Disclaimer: Alas, but I do not own Gundam Wing, with no lack of interest on my part, mind you. Who wouldn't want their hands on these . . . charming young men?

Author's Note: Set timeline and little else in last chapter. But you did get to see Quatre, ne? Shouldn't that make it worth it?

Warning: Yaoi. No sex, but sexual images are conjured.

Chapter 5

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Will he ever quit! All he ever does is tap-tap-tap on that laptop!

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I might as well be dead.

Duo Maxwell stood up from his lounging position to shot a rather nasty look in Heero Yuy's direction. The young man seemed not to notice as he continued to type away. Duo often pondered what Heero spent so much time at that laptop working on since the war was over, and he was beginning to think Heero clung to it like a security blanket.

Duo walked over to the closet and changed into some gym clothes.

"I'm going out to the quad to run around," Duo said, "You wanna come?"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Guess not. Duo sighed as he tugged on his tennis shoes and abandoned the dorm room. He'll never understand why he decided to go with Heero to college. It's not like they needed the education. They knew more than most kids their age, but since they didn't really have a degree to flash around it did little to help them. Who thought you needed more than your brain to get a job?

Duo broke out into a run as he reached the sidewalk. He discovered that running helped expel all the access energy he felt. Whenever he got frustrated with Heero, he'd slide his running shoes on and take off. Why did he room with Heero anyway?

He knew why. Cause the Perfect Soldier had the perfect body. One which he subconsciously flaunted by wearing those damned spandex shorts. The war may be over, but that stuff still clung to his thighs as sleeping clothes. It was practically obscene and Duo loved everyone minute of it.

Duo didn't kid himself. He knew he was attracted to Heero. He wasn't sure why. It could have been those thighs, his untamed hair, his chiseled features, those Prussian blue eyes . . . aw hell, it was all of that. Heero Yuy was perfect. . .

But blind as a bat. He never once looked at Duo with anything other than annoyance. Duo knew he looked good. Girls and guys a like hit on him constantly, as a matter of fact, that chick across the street was doing it now. . . .

Duo smiled at her as he rounded a corner. His braid bounced behind him like an untamed snake, smacking against a street sign. Duo remembered when he hit an old lady with it that last time he rounded that corner. That chick across the street had gotten a real kick out of that.

Sometime later, he returned to the room to find Mr. Perfect had left. The laptop was shut and hidden somewhere in the room. Duo took the time to examine Heero's side of the room, perfectly clean. Duo's side however was the epitome of chaos. Last week's laundry still sat discarded against the wall, having never been put away.

Duo stripped and skipped into the bathroom. He shed his clothing and turned on the shower, surprised that the water was actually warm for a change. He paused to undo his braid, since it required cleaning. His hair cascaded down his back as he placed the hair tie on the counter. He ran his fingers through it for a moment as he walked over to the clear shower door. He pulled it back and jumped in.

Duo knew better than tackling the braid first. With the time it took, the water would have run cold and Duo would get pneumonia while cleaning himself. While giving a brief glance at Heero's soap, he picked up his ocean-breeze body wash and went to work. Duo had taken to the stuff after coming across it after taking a shower in a sorority house after a foam party and immediately deciding to pamper himself with it, bought a bottle of his own. He had just ran the loafa up a well-muscled thigh when the door to the bathroom opened.

Duo's head shot over to see Heero standing in the door, now divested of whatever deep thought he had been having that prevented him from noticing that the water was running. Heero remained frozen as he stared at Duo in surprise, then turned and slammed the door, escaping back into the dorm room. Duo blinked after him then went back to washing. His face was red do to a sudden blood rush.

Heero leaned back against the closed bathroom door and panted. Why had he reacted that way? He had seen Duo naked before (Duo had returned from parties with little more than a towel on more than one occasion). What was different now? Yet his heart was beating rapidly and blood was flowing faster into places Heero wasn't used to it traveling. Heero let his gaze drop to the slight bulge in his shorts.

Heero sighed and walked over to the desk and pulled his laptop out of the bottom drawer. He set the thing up and continued into the ritual he had grown accustomed to participating in.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Every time he caught some glimpse of Duo, either naked or merely suggestive, he sat down and typed away at his laptop in order to make the feeling go away. He had already sat down earlier for this very reason. He had a decent size novel in the making; Duo was rather suggestive most of the time.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Heero felt no emotion what so ever for his braided companion. He just felt lust. He couldn't even begin to explain it. Some point after he had met the pilot, his thoughts had took to devising compromising situations for the two of them to fall into; the shower scene he just lived through had played in his mind several times. The exception being that the image in his mind ended with Heero pressed against Duo as the shower poured down over them.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Heero shook his head to try and clear away the image, but failed to succeed. He was going to get a few more pages written before he was over this.