Title: Trading Faces

Rating: PG-13, just because I feel like it.

Warnings: Profanity, violence, eventual 1x2 pairing, etc.

Disclaimer: Nope, they aren't mine. But I like to pretend that they are. Guess I'll have to settle for owning this story (not a fair consolation if you ask me…) Please tell me what you think in a review … I just love to hear what you guys think!

-           -           -

            Duo woke to a persistent prodding in his ribs. He groaned, rolling onto his other side and curling more tightly into a fetal position. It was too early; he was still tired.

            "Duo! Wake up!" someone hissed at him. His brows knitted in irritation and whimpered.

            "Ngh. Too early ta get up. Leave me 'lone," he mumbled. He jolted to further consciousness as a sharp stab of discomfort hit him in the back, and he cracked his eyes open as he scooted away from whatever was causing the pain.

            "Go 'way!" he growled.

            "Duo! Get up. Now!"

            Duo was about to throw back a scathing comment of his own, when his mind came to a screeching halt. The voice yelling at him sounded an awful lot like his own voice. He raised a hand to rub at his face blearily.

            "Hmm, I don't feel drunk," he muttered to himself. "Must be dreamin'…"

            "Baka! This is no dream! Get up!" The last syllable was accented by another kick to his torso, and Duo snapped. Sitting up abruptly, he glared up to face his tormenter.

            "Hey! Would you just shut up and … uh …" His words tripped and fell away as he blinked a few times, wondering if the sun was screwing with his eyes. Towering above him, an expression of annoyance and exasperation on his face, was himself. He reached up calmly and slapped himself.

            "Okay, Duo, time to wake up now!" he announced loudly. The doppelganger scowled even more deeply, and collapsed onto the loamy ground next to him.

            "Duo," he said with carefully concise words. "This is real. You're me."

            "Wha?" Duo said, frowning at the cryptic words. The young man before him rolled his eyes slightly.

            "Aren't you even listening to yourself?"

            "Look buddy, you're the one that isn't making sense, not me!" Duo said defensively.

            "No, I mean actually listen to yourself. Your voice."

            "What's wrong with my … voice?" Duo began, his words growing more incredulous as he took in the sounds of the words. "Whoa. Something's wrong with my voice."

            "No, your voice is fine. It's just that you aren't using your voice. I am."

            "Huh?" Duo said. "What are you saying?"

            "I'm saying," the doppelganger said, deadly serious, "that I'm Heero. And you're me."

            "Say what?" Duo frowned. Heero smirked, the expression looking odd on a face that was supposed to be his.

            "Where is your braid, Duo?" he asked simply. Duo snorted.

            "Geez, this is a pretty lame dream, ya know," he muttered, reaching behind his head anyway to humor his companion. "Because I don't know what you're … ah! Ah! I have short hair! Where the fuck is my braid?!"

            "I told you," Heero said, his tone biting. "You're me, and I'm you. What the hell happened, Duo?"

            "But … but … this isn't happening!" Duo protested.

            "Trust me, it is," Heero said, his voice reverberating with displeasure.

            "No! No, I'm just gonna sit here and wait to wake up …"

            "Baka! Just look at yourself!" Heero hissed, grabbing Duo's arms suddenly and pulling him uncomfortably close to his face. Duo, too shocked to break away, found himself staring into eyes that should have been his. He gasped at the small reflection he saw there. He was looking at Heero. He was Heero! Forgetting to breathe for a moment, he roughly shoved Heero away from him and scrambled backward through the dirt and leaves.

            "No … freakin' … way …" he muttered, his lungs kicking in at last.

            "This is all your fault, baka!" Heero snarled suddenly, and Duo paused to blink at him. Something about Heero being in Duo's body must have made the usually stoic boy more expressive than normal, because the frustration and fury he was feeling was clearly evident on his face. It was Deathglare coupled with Shinigami, and it chilled Duo to look at it.

            "My … fault?"

            "Yes, yours! You brought that stupid device along from OZ when you should have just destroyed it! You didn't have the sense to just leave it be! That's what did this to us. It has to be! Mission failed, Duo. Because of you!"

            "Hold on a minute! I didn't fail any mission! I blew up that facility good and proper!" Duo defended himself.

            "Yes. And now, what about the next mission? Or the next?! How are we to function properly when we don't have our own bodies?!"

            "Oh fuck … oh fuck!" Duo groaned. "Look, I'm sorry, Heero. But don't say that this is all my fault. If you'd just backed off and not tried to take it from me, then I could have fixed that stupid disk and this wouldn't have happened."

            "Whatever. It was your responsibility. You find it and make it change us back!" Heero demanded hotly. Duo merely stared, the strangeness of having his own voice chew him out a little too overwhelming.

            "Okay. Fine," he finally said. "Help me look for it?"

            Before Heero had a chance to answer, there was a shout from the forest around them. They both flattened to the ground instinctively, hidden behind a rather leafy shrub. The voice had come from the other side somewhere. They looked at each other, and Duo motioned that he was going to take a look. Heero shook his head, but Duo didn't pay him any heed. With careful, slow movements, he cautiously peeked up and over the top of the vegetation into the forest beyond.

            "Holy shit, it's Wufei and Trowa," Duo gasped, crouching lower in the brush. Heero grimaced.

            "Did they see us?" he whispered.

            "Yuy!" Wufei's voice called out, answering the question.

            "Way to go, Heero," Duo muttered darkly. Heero frowned at him.

            "You're Heero! He saw you!"

            "Oh yeah," Duo said, and he suddenly grabbed Heero's arm. "Listen, we can't let them find us like this! They're gonna think we're insane!"

            "What would you like to do then?! Run away?!" Heero retorted.

            "No, but … but we gotta come up with something quick, Heero, or they're gonna find out!" Duo said frantically.

            "We'll just each have to act like the other person and hope they don't notice," Heero said simply. Duo stared at him, and sighed in defeat.

            "No offense, Heero, but you can't act worth shit," he said.

            "So you have a better idea?!"

            Duo glanced up nervously at where Trowa and Wufei were approaching, biting his lip absently. The pair disappeared for a moment in a dip in the landscape, and Duo made a quick decision.

            "Sorry, Heero man," he said quietly.

            "Duo? What …?" Heero began, looking at Duo oddly. Duo didn't allow himself a second thought. He drew back his fist and hit Heero squarely in the face, sending him to the earth with a hollow thud. Shaking his hand to rid himself of the stinging pain, he looked down at the unconscious figure. This was all together too weird. He'd just hit himself in the face. Except it wasn't really him, it was Heero. He was sitting immobile, contemplating that very issue, when the other two pilots came upon them.

            "Yuy?" Wufei asked as they approached, looking at the unconscious figure on the ground. "Is Maxwell all right?"

            Duo looked up at Wufei, startled, but quickly put on what he hoped was an apathetic face.

            "Hn. Concussed," he explained tersely, congratulating himself on how much he sounded like the young man he was trying to emulate. Trowa knelt next to Heero, believing for all the world that it was Duo, and picked him up carefully.

            "I assume that's why you weren't able to make it back to the safe house?" Wufei asked, one eyebrow raised.   

            "Yes," Duo said, and consciously closed his mouth before he could say more. Heero wouldn't say more. Would he? However, Wufei just nodded and motioned in the direction they had come.
            "Let's go," he said. "Figures it would be Maxwell's fault."

            "Was not!" Duo protested before he acknowledged that the words had left his mouth, and fought the urge to blush with embarrassment or cover his mouth when Wufei turned sharply to look at him with disbelief. "I mean, he didn't choose to be injured." Please buy that, please buy that, Duo pleaded in his mind. Wufei watched him warily for a moment more, then nodded slightly and looked away.

            "Whatever you say, Yuy."

            "I'm sure Wufei didn't mean it like that," Trowa interjected, still carrying Heero effortlessly.

            "Hn," Duo grunted, feeling absolutely valid in doing so, and crossed his arms over his chest as he began to brood. Luckily no one thought that odd in the least, and the trio continued on in silence. Duo began to notice a stinging in his upper thigh, and felt a limp grow in his step as they walked farther. It was a few moments before anyone else noticed.

            "Heero?" Trowa's voice drew his attention. "How badly are you hurt?"

            "I'm not," Duo said, keeping his face on the ground ahead of him. He didn't remember Heero saying anything about getting hurt, and the boy had seemed fine last night. He must just be aching from sleeping on the ground, he reasoned.

            "Then why is there blood on your leg?" Trowa inquired casually. Duo looked down, his eyes growing wide at the bloody stain on his left pant leg. He stumbled in surprise, and Wufei caught him quickly.

            "How much blood have you lost, Yuy?" he asked dryly. "Are you going to pass out?"

            "No!" Duo protested. "I don't even remember being hurt!"

            "He might be as bad off as Duo," Trowa said quietly. "Wufei, give him a hand from now on, okay?"

            "I'm telling you, it's not my blood! It can't be!" Duo protested, trying to shake Wufei away from him. The young Chinese man held fast, and Duo gave up after a few tense seconds of struggling.

            "At least now we know why you're acting so strange," Wufei said to Duo, steering him through the woods carefully. "Do you have any other injuries, Yuy?"

            "No," Duo said bitterly, forgetting his situation for a moment as his indignation grew. He was Heero, he had to remember that. He couldn't yell at Wufei, at least not in a believable manner. What would Heero say to get Wufei to lay the hell off?

            "Wufei," he growled finally, "let me go. I'm perfectly capable of walking on my own!" He shot Wufei a glare, hoping it looked remotely like Heero's usual glare of death, and felt relieved when Wufei's hand fell away from him.

            "As you wish, Yuy," Wufei replied tersely, and that was that. Duo blinked at the ease in which the problem had been solved. Of course, Heero and Wufei had always had a sort of understanding when it came to pride. That had to be it.

            "How stable is Duo, Heero?" Trowa asked.

            "He'll be fine," Duo shrugged. Truthfully there was nothing wrong with the unconscious boy, but he wasn't about to let on.

            "Can you manage him, Barton?" Wufei asked the tall young man.

            "Yes. He isn't heavy and we don't have that far to go."

            Duo tuned out their voices, too wrapped up in his own thoughts. He hadn't given the truth ample time to sink in, and as it became more solid he began to feel queasy. Okay, Duo, don't panic, he told himself. Just wait until Heero wakes up and use the disk to …the disk!

            "Oh hell!" he burst, pausing in his step to scowl back in the direction that they had come. The disk! How could he have been so stupid as to forget the disk?! They needed that thing if they were ever going to fix this mess …!
            "What is it, Yuy?" Wufei's voice brought him back to the present, and he looked over to find the two waiting for an answer.

            "It's … nothing," he said, shaking his head a little. There was no time to go back now, not with the others there to ask questions. He'd just have to remember the way back so that he could come find it later. "Nothing."

            Trowa and Wufei shared a concerned look, but chose not to say a word as they continued walking. Duo followed, trailing just slightly behind the two, breathing a silent sigh of relief. The feeling faded quickly to nervous frustration.

            They arrived back at the quiet safe house without incident, and Wufei secured the perimeter as Trowa carried Heero inside. Duo trailed behind him.

            "Where's Quatre?" he asked, noticing no sign of the blonde.

            "On a mission. It came up this morning. We had to promise to go look for you two before he would agree to go," Trowa said. "Let me set Duo down, and then I'll have a look at your leg."

            "I told you, I'm fine," he said sharply, letting his ramshackle feelings out as angry words. It seemed to suit Heero's character, after all. Trowa simply deposited Heero on the sofa and disappeared momentarily. Duo went immediately to Heero's side and picked him up, trying not to look at him. He didn't want to look at his own unconscious body. Trowa and Wufei couldn't be around when Heero woke up; besides, he and Heero had a lot to work out.

            Trowa returned, carrying a first aid kit, and frowned slightly as he saw Duo holding Heero.

            "Put him down and let me look at your leg," he instructed tersely. Duo scowled.

            "Not necessary," he said, approaching Trowa and grabbing the medical kit from him awkwardly. "I'll take care of both of us."

            "Heero? Did something happen?" Trowa asked, quirking an eyebrow. Damn! Duo cursed mentally, and made a break for the stairs.

            "No," he said as he passed, hoping that his leg would hold out. He managed to get up the stairs and into his room, hoping surprise would keep Trowa from following immediately. Dumping Heero on the bed, he turned around and promptly locked the door.

            "Well shit," he muttered to himself, glancing at the unaware figure splayed across the mattress. "I am so ready to wake up now."

            "He did what?" Wufei asked, frowning in confusion.

            "I told you. He carried Duo up here to his room, and locked them both in there," Trowa explained, jerking his thumb in the direction of the wooden door as if it proved his point.

            "Well, we can't just leave them both in there, what with Maxwell concussed and Heero bleeding all over the place," Wufei said in irritation.

            "He took the first aid kit too," Trowa pointed out. Wufei rolled his eyes.

            "Genius," he muttered. "And that makes it all better? Yuy! Open this door now before the delirium gets any stronger!"

            "Go away!" came a muffled voice from behind the barrier.

            "Yuy! Has Maxwell infected you?! Open up now!"

            "Wufei," Trowa said calmly. "If Heero doesn't want us in there, we aren't going to get in."

            "And just what do you suggest then?"

            "We bide our time and come back later. We can break in when he's stopped expecting it."

            "I … I suppose," Wufei conceded. "I just wonder what Heero is up to."

            "I'm guessing something went wrong on the mission. He's probably waiting for Duo to wake up so he can chew him out," Trowa said. Wufei snorted.

            "I can't blame him," he admitted. "Although I am curious. The mission seemed to be a success."

            "Well, you know Duo. He probably just played some kind of joke on Heero."

            "Ah. Say no more."

            Duo sat hunched against the door, listening until he heard his two friends leave. Sighing, he turned and rummaged through the first aid kit at his side, preparing to bandage whatever injury he had on his leg.

            "Well, Heero, we're really screwed this time, huh?" he said as he ripped his pant leg easily. "I guess I'm not all that better an actor than you, after all. Holy …! Heero was gonna walk home with this gash on his leg?!" He examined the torn skin a bit more before retrieving the antiseptic balm from the kit. "You're crazy, Heero. And so am I, apparently. What the heck are we gonna do?"

            There was no answer from the unconscious boy, and Duo sighed before continuing to tend to his wound in silence. He was really ready to wake up.

Continued