*** *** ***
next morning
Heero stumbled groggily to the washroom and splashed water on his face. "Curse Odin and his habit of waking up at dawn." He grumbled, despite the fact that he knew it was as much his own fault that it was his habit now as Odin Lowe's. Walking back into the room, he was struck by the way Duo's face looked when it was relaxed and asleep.
Dawn's first rays fell gently through large, glass, windows covered by flimsy white curtains, which had been Quatre's sisters' design originally, and Quatre hadn't yet gotten around to changing them. The faintly golden, slightly pink light hit the braided boy's face at just the right angle, softening the usually hard features into faintly pastel sweetness. The long, feminine eyelashes were unusually accented, the shadow cast on his pale cheeks dark and prominent, the rare expression of vulnerable trust on the boy's elfin white face making him seem ethereal, almost like a female. The radiance of the sun's first appearance of the day painted his usually almost dull brown hair into a glimmering fire of gold, copper, bronze, and even a streak of silver here and there.
Heero suddenly felt a strange, compelling curiosity to see what position Duo slept in, and he walked over to the bed, his shadow falling over Duo's face and putting it into a darker, more mysterious, and even slightly sinister light. The blankets were pulled up almost over his ears, and his braid disappeared underneath. "Come on, Duo." He said softly. "Time to wake up." He touched the soft bangs softly, almost afraid that the instant the perfect figure in front of him was marred by a touch from a human like himself, Duo would vaporize into nothingness. "Wake up." He said.
Duo murmured something unintelligible under his breath, and snuggled a little deeper into his blankets.
"What was that?" Heero asked.
"'S not time to get up yet." He said a little louder, his voice sleepy.
"Ohayo to you too, Duo." Heero said, a little bit less gentle as before. He finally gave up, after several tries, and just yanked the blankets off the slight body in front of him. "I said wake up, Duo." Duo immediately curled up a little tighter, trying to keep some of the warmth from the blankets in his body. When Heero saw the position Duo was in, he nearly laughed out loud.
Duo was curled up tightly, his arms crossed over his chest, one hand holding his braid loosely, and the other holding something small and silver. His cross. The position was so like that of a little child with a favorite stuffed toy that it made Duo even more innocent-looking than the wisps of hair that had escaped from his braid and framed his face like a halo already did. Heero chuckled as he picked Duo up in what the American had jokingly termed 'superhumanly strong' arms, and headed to the washroom to duck his head in ice-cold water.
The inhuman shriek that resounded throughout the mansion woke everyone inside up instantly, startled several passerby and the early-rising gardeners, and nearly deafened Heero, who was right beside the thing that the sound came from. In fact, holding him down while he struggled to reach Heero's neck in order to strangle him.
"Yuy, you are so goin' DOWN!!!" Duo yelled as he wriggled out of Heero's grasp by pure luck and started to chase him around the room. Heero sighed as he ran, knowing that even if Duo did manage to catch him, which he probably would, Duo wouldn't really hurt him . all that much .
Quatre removed his pillow and blankets from around his head and looked cautiously out from his bed. Upon seeing Duo and Heero on a wild rampage throughout the room, he smiled. At least this little bit of the morning would be normal. After they managed to calm Duo, and tend to as many of their inevitable wounds as possible, they would begin a wild dance of packing, clearing the room, removing all trace of their occupation here, and finally slipping into carrier planes and flying off in the guise of peaceful missionaries carrying supplies to the impoverished colony L2.
*** *** *** half an hour later
Heero's cobalt eyes watched Duo as inconspicuously as he could manage as Quatre dabbed at a scratch on his shoulder, created when Duo tackled him and he hit the ground. The alcohol stung, and he almost winced as Quatre applied it as gently as possible to the slightly bloody area. Almost.
"Maxwell, you are a menace to society." He muttered under his breath.
"What was that, Yuy?" Duo said dangerously, not even flinching as Trowa patted at the scrape on his elbow, created when Heero had rolled him over and he had hit against the wall.
Heero sighed. "Nothing, Maxwell."
Despite the seeming severity of the situation, Wufei knew that the two of them would be on first name terms again by lunch. It was Heero and Duo, after all. And even if Heero didn't forget, Duo would seem to by then, and then what choice did Heero really have but comply with his wishes? For even Wufei had noticed how powerless the Perfect Soldier was against a simple pleading glance from the God of Death. It was ironic, really. So ironic.
Duo turned to Trowa and thanked him with a smile and a nod, the elusive ability of being still social and lovable without having to speak that he had managed to perfect. He turned away from the other pilots, despite the fact that it wouldn't have mattered even if he had undressed in front of them. The loose, black pajama top was almost completely unbuttoned when he suddenly turned around and started to search around the room with his eyes, revealing a lean, muscular chest, and finely toned skin. A frown marred his features as he started towards the end of the room where he had tackled Heero to the ground, still searching for something.
The frown deepened as he didn't find what he was looking for at the site of the fall, and it wasn't until he retrieved the object carefully from the heating grate that it had nearly disappeared into. He dusted off the smooth, worn front of his silver cross and placed at around his neck again, and turned back to the other pilots.
"I thought I saw something silver go flying." Heero commented, trying to avert his eyes from Duo's well-toned skin.
"And you didn't tell me?" Duo complained, returning to his place by his bed. Suddenly, he veered off course and came over to where Heero was still being tended to by Quatre. His eyes narrowed. "Next time you see anything of mine, Yuy, tell me." He hissed, doing a close impression of what he himself had dubbed the 'Heero Yuy Glare of Death', but then, just as suddenly, grinning and returning to his bedside.
Heero frowned again. Duo was strange today, the way his eyes seemed different, despite the obvious attempt to seem normal. Instead of registering the cheery indifference they usually did, they were a cold, foreign shade of more cobalt than violet. The shade that appeared only when he was the God of Death, or extremely angry. Or maybe . sadness?
*** *** *** another half hour later
The great, booming peals of the doorbell shuddered throughout the mansion, and Duo jumped up happily from where he was demolishing every scrap of food in sight. "Stuff's here!" He said, grinning pleasantly before disappearing in the direction of the main hall. Quatre blinked at him, the God of Death having vanished slightly too fast for the still somewhat asleep boy to comprehend.
After a moment of silence, he said, "Do you think I should have told him that the butler would see to it?" Trowa and Wufei stared at him for a moment, neither of them being early morning people, and had to think hard to figure out what the words meant.
"Nah." Wufei said decisively, after another long pause, and then silence reigned again.
Quatre shifted uncomfortably in his chair, Trowa blew inconspicuously at his long bangs, and Wufei tried not to crunch his cereal quite as loudly as he normally would have, the minute sounds falling like thunder on the stifling silence, and Heero looked from person to person in faint amusement.
All of a sudden, as he was wont to do, Duo appeared in the doorway again, his voice turning the silence into a tornado of words and sentences. "Hey, guess what? We got a friar to deliver our stuff! They must hold us in pretty high esteem for that!" He said happily, plopping himself down at his spot beside Heero and promptly turning into the human vacuum cleaner again.
"In this way, please." The butler said courteously, casting a wary glance in Duo's direction. Duo winked and waved cheerily, causing the butler to exit the room perhaps a little quicker than usual.
The nervous looking little friar was dressed in drab brown robes and bore a cross on a chain around his neck similar to the one Duo wore. The man glanced from right to left, then at the pilots sitting expectantly at the table, and then at Duo, who was finally slowing down on his food intake somewhat and was now nibbling on a piece of bacon while regarding the friar interestedly.
"Hi," said the friar. The Gundam pilots stared. "Um . I came to deliver your stuff." More stares. "Uh . I'm Friar John." Blinks.
"Uh . good morning." Quatre said, uncomfortable at the silence, and especially at the fact that the usually lively Duo was staring intently, and, more importantly, wordlessly, at the small package that 'Friar John' was carrying.
"Um . I'll just leave the carrier outside on the landing strip?" The now- terrified little man said quickly. Quatre nodded politely, and Friar John fairly ran from the room. Duo stood up and walked over to where the man had left the package and carefully picked it up, setting it on the table. He pursed his lips for a moment, and then grinned cheerily.
"Five bucks that it's a Bible!" He said. Wufei blinked. Trowa blinked. Quatre stared.
"Five on a bomb." Heero suggested. With the silence broken and ten dollars as an incentive, the bets came pouring in.
"Five on video."
"Five that it's a box of something."
Duo shook his head at all of the ideas, and spoke again. "I still think it's a Bible. What about you, Q-man?" Quatre nodded briefly, and Duo peeled the brown paper off, revealing a plain black cover and The Holy Bible written in flowing, fancy, gold script in the middle. "Fifteen bucks to me and Q-man!" Duo crowed. Wufei growled at him and tossed a ten and a five in his direction and the same at a disturbingly smug-looking Quatre. Trowa muttered something at his hair and copied Wufei's example. Heero picked up his wallet, pulled out a wad of bills and pretended to laboriously count out thirty dollars in dollar bills.
"Here." He said, holding out the thick pile. Duo frowned, but then almost danced his way to Heero's side, holding his arm down with just a light touch and sorted through the slips of paper until he found what he was looking for, a twenty-dollar bill. Heero frowned. "That's a twenty, Maxwell." He said venomously. Duo turned to look innocently at him, but when he spoke his voice matched Heero's, belying his expression.
"Five for bad sportsmanship, Yuy." He said, while at the same time Quatre tossed back a mound of fifteen one-dollar bills. Heero snarled at him, but Duo ignored him and wove his way skillfully through the bags on the floor, holding his money aloft, and managing to swipe the Bible at the same time.
"Oi! Matte!" Heero called after the retreating brunette, forgetting that he didn't know any Japanese. Duo paused, the money still high in the air, the Bible in the other hand, and turned to stare confusedly at Heero. Heero sighed, mentally berated himself for his absentminded mistake, and repeated his last command in English. "Wait." He said. Duo blinked at him, and then grinned wickedly and continued to make for the door. "Where, may I ask, are you going, Maxwell? We leave in half an hour."
Duo exhaled noisily. "I know we're leaving in half an hour, Yuy. After all, it was me who received the mission briefing, remember?" He turned for the door once again, then paused. "Q-man?"
"Hmm?" Quatre said, sipping at a glass of tea.
"You didn't forget the tin foil, did you?"
"Huh? Oh, no, it's here."
"Okay." Duo didn't bother to explain the conversation and disappeared out the door. Heero stared after the American pilot and turned to Quatre.
"Tin foil?"
Quatre shrugged nonchalantly, the tea's caffeine having successfully woken him. "Don't ask me. Something about disguising gundanium alloy, I didn't really get the gist of his explanation. He was speaking a bit too fast."
Heero muttered under his breath and started for the door, only to be stopped by Trowa. "You do realize that by going after him you're making it even more obvious than it already is." A pair of cobalt eyes turned to him, a frown on his face and confusion written in his stance.
"Nani?"
For the second time in five minutes, Heero was stared at like he had suddenly sprouted a second head and fifth limb. Also for the second time, in the same amount of minutes, Heero mentally yelled at himself for speaking in a language none of the other pilots understood.
"What." He translated. Trowa blinked and settled a little more comfortably in his chair, Quatre sighed and inched his chair towards the Heavyarms pilot, and Wufei grumbled and slid down in his chair, all three of them looking as if they were in for a long, long, discussion.
"Well . why don't you sit down and let us explain ."
Heero stumbled groggily to the washroom and splashed water on his face. "Curse Odin and his habit of waking up at dawn." He grumbled, despite the fact that he knew it was as much his own fault that it was his habit now as Odin Lowe's. Walking back into the room, he was struck by the way Duo's face looked when it was relaxed and asleep.
Dawn's first rays fell gently through large, glass, windows covered by flimsy white curtains, which had been Quatre's sisters' design originally, and Quatre hadn't yet gotten around to changing them. The faintly golden, slightly pink light hit the braided boy's face at just the right angle, softening the usually hard features into faintly pastel sweetness. The long, feminine eyelashes were unusually accented, the shadow cast on his pale cheeks dark and prominent, the rare expression of vulnerable trust on the boy's elfin white face making him seem ethereal, almost like a female. The radiance of the sun's first appearance of the day painted his usually almost dull brown hair into a glimmering fire of gold, copper, bronze, and even a streak of silver here and there.
Heero suddenly felt a strange, compelling curiosity to see what position Duo slept in, and he walked over to the bed, his shadow falling over Duo's face and putting it into a darker, more mysterious, and even slightly sinister light. The blankets were pulled up almost over his ears, and his braid disappeared underneath. "Come on, Duo." He said softly. "Time to wake up." He touched the soft bangs softly, almost afraid that the instant the perfect figure in front of him was marred by a touch from a human like himself, Duo would vaporize into nothingness. "Wake up." He said.
Duo murmured something unintelligible under his breath, and snuggled a little deeper into his blankets.
"What was that?" Heero asked.
"'S not time to get up yet." He said a little louder, his voice sleepy.
"Ohayo to you too, Duo." Heero said, a little bit less gentle as before. He finally gave up, after several tries, and just yanked the blankets off the slight body in front of him. "I said wake up, Duo." Duo immediately curled up a little tighter, trying to keep some of the warmth from the blankets in his body. When Heero saw the position Duo was in, he nearly laughed out loud.
Duo was curled up tightly, his arms crossed over his chest, one hand holding his braid loosely, and the other holding something small and silver. His cross. The position was so like that of a little child with a favorite stuffed toy that it made Duo even more innocent-looking than the wisps of hair that had escaped from his braid and framed his face like a halo already did. Heero chuckled as he picked Duo up in what the American had jokingly termed 'superhumanly strong' arms, and headed to the washroom to duck his head in ice-cold water.
The inhuman shriek that resounded throughout the mansion woke everyone inside up instantly, startled several passerby and the early-rising gardeners, and nearly deafened Heero, who was right beside the thing that the sound came from. In fact, holding him down while he struggled to reach Heero's neck in order to strangle him.
"Yuy, you are so goin' DOWN!!!" Duo yelled as he wriggled out of Heero's grasp by pure luck and started to chase him around the room. Heero sighed as he ran, knowing that even if Duo did manage to catch him, which he probably would, Duo wouldn't really hurt him . all that much .
Quatre removed his pillow and blankets from around his head and looked cautiously out from his bed. Upon seeing Duo and Heero on a wild rampage throughout the room, he smiled. At least this little bit of the morning would be normal. After they managed to calm Duo, and tend to as many of their inevitable wounds as possible, they would begin a wild dance of packing, clearing the room, removing all trace of their occupation here, and finally slipping into carrier planes and flying off in the guise of peaceful missionaries carrying supplies to the impoverished colony L2.
*** *** *** half an hour later
Heero's cobalt eyes watched Duo as inconspicuously as he could manage as Quatre dabbed at a scratch on his shoulder, created when Duo tackled him and he hit the ground. The alcohol stung, and he almost winced as Quatre applied it as gently as possible to the slightly bloody area. Almost.
"Maxwell, you are a menace to society." He muttered under his breath.
"What was that, Yuy?" Duo said dangerously, not even flinching as Trowa patted at the scrape on his elbow, created when Heero had rolled him over and he had hit against the wall.
Heero sighed. "Nothing, Maxwell."
Despite the seeming severity of the situation, Wufei knew that the two of them would be on first name terms again by lunch. It was Heero and Duo, after all. And even if Heero didn't forget, Duo would seem to by then, and then what choice did Heero really have but comply with his wishes? For even Wufei had noticed how powerless the Perfect Soldier was against a simple pleading glance from the God of Death. It was ironic, really. So ironic.
Duo turned to Trowa and thanked him with a smile and a nod, the elusive ability of being still social and lovable without having to speak that he had managed to perfect. He turned away from the other pilots, despite the fact that it wouldn't have mattered even if he had undressed in front of them. The loose, black pajama top was almost completely unbuttoned when he suddenly turned around and started to search around the room with his eyes, revealing a lean, muscular chest, and finely toned skin. A frown marred his features as he started towards the end of the room where he had tackled Heero to the ground, still searching for something.
The frown deepened as he didn't find what he was looking for at the site of the fall, and it wasn't until he retrieved the object carefully from the heating grate that it had nearly disappeared into. He dusted off the smooth, worn front of his silver cross and placed at around his neck again, and turned back to the other pilots.
"I thought I saw something silver go flying." Heero commented, trying to avert his eyes from Duo's well-toned skin.
"And you didn't tell me?" Duo complained, returning to his place by his bed. Suddenly, he veered off course and came over to where Heero was still being tended to by Quatre. His eyes narrowed. "Next time you see anything of mine, Yuy, tell me." He hissed, doing a close impression of what he himself had dubbed the 'Heero Yuy Glare of Death', but then, just as suddenly, grinning and returning to his bedside.
Heero frowned again. Duo was strange today, the way his eyes seemed different, despite the obvious attempt to seem normal. Instead of registering the cheery indifference they usually did, they were a cold, foreign shade of more cobalt than violet. The shade that appeared only when he was the God of Death, or extremely angry. Or maybe . sadness?
*** *** *** another half hour later
The great, booming peals of the doorbell shuddered throughout the mansion, and Duo jumped up happily from where he was demolishing every scrap of food in sight. "Stuff's here!" He said, grinning pleasantly before disappearing in the direction of the main hall. Quatre blinked at him, the God of Death having vanished slightly too fast for the still somewhat asleep boy to comprehend.
After a moment of silence, he said, "Do you think I should have told him that the butler would see to it?" Trowa and Wufei stared at him for a moment, neither of them being early morning people, and had to think hard to figure out what the words meant.
"Nah." Wufei said decisively, after another long pause, and then silence reigned again.
Quatre shifted uncomfortably in his chair, Trowa blew inconspicuously at his long bangs, and Wufei tried not to crunch his cereal quite as loudly as he normally would have, the minute sounds falling like thunder on the stifling silence, and Heero looked from person to person in faint amusement.
All of a sudden, as he was wont to do, Duo appeared in the doorway again, his voice turning the silence into a tornado of words and sentences. "Hey, guess what? We got a friar to deliver our stuff! They must hold us in pretty high esteem for that!" He said happily, plopping himself down at his spot beside Heero and promptly turning into the human vacuum cleaner again.
"In this way, please." The butler said courteously, casting a wary glance in Duo's direction. Duo winked and waved cheerily, causing the butler to exit the room perhaps a little quicker than usual.
The nervous looking little friar was dressed in drab brown robes and bore a cross on a chain around his neck similar to the one Duo wore. The man glanced from right to left, then at the pilots sitting expectantly at the table, and then at Duo, who was finally slowing down on his food intake somewhat and was now nibbling on a piece of bacon while regarding the friar interestedly.
"Hi," said the friar. The Gundam pilots stared. "Um . I came to deliver your stuff." More stares. "Uh . I'm Friar John." Blinks.
"Uh . good morning." Quatre said, uncomfortable at the silence, and especially at the fact that the usually lively Duo was staring intently, and, more importantly, wordlessly, at the small package that 'Friar John' was carrying.
"Um . I'll just leave the carrier outside on the landing strip?" The now- terrified little man said quickly. Quatre nodded politely, and Friar John fairly ran from the room. Duo stood up and walked over to where the man had left the package and carefully picked it up, setting it on the table. He pursed his lips for a moment, and then grinned cheerily.
"Five bucks that it's a Bible!" He said. Wufei blinked. Trowa blinked. Quatre stared.
"Five on a bomb." Heero suggested. With the silence broken and ten dollars as an incentive, the bets came pouring in.
"Five on video."
"Five that it's a box of something."
Duo shook his head at all of the ideas, and spoke again. "I still think it's a Bible. What about you, Q-man?" Quatre nodded briefly, and Duo peeled the brown paper off, revealing a plain black cover and The Holy Bible written in flowing, fancy, gold script in the middle. "Fifteen bucks to me and Q-man!" Duo crowed. Wufei growled at him and tossed a ten and a five in his direction and the same at a disturbingly smug-looking Quatre. Trowa muttered something at his hair and copied Wufei's example. Heero picked up his wallet, pulled out a wad of bills and pretended to laboriously count out thirty dollars in dollar bills.
"Here." He said, holding out the thick pile. Duo frowned, but then almost danced his way to Heero's side, holding his arm down with just a light touch and sorted through the slips of paper until he found what he was looking for, a twenty-dollar bill. Heero frowned. "That's a twenty, Maxwell." He said venomously. Duo turned to look innocently at him, but when he spoke his voice matched Heero's, belying his expression.
"Five for bad sportsmanship, Yuy." He said, while at the same time Quatre tossed back a mound of fifteen one-dollar bills. Heero snarled at him, but Duo ignored him and wove his way skillfully through the bags on the floor, holding his money aloft, and managing to swipe the Bible at the same time.
"Oi! Matte!" Heero called after the retreating brunette, forgetting that he didn't know any Japanese. Duo paused, the money still high in the air, the Bible in the other hand, and turned to stare confusedly at Heero. Heero sighed, mentally berated himself for his absentminded mistake, and repeated his last command in English. "Wait." He said. Duo blinked at him, and then grinned wickedly and continued to make for the door. "Where, may I ask, are you going, Maxwell? We leave in half an hour."
Duo exhaled noisily. "I know we're leaving in half an hour, Yuy. After all, it was me who received the mission briefing, remember?" He turned for the door once again, then paused. "Q-man?"
"Hmm?" Quatre said, sipping at a glass of tea.
"You didn't forget the tin foil, did you?"
"Huh? Oh, no, it's here."
"Okay." Duo didn't bother to explain the conversation and disappeared out the door. Heero stared after the American pilot and turned to Quatre.
"Tin foil?"
Quatre shrugged nonchalantly, the tea's caffeine having successfully woken him. "Don't ask me. Something about disguising gundanium alloy, I didn't really get the gist of his explanation. He was speaking a bit too fast."
Heero muttered under his breath and started for the door, only to be stopped by Trowa. "You do realize that by going after him you're making it even more obvious than it already is." A pair of cobalt eyes turned to him, a frown on his face and confusion written in his stance.
"Nani?"
For the second time in five minutes, Heero was stared at like he had suddenly sprouted a second head and fifth limb. Also for the second time, in the same amount of minutes, Heero mentally yelled at himself for speaking in a language none of the other pilots understood.
"What." He translated. Trowa blinked and settled a little more comfortably in his chair, Quatre sighed and inched his chair towards the Heavyarms pilot, and Wufei grumbled and slid down in his chair, all three of them looking as if they were in for a long, long, discussion.
"Well . why don't you sit down and let us explain ."
