Impossible

A Gundam Wing Fan Fiction

Rambled Off by The Manwell

Book Two: PREVENTERS

Heero Yuy

I'm exhausted.

I'm tempted to simply pass out as soon as Duo helps me maneuver back into bed, but I can't.

He's still brooding. I can hear it in his silence. And, trust me, after studying someone for as long as I've studied Duo, it is possible to hear their moods even when they aren't speaking. In fact, sometimes the silence only makes it more obvious.

At the moment, he's worrying away at his unsatisfactory contingency plans for moving on with life without the Preventers. I think he's being a paranoid idiot about it, personally. There's absolutely no way Une is going to fire one of the best agents the Preventers has seen since its inception. But this is really important to him, so I can't blow it off by telling him he's getting all worked up for nothing.

At last, we come to my room and he pushes my wheelchair up next to the bed. I wait for him to set the breaks while I silently plan my approach. It's time to pull out the heavy artillery. Long past time. This is my cue to do something he can't brush off, ignore, or discount out of hand. So, when he leans in to help me up, I reach for him and lock my arms around his shoulders. I push myself upright as he straightens... but that's as much cooperation as he gets from me. I lean heavily against him, my entire body in warm contact with his. Suddenly, I'm a human necklace. This would be damn awkward if it weren't so necessary.

Encumbered by my dead weight, he wraps both of his arms around my waist and looks at me questioningly. "Heero?"

"Stop tearing yourself up about it; it's never going to happen," I tell him softly. I don't have to spell it out. I can see it in his face and sense it in his body's tension that we both know what I'm talking about. "But," I continue, "if you decide not to go back, I'd still like to have you around."

His expression adopts a wry quirk of his brows and lips. "And just how are you going to keep me from lighting off to God knows where?"

"I'll give you a job myself," I reply with a small grin.

He hadn't expected that reply.

I continue to his startled expression, "Unlike our unimaginative mutual friend, I think there's quite a market out there for talking toasters."

And there it is: the real, uninhibited laugh I've been waiting to hear all week. The fact that I can also feel it in the form of his torso vibrating against mine and his breath puffing against my cheek makes it so much better.

With his eyes glittering at me, he asks, "You'll hire me to make talking toasters for you?"

"If that's what you want to do," I reply. "But I was actually thinking of making them myself so you could work on your next prototype."

"Heero Yuy, the talking-toaster apprentice."

"Well, it hardly makes sense for the genius to do the grunt work."

"And now I'm a genius?"

A wider smile stretches my lips. "Get that surprise out of your voice, Maxwell," I tell him. "You've always been a genius. And any further attempts by you to fish for compliments will be met with my snoring."

"Oh, ho! So this is how it goes, eh?" he replies with a chuckle.

"Yes. And you'd better think about my offer," I tell him.

"Oh, I will," he counters with a brilliant and somewhat feral grin. "It's the only way I'll ever get to boss you around twenty-four-seven."

"Sadist," I grouch. Having successfully restored Duo's good humor and planted the suggestion that there really are other things he enjoys doing besides arresting people, I glance longingly in the direction of my waiting bed. My legs start to tremble under me from exhaustion and I know I'd accomplished my self-appointed mission in the nick of time.

He laughs softly in my ear as he maneuvers me toward that happy destination. The warmth of his breath raises the small hairs on the back of my neck.

"Actually, I'm a converted masochist," he tells me in a smooth continuation of our conversation.

"What were you before that?" I hear myself ask.

He laughs again. "Well, once upon a time, I actually thought I was a hedonist."

"You poor, misguided soul."

"Hear, hear."

I let Duo guide me back into bed and relax gratefully against the new set of clean linens that had been applied in my absence. I try not to miss the heat and strength of his presence when he pulls away and tucks the blankets around me. I expect him to head off to his usual chair but he hovers over me for a long moment, a soft smile gracing his wide mouth. I don't say anything. I just look at him expectantly.

His smile gets a little wider at my wordless inquiry. "And you don't snore."

"Hm," I reply, feeling warm at both the knowledge that he knows this and at the evidence that he has constantly guarded me in my sleep here. "Does it piss you off?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Not really. But then again, your list doesn't need to get any longer."

"True," I agree and allow my eyes to close.

Thus, the last thing I see that night is Duo's gentle smile and laughing eyes as he watches me fall asleep. And with a sight like that, I don't bother to try to remember any dreams I might have had that night. They would have only been a mediocre comfort in comparison.