A/N: Always, always a thousand thank yous to Ro. You are the best beta I could ask for and holy shit do you put up with a LOT of random thoughts from me ALL the time.
Warnings: angst, language, sex
Pairings: 6x2, 3x5, 1xR, 4xD
Snowday
For a kid raised in Florida, who had thought fifty degrees was freezing for most of his life, Duo had adapted to actual winters and actual cold surprisingly well after moving to New Jersey three years ago.
At least, Duo thought he had adapted well until this mess. Storm Stella. Storm Fuck you, Duo is what it should have been named.
Duo could handle snow, could handle cold, cold handle having to dig his damn car out of the snow by hand, and he could shovel the sidewalk for his elderly neighbors and he could - after a lot of meticulous searching through online catalogues - make thermal underwear look good. He could do all of those things.
But what he couldn't do was survive without power, without heat.
He thought back to the realtor's expression when she had shown Duo the apartments in the area three years ago, thought back to her insistence that he look at some of the older apartments that had gas heating and not electric heating. But Duo had been just as insistent, had, okay, admittedly been dumb and irrationally afraid of gas heating because he was terrified of carbon monoxide poisoning, and maybe that wasn't even a thing with gas heating but he didn't know and he didn't want to die. Plus, newer was better, right? The realtor had shaken her head, but had dutifully shown Duo the gleaming modern apartments he asked for, and Duo had forked over the rent gladly. He could trust electricity.
Except, of course, when he couldn't.
Except when Storm Fuck you, Duo struck, and Duo managed to stick it out for one night, wearing two pairs of thermal long johns and thermal understhirts, a pair of sweatpants and three sweaters while wrapped in two blankets, and maybe he couldn't move but at least he woke up alive the next morning.
Alive and very grudgingly grateful that the stove, at least, was gas. He made himself a cup of tea and held his hands way too close to the burner, and wondered if he was going to die like this.
And then, because Storm Fuck you, Duo apparently had a karmic side as well as the really fucked-up physical one, Zechs called.
Duo's phone was almost dead, the sad little battery bar so thin it was hard to see at all, and Duo contemplated not answering at all.
Then, he sighed, realizing he was being childish and dumb, and answered the damn thing.
"Hey." He tried to sound casual, but his voice was rough and he knew that he sounded anything but casual.
"I wanted to see how you were surviving the storm."
"Just fine. Enjoying it, actually."
Zechs refrained from calling Duo out on the lie, but he knew Duo well enough to know that while Duo had adapted to the cold, he wasn't all that enamoured with it.
"Do you still have power?"
Duo sighed.
"No. Lost it yesterday afternoon."
"You haven't had power since yesterday?"
Duo rolled his eyes at Zechs's incredulous tone.
"Yeah, it's not a big deal, Zechs. I'm perfectly capable of bundling up and-"
"Pack a bag and come to my house."
Zechs, of course, had gas heating. Really glorious gas heating that meant the wooden floors of his little mountainside house were never cold. Duo could practically feel the heat of Zechs's house.
"I still have power," Zechs added, clearly trying to sweeten the offer.
"How?" Duo asked, uncaring that he was whining. "How the fuck do you still have power when you live on the side of a fucking mountain?"
Zechs chuckled.
"I guess I just got lucky."
Duo sighed, and tried to think of a rational excuse to stay at his own apartment.
"The university is closed tomorrow. Come over, get a decent night of sleep, and you can relax tomorrow without worrying about freezing to death."
"I don't know how much relaxing I can do considering these papers I need to grade before-"
"You can't grade them if you don't have access to the internet," Zechs pointed out.
Duo scowled. There was, of course, that.
"Look, I appreciate the offer but it's like… a three mile hike to get to your place, and I might as well-"
"Duo, let me take care of you."
The words, Zechs's tone, made Duo's jaw clench.
"I don't need you to take care of me, Zechs."
Zechs scoffed.
"I didn't realize you were immune to hypothermia."
"I'm- Look, I can probably crash with Trowa and Wufei or something; their place has gas heating. You don't need to-"
"I don't need to care about you?"
Duo sighed. There really wasn't a way to win this fight.
"You don't need to take care of me. I can fend for myself, yanno. It's not like I wasn't doing it for my whole life before I met you and-"
"It's one night, Duo. I'm not asking you to move in with me."
Not again.
He didn't need to say it - the words hung between them, heavy and sharp.
"Fine," Duo growled, angry with himself and with Zechs and with the entire world, especially with Storm Fuck you, Duo. "Fine. You win."
"This isn't about winning, Duo," Zechs sighed, irritated and patronizing. "This is simply about keeping you alive."
Duo didn't have a response to that that wasn't ridiculously petulant, so instead he forced himself to draw in a deep breath.
"I'll pack a bag," he muttered, "and head over. It'll probably take me awhile to get there, and my phone is almost dead, so…"
"I won't call you every ten minutes to make sure you're still alive," Zechs assured him.
Duo rolled his eyes at Zechs's tone, but he hung up the phone and set about actually packing.
His computer, charger and phone charger went into his backpack first. He added a few clean pairs of underwear and socks, but there wasn't really any room for a change of clothes.
Of course, he still had a change of clothes at Zechs's house, from the last time he had spent the night more than a month ago.
Annoyed at life all over again, Duo slammed his dresser drawer closed and then stopped.
Should he change? He was wearing the same thermal underwear he had put on two days ago - it had been too cold to change last night, or this morning, and he had just added layers on top of everything.
It wouldn't hurt to change.
Then again, it was down to just over forty degrees in his apartment… It actually might hurt to change.
And besides, it wasn't like he wanted to look nice for Zechs.
Hell, it wasn't even as if Zechs cared if Duo looked nice - if Duo showed up looking like a half-frozen vagrant, Zechs would just make noises and insist on running a bath for him and taking care of him.
