Moments of Haven Part 41
Inspiration and Perspiration

"You know, isn't it weird that we basically use this whole place as a gym?"

Heero turned quickly towards the sound of his voice, not expecting it. He hadn't thought anyone else would be around at this time of the evening. Only Duo really had the ability to sneak up on him like that. He'd been caught just as he'd finished his laps, slicking water from his hair in preparation for leaving the pool to go and find Duo. He took the time to raise an eyebrow at his partner before he sloughed the water from his face with his hands. "Isn't that what this is? A place people go to work out?"

Duo stood from the bleachers and travelled to Heero's side at the pool's edge, Heero's towel in hand. His own towel was draped around his neck and over his shoulders, where he'd dropped it after his own workout with the weights in the neighboring gym. "I thought we came here to work."

Heero put his arms up on the deck and rested his chin there, putting himself partway out of the water. The unconscious arrangement made him look like some sort of otherworldly creature, curiously coming to the water's edge to inspect the strange human that had wandered into his world. He had not bothered to turn on the overhead lights, leaving the water to glow from the lights set inside the pool. "And these facilities are provided for the benefit of the fine Preventers that work here."

Duo knelt down and reached out, managing to push his fingers through Heero's mass of hair and squeeze out a bit more water before arranging it to hang messily downwards. Heero just didn't look like Heero without his hair framing his face. It would be even more strange if Heero took to wearing a swimmer's cap. "Yeah, that and we don't have a pool back home."

He received a small smile for his troubles. "Not that you would use it if we did."

"With hair like mine?" he scoffed, tossing his head in a fashion that would have been more dramatic if his braid had flung around to rest behind him. It only swung slightly, then resumed its dangling over his shoulder. With his dry hand, he flicked it back, keeping it well out of the way of the water. "It'd probably be like swimming with my clothes on."

"That's what you always say." Heero pulled himself out of the pool in one swift movement and seated himself on the edge, his feet still trailing in the water. He accepted his towel with a quirk of the lips in thanks. "So what's the real reason you don't like swimming? Don't like water?"

Duo blinked at him silently as he busied himself with drying off. Heero had always accepted the excuse without question before. "Of course not. I like water. You know me and water. Water's good."

"But...?" He stood up and ran the towel over his legs. When he was done with that, and Duo still hadn't answered, he shrugged it off and headed towards the benches. "Never mind. Just a passing fancy."

Duo followed him, watching as he pulled on a pair of warmup pants. "Ah, the many wonders of Speedos," he murmured with a faint grin. Yes, it was nice to be able to pull pants on over them, but they were just as nice without the pants on over them. "It's not like I don't know how to swim. I could keep myself alive, and even get myself somewhere with a decent amount of efficiency."

"That's good to hear." Heero's chest was just as nice without the tank top he was pulling on. Ah, well. There was always later.

The fact that he had diverted his gaze and was now staring at the water stopped Heero from exiting. "It's just... water's good. Too good to-- You know, it's really kinda stupid."

Heero covered the distance between them with a hand to his elbow. "It's never as stupid as you think, Duo."

He shrugged. In general, he trusted Heero's judgment as an impartial observer, but not always, especially when it came to the judgments about him. Nevertheless, he'd said a lot of stupid things to Heero over the years, and he would probably continue to do so for many more. "It's just... not quite right to have so much water you can swim in it. It's not meant for something so frivolous as swimming in it. It's like... like..." He trailed off helplessly, unable to summon an image.

Heero pursed his lips in thought for a moment, rubbing idly at his hair with the towel. "Like keeping a wolf for a pet? Using calipers as a wrench?"

"Yeah... yeah, that's it, I guess. I mean, don't get me wrong. You can swim in it all you like. Docs always did say it was better for you to do low impact exercises. I think I'd rather just sit back and stare at it, though." His hand snaked out automatically to straighten Heero's hair again.

"Would you consider it wrong to use 'Scythe for outer colony maintenance? Zero for predicting weather patterns? Wing's beam saber for roasting marshmallows? Safety risks aside, of course,"

Duo smiled, knowing he would only propose such a thing for him. "Swords into plowshares, eh? Okay, so maybe times change." That was all he said, opting to tug Heero towards the door instead. He recognized Heero's point, but that didn't mean he thought it was exactly the same thing, nor did he feel much like discussing it further, so he just let it drop as they made their way back to their room.

They were still doing the correlation work for the Preventers, reporting to the office four days a week. The drive between their home and here wasn't so long it was impractical for them to do so twice a day, but they felt it more productive and economical to simply stay in the city every other night and cut the trips in half. Quarters were provided for them in the Preventer dorms, which were normally used for visiting agents or agents that worked too late into the night to bother going home. Or, in a case or two, agents that had angry spouses at home. They qualified as the first, sometimes as the second, and hopefully never would as the third.

Once they got to their room, Duo pulled Heero in for a good kiss, just because he'd been wanting to do that all day. They kept their affection in check while in the office. Then he pushed his partner away with a playful shove. "Take a shower first. You taste and smell like chlorine."

"And sweat is any better?"

But Heero did as he was told, leaving Duo to his own devices for a short ten minutes. Then it was Duo's turn, and by the time he emerged, he found Heero ensconced in front of his laptop. With a fond rolling of his eyes, he tossed his towel over the back of his own chair and wandered on over to Heero's side of the room, draping his arms over strong shoulders in a loose embrace. "Aw, come on, we worked all day already."

Heero leaned back into his chest, trying to sink into the sensation even as he tried to keep his damp hair from pressing too hard against him. "I was just checking up on things. We received notification that they've found another open case to add to our stack."

"Geez, another one?" He scanned the information on the screen a little more carefully. "Where do all these dead guys keep coming from?"

"It's our job to find out, isn't it? I was only going to pull the relevant files. We can leave thinking about them for tomorrow." A window popped up, informing him that the download of the case file was complete. He switched databases and searched for the man's personal history files.

Duo watched as he did so, something nagging at him on the edge of his consciousness. What had he promised himself again? Oh yes. Some quality time with Heero's fine upper body. He moved his hands to Heero's shoulders and applied light pressure. "My, would you look at that? You're very tense, Heero."

Heero paused, blinked, then turned his head to look inquisitively up at him as well as he could. "What are you talking about, Duo?" His exercise had been leisurely (for him), certainly nothing to be tense about.

"Oh, these muscles right here." He squeezed. "They're very tight. Did you strain your shoulder?"

"...I'm fine."

He continued with his massage, running deft fingers soothingly over warm flesh. "No, I don't think so. See here, ya feel that? Right -here-." He pressed his thumbs into the back of Heero's neck, right under his hairline. "And right -here-." He moved his hands down that neck and to either side.

Granted, it was relaxing, but the point was that he hadn't needed to relax in the first place. "Duo, what are you--"

"And right -here-," Duo continued, leaning forward to murmur softly into his ear while his hands slipped under the straps of the tank top, not applying nearly enough pressure to Heero's shoulders and on towards his collarbones to qualify as anything other than a caress. A solid caress, but a caress nonetheless.

"--Ah. I see." Maybe it took him a little while to catch on, but he did catch on. "Well. Carry on, then."

"I will, thank you," Duo answered, brushing his lips over Heero's ear and up the side of his head as he withdrew to a more upright position. He wanted to go home if for no other reason than that he wasn't as fond of the scent of the shampoo they used here as he was of Heero's twice-cursed and thriced-blessed jasmine-scented shampoo. "So what were we doing?"

Heero had to shake the haze off the surface of his mind before he could adequately answer. An alert had popped up on his computer again, informing him of the completed file transfer, so once again he shut that down and opened a new window. "I'll get his report from the coroner's. That should probably be all the data we need to get started."

"So who is this guy? Abridged version, if you please."

He took the time to input the government password to finish the connection before switching back to the other files. "I thought we were done with work for the day."

"Just in case it happens to stir something in my dreams tonight or something. Inspiration comes at the oddest times, you know."

He hmm'ed in agreement. "It seems he was a pimp working out of sector four-beta. Shot twice. Known associations with, hm, suspect groups A-three and C-five."

Duo ran the codes they had created through the index in his head and came up with the information he wanted, but didn't see any immediate connections. He filed it away with the rest of the data and let it stew along with everything else. "Feh, he probably just stiffed his boss on his take or something."

"Maybe." Returning to the medical records, Heero pulled the files from the correct time period and ended up with a table of names and summaries. With Duo's hands distracting him, it took a little more effort than it would normally have for him to locate the information that he wanted. He found himself unable to absorb any of the data with a simple skimming, so he settled down to concentrate a little harder and actually read through the chart to find the correct file. In time, he made his way to the dead guy in question, but now there was something else distracting him, other than Duo's idle ministrations. The summary right above the pimp's kept him from simply acquiring the file and closing down the connection. He read it aloud, hoping that either it would come to him, or Duo might be able to figure it out. "Poisoning resulting in seizure and heart failure."

"Hm?" Duo hadn't quite been paying attention to anything in particular for a while, save perhaps the skin beneath his hands. "Poison? I thought you said our guy got shot. Twice."

"No, not him. Case 2879."

Duo leaned in for a closer look. "Three-five dimethoxy four-ethoxy-whatzit? Wow, try saying that one time fast. I don't recognize it."

"Neither do I. But something...." Running a quick search of the name through a chemical guide they had been referencing yielded no matches.

"Hmm, the girl was a user," Duo noted. "Maybe not poisoning. A bad batch?"

"Dimethoxy...," Heero sounded out slowly, waiting for the syllables to ring a bell. "One of the labs, didn't they report the mysterious disappearance of some dimethoxyphenol?"

"Uh, maybe?" Duo gave him an apologetic squeeze. "I've got them all written down somewhere. I can go check--"

He covered one of Duo's hands with his own before he could go anywhere, not saying anything for a few moments until he sighed lightly. "No, we can check tomorrow."

Duo stayed by his side quite willingly, noting the silent pause. He knew procrastination went against Heero's nature. While he certainly appreciated it, he was willing to compromise. There was no hurry for them to enjoy themselves. "Are you sure?"

Shutting down the connection and closing the lid on his laptop, Heero turned his head and quirked a smile up at his partner. "We can check tomorrow. And we can try running the name through a more comprehensive database tomorrow. And we can consult one of the researchers down in the labs about it tomorrow. And if we find something, we can pick up the girl's files tomorrow." For him, having a ready plan for tomorrow was enough of a compromise. There was no hurry to finish the work, either.

"And tonight?" Duo asked with a pleased grin. He should try this pseudo-massage thing more often, if what he got was both a Heero that made more abstract connections and a Heero that was willing to leave work for work hours.

"And tonight...." He stood up and settled his hands lightly around Duo's waist, his thumbs sneaking under the hem of his shirt to rest against his skin just above the line of his shorts.

For reasons unknown, Duo found one of his hands wandering up to Heero's hair again, and he fluffed at it playfully. "Yes?"

The question required no spoken answer.

OWARI

erm, don't take my science too seriously. but i still think o-chem produces some of the spiffiest words. for the dreadfully curious, i'm referencing 3,5-dimethoxy-4-ethoxyphenethylamine.

 

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