Four: Shatter

The sound of shattering glass brought Duo out of his reverie, and he was on his feet in an instant, pistol drawn, running towards the location of the sound. Rounding the corner he stopped in the doorway of the communications room, gun at the ready, with a quick retort on his lips that died before being spoken as he took in the sight of the room.

Heero stood, hand wrist deep into the monitor, glass shards tracing angry cuts across his forearm. Duo took a few slow steps closer, but Heero didn't react, he just stood, still as a statue, staring down at the broken screen as if it would explain what his hand was doing halfway through it.

Unconsciously biting his lip in a nervous gesture, Duo reached down to unplug the unit, never taking his eyes off the pilot as he held to caution like a life raft in a situation that was making less and less sense by the second. As the last stubborn display light faded to black he shifted, placing his gun back into the hem of his pants before slowly reaching toward Heero's arm as he realized that Heero wasn't going to pull his hand out by himself any time soon.

"Heero, I'm not going to hurt you on purpose, so please, just don't move." Duo managed in the most calm voice he could put up, eyeing Heero's unresponsive face for any sign that he'd heard him or understood, and seeing none. He shook his head to himself before carefully grabbing Heero's wrist, inwardly bracing for another violent attack.

None came. With care he managed to avoid injuring Heero's arm any further; slowly navigating it around the remaining glass as he pulled it from the battered screen. The only reaction he'd received from the other boy was an almost imperceptible sharp intake of breath when he'd touched him. The entire ordeal passed by in an almost surreal silence, Heero not moving a muscle but allowing Duo to pull his hand from the monitor, Duo focusing on the work trying as hard as he could not to think about anything beyond the task at hand. Finally the hand was free and Duo grimaced to himself at the damage, none of the cuts looked too deep but he could see a few small pieces of glass that would need to be removed, making for tedious work ahead of him. He glanced up at Heero's face; he'd closed his eyes, but still wore no expression.

"Heero?" Duo ventured, receiving only a slight twitch of his eyelids as response that he'd heard, "this needs washing and some quality time with a set of tweezers..."

Heero offered no response save opening his eyes.

Duo tried to gauge any clues from that gaze but if he saw any hint of emotion it was only confusion, "I'm not going to carry you."

Heero looked away, but Duo thought he caught a slight snort.

Allowing a cautious grin to crawl onto his features he grasped Heero's uninjured elbow and began to pull him gently back towards the kitchen, "Oh, you'd think that me carrying you would be funny, wouldn't you, Yuy. Well I'll tell you one thing - you're heavier than you'd think..." He allowed himself to fill the silence, sitting Heero down on the couch, grabbing some bandage and tweezers and setting down to cleaning and dressing the wound, "I mean, for someone who can slam his fist through our ONLY hard line com-link as his way of ending a conversation I'd expect a few extra pounds, but looking at you I never thought you'd be more than a hundred pounds soaking wet..."

As he wrapped up the last few strands of the bandage he glanced carefully up at his comrade's face, only to be met with half-lidded glazed eyes and a visibly nodding head. "Heero...?" he started, his tone belaying his disbelief, something just wasn't right. He opened his mouth to ask if he was okay, lifting a hand to shake Heero's shoulder, but before he could make a sound Heero's body went limp under his hand. If it weren't for his grasp he would've fallen off the side of the couch.

Swiftly moving his other hand to check vitals he found everything to be fine, unconscious, but other than that, nothing seemed to be wrong. Duo rose gingerly, stretching his tired muscles, and shifted Heero's form so that he was laying down. He harshly ran his hands hard through his bangs, breathing out an exasperated sigh and whispered what seemed to be fast becoming his most popular saying, "What the hell, Yuy?" before turning towards the hanger where the gundams were kept. Duo knew he wasn't going to get any answers watching Heero sleep. If it was a new system that was causing this, then the best place to start would be his gundam.

"He certainly won't mind if I poke around," Duo muttered to himself as he started towards Wing, "consider it just retribution for the bruises my battered body has had to endure on his account in the last few hours."