I Hate Missions Like These

Chapter 1

Hmm... disclaimer, disclaimer... uh, I don't own Gundam W, or Duo or Trowa or Quatre or Wufei or Heero or Relena or... Um, I don't own much of anything, really. Just stupid little pointless things nobody wants anyway. Well... maybe I own this storyline. It's quite possible.

It's 1/2. Slash. Shounen-ai. Yaoi(Wait, no, no sex). Whatever the hell you want to call it. Don't flame me for it because it is a free country, after all. You've had your fair warning.

Yes, the prologue is in third person. Yes, this chapter is in Duo's POV. Yes, the third chapter is in Heero's POV. Yes, I bounce around. I suppose I could rewrite this prologue to be in Quatre's POV if you really wanted me to, but I couldn't think of any other options at the time. I'm sorry if it bothers you!


Deathscythe shuddered violently with the explosion from the bomb I had planted, and I swore. I adjusted the controls and got Deathscythe to take precisely three steps before the second explosion struck. I had miscalculated my position, planted the second bomb too close... I got jostled, as well. My head struck the side of the cockpit, and all went black.

"Duo! Duo, respond!" Quatre's voice pleaded over the comm.

I blinked, my eyelids fluttering open. Various systems were screaming at me, and all I could see on the left side of my vision was red. I wiped a hand across my forehead, only interrupting the flow of blood. "Yeah, Quatre?"

"Duo, are you alright?" Quatre asked.

"I think so. Quatre... how long was I out for?"

"We lost contact with you about ten minutes ago. Why?"

Ten minutes? "Did I complete the mission?"

"Yes. The Sonora Base is over ninety-five percent destroyed. The other five percent is beyond repair and about to collapse any second."

At least I had done that. I unfastened my harness and winced. The pressure had bruised me at the least. I pulled out the first aid kid and began gingerly tending to my wounds.

"Duo... When are you coming back?" Quatre quietly asked.

"I'm not exactly sure, Quatre. Probably as soon as I finish this." I winced again, dabbing the alcohol on the cut on my forehead.

"All right, Duo. We'll be waiting." The quiet beep that ensued informed me that the connection was closed.

I finished tending my wounds; then started the long journey home with only my own thoughts to sustain me.

SOME TIME LATER

"Duo! Welcome back!" Quatre smiled, opening the door for me.

"Thanks, Quatre." I limped cautiously inside.

Trowa stepped forward, taking my bag of possessions from me. "Let me take this to your room for you."

I blinked, near shock. Everyone was so civil...

Wufei looked up from his book, then back down, assured I was no trouble in the sorry state I was in. "Hello, Maxwell."

Even Wufei was being civil!

Heero, however, grabbed my shoulder, roughly turning me around. Scratch that last thought -- nearly everyone was civil.

"Hn. You did it wrong," He noted, pointing at the gauze pad taped to my forehead.

"You try taping a gauze pad to your forehead when you can't see it..." I muttered.

Heero looked me once up and down – it made me uncomfortable, having his eyes roving over my body. I could tell his inspection paused at various key places – my injured arm cradled in my other hand, the blood stains on my clothing which had obviously soaked through from my injuries, my poor posture from the pain. "Come with me." Heero let go of my shoulder, turning on his heel and going to his room.

I looked to Quatre with a pleading look on his face. He just shrugged, so I sighed, following Heero. Some help Quatre was.

I noticed the room he used hardly looked lived in – the only evidence of an occupant was the laptop on the desk and the boots on the floor next to his bed.

"Sit." He pointed to a chair sitting next to the window. I highly doubted that he used it ordinarily, but I obeyed.

"Let me see your arm." He ordered, holding out his hand. Memories of the time he had reset his own femur came flowing back and I pulled back slightly.

He narrowed his Prussian eyes. "Let me see your arm, Duo." When I did not respond, he took a hold of the arm. I quietly cried out in pain, but did not resist.

He pushed my sleeve up to my shoulder, inspecting the arm. He kept moving it around, sending shoots of pain up my arm.

And then, he uttered the words I feared most from a boy like him.

"It's broken."

Maybe I could convince him... "Let's go to the hospital, then!" Please, please, please let it work...

"I'll have to reset it."

No! Nonononononononono! "But Heero..."

"Duo..." Heero sighed. "If you don't reset it, it won't heal correctly and then I'll have to reset it because I know you'd never break your own arm."

Damn, he knew me well.

"Well, Heero.... Maybe we could get a doctor to do it. You know, someone who knows what they're doing?" I hoped that was a good enough reason.

"I know what I'm doing. Let me reset it." Heero tightened his grip on my forearm slightly. Not enough to cause pain, really, but enough to prevent me from slipping away.

"Fine, Heero. But first, could we numb it or something? I really don't want to have to focus on the pain—"

A kiss?! Heero Yuy kissing me?!

He had pressed his lips to mine in such a ragged way it seemed it was a last-minute decision. I let my eyes slowly close, enjoying the moment. After all, it probably wouldn't happen again.

I was mildly aware of him moving his hands, but I wasn't exactly sure where. All I wanted to do was take the kiss as far as I could. I parted my lips, inviting him to enter. He did so, and I felt him tasting me. I slipped my own tongue in to battle with his, but he pulled his tongue away, breaking off the kiss. I was about to protest when he pressed his lips to mine again and again in a series of shorter, gentler kisses.

Just when I got used to those, he let the last kiss linger. Such a wonderful moment... I wanted to live it forever.

Until my eyes shot open, white-hot pain filling my vision and body. He had wrenched my bones back into place without warning! So that's what the kiss was for...

But not even a perfect soldier would kiss like that just to distract.

He pulled away, breaking the kiss again. I could almost see a look of sadness in his eyes.

Almost.

"I'm sorry about that, Duo."

I grimaced slightly. "About what, Heero? The kiss or my arm?"

"Both. I shouldn't have forced that kiss onto you. You probably don't even like me anyway." He pulled out a bandage, binding my upper arm. "You needed your arm to be fixed, however."

I blinked, looking at him. "Do you like me, Heero?"

"Perhaps."

Perhaps? That was all?

Well... perhaps it was only lust I felt for him. Perhaps not even that – it may only be a crush, nothing more. I remembered earlier, when I hadn't liked him looking over me. I felt stupid, really – it was only me being self-conscious.

I found that I had been gazing at Heero. His supple thighs were visible through the tight spandex pants, and the green tank top barely hid his chest muscles. His bare arms allowed an unobstructed view of his strong muscles contracting and relaxing under the skin. I ached to touch that chest, to graze my fingertips over those legs, to have those strong arms wrapped about me.

Heero not so gently taking the gauze pad off of my forehead interrupted my thoughts. It had stuck to the scab, and I could feel the blood oozing out again. "Ouch! Heero, can you be a little more gentle?"

Heero wiped away the blood, then cleaned the cut with hydrogen peroxide.

Damn. I hate hydrogen peroxide.

"ITAI!!" I cried, pulling back.

"Duo stop moving!" Heero sounded exasperated.

"You're going to kill me!" I had covered the wound with my hand in an attempt to keep him from injuring me further.

Heero simply pulled my hand away with little effort on his part, wiping the blood from my hand and my forehead(again). "Duo, if the original injuries didn't kill you, I don't see how anything I can do to you will."

I hissed with the next impact of hydrogen peroxide to the gash, but cold air rushed over my forehead, soothing the sting and sending a cold chill down my spine. I looked up as best as I could to find Heero blowing gently onto the hydrogen peroxide. I shivered involuntarily.

Heero stopped, unwrapping a gauze pad. He pressed it against my forehead, then grabbed my uninjured hand, placing it against the gauze. He let his hand linger for a second, then pulled it away, tearing off tape and placing it on the edges of the gauze.

I decided now was as good of a time as ever to act. "You like me, don't you?"

"Perhaps, I said."

I pressed further. "What do you see in someone like me?"

Heero pressed the last strip of tape down. "I'm not quite sure, Duo. You have this strange aura about you. Something that just pulled me to you." He clasped the hand that I had held down the gauze with. "You're a very mysterious person, Duo Maxwell."

"One could say the same thing about you, Heero Yuy." I smirked.

We stared at each other in silence for a few minutes. I liked the look of his face: sharp and angular, but still gentle, in a strange, soldierly sort of way. I was wishing that he'd kiss me again.

"How bad are the wounds under your clothes?" Heero asked tentatively.

"I'm not sure. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, so I didn't have time to check." I slipped my hand from his. "Could you check for me?" I asked sheepishly.

Heero seemed to contemplate the possible results of such an excursion. "Are you sure you can't do it yourself, Duo?"

I sought a seemingly acceptable excuse as to why I couldn't. I was flirting and he probably knew it, but I didn't care. "I can't see my own back, Heero."

"You're a terrible flirt, Duo. You do like me, I'm assuming, since you seem so incapable." He gestured to my arm. "You can't even set a bone.

"So?! When you set your leg you had both hands free!" I pouted at the insult to my ability to care for myself.

"Can you move your right arm, then?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "And if not, are you coordinated enough to undress yourself with one hand?"

I tried to lift my injured arm, but the pain halted that action after a few centimeters. "No..." So, I brought up my left hand, but only succeeded in breaking the first clasp on my black shirt. "Shit. Make that two 'no's."

Heero sighed. "I can't believe you. Conning me into this ..." He stepped forward, quickly yet gently shedding me of both shirts I wore. The second, white shirt, I noted painfully, was extremely stained with my own blood. 'Damn this mission! I hate hand-to-hand combat!'

"Stand up." He backed away slightly.

I did as he requested, standing. As I did so, I made the mistake of looking down at myself. I was simply covered in cuts and bruises. Some of the cuts ran rather deep, and judging by the size and shape of some of the bruises, I had damaged my ribs.

"Damn, Duo, the hell'd you have to do?!" Heero exclaimed, walking around to see my back.

"Destroy a base... unfortunately, when I planted the bombs I was discovered and had to fight tons of guys.... Y'know, the usual."

"Duo... "Heero sounded a bit strained, as if he was trying to hold in emotion. "... this is far worse than the usual."


Owari chapter 1, yay! Sorry it took so long, but lately I've been bogged down with band stuff.... Evil evil competitions. --; I'm not as busy now, so here's the chapter!