A/N: A bit of total cracky off the wall idiocy that I believe my sister is entirely to blame for. The only warning being some really mild fluffy slash-implications. 3+4 with at least one of them trying to work toward 3x4. Pure cuteness but no one is together.
I own nothing.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. And Trowa, of all people, should know the many different varieties of quiet. He glanced out from under his hair at Quatre, his blonde companion busy shedding his shoes. The other pilot seemed to be unaware of the suspicious quality to the silence that was filling the house, for the moment at least. For the moment at least, Trowa would rather it stayed that way.
Stepping farther inside, his feet slipped from tile to carpet and if he had been one of his lions he would have been scenting the air. There was no one in the front room, their living room for all intents and purposes, and nothing seemed to be out of place. Or at least, nothing had changed since they'd gone out.
Not true. Heero was no longer here, so his laptop, while still sitting on the card table in the corner, was dark. Which meant it had gone untouched long enough that the screensaver had to have loaded and run. Long enough for the thing to go into sleep mode.
They had left Heero and Duo alone in the house and Heero had abandoned his laptop long enough for it to go into sleep mode. The mild feeling of unease Trowa was laboring under became full blown concern. He felt thin, almost delicate fingers on his shoulder, the silent strength supporting and backing him up.
"What is it?" Quatre murmured, his breath hot on the side of Trowa's face.
Trowa lifted his chin in the direction of the incriminating, dark screened computer. Quatre blew out a sigh almost instantly and grumbled, more to himself than to the room at large, "Dammit, I knew he was up to something!"
Trowa glanced down and sideways, even though he knew that their positions would prevent him from seeing much beyond a glimpse of blonde hair. "I take it there is no way this can be good?"
Quatre snorted, a sound that he had to have learned from one of his many sisters. "You mean do I think they somehow decided to be madly in love and are currently screwing like rabbits? Eh… no. That's creepy and I really wish that it might be true, but no. No way in hell. Duo has, unfortunately, been thinking lately."
"Ah. Hell." Trowa ran through a list of his more personal curses in his head and looked around the room again, as if this time some veil would be lifted and it would appear as the war-torn battlefield it really was.
"Duo." Quatre called, all sweetness and light and really utterly terrifying. "Duo!"
The entire house held its breath for exactly three seconds and then there was a muffled THUMP, two smaller noises and then the sound of bare feet on the hardwood that made up the stairs. Wearing jeans, a t-shirt and an unrepentant grin Duo jumped the last four steps and landed in the living room, directly across from them.
"Yo." He flipped his braid over one shoulder. "What's up?"
"Where's Heero?" Trowa cut directly to the point before Quatre could start in with the pleasantries and get them distract and sidetracked.
Duo shrugged, his eyes wide with innocence but the corners of his mouth curling further upward. "Oh, out and about. Why?"
"Doing what?" Quatre asked sweetly and it was all Trowa could do to keep from twitching. Quatre being nice was not the same as Quatre being sweet.
"I think he went to buy some milk," Duo answered, not as oblivious as he looked. He could not possibly be as oblivious as he looked! It just wasn't possible.
Trowa had to stop then, something vital short circuiting at the mental image of Heero… Yuy… being… domestic?!
"Uhhh," Quatre said coherently. "Why?"
Duo frowned, peering at Quatre in concern. "We're out."
"So, Heero took it upon himself to go buy more?" There was a note of upper class in Quatre's voice that always slipped in when he got stressed, concerned or upset.
Duo shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Oh you know how he is. Anything for the Mission."
Trowa opened his mouth, then closed it again, feeling Quatre shift behind him. Technically they weren't on a Mission right now. Wufei was, but the rest of them were under standing orders to wait for further orders. But on the other hand, with Heero… well, it was entirely possible that supplying sustenance while awaiting said orders fit into his definition of their current 'Mission'. But still….
"Oh and hey, if I were you I wouldn't mention owls near him for a while." Duo was already disappearing up the staircase as he added that comment to the conversation.
Wait, what?
"Owls? Duo! What the hell did you do?!" Quatre burst out.
But Duo just laughed and that was not comforting at all.
Heero frowned, shifting his grip on the gallon of milk. It had been right where Duo had said it would be.
Third from the front on the left side of the center case.
Two percent.
He had to resist the urge to peer at the thing, to try and spot any minute differences between it and the rest of the gallons. But to do that would be to draw attention to himself, as normal people did not routinely closely examine their milk. It would also draw attention to any flaws in the milk's cover and that was the last thing he wanted.
Slipping between an older couple and a young woman carrying a case of soda he wandered down an aisle of snacks, moving in the general direction of the checkout without making it overtly obvious that he had obtained what he had come in for. Picking up a pastry he turned it over to glance at the ingredients, all in the name of building his persona as 'just another shopper' but even Heero Yuy couldn't quite suppress a shudder at the nutritional value… or distinct lack thereof.
About to put it back he changed his mind at the last second and put it in his shopping basket next to the Target. Moving further down the aisle he found a brand of chips he had seen 02 eat once and added that to his camouflage of the milk. Anyone watching for a purchase of a single gallon of milk, the gallon that had been genetically modified to transmit vital information on OZ troop movements from the Doctors to the Pilots, would be far less likely to notice a teenage boy buying a bunch of junk food and a gallon of milk. He grabbed a box of cookies and some kind of fruit flavored goo thing off the shelf as if he truly wanted them.
Satisfied at last that he had enough items to be suitably anonymous, but without so many that it looked like he was trying too hard, Heero made his way toward the checkout lines and his Point of Contact. One of the cashiers was the drop agent, the one who would know how to properly approve the sale so that it wouldn't be declared a recall item in the computer so long as Heero provided him with the correct code phrase. His eyes narrowed slightly as he scanned the open lanes looking for sandy hair, pale complexion, freckles and a nametag that read 'Jimmy'.
His name was not actually Jimmy any more than Heero's was really Heero but it was the details of the contact that mattered. Once the 'sale' was complete Heero would do his best to forget everything he had ever seen or known about the man. It was safer for everyone that way.
Finally locating the man down on lane 6 Heero placed himself at the end of that line, resolutely ignoring any attempts made by the other cashiers to call him over when their own lanes were empty. He could only hope that it looked like he was spacing out and just did not notice them. But, fortunately for him, none of the other cashiers seemed all that interested in really helping out. After the first few halfhearted attempts to catch his eye they gave up and struck up a conversation between themselves.
A few moments later he was able to ditch the basket and place his items on the counter.
"Hey, what's up man? How you doing today?" 'Jimmy' said cheerfully, looking and sounding, for all the world, like a normal teenager working his summer job. Heero made a mental note to commend the agent in his Mission Report. The man was clearly quite good at what he did.
"Fine," Heero replied shortly as the chips and the candy went across the scanner. The milk was up next and he found himself slightly rushed as he added the code phrase to the conversation. "I saw a bunch of owls flying around in the daytime."
The agent's head came up as he scanned the milk without even a hint of difference in his attitude. "Really? With the sun out? That's kinda weird. I didn't even know we had owls around here."
Heero frowned mentally, painfully aware that the other man hadn't typed anything into his computer yet to allow for the special sale of the milk. "Yes," he said with just a hair more emphasis. "I did not think so either until I saw three or four owls flying around before dark."
'Jimmy' twitched an eyebrow but otherwise managed to control his facial expression… but he still didn't do anything in the computer. His hands sliding the rest of the groceries across the scanner he said, "Weird. Oh did you want that milk in a bag?"
Was that part of the code phrase? Was it actually a series of codes? Duo hadn't said anything about more than one code phrase though. He nodded with only a slight hesitation in it. "That would be fine."
"Cool. Got it." He finally tapped a button on his screen. "That makes your total $12.73."
Heero gave the agent a twenty and waited as patiently as possible for his change when all he wanted to do was grab his bags and run from the store. But finally he got his seven dollars and twenty seven cents back in hand along with a receipt and he was free to go.
Trying to swing the bags casually, as if he didn't really care what was in them or what would happen to the objects inside he headed for the front door. Even the sweet old lady who bid him to "Have a good day" didn't slow him down. And once he was outside in the summer heat he sped up. It was over ninety degrees and it was entirely possible that the information might be damaged if the milk was allowed to go bad in the heat.
By his calculations he had approximately eleven minutes to go nine blocks while carrying approximately fifteen pounds of badly packed, badly balanced deadweight. It was why they had assigned this Mission to him instead of Duo. Heero could be counted to make it the distance in that time in this heat. Duo would have been weighed down by the added burden of his hair. The other Pilot was a marathon runner, not a sprinter.
Keeping one part of his mind focused on the people around him, to try and spot anyone following him before he gave away the location of the safe house, Heero picked up his feet and got the hell on with it.
"What I don't get is how you think you're going to get away with it," Quatre said, watching Duo type away at his own computer. He was no Heero, none of them were, but he wasn't half bad in his own right. "He's going to shoot you."
"He wouldn't kill him without orders or a clear and present danger," Trowa put in reasonably from his perch on Duo's bed.
"Doesn't mean he won't shoot him," Quatre muttered rebelliously, earning himself a slight squeeze around the waist as Trowa reached out and caught him in the middle of his pacing.
Taking that as an invitation Quatre dropped down and snuggled up to the brunette on the bed, deliberately oblivious to the startled expression Trowa was now sporting.
Duo pausing in his typing long enough to throw a snort in their direction. "Look, the information he thinks is in the milk came in the transmission I got. He thought it was an incoming Mission and demanded details. We really need milk. What was I supposed to do?"
"Told him the truth?" Quatre offered.
"Gotten it yourself," Trowa contributed.
"Oh." Duo chewed on his lower lip for a second before he looked back up at them, his eyes alight. "But where's the fun in that?"
Not being sadistic, masochistic, suicidal or otherwise idiotic, Quatre and Trowa kept their collective mouths shut.
Not being quite as slow as he looked, Duo managed to "extract the data" from the milk with no one the wiser.
And if J seemed a little extra amused the next time he contacted Heero upon receiving that Mission Report… well, J had always been a bit eccentric. Heero shrugged it off.
They left that safehouse a week later.
No one ever saw Jimmy again.