Title: Steamed
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Duo, Howard
Content: some minor language
Summary: Imagine, if you will, Gundams in a slightly different era...
Word Count: 500! :D
Disclaimer: Not mine and thus not filling my empty pockets.
Notes:Just a short snippet, but the prompt (322 — clockwork) was a serious siren call. Don't know if anything more will come of the idea, but I sure do like it.
.:.
Duo couldn't believe it despite the undeniable truth laying — or, rather, not laying — in front of his eyes. That bastard Yuy fellow had stripped his beloved Deathscythe of a series of crucial cogs and springs in the dead of night and absconded with them. No doubt, they'd been used to repair his own giant battle mech, the blasphemously angelic Wing.
Clenching his hand and wringing it tight, Duo slammed the resultant fist into the cast iron casing over the steam powered heart of Deathscythe. A growl slipped past his clenched and bared teeth before he shook his head, long braid of hair shifting across his back, catching on the buttons that fastened his suspenders to canvas trousers. "Damnation, Howard," he muttered, "you were right about him. I should know to trust your instincts by now."
"Glad to hear it," announced the cheery voice of the wizened old man as he entered the warehouse holding Duo's clockwork beast. "I was beginning to fear you'd never see the truth of that. Now if you could just recall the knowledge in front of a pretty face."
With a snort, Duo glanced over his shoulder. Howard no less than the mad scientist he was, lifting his dark shaded glasses from the bridge of his nose to get a look at the cannibalized mechanism Duo crouched upon. An open panel in the skin near Duo's feet gave him easy access to the internal systems.
"I dare say that Heero boy took the best of the lot." He swept back the sides of his long, white lab coat and ran a hand over the pointed tuft of hair decorating his chin. The small circular glasses dropped back into place over his eyes. "It'll be days before the necessary parts can be fabricated for you again, I'm afraid, Duo."
"Blast it all," Duo cursed, following it with a sigh and falling back to rest over Deathscythe's chest with a wry chuckle. He laced his fingers together and settled his palms across his belly, rough homespun linen shirt and chipped bone buttons caught between. "Do it, Howie," he said, gazing up at the rickety tin roof of the old warehouse, catching glimpses of the blue sky and passing white clouds through a random selection of rusted holes. "I'll find Heero when we've got Scythe up and running again and make him say a thanks, at least."
"So you're not angry with him, I take it?" Howard asked, the amused smirk coming across in the tone of his words. They rang with the hollow echo that said he was leaned inside the open side hatch. A few small clanks and squeaks indicated he was likely taking exact stock of the missing parts.
"Not entirely, no," Duo admitted, shifting up to his elbows and watching the half-vanished old man. He wriggled the toes of his bare feet against the cold black skin of his battler. "I would have done the same if it were me in the position, after all."
