A/N: Thanks about five million times over to the folks who have taken the time to read and review.
Warnings: Language, angst, violence, sex
Pairings: I'll give you two guesses. No, three guesses.
What May Come
Chapter Nine
Trowa Barton
Roberto Kippernick
Duo Maxwell
The plaque on the wall beside the dorm room bore three names in neatly printed lettering. Roberto, however, had been crossed out and replaced with a scrawl:
Bobio
Trowa sincerely hoped that Duo had come through, that Roberto Kippernick was a fictitious roommate, because he doubted his ability to cope with someone who willingly called himself Bobio.
Please let it be a joke.
He slid his key card through the reader on the door and stepped inside.
As the door closed behind him he surveyed his new surroundings.
The door opened into a common room - a room that was just slightly larger than Trowa's dorm room had been last year, with a table, four chairs and a large cabinet shoved against the back wall between two doors. To his left and right were another two doors. He looked in on the right and found the bathroom. It wasn't much, but it was a private head, and he could appreciate that.
He didn't particularly care what people thought of him, but even he grew weary of the stares he drew from smooth skinned boys in the showers.
On the left was a bedroom that looked to be identical to the room Trowa had stayed in last year - a single bed shoved against one wall, a desk and dresser against another and a shell of a closet close to the door.
That left the two doors on the back wall of the common room. The left side door was open and revealed another, empty bedroom. Trowa put his duffel bag down by that door and then turned to the last door.
It was closed, and as Trowa stepped closer he sniffed the air.
Something… something smiled like the Earth.
He lifted a cautious hand to the door knob and found it unlocked.
Trowa opened the door slowly, dreading what he could possibly find on the other side.
Please don't be Bobio, he found himself thinking.
"Yo!"
He let out a sigh of relief when he saw Duo.
"Hi," he replied and instantly felt like a moron. Hi? Clearly he had spent too much time with Quatre that summer, who said things like hi and It's good to see you every time Trowa entered a room.
Duo was hard at work putting together some kind of complicated tube system that ran down from one of the ceiling tiles in his room towards a wire stand that was filled with plants.
"What are you doing?"
"Fixing the irrigation for the little guys," Duo said absently, clearly focused on his work.
"Are you turning your room into a greenhouse?"
"Sort of. I mean, this stuff is mostly hydroponic and I'm not going to install solar panels or heat cells - but I do have this pretty wicked UV light I swiped from the junk bin on Peacemillion. Cost me a fair bit to repair it, but it's still cheaper than a brand new one."
Trowa felt like he had walked into an alternate universe.
"But why?"
Duo turned to him and frowned.
"Because the plants won't grow as well without it?" He sounded concerned for Trowa's intelligence. "I mean… we're in space. There's no direct light - hell, there's not even a window - which really sucks because when I was looking at the floorplans for these suites it showed windows. I'm thinking they had to cut back during the renovations."
Trowa looked back up at the ceiling and the trail of clear tubes. Duo had chosen the room closest to the bathroom.
"You wanted the water supply - that's why you wanted a private head."
Duo nodded.
"Yeah. I guess I could have tried to rig this up to the main head but…"
Trowa had to shake his head.
"You used me for water for your science experiments."
Duo looked sheepish for a moment.
"Well… it's still a private head. Plus the common room is pretty sweet. We won't have to fight for table space with the kids trying to feel each other up in the study lounges anymore."
"True."
Trowa shrugged. He wasn't actually upset, and he should have known Duo had an ulterior motive for this - he wasn't going to go to this much trouble and break this many rules just so they could have a private head.
"So is this your room or Bobio's?" It was hard to say the name without grimacing.
Duo smirked.
"Nah, this is mine. Bobio is stuck with the room closest to the door. Tragic, but I'm sure we'll appreciate his sacrifice if anyone ever storms the place. They'll check his room first and it will buy us the time we need to make an escape."
Trowa arched an eyebrow.
"You realize that if they have a large enough invasion force they'll just check all of the doors at once."
Duo arched an eyebrow, mirroring Trowa's expression.
"So you took the room closest to the hall?"
"No. I'm not an idiot. They can kill Bobio first."
