Fire in the Hole Part 7
Heero followed the path through the trees toward the waterfall glade. In the absence of a mission, Trowa and Quatre were playing tennis. It had taken Heero an hour to determine that neither Duo nor Wufei were in the hanger, with the techs or in the house. It didn't necessarily follow that they were together, but lately where one was, the other would be found.
::You wanted him to find someone else.::
::Someone safe! Someone outside all this madness, someone... someone normal! Not this! Not trading one Gundam pilot for another!::
::Normal?! Where the hell would a Gundam pilot find a normal relationship?!::
::One of the techs then!::
::Coward.::
::Shut up.::
He growled aloud. Talking to himself... K'so... That braided idiot still had the power to make him crazy.
He heard splashing and paused behind a leafy tree. Duo was swimming laps in the waterfall pool in a gracefully executed crawl. There was no sign of Wufei.
He stood for a few minutes watching Duo. Growing up on a colony where recreational water use was for the rich only, Duo had learned to swim only a few years ago as part of his pilot training. He was quite good for all of that and loved to swim.
He finished his laps and slicked his wet bangs back from his face, catching his breath.
::He's gorgeous...:: Heero thought with a sigh, drinking in the burnished hair, the wide violet eyes, cutely upturned nose and generous (and so talented!) mouth. ::If only...::
Suddenly Duo disappeared under the water. Startled, Heero stepped forward to go to his aid, but before he could, Duo popped to the surface again almost nose to nose with a grinning Wufei.
He gasped for breath, laughing at the same time.
"Damn, Wufei! I though you were a sea monster!"
"In a lake? Don't be silly!" He fingered Duo's waterlogged braid. "Why don't you take this down? It must be heavy."
Duo shook his head. "If I take it down in the water, it'll get so tangled, I'll be all day and night brushing it out!"
Wufei cocked his head with a sly little smirk. "If you'll take it down now, I'll brush it out for you."
Heero's eyes widened at that remark, the dull ache under his ribs intensifying.
Duo smiled and giggled, then grinned broadly. "Okay. If you really want me to."
"Yeah, I want you to," Wufei murmured, touching the tie.
Heero swallowed and melted into the shadows. He wasn't going to stand there spying on Duo and his new... his new...
::His new what? Lover?::
::Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!::
::Yuy no baka...::
::Look what you've done!::
~*~
Without conscious thought, he found himself back at the hanger standing before his Gundam.
"Hey, Heero," drawled Howard. "How ya doin'?" From his position on the open hatch of Wing Zero, he swung onto the gantry and slid to the ground. "Come to check on Wing?"
Heero blinked and his consciousness grabbed at something concrete to deal with. "Yes," he confirmed. "Is the beam cannon on line?"
"Yep. Good as gold." Howard patted the gundanium leg. "Upgrades all loaded and tested. He's lookin' good."
Heero nodded, taking the disk Howard offered.
"Speakin' of lookin' good," Howard continued, "I hear that you and Little Red are over."
Heero frowned at Howard's nickname for Duo; he'd almost forgotten that they were both Sweepers.
"So, what happened, if ya don't mind my askin'?"
Heero bit back a rude reply. Instead he turned away, muttering stiffly, "This is no time for relationships. We can't afford the distractions."
Howard sat on Wing's boot, nodding as if to himself. "I'd say this is the perfect time to love someone and to know that someone loves ya. Makes ya wanna do your best and then some, for them. Ya know? So ya can both have a better life after the war." He waited a moment, then continued when Heero did not reply.
"Ya didn't love him or he didn't love you?"
"Howard, it doesn't matter!" Heero snapped. "It's over!"
"Uh-huh. And I hear Little Red is bein' comforted by Wufei."
Heero spun about to glare at him. "Damn it! He was nearly murdered because of his carelessness! Because his mind was on me, on us, when it should have been on his job! It was unnecessary! It's fixed now! Why is everyone so worried about Duo's emotional state?! He's a terrorist, a Gundam pilot, for god's sake!"
Howard pushed his glasses down to regard the teenager. "He's also a fifteen year old boy who just broke up with his first love." He held up his hands to forestall another outburst. "I never gave much thought to kids, ya know. Never had any, never particularly wanted any. But you five boys... Well, in a way, yer sorta like my kids. Only sorta," he emphasized as Heero's glare deepened. "I send you guys out in state of the art equipment and hope ya don't break it or yerselves. I'm always relieved to see these big guys land after a mission." He shrugged. "Failure, success; that's not my concern. Sure, success is a warm fuzzy, but I'm more concerned with whether I get five Gundams and five pilots back all in one piece! The missions and the politics are for the Old Men to worry about. I'm just a mechanic, and I just wanna know my guys are safe at home."
"Howard..."
"Now, I know I can count on you guys to do yer best, no matter what. Thing is, a happy pilot is a good, safe pilot. 'Specially when we're talkin' 'bout Little Red. Take away happy --" he fixed Heero with a look that could peel paint "- and what I've got is two Heero Yuys. And that's one too many. Ya know?"
TBC...
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