Moments of Haven Part 13
Photo Op

Duo yawned widely as they pulled up in front of the community center in their old military surplus Jeep. It was still early evening, but he and Heero had been up since just after dawn, and even now were just returning from the local Preventers HQ in the city, where they had been for the last three days on business. He would have liked the opportunity to go home first, but they were running late as it was, and had promised the kids that they would do everything they could to be there for the Easter play they had decided to put on.

Heero stopped the engine and nudged his partner on the shoulder when he saw that Duo seemed to have zoned out again. Duo started, blinked several times, and shook his head a bit to clear it. "It's all good," he judged, answering Heero's unvoiced question. Ignoring Heero's skeptically raised eyebrow, he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car, trusting Heero to follow suit. He had taken two steps when Ms. Suzuhara came bustling through the front doors and headed towards them.

"Duo, Heero!" she called, waving at them. Duo waved tiredly back. "I'm so glad you two could make it. They haven't started yet, but they're about to--" She stopped mid-sentence, studying Duo's face critically, then Heero's on the other side of the car. "Are you two alright? You're looking rather pooped."

Heero's eyebrow rose again in exception at being termed 'pooped'. Duo, however, thought nothing of it. "Nah, we're fine. Just been on the go for a while. After the play, we can just collapse until tomorrow and everything will be back to normal."

Since she knew that she wouldn't be able to convince them to break their promise to the children, she gave them a look that said that she was going to be keeping a very close eye on the two of them. "Yes, well, we'd best be on our way in then."

Suzuhara-san halted immediately when Heero circled the Jeep and came into full view. "Wait, wait, you two can not possibly go in there dressed like that!"

"Huh?" Duo stopped and blinked. Granted, they had spent the day in those clothes, running through boring formalities with the bureaucracy since reporting in that morning, but they still looked reasonably crisp. "Our uniforms are good enough for our superior officers, they should be good enough for a bunch of kids. Unless they're too formal or something?"

"It's not the kids I'm worried about," she muttered, tugging him back towards the Jeep and commanding Heero to unlock the doors again. "It's the girls."

"Girls?" Duo submissively let Ms. Suzuhara remove his leather Preventers jacket, sparing the energy for a half-smile when a stern look from her made Heero take off his jacket as well.

"Good, good, you're not both wearing the same thing." Heero was wearing the standard field khaki-colored t-shirt, while Duo was a little more neatly attired in the button-down and dark tie. She loosened the knot of Duo's tie and tugged that off, too, tossing it into the front seat of the car along with the jackets.

"What are you doing?" Duo asked, stifling the urge to laugh as her motions tickled his throat.

"It's the girls, you see. They'd go absolutely crazy if they saw the two of you in uniform, and you wouldn't want that, now would you?" She worked at the top buttons of Duo's shirt and loosened his collar.

Duo scowled at Heero, who seemed to be smirking at the transformation of his partner's attire. Apparently, his t-shirt was casual enough and common enough to pass muster. However, Duo's expression changed when he considered almost finding out whether women really were in to men in uniform or not. His fingers immediately went to the buttons on his cuffs, and he rolled up his sleeves with near frantic haste.

"Ah, I see you catch my point," Ms. Suzuhara uttered with satisfaction. She studied the two of them critically before letting them continue their approach to the center. "Well, that's the best we can do on short notice. Let's go, then."

*****

They made it in just before the curtain rose. Suzuhara-san had to help coordinate the second act in the back, so she left them to their own devices. Rather than shuffle their way in the semi-darkness to find a couple of empty seats, they chose to stand in the back of the assembly room. Duo rather regretted the decision somewhat when he found himself swaying on his feet in the back, so he propped himself up in a corner and told Heero to whap him if he dozed off. Heero grunted an acknowledgement with no remorse.

The play was mostly a success. The younger children were doing a happy Spring-type play involving bunnies, rather than the traditional religious scene that might be seen around Easter time. They thought that change was good. Father MacKenzie agreed. He was an odd one, that priest. Naturally, there were a few hitches as Terry accidentally stepped on Alice's lines, and Jen hadn't managed to attach her leaves in time before she had to go up, so she ended up trying inconspicuously to hold them in place throughout the entire scene. But besides that, it went rather well.

When it was over, after finding Brian and scratching behind his little droopy bunny ears in congratulations, and making small talk with a few others, Suzuhara-san picked them up again and deftly wove a smooth path around the crowd towards the back, not so coincidentally managing to avoid most of the large collections of young women who would be cooing over their two favorite young bachelors, given half a chance. On their way back to meet Ami in the prop room to help her out of her flower costume, Suzuhara-san stopped them and tapped someone on the shoulder.

The man in question turned around, and the two tired part-time Preventers had to look up almost a dozen inches to meet his eyes. He was no one they had ever seen before.

"Vinnie," Ms. Suzuhara greeted. She turned to her boys. "This is Vinnie. He just moved in the day after you two left on your trip."

"Oh, umm," Duo struggled for a moment to make his sluggish mind work. "Parker house on Browndeer, right?" At the man's affirmative, he continued, holding his hand out to shake. The answering grip was comfortable. "Hello. I'm Duo Maxwell," he introduced himself in a formal tone that managed somehow to be both personable and businesslike. "And this is my partner, Heero Yuy. It's a pleasure to me--" He released the hand abruptly and shook his head a bit again to clear it. "Whoa, can't believe I just did that. You'll have to excuse me," he apologized in a more normal tone, a bit embarrassed. "I've been doing PR stuff all day, you see, a whole lot of mechanical greetings and the like. Guess it hasn't quite left my system, yet."

"Oh, yeah, sure, I understand," the new guy said. "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again, anyway. I've heard your names mentioned quite a few times since coming out here. Next time we meet, we can make a better introduction, okay?"

"That sounds grand," Suzuhara-san answered for them. "Just wanted to stop and introduce them while they were here. They're hard to nail down, sometimes. But if you'll excuse us?"

He nodded, and she herded them towards the back rooms, chiding them all the way. "You'll be just fine, you said. No problem, you said."

"We are just fine, Suzuhara-san," Duo defended himself, suppressing a yawn. "Just a little tired, that's all."

"So tired you can barely remember where you are or what you're doing," she huffed in challenge.

They found Ami still wearing her flower costume, poking around the props and looking for her jacket. "Duo-niichan! Heero-niichan!" She ran up to the two of them, and attached herself to Heero's side. She considered both of them to be her big brothers, and the appellation had stuck after Duo had agreed to learn Japanese with her from Suzuhara-san, with a little bit of supplementary help from Heero.

"Hey, squirt," Duo greeted her. He was about to go for the hair-ruffle, but then realized he couldn't get to her hair while it was under the big petal hat. "You made a great flower!"

Ami beamed. Her mother cleared off a chair and tugged Heero over to sit down in it. He looked at her curiously, but sat down without protest. Ami immediately clamored up into his lap and planted herself there.

"Now this I have got to get a picture of," Ms. Suzuhara announced, pulling her camera out of her purse. "It's not everyday I can capture Heero with a giant flower in his lap."

"Hey, new camera, Ms. S?" Duo asked, adequately impressed.

"Yup." She gestured at it to show it off. "Digital technology has resparked my interest in photography. Wonderful new hobby. Now go get in the picture and stand behind Heero." Duo merrily complied. "Wait, get Heero's hair out of his eyes."

"Like this?" he said with a grin, running his fingers through Heero's dark tresses and pulling them all the way back. Heero scowled mildly as he pulled his head out from under Duo's fingers. "Yeah, that's right. No one wanted to see your eyes, anyway." Duo stuck his tongue out playfully at the back of his partner's head.

"I wanted you to move his hair, not mess it up," Ms. Suzuhara admonished.

"Mess it up?" Duo asked incredulously. "You think I could mess up his hair?" To prove his point, he threaded his fingers through Heero's unruly mop and gave it a few good fluffs. As soon as he removed his hands, the hair fell back in precisely the same orderly spiked mess it had been in previously. Ami giggled. Heero took it all in good humor. That is to say, his glare was light as his lips twitched suspiciously.

"Alright, fine," Suzuhara-san conceded. "Now settle down."

Duo settled down with one elbow on Heero's shoulder, and his other elbow resting on top of Heero's cooperatively unmoving head. "Go for it," he said with a saucy grin and a wink at the camera.

The moment was immortalized on film.

*****

The prop room was actually the children's day care center with a lot of random play accessories thrown around the edges. They got Ami out of her flower suit, and she ran back outside to the main area to join the rest of her friends. Suzuhara-san started straightening up the mess when Duo yawned widely again.

"Why don't you two get on home?" she suggested. "The only activity left for the night is the bake sale, and you're not really interested in that, are you?"

"We told Mrs. Callahan that we could stay and help clean up afterwards, actually," Duo said.

"What?" Ms. Suzuhara repeated in disbelief. "Just now? Now why on earth would you boys do a silly thing like that? Things aren't going to reach that point for about another hour!"

"Well, who are we to deny assistance to a woman in need of aid?" Duo asked defensively. Heero came by and freed the bouquet of silk flowers their neighbor had been waving at them with and dropped it into the box marked for such things, then proceeded to gather flower bundles around the room.

"Well, tell her you changed your mind!"

"But we told her we'd stay 'til the end," Duo protested sleepily, stifling another yawn.

"Well, then!" She took him by the shoulders and steered him over to a corner of the room used during the children's naptime. "Take a short nap, then," she ordered.

"But...," Duo started. Obviously, the idea of sleep appealed to him, but he didn't want to go back on his word. "Well, will you wake me when it's time to get started?"

"Absolutely." She pushed down on his shoulders until he sat himself down, then tossed the two pillows from the corner at him. He managed to catch one deftly, but the other one whapped him on the shoulder. Scowling at it, he punched it a few times in just the right places to give it some shape -- "Ha! Take that, you fluffy fiend!" he muttered at it -- before settling his head on it. The other pillow he curled up around, and given half a minute, his breathing evened out and he was fast asleep.

"Hmmm...." Suzuhara-san considered the scene. Duo looked so cute and innocent snuggled up and hugging a pillow, she pondered the merits of taking another picture. "Does he always curl up with a pillow?" she asked his partner softly, not wanting to disturb the boy's sleep.

Heero finished folding the green cloth in his hands and laid it on the neat stack in front of him. "Pillow. Blanket. Teddy bear. Whatever's handy at the time."

Idly, she wondered what would happen if she replaced the pillow with a cactus as she considered the angle of the shot. Then she realized that while her back had been turned, most of the mess had been straightened up. "Heero!" she chided quietly. "Let me do that."

He shrugged the suggestion off and continued along his merry way.

"Come now," she said, exasperated. "You must be as tired as Duo is."

He shrugged again. "Duo's been doing most of the talking today. I just had to stand there and look professional."

"And I'm sure that looking professional is very easy for you. Nevertheless, I'm sure it couldn't have been fun. Now you lie down and get some rest, too."

"When I'm done here," was the placid reply as he continued to tidy up.

"Oh, is it any wonder that we think you need someone to take care of you?" she muttered at him. It was obvious he wasn't going to take care of himself.

Heero's sharp ears caught the comment. "I know my limits, Suzuhara-san."

"Is that any reason to push them all the time?" Duo's words from long ago came back to her -- don't work against Heero, work with him. Very well, then. She bustled around the room herself and helped him finish up the cleaning in no time at all.

"There. Now you go take a short nap, and I'll wake you when it's over, alright?" Her tone brooked no argument. Heero glanced at his wristwatch. "I don't care if you think it'll be over soon and you won't get any real sleep. Something's better than nothing, and you're not going to be doing anything important anyway. Now lie down and shut your eyes," she ordered firmly.

Finding no reason not to, Heero complied. Soundlessly, he padded over to the corner where Duo was and analyzed the situation. Two pillows, two people. Logic dictated that there should be one pillow per person. Kneeling down beside Duo, he carefully extracted the pillow from Duo's arms, ignoring the sleepy sound of protest that issued forth from the slumbering youth, and there settled down for a light doze with his prize.

When Suzuhara-san came back a bit later to tell them reluctantly that the time had come to wake, she found that Duo did indeed have the tendency to curl up around whatever was handy at the time. In this case, Heero's arm. She smiled fondly, and remembered that picture she had wanted to take. This one was even better than the last. Blessing the fact that her digital camera made no noise when snapping a picture, she soon had another precious moment immortalized on film.

OWARI

ah, fluff. gotta love it. ^__^

 

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