Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is not mine. The crazy spouse on the ladder is however.

Sappy, AU, 1x2.

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"What the HELL are you doing Yuy?"

The furious statement nearly made me fall off of the ladder. I had been concentrating so much on getting the lights to hang straight that I had missed the sound of the car pulling up. I turned my head to look at Duo.

He was standing at the base of the ladder, a furious expression on his face. I remembered that he had asked me a question, and the tapping of his foot led me to believe he was waiting for an answer.

"Hanging lights?" I replied cautiously. Why was he mad? We had talked about doing this when we had bought the house this summer. We had been excited about it then. Starting a new life together here in our house, doing all the 'house-type' things- like decorating for Christmas.

"I can see that," he snapped. "Come down from there."

"But I'm almost finished," I protested, turning back to look at the light strand and reaching my hand out just a touch further to hook the last one in place.

Duo said a word that was definitely out of place for the season and grabbed a hold of the ladder.

"You're on the top step!"

"I know that," I replied, wondering at this out of place statement.

"You aren't supposed to stand on that one. Especially not without someone to watch you, and especially not on such a piece of crap ladder like this! Get down before you fall!"

I shouldn't have been surprised. Duo tended to be a bit overprotective. Losing as many people as he had in his life, he was zealous in protecting those of us that he loved. It came out in odd ways sometimes. I knew I should've rushed to finish before he got home.

"Duo," I replied in my most reasonable tone, as I started down the ladder, "I've fallen from higher places before."

"Heero," he replied in the same tone. "If you recall, you got injured every time too."

"Technicality," I smiled at him as I got off the ladder. "I'm finished. Let's plug it in and see how it looks before I give the ladder back to Stan."

"You borrowed the ladder from Stan?" Duo muttered as he followed me to the front of the house. "No wonder it's a piece of crap, it's probably decades old."

"Only two," I told him and saw him snarl.

"Why didn't you just go buy a ladder?"

"Stan saw me pulling lights out of boxes when I was trying to figure out how they went and he offered. It seemed better than just going back to the store."

Duo continued to mutter about interfering neighbors as I plugged the cords in. Our house lit up, a riot of colored lights. It didn't look terribly impressive, as the sun hadn't gone all the way down yet, but I was sure it would look great in the full dark.

"Heero," Duo's voice rose a bit. "How the hell did you get that inflatable Santa on the roof? Stan's ladder doesn't reach that high."

"Doesn't he look great?" I tried. There was no way that I was going to tell Duo how I got on the roof after his fit over Stan's ladder. Not when he was looking at me with the fury of Shinigami in his eyes.

"Heero-" He started, then paused, the anger dampening a bit. "Yes, he does." Duo's arms went around my waist. "But promise me something?"

"Of course," I said cautiously.

"That you will buy a ladder, a really tall ladder that does reach our roof."

"Okay."

"Tomorrow."

"Okay," I said again. Duo rested his chin on my shoulder.

"It does look great," he said in my ear. "Our house."