A/N: Thank you for reviewing and reading to soulfulbee (Luckily Kenji is Japanese and has already mastered pottytraining as well midnight feedings, too.), Hikaru (Good, that you're happy now though I can only post a chapter once a week. I mean I do have to work but I have a lot of ideas where I'm heading with this fic and I guess you'll have plenty of chapters to read ahead of you.), Bunch-o-Nuts (Aw, cute! Of course!), princesspriscillamaxwell (Oh, thanks a lot!!! Of course I'll keep posting just to please you of course. ^_^), Erinamation-limited2-nothing (You do realize that your choose a very complicated pen name. Thanks anyway!!!!), Curious Dream Weaver (What a sugarcoated review!!! That reminds me I'll get a lot of that tommorrow. I'm throwing a Halloween party for my kids. God, I love this holiday. Just too bad I don't live in the US. Buhuhu! I'm gonna have fun anyway….) Anyway, enjoy the chapter!!!

Chapter 6: Duo's mission

It itched.

There again.

Something was tickling his nose.

Do you also hate those situations were you are still half asleep but are bothered by something which doesn't let you go back to the deep dreamless sleep? When you know if you open your eyes now it will be morning and you'll have to get up ?

Well, he simply hated that.

So what to do ? There were two options. One : Ignoring whatever was bothering him. Two : Investigate and eliminate. Since option one hadn't worked for fifteen minutes so far and to his luck his feet had fallen asleep as well he decided to go with the second.

Duo sighed. What an annoying way to wake up. Now he just had to open his eyes. One eye was pushed carefully open and after a short struggle the other followed suit. After a few seconds of disorientation he figured he was in the living room in one of the big arm chairs. But why would he sleep here instead of his bed especially after a mission like that?

Duo Maxwell had the uncanny feeling that he was missing a detail in the picture. An important one at that. His sleepbefuddled mind was still trying to figure out when he felt a sharp pain at the nape of his neck.

His braid.

That was one of the disadvantages of sporting an almost meter long extension of your head. It always got stuck when you were sleeping. But waitasec his braid was dangling over his shoulder next to a mop of unruly dark brown hair.

????

WHAT?

Duo's eyes shot wide open and almost jumped out of the armchair but luckily remembered that crashing a kid into the carpet at 6am would make certain blondes very upset. Not mentioning Chinese Dragons who liked their beautysleep.

Talking of blondes, Duo wondered where the blonde with his mute shadow as well as Mr.-I-have-a-stick-up-my-ass where hiding. As soon as he got out of here –unnoticed- he'd make sure to send them a tongue lashing or worse for deserting him with that …. that… that brat.

Yeah, that was it.

Or maybe he should better go into hiding before this goddamnkid got some stupid ideas involving him and his poor crushed braid again. He frowned at the small fist which hold Duo's hair in a death grip. The black clad teen sighed. 'That is going to be one hell of a mission to escape that brat. At least the tickling-itching-sensation-mystery had been solved.'

The kids hair had probably never ever seen a comb in his short life before.

'Gah, who cares?'

It was time to leave. The tingling in his feet got worse and Duo yearned to get some feeling back into them.

Damn, the guys. He'd make sure to kick their asses to next Tuesday if he'd got his hands on them. The black clad teen could feel the beginnings of a headache caused by his almost non-existent rest for the last week, his sore muscles were plaguing him, his feet felt like they were slowly dying off and this freaking brat had nothing else to do than to grab him like there was no tommorrow. (Which some of us definetely won't see.)

OMG!!!!

That wasn't what he thought it was, or? He carefully dabbed one of his fingers at a suspicious spot on his shirt.

It was wet.

And there were even more. Duo followed the trail of small dots all the way to the brats mouth.

Eeeeeeeewwwwwwww.

It was exactly what he had thought it was. Yuy had slobbered all over his favourite shirt.

How disgusting!!!!

Duo throw his head back with a silent scream of frustration. Unfortunatrely he had forgotten that the open kitchen counter was running behind the armchair and promptly smashed his head into the wall.

Quicker as lightning Duo clamped his hands over his mouth to muffle his agonized wails.

Great. Just great. That so wasn't his day today. Nobody should ever dare say again he wasn't bringing sacrifices for their small rebell group.

God damn, if he kept going like this he'd probably had sacrificed himself by noon.

Gah, it was all Yuy's fault anyway. How could the goddamn brat sleep through all the racket he made anyway?

Duo glared at the innocent sleeping child and slowly removed his hands from his mouth. They were smeared with red.

Oh god, Duo groaned, he had bitten his lip in keeping from screaming.

'Damn Yuy, you're so in for trouble if I should ever see your scowling face again.'

But back to the problem at hand. A very clingy and slobbery one by that.

Duo steeled his resolve. With a new found strength he took the kids hand and carefully pulled the fingers of his braid. Thanks god Yuy had been as a kid a heavy sleeper, he noted gratefully. Having freed his poor braid he faced the next problem.

How to remove a ticking time bomb from your lap without it blowing up in your face?

Well, folks that might have been a big deal for all you guys out there but hey Duo Maxwell was the master of stealth himself so it shouldn't be a problem at all.

Said and done.

Duo slowly took Kenji's arms from his neck and then lifted the boy grasping him under his arms careful not to make any abrupt movements though the little one looked like he could have slept through an earthquake.

Duo scowled at the boy. What a troublemaker! Hey, it was barely 6am and he was risking his life again after a very enduring mission. And he just absolutely loved to sleep in. I mean with four paranoid trained killers in the same house you sleep kinda more safe than in an alley on the street where you needed to be ready to run any second.

Not that Heero Yuy could be considered a safety improvement.

Sleeping better though was an entirely different matter. But you can't expect too much now, you know. There is still this war going on in case you had forgotten.

But shove that thought. Even that early in the morning his goddamn brain didn't shut up and got him distracted. Duo pushed himself upwards.

Boy, what had he said earlier about his feet? Think again. His whole legs were tingling with the uncomfortable sensation. Right now he really wished for a massage to get some feeling back into his numb limps.

But first things first. On the floor he spotted a blanket – probably fallen off during the night and probably a curtesy of ever concerned Quatre – Duo slowly turned and put the boy back into the armchair.

'Yup, still asleep.' He nodded satisfied. But Kenji had instinctly curled in on himself to savour some of the quickly disappearing warmth. Seeing that Duo groaned. He himself hated to be cold. So the young pilot picked up the blanket and drapped it over the kid who promptly snuggled into it.

Duo scowled and whispered.

"That's my good deed for today, brat. So you better stay away from me for the rest of the day. Or make that forever, Yuy."

Duo carefully backed up and despite his gruffy mood grinned.

'Mission accomplished.' He thought sarcastically. Damn, he was good at things like that. Then he left the room his braid bouncing behind him.

Unknowingly to him two blue eyes opened after he had left the room. A mischievious smirk stole itself over promising-to-be-handsome features.

"Oyasumi nasai, Duo-kun. I guess you deserve a break. But only for awhile." Came a small whispered reply in the foreign language. The small boy then closed his eyes again going back to sleep.

*******

huhuhuhu. Duo is so in for a big surprise. How do you imagine a Heero Yuy before all his traumatic experiences? I read somewhere that in Japan before school starts the kids are being indulged by their mothers. Meaning the drilling starts only with school. So I guess we'll have some fun with Duo in the next chapter.