic."
"Oh hell, as if we'd ever tell Keller that."
"He's homophobic?"
Heero glanced briefly at Duo before returning his attention to the road. "We haven't seen any evidence of that. Duo here is just assuming the worst."
"Only because he assumes the worst of us!"
"Even without his daughter, I suspect he would still be suspicious of us. He's ex-law enforcement, and from what he can see from across the street, we do seem a little shady."
"That doesn't mean he has to go assuming stupid shit about us."
"To his credit," Heero directed halfway over his shoulder for Wufei's edification. "He's not the type to spread rumors. He's kept his assumptions to himself."
Duo jumped right back in to it. "As far as we know, anyway. We haven't been in touch with the locals, lately."
Heero exhaled almost audibly. "I trust Suzuhara-san would have let us know if something was wrong."
Wufei decided that now might be a good time to jump into the conversation. "How much do the locals know about you two? Your pasts?"
The tangent disrupted Duo's flow, and coincided with Heero merging onto the highway. Having to catch himself from glancing reflexively over his shoulder into the jeep's blind spot further broke his stride, enough for him to drop his previous line of debate and answer the question. "Well, depends on when they got here. When we first signed up, we didn't hide who we were from the guy in charge. That just didn't seem fair. So then a few people right at the beginning knew, but besides them, I think it was always a little vague. Most people, if they know anything, they probably just think we fought in the war on one side or another. There were lots of groups out there, a lot of them not ashamed of recruiting young guys like us."
Heero nodded his agreement with the account. "Most civilians like to assume that the Gundam pilots were in their twenties or so."
It wasn't an unreasonable assumption, Wufei thought. Twenty-something was still young and passionate enough to be crazy enough to be a Gundam pilot, and old enough to be responsible enough. There was, however, at least one slight flaw in the general assumption. "Pictures were broadcast of you."
Duo made an interesting sound, half snicker, half grimace. "Yeah, I guess, but to a limited audience. Heero got his ugly mug passed around some of the military circles, too. Then you've got the dudes that were all at Moon Base. Or Siberia. Or Sanq. God, some people in Antarctica, too, maybe? Geez, some of us really got around." He threw a pointed glance at their driver and didn't even mention a certain penitance tour around Europe. "Okay, so I guess there's more than just a few people that actually knew who we were. But most of them were military."
It only took one of those people to talk and their anonymity could be blown, though mentioning it now certainly wouldn't help. Wufei liked to think he'd managed to stay under the radar, but he had to admit that he had been at Moon Base, too, and there had been that brief stay amongst Sally's ragtag group of rebels. He paused to give a mental nod of respect and apology to the men and women that had lost their lives while he had been adrift. And then, because life couldn't be all about past regrets, some levity. "I heard rumors that you weren't a real Gundam pilot."
Duo's head whipped around to question Wufei directly, a humorously offended look on his face. "Say what?"
He shrugged slightly. "When people learn something they think unbelievable, they often deny it, even when evidence is right in front of their eyes."
"What, you mean like, no one thought a kid as devilishly handsome as I could possibly be a badass Gundam pilot?"
Wufei heard a snort from the driver's seat, freeing him from the responsibility of making such a sound himself. "The broadcast wasn't that clear, and most of your face was hidden much of the time."
"Well, obviously I had an aura about me." Duo puffed himself up slightly. "Wait, so some people thought Une's goons just went out and kidnapped some poor, random kid and beat the shit out of him, just for the PR? Man, that's rough."
"I wonder where the Gundam came from, then."
"Could have been a fake," Heero proposed. "To fool the population into believing that OZ was doing better than it actually was."
Duo deflated, turning back in his seat to face forward. "Man, I wish it was. Not all of us were lucky enough to have bored rich dudes building replicas of our suits so the blowing-up could be faked."
"I take no responsibility for that. Zechs was..." He tried for a second. He honestly did. But he gave up with a lightly disgusted sound. "I don't pretend to understand that man."
Duo was glad Heero stopped where he did. Determined to switch gears, Duo turned around again. "Hey, so what kind of flak do you take for being a full-fledged Preventer? I know we get some weird looks, but at least we can claim that we're not real agents. But you actually work in the office and stuff."
"People have had several years to get used to it. People who were there from the beginning. My public background isn't too dissimilar from yours, actually. That I was recruited at a young age by one of the many military or paramilitary rebel groups that existed during the war. Many of our agents were members of similar groups themselves. I may be young, but not in a way that strains their credibility too much."
"All the same, man..."
Wufei sighed softly. "All the same, I am sure my appearance colors their impressions of me, and consequently their attitudes toward me. That is true. I... try not to take on assignments where that inconvenience can negatively affect the outcome."
Duo rubbed his usually-stubble-free chin. "How old does a guy have to be before he starts looking, yanno, old?"
"Do you mean, 'not young'?" Heero asked dryly.
"Old to me, man. Even before I was measuring my life expectancy in days, I... you know. Didn't expect to last too long. Anything after that's 'old' to me."
"It's all relative, I suppose." He was well aware of the fact that physical age and emotional age didn't match up in the slightest sometimes.
Duo stretched his legs out in front of him. It took him longer than he would have liked for his feet to hit the end of his available leg room in the front seat. "Wonder how many more centimeters I can squeeze out of this ol' frame of mine. Not that long ago, I did find a pair of pants that I'm sure were shorter on me now than they were last year, and I'm just gonna go ahead and admit that that was embarrassingly cool to find out."
"I think Trowa will stay the tallest of us," Wufei judged.
"Yeah, I guess he's got a good head start, but damn, have you ever seen Quatre's father? The guy was huge. Musta shared some blood with the Maguanacs or something. I mean, damn, standing next to Rashid really does a job on a guy's ego. I'm gonna go with Quatre as number two. The guy's probably just a late bloomer or something. But if he does any growing, I'm thinking it has to be fast and soon, given the way his mind's been in the gutter lately. I'm guessing that means the hormones are kicking in with a vengeance."
Heero chuckled just loudly enough to reach Duo's ears.. "Should I be expecting a growth spurt out of you soon, too?"
"Ha." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the back seat. "Nah, Wufei here's gonna be a solid number three. Me and you are gonna have to fight it out in the bottom two."
Wufei had rarely had the privilege of considering himself to be tall, even by comparison. He felt obliged to share the wealth. "The wide variety in backgrounds in the L1 cluster has historically produced individuals of good health."
"Or," Duo refuted in a dramatic tone, "it could be because it's L1, closest to Earth and with the best tech and stuff." He shrugged, knowing that they knew about the cultures of each cluster as well as he did. "But regardless of background, most of L1's citizens haven't done the high-grav training this crazy guy's gone through." He jabbed his thumb in Heero's direction this time. "That kind of pressure's gotta stunt a guy's growth something good. And don't tell me about 'wide variety of backgrounds', anyway. L2's a giant compost heap of backgrounds. I'm sure I'm just a mutt."
Heero reached over to pat his leg reassuringly. "A mutt of the highest caliber."
Duo couldn't help the little smile that sprang to his face. "Aw, gee, thanks, babe."
Wufei was equally complimentary, but far less adorable. "You're very healthy... given your background."
Duo felt he could answer such a diplomatically phrased point. "Yeah, well, when ol' G got a hold of me and decided he could use me, you can bet he cleaned and prettied me up. Said I'd stick out too much, looking like I'd just crawled out of an L2 gutter, and, well, after seeing what I've seen, I can't say the old guy was wrong. Could have been a little bit less of a bastard about it, though."
"He provided you with the proper nutrition, then."
"Yeah, sure, and I've still got vitamin supplements now and stuff -- heck, even Heero does -- but there's kind of no making up for lost time on this one." He heaved a loud sigh. "Well, I'm sure it'll come in handy some day, being able to squeeze into some tight spots." There was a pause, and then a laugh.
Heero glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, several times to split his attention between the road and his partner. In the periphery, he saw Wufei looking politely inquisitive.
Duo smirked and shook his head.
It was the smirk that gave it away, at least to Heero. He started to ask, but stopped himself and shook his head. "So, I should be expecting a growth spurt out of you soon, right?" he murmured.
"Heh, yeah, before you know it, I'll be bigger and better than ever."
"But then you wouldn't be able to squeeze into any tight spots anymore."
"...You know, I think I had the wrong thought earlier. This doesn't make sense anymore."
"Did it ever?" Wufei asked.
Heero magnanimously gave Duo the benefit of the doubt. "For just a second there, sure."
Duo's sigh was not far from content. "Bet Wufei won't be sad to be rid of us loonies."
"Next time you're in Brussels," he answered seriously. "Don't forget to drop by for a visit."
The answering smile was genuine, the wink a little more mischievous. "Call us if you need help moving into your new place."
OWARI
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