A/N: Thank you for feedback!

Warnings: Language, angst, violence, sex

Pairings: I'll give you two guesses. No, three guesses.

What May Come

Chapter Eleven

"Alright, last year you provided the loot - this year it's my turn."

Duo stepped into their common room and unceremoniously dropped a medium sized box on the table. It landed with a thud.

Trowa looked over it skeptically. It didn't sound like anything edible, maybe Duo had purchased explosives and planned to blow up the former Lunar Base to celebrate Victory Day?

It wasn't a very fair speculation. The past few months had seen alterations to their routine from last year, but they had also seen improvements.

The first few weeks had been rough, as they settled into the idea of seeing each other multiple times every day, as they came to terms with the fact that nearly every single night they had to wake each other up from a nightmare and then move over in bed so they could share it for the rest of the night, as they learned that neither of them liked to do any form of communication before eight a.m., as they learned that they were still surrounded by civilians who still had no idea what Duo and Trowa had been through.

Their common room had become a safe haven, and Trowa found himself escaping to it whenever he couldn't stand to be around people anymore, and the fact that Duo was often right there with him was an unexpected solace, not an aggravation. Considering their sleeping arrangements, Trowa spent far less time alone this year than he had the previous and he was surprisingly comfortable with that.

Maybe it was because he was sleeping more. For the first time in what felt like his entire life, Trowa was able to sleep for more than a few hours each night. It seemed to completely defy logic, but if Duo was in bed beside him, Trowa could sleep.

It was weird, and twisted, but he felt safe with Duo there - despite the very real possibility that they could seriously hurt each other, he trusted Duo.

But that didn't mean he trusted Duo's box.

Duo stood there, grinning, clearly waiting for Trowa to open the box.

Reluctantly, Trowa gave in and cautiously lifted the cardboard flaps. Inside the box was… another box.

Trowa lifted the slightly smaller, dense plastic box out of the cardboard box and frowned.

It was an airtight container, and his earlier suspicions regarding Duo's version of "loot" in conjunction with Victory Day returned.

"For the love of - just open it." Duo didn't seem to appreciate Trowa's caution.

Trowa pressed on the indention just below the lid and the box opened with a pressurized hiss and a cloud of dry ice smoke wafted upwards.

Trowa arched an eyebrow.

He looked in the box and didn't bother to hide his shock.

"How the hell did you afford all of this?"

Inside the box was a bottle of champagne - and while Trowa wasn't a connoisseur he had seen the label on a bottle at Quatre's house, so clearly it was a decent brand - a package of fresh strawberries, a wedge of soft cheese, a chocolate bar, a spicy smoked sausage and -

Trowa reached in and pulled out a silver foil wrapped bar and sneered in disgust.

"What is this?"

Duo grabbed it from him and held it protectively.

"It's freeze dried milk-free ice cream."

"Why on earth did you buy it?"

"Because it's good."

Trowa just shook his head.

"It's freeze-dried ice cream and it's milk free. What part of that is possibly good?"

Duo rolled his eyes.

"Pardon me for evolving past the point of enjoying milk," he snarled.

"Oh."

Terrans and spacers were in different in a lot of ways - radiation exposure on the colonies had had a profound impact on the colonists - but the thing that Trowa almost always forgot was that most colonists were lactose intolerant. Milk and dairy products were expensive and not particularly nutritious, so there simply wasn't much demand for them in the colonies - especially the poor colonies. Quatre had grown up surrounded by luxury and as a result loved dairy products - his genes had likely been manipulated to remove any intolerance for it, Trowa realized now. Duo, on the other hand, came from a poor colony and his genes were likely more of a mixed bag than even Trowa's own.

He looked back down at the box, at the soft cheese and the chocolate bar.

"Then why did you get these?"

Duo shrugged.

"I figured you'd like them - I've seen you eat chocolate before and the guy at the import store said that cheese was his best."

Trowa had to repeat his earlier question.

"How did you afford all of this?"

Duo looked sheepish and scratched at the back of his neck.

Trowa narrowed his eyes. He had seen Duo do that a few times, in the past, usually before revealing that he had done something very, very far outside of mission parameters.

"Well, I was just going to buy the chocolate, the sausage and the ice cream -"

"Please don't call it that. It's an insult. To all ice cream everywhere."

Duo rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, I was picking out which flavor of ice cream I wanted and the guy who owned the store kind of… recognized me."

"What did he say?" Considering Duo's hints about what had happened the last time he had been recognized, Trowa found himself looking over Duo's body. He didn't seem injured.

"He said thank you and he loaded me down with all of this shit."

"I should have gone with you," Trowa mused. "We could have gotten more."

"Oh? Did your face get shown to the entire Earthsphere when you were captured and your Gundam destroyed? I missed that broadcast."

Trowa snorted.

"Of course not. I was never stupid enough to be captured. But I look like a war hero - stoic, refined, tragic."

"Tragically delusional," Duo muttered, but his lips twitched upwards and Trowa allowed himself to share the grin. "Oh! Almost forgot the best part."

Duo reached into the cardboard box and pulled out a long, flat black box.

Trowa regarded it curiously as Duo lifted the lid and revealed a chess set.

"We played a few times, back in the day and, I figured…"

Duo trailed off and Trowa looked at him.

He looked anxious and hopeful.

Trowa reached out and picked up one of the black pawns. It was strange. They had played chess back during the war. Trowa had first learned chess from the captain of the mercenaries, and he had played off and on over the years, but he had never really enjoyed the game.

Except for the few times he had played with Duo, who played the game as recklessly as he played the game of life.

"If I lose you won't make me eat that … ice cream, will you?"

Duo sighed.

"It's seriously really fucking good," he muttered.

"That's what they said about the ZERO system," Trowa reminded him. "And look how that turned out."