A/N: As always, thank you to Ro for your patience, encouragement and friendship. You are a remarkable beta reader.
Warnings: angst, language, violence, character death, drugs, sex
Pairings: 2x3, 1x2, 2x5, 3x5, 2x3x5, 2x13, 4x6, HxR, 9xS, 1xD, others
Silver Strand
Lucy handed over the binoculars with an indignant huff.
Heero adjusted the lenses in front of his eyes and felt his stomach revolt at the memory of sweltering heat, razor-sharp foliage and the thunder of explosions that rose to the surface.
He pushed back the memory, forced himself to remember that he was HERE. Coronado Beach. Thousands of miles and sixteen months away from Vietnam.
Once he felt steady, Heero focused on the sight before him, using the binoculars to pick out the details that he and Lucy, from their vantage point by the highway, couldn't make out with their naked eyes.
To anyone else, the small gathering on the beach probably looked like a bunch of surfers grilling after a lazy afternoon in the sun.
And the assortment of boards, towels, coolers and golden, half-naked bodies gathered around a portable grill only reinforced that idea.
But Heero and Lucy weren't anyone else, and they had been watching this group - this eclectic crew of Coronado locals - for too long to be fooled.
He could pick out Treize, manning the grill and watching over his vassals with a smug smirk.
Treize, who had been Heero's Spanish teacher and coach of the basketball team, and who, if the rumors were to be believed, ran the Silver Strand smuggling company.
Every person on that beach was familiar to Heero - classmates from high school or former neighbors - and every single one of them had a headshot pinned to the huge corkboard in the office that Heero and Lucy shared.
The newly-formed DEA was sharing office space with the San Diego Animal Control Center's administrative offices - a fact that chafed every day that Heero had to walk into the damn building - and if Lucy and Heero could make this case, it would go a hell of a long way towards getting the local DEA branch enough funding to actually be functional.
All Heero had to do was take down the people he had grown up with.
He looked away from Treize and focused on Duo Maxwell. His long brown hair was streaked with gold, his eyes covered with dark sunglasses, his shorts riding so low on his hips that Heero could see the bare curve of his ass and the sculpted lines of his pelvis. He was laughing, waving his hands to tell some story, and he looked golden and perfect.
Duo had been Heero's first kiss - his first damn near everything.
Was he about to be Heero's first big bust?