Disclaimer. I do not own any of the Gundam characters, story lines, or any of that jazz. I'm just a girl who loves boy love, got it? I am making no money off of this story, and never will. (Like it's good enough for that. PUH!)

Introduction: Heero and Duo are together. After three years of relative peace, something strange happens in the town where they are living. What will this mean for Heero and Duo? Will there be anything left to salvage? (Intro sucked.)

Breath

The sheets were cold when Duo Maxwell turned over and let his arm drape over what he thought would be the warm body of another man. A quiet groan managed to escape his lips before he grabbed his pillow and held it to his face while turning over. The light from the sun was blinding, as it leaked through his eyelids, and finally the pillow's soft downs. "Ugh." He said after five minutes of lying there trying to fall back into a sleep of some sort. Five more minutes, his mind pleaded with the scornful sun, and then he would get his lazy ass out of bed and go find Heero.

The sky wasn't buyin' it.

Damning his rotten luck, Duo turned onto his back and moved the pillow. Sitting up, finally defeated, he put a hand on his head and yawned widely, before blinking his eyes open. The empty room beyond was the only thing that greeted him. The curtains were pulled back. It would seem that his gentleman lover had tried to wake him and failed.

The light gave rise to the large dresser sitting against the far wall, as well as a vanity and the door to the master bathroom that they shared. A small closet lay to his left, and the exit lay along the same wall. The window (that perk little fucker) was on the right wall, rimmed by emerald green drapes. The carpet was a pale shade of tan…nothing remarkable.

A smile played over his mouth as he parted his lips and tried to air out the cotton that seemed to clog his throat. Despite the bright color of the cheerful sun beam that made it's way onto his pillow (Duo wanted to murder it), a light drizzle painted the trees outside of their small town house a pale shade of gray. He loved days like this…however; Heero seemed less impressed with the rain. Duo guessed that that it took a hell of a lot to impress that man. Something nagged at his attention, from the back of his mind. A frail voice was saying something in a sarcastic tone. And then, it came to him.

It was raining.

Usually, Heero didn't run this early if it was raining. Said it took more "endurance" to run in the rain, and thus would always challenge himself by running his daily 3 miles in a shorter amount of time. Scoffing, Duo almost laughed at the thought. Yeah, right, early morning runs. It was a nice work out, but he could do it at 3 in the afternoon, and save himself half of his frustration. Then again, in the central Texan heat, running at 3pm was more of a suicide attempt than he had ever seen. It was either hotter than Satan's asshole, more humid than running through soup, or colder than a metallic…anything, outside in the cold. That's right. It was early. His mind wasn't up for making jokes just yet.

Bed had been welcome the night before, but Duo felt as if something was pulling at his ribcage. Something wasn't right about it raining and Heero not being still curled up in bed with that ever-serious look on his face.

Duo flopped back, trying to remember the night before...

The previous evening was a bit of a blur to him, although not in the unpleasant, frightening sense that most nights spent getting drunk and crashing with a man in your bed were. He had been at home; they had been throwing a house-warming party. Heero had seemed pleased, as he had been for the last three years, with their social status. No one fancy…unless you counted Quatre as fancy, which neither of them did.

It had gone down without a hitch; the welcoming of neighbors and new acquaintances, as well as old friends from the war, including all ex Gundam pilots. Dinner had been a humorous and somewhat noisy affair, with Duo and Wu-Fei exchanging ego-blows across the table to the delight of all of their friends. Everything had been perfect, right down to the late-night drinking with the other three pilots into the wee hours of the current morning.

However, things had died down, and Duo had complained of being tired. So, the others left, and they had slipped away and crawled into bed. That was when the remembering part got pretty easy.

It was true, what everyone had always said about Heero.

The perfect was soldier was perfect in every sense of the word. Even shit-faced, he had been a fantastic fuck. The room and spun, the colors had flashed, everything. One leg that way, the other this way, he had never felt so satisfied after such a good…stretch. After remembering that last little bit, Duo's face spread into a wide, stupid grin. The color seemed to pool around his cheeks and the tips of his ears as he tried to push the thoughts of that from his brain to focus on the present and what was at hand.

It took another ten minutes for him to even attempt to roll out of the bed that they usually shared. This took several turns, as it was a king-sized bed. With a bit of grace, he managed not to roll himself into the covers, and hit the floor running. First stop, the bathroom to deal with…well, business. After yanking on a pair of loose pants, Duo headed downstairs to the sound of rushing water. Hopefully, he would find Heero seated in front of the damned computer, clicking away on this program or that (Duo sometimes wondered what he so loved about it, and if Porn were part of the equation…), or in the kitchen making breakfast. A hand drifted over his stomach, which gave a rumble.

Breakfast sounded good…very, very good.

No scent drifted from the kitchen. So, where was Heero? Looking around, Duo found a note taped to the TV. The bastard knew the first place that he would look, Duo thought with half of a smirk. Well, at least there was that much to clue him in, as no Heero was in sight. Picking it off of the TV and folding back the bits of tape that held it there, he scanned it over twice before looking somewhere between horrified and amused. It read:

Duo,

Went to Marina Lake Austin. Development with crash at harbor. Will call when I have more info.

L

Heero.

The first thought that popped into his head wasn't about the actual events…but rather, the "L". Sighing, Duo shrugged his shoulders and wrinkled his nose. Heero still couldn't bring himself to put the actual word down on paper. Ah well. The rest of it hit him between the eyes a few seconds later, in this order.

The marina? Could you even call it that? There was a tiny little dock down on the Lake that served as the "marina". A lake couldn't have a true marina, since there were no large ships to dock there, and the biggest thing you were bound to find was one of those party barges.

Secondly, what could be happening down at the docks? When was there a crash? Duo had been skimping out on the news lately, but he knew that he would have heard about a crash big enough to get Heero's attention at his work down town. How could someone crash on the water of a lake (Unless they were drunk or stupid)?! And, if that was the case, why was Heero there? Heero was an engineer down at the Military base in town. He worked on keeping all of the jobs done around the camp. He had nothing to do with water-traveling vehicles. None of it made sense!

Duo went to the phone, and sure enough, there was a message. The little green light was blinking, and Heero's number was displayed across the front. Sighing, Duo picked it up and turned the volume to max. Hitting the speaker feature, he set it down while he raced to go and get pants and a baggy t-shirt.

"You have…One…new voice message. Message from "Unknown Caller." Received today, at…six…o'two, AM…"

Duo loved the way that the little voice on the other end of the phone seemed to get sexier when repeating back "Unknown caller". Like there was some grand mystery to the identity of the placer, when they were leaving you a message with their voice on your machine.

"Yeah, Duo. I'm down at the Lake. Looks like something pretty big fell out of the sky last night. The overflow flooded a few local businesses, but no one was around to see it. They caught it on tape. They have crews diving down right now to bring it up. It looks…familiar."

The sound of people echoed in the background. After that last word, however, there were only the soft sounds of Heero's feet moving away from the other people in the area.

"It had a pattern, just like the one that the capsules used to enter the atmosphere." His voice dropped to a deep, deadly tone that Duo hadn't heard in a few good months. He froze, half in and half out of his T-shirt. "You might want to get down here when you can. The crews should be done in a couple of hours…If the manage to make it on time."

He tossed his eyes to the clock, and noted that it was currently 7:42. So, if he hurried, he would make it down there before the crew brought whatever the hell it was to the surface. He scampered to find socks as he waited for the voice on the phone to discontinue it's pause.

"…This could be bad. If you don't wake up before they're through and I've had a good look, I'll come home to tell you what happened. Alright. I love you. Bye."

What could it be, that had Heero so worried? Duo turned his eyes back to his shoes and yanked them on. Good, sturdy Vans always got the job done. American shoes made over-seas. Just the way that he liked things. Standing in front of the mirror, he carefully braided his hair in a loose fashion and then tied it off with a small rubber band that he found on the dresser.

He was out the door in thirty seconds, and to the car in ten. After unlocking the mustang, he flew into the drivers seat and turned it on. The eight cylinders roared to life, and off he went, headed south for the city.

OoOoOoOoOOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Found some editing mistakes. Fixed them. Sorry about them. Working on chapter two right now! -Valtana